Getting Into An I Pad-dy: Newspapers

I Pad, U Pad, Wii Pad. We all Pad together.

Unfortunately, for Apple and for newspaper and magazine publishers, we don’t. We may in some distant future. But for now, we pad as a small minority.

The publishers are ambivalent to this future. They would happily dispense with one of their biggest cost bases – printing – but they are no nearer creating a business model that satisfactorily digitalises and monetises hard copy into oblivion. Ah but the iPad will be that model. Some might think so; some, like Steve Jobs, would hope so. But the mere newspaper-reading mortal continues to be a Steve Unjobsworthy who hasn’t become an Apple organisation man and hasn’t been commanded by the contemporary tablets of stone, the ostentatiously styled modern miracle of the iPad tablet and its peers.

There’s bad news for newspaper publishers; good news for publishers of magazines. PriceWaterhouseCoopers have reported that whereas revenue from digital magazines is set to “sky rocket”, thanks to the iPad, sales of subscriptions of newspapers in this digital form will not be sufficient to offset the fall in print sales.

The iPad is many things, but essentially, for many of its products, its newspaper products, it is merely a digital replacement of the hard copy. The hype, and that also for the iPhone, the Android and any other current-day trickery you care to mention, outstrips the reality. There are many, many users of course. But this doesn’t mean that newspapers will suddenly disappear. As pointed out by the UK firm Enders Analysis: “Ten million pay for a daily newspaper in the UK. They spend roughly 30 pounds a month each. There will not be 10 million people spending 30 pounds a month on the iPad any time soon”.

In a way, the iPad is an experiment, as is much digital and internet publishing. It is worthwhile playing with, but it is only one aspect of the digital future. Newspaper publishers who see it as the only holy grail of a prosperous non-print new world are seriously deluding themselves. Experiments need to be conducted in different ways, and one is to create a wholly new product (or products) with its own revenue stream. It’s thinking out of the box, but the fear is that publishers will be seduced into boxing themselves solely inside the iPad tablet box.

All of which brings us to the “Majorca Daily Bulletin”. It is now iPad-able, online in full. At a price. Part of a service under the non-snappy moniker of Kioskoymas, through which we are told “the most complete offer of press of quality” is available, the Bulletin is the only English paper in what is an online iPad-oriented system for Spanish newspaper and magazine publishers. A bizarre aspect of this service, were you minded to want to subscribe to the paper, is that you would need to read Spanish. Obviously you would. They’re not going to have an English version to guide you through the online registration and payment process when the service is meant to be for Spanish readers.

And subscription is a not unimportant element. Getting the punter to buy a month or more ahead does wonders for cash planning in the uncertain digital world but it runs counter to consumer psychology. Subscriptions to hard-copy newspapers have only ever been a small part of publishers’ businesses. Readers habitually buy daily, a truism for a daily publication. Why would you stump up in advance when you haven’t in the past? News International is facing this conundrum along with other more pressing matters.

A solution is an incentive. Yet from what I can make out, unless you have a multiple subscription, i.e. to at least more than one title through Kioskoymas, you pay the going rate. And unless you, as an English reader, are inclined to also read Spanish papers or even able to, then you are not going to have a multiple subscription. Moreover, a month seems to be the minimum subscription period, this being unlike other services which enable you to pay daily.

And one of these services is Orbyt. This was launched last year and features “El Mundo”, “La Razón” and other Spanish papers as well as magazines. So Kioskoymas is a rival and a less elegant one than Orbyt, if the websites of the two services are anything to go by. The competition with Orbyt is probably quite significant. The Bulletin is part of the Grupo Serra stable, of which “Ultima Hora” is its biggest-selling paper. And “Ultima Hora” is a competitor with the Balearics version of “El Mundo”. For it to have an iPad presence as a rival makes sense, and you wonder if this is the main reason why The Bulletin is now iPad-able; it has been bundled in, but it is “Ultima Hora” that really matters.

The Bulletin might gain from this service, it might not, but fundamentally it cannot be seen as the be all and end all, and this is the message for any newspaper publisher. The iPad is basically a means of cannibalising the product. It is a replacement technique more than it is a new-product technique and it is the latter that publishers need to work on.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Madman Crosses The Water

The things you find out.

