Everything's fine: I'm not complaining

A few months ago I took a train to Manchester.  Later in the day I was on my way back home when I got an email from the train operating company, Virgin Trains.  They asked me to complete a customer survey based on the morning's rail journey.

The questions seemed clearly designed to inform Virgin Trains' customer relationship management (CRM) system.  Was the train on time?  Was it clean?  Did the air conditioning work? (this was July).  That kind of thing.  Yes, yes, yes, I replied, everything's good.

Then they asked "Would you recommend us to your friends and family?".  No, I replied (I hardly ever go to Manchester and don't tend to get into conversations about travelling north).  The journey was fine, it met my expectations.  End of story.

Oh dear.  The Virgin Trains survey then went into damage limitation mode.  They apologized for giving me a poor service and asked how they could improve things for me.  I explained that the fact that I don't invariably go about recommending services  didn't mean I was unhappy.  These are two completely separate questions.

But when I submitted this answer I was directed to the Virgin Trains complaint system.  It recorded that I had made a "complaint" and asked for more details: date, time, nature of problem, and so on. They said how they needed full disclosure if they were to consider compensation. Once again I explained that I wasn't complaining, but when I pressed 'submit' I got a thank you, a complaint number and an assurance that it would be investigated within 48 hours.

On the form I had also added that instead of sending customers these pointless (and misleading) surveys, Virgin Trains could just as easily monitor what was being said on social media.  As it turned out, the journey home was magical.  Several groups of passengers in our carriage were celebrating: it was someone's birthday, another had just graduated, yet another group was off on a hen night in London.  All this partying was helped when Virgin staff appeared with free wine and chocolates.

Expectations well and truly exceeded!  We were all busy on social media talking about it.  But there was no reaction at all from Virgin Trains.  I guess they were too busy investigating non-existent complaints.  Two days later I got a formal response thanking me for raising these issues.

Today, a similar thing happened.  This time Sainsbury's supermarket contacted me to ask for feedback on a shopping trip I made yesterday.  In fact I only dashed in for a couple of items: I wasn't in the store for more than 10 minutes.  Everything was fine, it was clean, the staff were friendly.  But once again I was asked would I recommend this branch of Sainsbury's to my friends and family?

No.  Because most of these people don't live anywhere near the store.  Those friends that do live nearby almost certainly already shop there.   Oh dear!  The Sainsbury's survey software must have been programmed by the same CRM company, because once again I was asked to explain why I was "unhappy" with my shopping trip.

I feel as if I am talking to myself here.  Once again I had to say that failure to recommend something is completely different from being unhappy about it. Actually it was a very successful trip, as I was able to validate a Sainsbury's voucher for 4000 Nectar points, worth £20.  So now I am recommending the company - if not the local store.

 I am waiting to hear back from Sainsbury's.

#Parklife!

This post was originally published on the Myths and Memes blog.

First an admission: like most others involved in the #parklife phenomenon, we haven’t read Russell Brand’s new book Revolution.  Like most others we have seen bits of what other people who have read it say.  And bits of what other people have shared of what other people have read.  Such is the way in the digital economy.

Russell Brand's Twitter icon

According to Amazon this book has been in their top 100 best sellers for most of the time since its publication in October 2014.  It is supposed to be a revolutionary work.  A manifesto?  No.  According to his publisher, Brand has produced a satire, something that “hilariously lacerates the straw men and paper tigers of our conformist times.”  But nothing is as it seems and journalists have been quick to see the book as Brand positioning himself to challenge Boris Johnson for the role of Mayor of London (see, for example, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian).  Brand denies the rumours: which means they must be true?

So what went wrong?  How can a vehicle of satire morph into the repository of popular ridicule.  How did Russell’s brand become brandjacked?  And was something which says it “ destroys this illusory facade” of “the system” designed to put Brand firmly into its very centre?

The problem seemed to arise from the post-launch publicity.  Critics in the media (reviewers who at least claim to have read Revolution), variously described the language as baby-talk, long-winded, confused, smug and verbose.  His ideas are described in similar terms. The best he gets its from the Guardian’s claim that  “he is the nearest Britain has to a revolutionary populist”. 

Brand’s counter offensive was conducted through the mass media and its newer digital counterparts.  His appearances on TV and radio were criticised as being gratuitous publicity for the book, even though this sort of promotion is perfectly normal for celebrity authors.  On broadcast media, though, the language that came across as verbose in print appeared pompous to audiences more used to Brand as a comedian.  

On Twitter Brand let loose at his critics with the memorable rant “This attitude of churlish indifference seems like nerdish deference contrasted with the belligerent antipathy of the indigenous farm folk, who regard the hippie-dippie interlopers, the denizens of the shimmering tit temples, as one fey step away from transvestites.”  This tweet has been reproduced verbatim online and in the mainstream media: curiously, though, it no longer appears on Brand’s Twitter feed: it may have been deleted, or it may, simply, never have existed. 

Brand’s tweet was too much for an internet generation for whom the most serious crime is to take oneself seriously.  Russell Brand used to be one of us: now he has joined the enemy.  Dan Barker tweeted that “Russell Brand’s writing feels like someone is about to shout “PARKLIFE!” at the end of every sentence.  The reference is to Blur’s 1994 hit, and this connection seemed to strike a chord with the Twitterati.  The idea originated with Twitter user Earthman Johann (@paperclipracket) on October 26 based on a review of Brand’s book in the Daily Mail.  However it  was popularised by Barker who later tweeted with no reference to the original. Barker is no stranger to the establishment  as an internet marketer himself with an online presence much larger than @paperclipracket.    

Uses of #parklife! hashtag on Twitter October 27-November 4

His Twitter feed also presents a number of opinions on online media and culture. An analysis of Twitter traffic indicates that the meme was a relatively low key phenomenon until Barker’s involvement. Since then,  #parklife jumped from fewer than 50 to over 1000 mentions on 4 November.

It is also important to note that #parklife isn’t Barker's only Russell Brand related meme.  On November 2 he also posted “Russell Brand's bad writing reminded me of the Penguin Nonsense Book Title Generator”.  This suggests that #parklife may may not be a response by a public fed up with Brand’s apolitical politicking. The source is a savvy internet marketer who may have seen  an opportunity for self promotion (8,400 retweets of the original Parklife tweet and counting) on the back of the online community of interest created by Russell Brand. The Penguin Nonsense Book Title Generator is one of Dan Barker's creations.

His “apology” on Twitter two days later quotes the original tweet to ensure that he is credited for the promotion of #parklife.  The fact that he didn't reference the original source isn't lost on @paperclipracket as he notes on his twitter feed.

It would be interesting to follow #parklife to see if it embraces it’s commercial or cultural potential. The former would indicate that the media has found new approaches to engage its critics, in the form of  a “countermeme”.  That is, the highjacking of counter brands by the establishment. The latter may  see  #parklife become a version of “keyboard cat” for the Instagram and Vine world of 15 second video.

For the moment, though, #PARKLIFE! has become the virtual slogan of choice for a section of the social media generation.  As a new meme it has engaged with its audience and, with herd-like regularity we are ‘shouting’ it at anything verbose, pompous or smug.  Quickly a feeding frenzy arises where the internet phenomenon becomes the focus for old media attention, which in turn fuels the internet traffic.

Perhaps the brandjacking of Brand is what the publishers had in mind all along?  Revolution has had five weeks of intense media exposure, and the clamour is still as loud as ever.  If so the plan may have worked the book gained two places in the Amazon best seller list in the time it took to write this blog.