Bite-sized sucking pig with pomegranate sauce; white flowers and Scandinavian air; red roses and roses without petals; Macià Batle wine from Santa Maria del Cami; 23 metres high and 50 metres wide; 25 lorries from the UK and mainland Spain.

Want to hazard a guess?

The answers – in order – are: part of the menu for the VIPs; the design of a VIP area; the star’s choice of flowers (forgive me, but what are roses without petals?); the same star’s supposed choice of plonk; the size of the stage; the number of lorries transporting kit.

Come on, you must know now.

Over the past weeks we have been able to read interviews with three stars (well, two stars and a starlet). During this week we have been able to see photos of a man with a mobile phone (the promoter), a lorry, some stage being built, some more stage being built, and, yes, even more stage being built.

What we have also found out, we think, is that there will be 34,000 people, or maybe 20,000, or perhaps 25,000, assuming all the seats are sold. As of yesterday afternoon, at least 3,000 were unsold out of whatever the total number actually is. No one seems to quite know, or they do, and the press is just offering a multiple choice.

We have also discovered that the two main stars will bring “synergy”. Ah yes, a word beloved by management consultants and by managers brainwashed by the consultants into believing such a state can be achieved. At least the consultants would argue that there should be a certain similarity between entities in order to bring about synergetic benefits. When the two stars are from diverse fields, one does have to wonder. But let’s not quibble. Synergy there surely will be. Just don’t tell those who may be going only for one or the other and who might have paid less had there not been any synergy.

What we have yet to find out is whether it will be a success. But we can predict that it will be, even if it isn’t. As we can predict that we will read gushing editorials, see photos of the occasion and, if we’re lucky, yet more photos of stage, but this time being dismantled. The editorial will be along the lines of it just goes to prove that Mallorca can put on a “great”, “spectacular”, “amazing”, “remarkable” (select as you will) concert.

When the media is so in lunatic thrall to the appearance of two stars, then what else can you expect, other than pages devoted, on a daily basis, to the minutiae and drivel surrounding that appearance. This manic fascination does, it must be said, appear to have something to do with sponsors’ names. Go to the “Diario de Mallorca”, for example, and you will find only the occasional, discreet mention. No prizes for guessing where the pages are being filled.

I’ve got a lot of time for Elton John. He may have been through his own drug-induced nuclear winter, but he has come out of it articulate and sane: unlike the barely intelligible half human Keefronnieryders from the Planet McGowan of the sort Kirk and Spock might have encountered. It’s as well that before tomorrow’s concert he will never have previously set foot or piano hands in Mallorca, and that afterwards he’ll be swiftly away. Sane? He soon wouldn’t be.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Pax Bulletinis: British community and newspapers

The British Ambassador to Spain has been visiting Mallorca. You could hardly have missed this if you had read “The Bulletin” on Saturday; not one, not two, not three, but four pages devoted to Giles Paxman – Paxo Minor, he is the younger brother of Jezza. How to fill space and fail to influence people.

The ambassador pitched up at the offices of “The Bulletin” to hand over a commemorative letter, albeit that it is two years early; the paper celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012, but this didn’t stop a small orgy of self-congratulation, the always beaming British Consul on hand to enjoy a toast. Oh, that he might venture northwards to meet British businesses. He could take a leaf out of his boss’s book: Paxo the younger will apparently be meeting such businesses in Benidorm. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

The letter commends the paper on its achievement and on playing a “very important role within the British community”. It will be an achievement, but you have to wonder for how much longer.

According to the audited circulation figures supplied by OJD (Oficina de Justificatión de Difusión), the paper’s average net circulation declined by 11% from 3,839 copies in 2008 to 3,405 in 2009. Economic hard times may partially explain this, but there surely are other factors, such as ease of buying British papers and the internet.

When the paper started in 1962, and for many years thereafter, it was not only a visionary move to publish it but it was also “very important”. British papers could not be bought easily, and there were few alternative sources of information, especially for the Brit who resolutely refused to learn or read Spanish.

None of this obtains now, other than the Brit still steadfastly avoiding the native. What actually is the point of the paper now? One that uses translated pieces from “Ultima Hora”, stuff from the internet (sometimes verbatim), can verge on the unintelligible (we all know what) and is rarely if ever contentious or provocative, except to a few who engage in arguments regarding British or arcane international politics or when a letter-writer raises a vaguely controversial point. The word “lightweight” too easily comes to mind.

Perhaps when the paper’s nickname is used – and I assume everyone knows this – there is a sense of unfairness; too high a level of expectation. Look at those circulation figures, and work it out for yourselves. This unfairness also masks genuine affection for the paper, despite its idiosyncracies. But this affection stems in part from the fact that it is something of a bygone age. In the same stable as “The Bulletin”, the Catalan paper “dBalears” has been commended for its visual style. It, “Ultima Hora” and the German weekly, “Mallorca Magazin” all have decent websites, replete with additional advertising possibilities. None of this applies to “The Bulletin”.

And is it genuinely “very important” within the British community? I would like to say that it is. It was, but I doubt that it now is. Too often, for example, one hears the gripe that it neglects parts of Mallorca away from Palma or Calvia. Some of you will know that I did have a brief association with the paper. It was intended to create more of an emphasis on the north of the island. I also spoke to them about how to enhance the brand name of the paper, and it’s a strong name, despite the mickey-taking nickname; nigh on fifty years lend the brand enormous credibility, or should do, but they fail to in a way that commands real respect. I came to realise I was wasting my time. There was seemingly little interest in either the northern community or in something a bit more innovative. It’s a great shame. It could still be “very important”, but it’s hard to see how without a radical re-think.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Source Of Inspiration: On popular tourist destinations

I have a problem with journalists and writers who do not cite sources. It is a problem that has been exacerbated ever since the lazy writer or one desperate to knock off a few hundred words in order to meet a fast-approaching deadline took to using Wikipedia and other sites as get-out-of-jail cards, sometimes using verbatim what can be found on the internet with not a mention of or an acknowledgement as to the source.

Easy it may be to cobble something together with the aid of Google and the cut and paste commands, but it is short-changing not only the reader but also the writer him or herself. Some while ago, I drew attention to the apparent lifting of text from the home page of puertopollensa.com by a journalist writing in “The Sun”. It was bad form and it was also a derogation of the journalistic art. For the journalist or other writers, words – his or her own – are the stock-in-trade. Even paraphrasing shows some attempt at originality, but what amounts to plagiarism is nothing of the sort and “in journalism, plagiarism is considered a breach of journalistic ethics”. Where does this quote come from? Wikipedia of course.

One might argue that recourse to using chunks of text from websites is a way of working “smart”. Really? I’m not sure that there’s anything particularly smart about it. It’s not smart, it’s not big and it’s not clever (and I think Steve Wright was the one who popularised the not big and not clever line, or rather popliarised, as he would have said – I can cite sources till the cows come home; and no, I don’t know who came up with that saying. Look it up if you wish; on Wikipedia).

There is another type of non-acknowledgement, which is the unnamed or vague source. Sometimes this can be understandable, when someone prefers not to be named. Fair enough, and it happens all the time, as in, for example, “government sources said”. But there are times when it is far less understandable, which brings me to where I really want to be today. In “The Bulletin” yesterday, the editorial referred to “an article in a top British newspaper over the weekend”. Apparently this article revealed that Mallorca has slumped to the number eight spot of the “most popular destination(s) with British tourists”. The editorial went on to use this as a means of beating the island’s tourism. It may well indeed need a beating, but this is not the point. What is, is that because the source is not named, there is no way that the reader, myself in this instance, can check where the article came from or, as importantly, the context and rigour of the results. Well, I suppose one could by spending ages going through Google in the hope of unearthing it, which is in fact what I started to do, but to no avail.

Without being able to identify the source, the reader is left with an incomplete and potentially unreliable picture. There are, it may not have escaped your attention, any number of these “top ten” or “top one hundred”-style articles knocking around in the press. Some have a basis in research, e.g. that which is offered by the likes of ABTA, the tour operators and market research companies; others don’t necessarily.

All I did manage to find when a-googling was an article from “The Daily Record”, dated 14 July. This made the observation that western Mediterranean destinations are losing ground to those in the eastern Med and north Africa. But we know this anyway. What the article also revealed, seemingly based on what Co-operative Travel had to say and possibly contrary to the trend, was that the “predicted holiday destination hotspots” for 2011-2012 will be Turkey at number one and at number two … The Balearic Islands. So much for a lack of popularity.

Maybe Mallorca is at number eight, and if so it is less than heartening news, but there can be all sorts of explanations as to why. If one doesn’t know the source or the context, one cannot make a full judgement or at least be given the opportunity to make such a judgement. This is just one reason why sources should be acknowledged.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lie Back And Think Of … : Ban on sex advertising

So, the Spanish Government is planning to ban the advertising of sex for sale from newspapers. The government is almost certainly right to wish to do so, even if this sounds rather puritanical, a streak I am rarely inclined to display.

There is something of the bizarre about the pages of classifieds for call girls, “massage” and a smattering of rent boys that are to be found in mostly all newspapers locally. The two Spanish dailies in Mallorca have them, as do the nationals, including “El País”, which “The Guardian” points out is of a similar left-leaning nature to itself and thus, you would think, in the PC category, and also “ABC”, a paper with more than a hint of religious righteousness.

The government, though, is going to cause itself some problems. The newspaper proprietors are unlikely to take a ban lying down, either on their backs or in any other position you may care to imagine. “El País”, for example, is a natural ally of the Zapatero government, which can do with all the support it can muster at the moment. There is also a view that banning such advertising would be a curb on free speech, which may be a legitimate argument were it not for the censorious nature of the media when it comes to anything to do with the royal family; overstep the mark and it will land a journalist, or a cartoonist, in the dock before a beak. If the press was wishing to seek a free-speech battleground, this might well be it, and not sleazy ads for well-endowed females.

The sheer volume of these ads can be overwhelming. How much sex can actually be sold? Not enough where the papers are concerned, which already derive significant revenues from the advertising. The papers are also at pains to point out that if the government wants to stop the ads, it should make prostitution illegal. But this argument begins to move into rather murkier territory. Were it the case that the ads were just being placed by some local slapper, then there wouldn’t necessarily be much harm in it. However, though a punter calling an ad might indeed end up with the woman of his dreams as opposed to one who might once have appealed to Wayne Rooney, or worse still, looks like Rooney, between that punter and the bed sheets is usually a third-party; pimps of frequently overseas origin – Russian, Nigerian, South American. The anti-ad lobby argues that the ads represent a form of “slavery” for women caught up in the “industry” (and it might add, presumably, some men as well).

The government’s move to initiate a ban comes against a background of what seems like a growing willingness on the behalf of the police to move against some so-called “relax” or “alternative” clubs; prostitution may not be illegal, but exploitation and trafficking are. And there is a further dimension to this – the potential link to organised crime.

In one respect, the adverts reflect a rather reassuringly un-PC element in local society, but it is what lies behind the ads that the government (and police) are right to take an interest in. The papers may not like a ban, but they are probably going to have to learn to live without the income that prostitute advertising brings them.

* I acknowledge the source of some of the above from “The Guardian” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/spain-sex-adverts-newspapers

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going Up! Newspapers and the internet

“The Times” is set to end its free online service. It’s a gamble, but for readers in places like Mallorca, who might otherwise pay an exorbitant price for the daily paper, two quid a week is extremely good value. Not that this is necessarily the point. Free should be free, say many, and a cover price for the online version will simply cause readers to go elsewhere. We’ll see. The new site is actually pretty good.

The “Diario de Mallorca” is not “The Times”, nothing like it of course. But there is something interesting about this paper. It has a good website – free – which has enjoyed increased traffic recently. At the same time, the printed version has also increased its circulation. Its main competitor, “Ultima Hora”, has experienced a decline in circulation, and its website is not as good but is improving. Of daily papers in Spain with a circulation over 10,000 (not huge admittedly), the “Diario” has registered the second greatest increase in physical circulation among the 39 papers with circulation over this number.

On the face of it, the two increases seem illogical. As the website beefs up its traffic, so, you would think, the circulation of printed version would decrease. So how to explain the apparent contradiction, as evidenced by the “Diario”? Maybe it’s all the free publicity I give it, but probably not. Perhaps it has something to do with its local nature. Despite the plans by “The Times” to create its own online “community”, it is, like all big papers, rather removed. A paper like the “Diario” isn’t. There is a far greater sense of reader “ownership” of the different formats; they are complementary, even if their content is basically the same.

I confess that I am casting around to find a reason. I don’t know the answer. But answer there must be, and if the experience of the “Diario” is echoed elsewhere, the doomsday predictions for newspapers and/or their websites would not hold up. What will be interesting is whether the circulation and the site traffic continue to increase. If they do, then someone should try and discover the paper’s secret. I should be at the paper’s offices today, so maybe I’ll ask.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Hot, Hot, Hot: Tourism publications

Over the past month or so on the blog, I have made reference to a newspaper-style tourism publication that I am due to be bringing out. It is close to seeing the light of day. The volcano and weather have conspired to slow things down a bit. Things are never easy, and I tend not to make things easy for myself. And not making things easy is probably apposite. I like making things difficult, creating a challenge.

Why do a newspaper format? Several reasons. Commercially, the most important is that far more copies can be printed for the same sort of money you have to hand over for something printed on art paper. Do a free publication and you stand or fall by advertising, and for advertisers as wide a distribution as possible is vital, unless you are dealing with a defined and small niche, which the tourism market is not.

But as important as this is the impact that can be created, one that also has benefits for the advertiser. And in the current climate, it seemed to me that something quite different was required. There are businesses locally which are really trying to be different. It has been salutary to speak to some of them and to get their support for attempting to be different, and these include those who are not advertisers. It matters not a jot to me so long as I get positive and constructive opinions rather than the negativity of which there is an abundance at present.

Tourism publications tend to be of a type. They tend to a conformism of certain information and style. It was this that I wanted to break away from. And moving away from the small format of guide that I have done till now gives far greater scope in terms of content. This is where it has not been easy. The creative side. It is hugely demanding of time and mental energy. Stick a map on a piece of paper and arrange some adverts around it? Where’s the fun in that?

The new publication is to be called HOT. There have been seemingly innumerable other title possibilities. It was a chat with Nobby from Linekers which finally steered me in this direction. Not that Nobby came up with it. But it was his thought process that led me to do a personal brainstorm and come up with some ideas that I ran past Graeme at “Talk Of The North”, with whom this is all a collaboration. One other title I liked was “Splash”. It seemed appropriate in different ways, for example the notion of making a splash. But HOT it was – is. Only afterwards, as I looked at a blank page of Quark Express to consider the masthead, did it occur to me that HOT could be Holiday Times.

The format means that there is scope for all manner of articles that could never have been contemplated before. It is why, in addition to some of the more traditional information, there will be stuff on music, entertainment, history, oddities, fitness, kids’ activities and more. What there will not be will be the sort of brochure talk that I have railed against here in the past. I detest it. It is too easy, and I cannot believe that anyone much is interested.

In the process of putting this altogether, there are a number of people who have given willingly of time and help and others who have made small observations and suggestions. They will all get name-checked when it appears, but to pick out a few – Jan at the Jolly Roger, Graham Philips, Glen and family, Jose and Julie at Nova Marina. They’ll do for starters. Now all that remains is to finish it off and get the job to the printers over the next few days. Then I might get some sleep.

QUIZ (sort of) –
Yesterday I asked who Albert Pierrepoint was. The usual answer is the last hangman in Britain, but he wasn’t. Albert, not necessarily a liberal in these matters, reckoned that Ruth Ellis got all that was coming to her. And Albert gave it to her – so to speak.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Price You Pay: Little stickers and doner kebabs

The price you pay, otherwise known as part three of the end of tourism life, a recurring story of everyday despairing tourist-business folk.

The price you pay. It hasn’t started yet, but it can’t be far off. The “authorities must do something about it”. I’m thinking that this should be the title of my new book, which I haven’t written and which I haven’t actually even thought about. But a good title, nonetheless. The price you pay. Take, for example, a newspaper.

Something, shrewd observers among you might have noticed, is that newspapers print prices on them. Different countries, different prices. Two euros for whatever, two euros it is, except when it isn’t. Beware, therefore, the little yellow stickers or the little lime-green or pinky stickers. Ones with a price biro-ed on them. Because those two euros can very easily be joined by some ten centimos. The price you pay.

Remember the stuff about some sap complaining about having been fleeced of five euros for some paracetamol last year? It was evidence of Mallorca’s too expensive, the authorities must, blah, blah. It was evidence of this, but it was evidence of something else, as it was illegal. You can only buy paracetamol in a chemists. Or rather, chemists are the only places licensed to sell paracetamol. It’s a similar gig with newspapers. The price you pay, or should pay, is the one on the paper, not the one on the little sticker. It is illegal to sell a newspaper above the printed price.

The price you pay. Take also, for example, a bucket and spade. Lurking with intent on the Jolly Roger’s pool-side terrace yesterday afternoon, I cocked an eager ear in the direction of a conversation which was taking place between two parties, conveniently some distance apart, which meant that they were more or less shouting and were thus easy to hear. One couple had handed over getting on for ten euros for some low-grade, brightly-coloured plastic items, the making of sandcastles being the purpose thereof. The other couple said, oh, we paid one euro, ninety-five. “They saw us coming,” admitted couple one. Dead right they did. Couple one’s bucket and spade had been purchased in a shop by the beach. “They’ve got you when you’re there, haven’t they,” couple one reckoned, by way of justification. Up to a point, they have. But, as ever with these price things, go elsewhere and you will spend far less. Three-quarters less in the case of the lucky couple two.

Rather more in keeping with the current theme “de la semana”, our end of tourism life one, news comes from The Mile, where one shop is reporting a 33% drop in sales, on top of a 20% overall decline last season. And in the more rarified atmosphere of Pollensa’s villas, news there of villa bookings having slowed to a crawl, or worse. It’s all the volcano’s fault. The late-minute bookings seem not to be occurring, and yet it was these – and I had said as much myself here – that were set to make this season reasonable if not brilliant. Sod Iceland.

And finally … A question for you. Why is that doner kebabs don’t get advertised? As in, why is it that Indian restaurants, which double up as doner establishments, don’t want any mention of kebabs? Maybe it’s all to do with their marketing. Maybe they’ve stopped doing them. Or maybe there’s some other reason. An Indian chap asked yesterday if I could remove the doner kebab from the sign in an advert. Yes, said I, not a problem. Yet, this is far from being the first occasion when I have experienced a reluctance to promote the doner. Why?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Cleggies: The British election from Mallorca

If you live in Mallorca, do you care about the British election? You might be interested, but do you really care? You might actually exercise your vote, but why, If you don’t live there, or go there only now and then? Do you care more about Zapatero and Rajoy? Because perhaps you should.

Nevertheless, it is entirely understandable that the election should generate interest and column inches in the local English media. Of course it is. It is something of the old country, something actually quite important of the old country. But, to varying degrees for individuals living in Mallorca, it is the old country, as in the former country. Not the current. Moreover, at a distance – of the miles (or kilometres) that divide Mallorca and the UK – can one really appreciate the issues of the election? Many will say they can, but many may be deluding themselves. Many will be acting on received wisdom, or lack of wisdom.

It is a curious phenomenon, that of commenting on an event that is intrinsically important – as a Briton – and yet one that one is not a part of. The heritage, the past, the growing-up; these all qualify such commenting. But somehow there is a disbarring through voluntary exile. Pity the political commentator who is an outside observer of his own country and its politics.

“The Bulletin” has been going fairly big on Nick Clegg. Many have been going big on Cleggy. The power of previously having been anonymous. There was a yes-no in the paper. Clegg as Prime Minister? As meaningful as an argument over a Saint Mick in an expat bar. And … And oh dear. Let’s get things right shall we. It was implied in this exchange that Clegg is following in a line of great Liberals, well one. Winston Churchill. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

Churchill was a member of the Liberal Party for twenty years. He was a political opportunist who left the Conservatives and then rejoined them. What he was never was a Liberal Prime Minister. He was also described in the paper as Britain’s greatest Prime Minister. Oh dear, oh dear. This was meant to further big up Cleggy. But it was plain wrong, and one might recall Churchill’s own argument about being over 30 and having no brains if one is not a Conservative (not one, I should add, that I agree with).

Churchill’s reputation is founded on his role as a war-time leader, but he was a poor Prime Minister in his peace-time government after 1951. He treated Eden as an idiot and thus undermined him (though he may have been right to have done so). He was ill for much of this time. He was too old. He was antagonistic towards the creation of nascent European integration.

Churchill rejoined the Conservatives in the mid-1920s, following his sojourn with the Liberals. Only in his advocacy of free trade could Churchill truly be said to have been a liberal in terms of political philosophy as it is broadly now understood. Otherwise … . He loathed Gandhi. In this regard, he proved to be as antediluvian as Thatcher was in her disrespect of Mandela. He was highly pro-American, he would never – had he been alive today – have opposed Trident. In all these things, he was the antithesis of what we imagine Clegg to be. The comparison is absurd.

Why not go back further? Clegg is the new Gladstone. It might actually make greater sense, though Gladstone would probably in fact have been an old Labour politician today (as with his support of the dockers’ strike). But any comparison with the past is a nonsense. If there is to be some exiled comment on the election, it might at least be accurate. Or maybe, if you do care, leave it to the likes of “The Sun”, “The Mirror” or “The Guardian”. They may all talk bollocks, but it will be bollocks in which you can trust. Sort of.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

This Is My Four-Leaf Clover: Internet advertising

I find myself increasingly and variously intrigued and infuriated by internet advertising.

Let’s take the infuriation first, if we may: the invasive pop-ups or the things that somehow float across the screen or some video demanding to take me away from what it is I actually want to look at. I’ll give you a good example. The “Diario de Mallorca”. Good paper and pretty good website. Better than its main Mallorca-based competitor, “Ultima Hora”. It’s easier to navigate and is better laid-out. However, it has this regular tendency, once you’ve clicked on whatever it is you want to read, to take you to an advert – often for some Seat or Peugeot you have absolutely no interest in. This obliges you to either unclick it or wait till it goes away.

There does of course have to be advertising, which opens up the whole discussion about newspapers, their ad revenues from the web and whether they should be free online or not. But this is not something for here. There is advertising, which is a business necessity for a website to function, and there is advertising – of the intrusive variety. To what extent is this intrusive advertising counter-productive? Out of principle, I refuse to click on it, and only have done so by mistake. Out of principle, I would never buy a Seat, if it’s being forced onto me when I have something better to do, like reading about what shenanigans such-and-such a local politician has been up to. And when it takes an age to load a page because of the damn floating ads, or whatever they are, there is further counter-productivity. I go somewhere else. I may not like “Ultima Hora” as much, but it doesn’t hack me off.

You have to presume that this intrusion doesn’t come cheap and also to presume that it works, even if referrals may be a low percentage and actual conversion (assuming this can in fact be measured) far less. But the potential to alienate readers cannot be underestimated, and then there are those, like myself, who form a negative image of a brand because it’s getting my back up.

Web advertising is a curiosity because it is an experimental work-in-progress. Unlike TV advertising, the model of which has remained pretty much unaltered since the first days of commercial television (in the UK at any rate) in the mid-1950s, advertising on the net has been in a constant state of flux since it was first realised that here was the brave new world of promotional opportunity. The cost can be high, but it all depends what is being advertised and how. The “how” is arguably the most interesting aspect, especially since the inception of social networking. Facebook and the rest may not be for everyone, but its potential – cheap promotional potential – is significant.

In Alcudia there is a bar, Shamrock. Facebook has transformed not only the bar in terms of its income and profitability, it has transformed the bar completely – in terms of its market and product. Yes, there have been, and are, other promotional tactics, but it is Facebook that has driven the change. I’m not going into detail, this may be for another time or place, but if there is such a thing at Harvard Business School as case studies on the role of social networking in marketing, then Shamrock might well form one of them. To emphasise – not just greater success but also a change in the business itself, all stemming from Facebook. It’s fascinating stuff.

The essential ingredient with the Facebook approach is that it is a form of push marketing – or poke marketing if you prefer. It is proactive and can create a rapid response. But this proactivity isn’t aggressive, as with so much unwished-for promotion, because of the very nature of social networks and their built-in likemindedness. Moreover, Facebook is without pretension in its marketing style. Some advertisers, or so it has appeared to me, have a kudos mentality that demands they pay fairly substantial amounts to appear on a particularly grand site. This may be beneficial to them, or it may not be, but for many, a complementary approach using social networks would almost certainly be beneficial, if not more beneficial. It does rather depend on how broad the marketing scope needs to be and therefore how much the initial contact or interest via the internet needs to be made, which is where paid-for representation can be, and often is, important.

What we’re moving towards is businesses adopting a bundling approach, of different types of site, with different styles. The only fear with the likes of Facebook is that its success, and that of those who use it creatively, will result in the sort of intrusive advertising that can deter. I, for one, hope not.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.