DragonCon 2011 Schedule

Wow, this place is dusty.



Sorry for the lack of updates. Lots has been happening on the personal life front, and it's been hard for Nora and I to dedicate anytime to the podcast. The good news is that my other podcast "Geek A Week" will be returning this week! Hooray! I am launching a second season of the project at DragonCon this weekend in Atlanta. If you're going, see you there! If not, watch Twitter, Facebook, etc. for all sorts of updates.



I'm on a few panels this year, more than last year for sure. In addition to my Geek A Week panel and flash card signings around the Con, you can catch me at these following places. I also plan on trying to do at least one art battle if I can. Once again, watch the Twitters (@jawboneradio) for updates.



Here's my official schedule!



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Geek a Week Podcast Reunion

Description: Join artist Len Peralta as he talks with geek superstars that were featured on the Geek A Week Podcast.

Time: Fri 01:00 pm Location: Regency VI - VII - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)



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The Walking Dead Fan Panel

Description: The Walking Dead isn't just a great TV show, it's a great comic too! Come get your geek on as we discuss both mediums of this great universe.

Time: Sat 02:30 pm Location: Atlanta C-D - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)



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Apocalyptic Art

Description: Discuss with our panel of artists the pros and cons of creating images of creatures/events that only exist in our imaginations (for now…).

Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Atlanta C-D - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)



Hope to see some of you this weekend! Hooray!

Wives, Cry To Get What You Want

Oh right, like anyone didn't know this already. Captain obvious, Dormeyer.

Brand Update : Amrutanjan wants to be Sexy

It has been a long time since I updated about Amrutanjan. A lot has happened with this brand including a rebranding exercise and launch of various variants. Amrutanjan which once had a generic status in the pain balm market is now the third largest player in the Rs 1700 crore pain balm/rub market with a market share of around 10%. The balm which was projected as a one-stop solution for all kinds of pain found it difficult to position itself in the increasingly fragmented market. With more and more specialized brands entering the market, Amrutanjan's positioning of an all-purpose brand became largely diluted.

Realizing this, the brand came out with a slew of variants and a change in the positioning. The brand also rebranded itself with a change in the logo to make it more contemporary and appealing to younger generation. Amrutanjan launched a sub-brand Amrutanjan Relief specifically for Cold management product range. The brand also introduced Roll-On variant positioning it on the basis of convenience in carrying.

In the promotional front, the brand changed its famous " Its Gone " ( Fast Relief) positioning and experimented with various other positioning platforms. In 2010,the brand roped in celebrities like Asin to endorse the brand. 

Another experiment in promotion was the " Be Ready " campaign where ten  ' slice of life ' situations were shown in the TVC where people accidently  got injured. The campaign wanted consumers to be ready with Amrutanjan because one never know when injury will happen. The campaign further asked consumers to share their own videos of such instances. 

When its main competitor Zandu Balm sizzled the market with Malliaka Arora , Amrutanjan followed suit with an attempted sizzling ad for its roll-on variant. According to Soumyadip of Cutting The Chai blog, the ad is inspired by the (in)famous Savita Bhabhi . 

Watch the ad here : Amrutanjan Roll on

The ad also gives a new tagline " Kick Out Pain " for the variant.

In my opinion, the new campaign qualify for one of the worst brand campaigns in India. The ad which is of poor taste neither talks anything sensible about the brand nor it is interesting. The brand thought that this campaign would become viral but that also did not happen. Overall it was a mega flop campaign.

Amrutanjan never found a strong positioning ever since it ditched its " Its Gone " ( fast relief)  platform. There was no reason for the brand to ditch such a strong memorable positioning. Now it is paying price for that mistake. 

Related brand

Amrutanjan

26 Cool Fire Hydrants

A fire hydrant is an active fire protection measure and a source of water provided in most urban, suburban and rural areas with municipal water service to enable firefighters to tap into the municipal water supply to assist in extinguishing a fire. Though if you don't know what a fire hydrant is, you probably wear a crash helmet, live in your parent's basement, and can't read this blog to begin

Becoming the Fattest Woman in History

Susanne Eman of Casa Grande, Arizona—currently weighing in at 720 pounds—hopes to become the fattest woman of all time and surpass the standing record of 1,600 pounds. Here is what she eats EVERY DAY to try and shatter that record. It's a 21,962 calorie menu of sadness.
Breakfast: 6 Scrambled Eggs Cooked In Butter = 468 cal.Half Pound Of Bacon = 1,168 cal.4 Hash Browned Potatoes = 672 cals.6

NEW for Autumn 2011, Beginners soap making courses

Yes!  finally I have got the first two course dates sewn up and organised. 

 Saturday October 8th and Wednesday October 12th

10am to 4pm

 I will provide all equipment required and the ingredients for the course, the safety equipment, full course notes and recipes.  You will get to make your soap in a mold that you can take away with you, enough soap for 10 - 12 bars!  The course cost also includes all refreshments and a tasty, homemade, light vegetarian lunch,

You will also be able to buy "Carry On" kits of ingredients to take home with you at the course venue.

I have found an absolutely fabulous venue, peaceful, beautiful, light and airy with full disabled access and plenty of parking.

So what are you waiting for? come and learn how to make quality, beautiful, natural soaps using the traditional cold process method.



A bit of the spiel from the website to whet your appetite.....

"My goal is to teach the skills you need to successfully make beautiful handmade soap using natural ingredients such as olive oil, shea and cocoa butter and lovely essential oils.

We will provide you with everything you will need, all the ingredients, equipment and safety gear.  You will learn in small groups of no more than 8 people in a clean, relaxing place with plenty of time to ask all the questions you want.  Your instruction comes from an experienced certified soap maker so you can feel totally happy that you will be receiving the best tuition possible as well as having great fun learning a new skill and making new friends.

Soap making does not require a huge amount of complicated equipment or ingredients and is a really absorbing hobby, imagine how great it would be to be able to easily make all your Christmas and birthday gifts, soaps for your whole family, for special occasions or just for yourself.  Especially as they will be totally natural, not containing any of the harsh, unfriendly chemicals of commercial soaps."

 

I can't tell you how excited I am about this, I have been wanting to set up courses for so long and finally I have had the time to do it.  If you know anyone who would like to come along do let them know as well.  I have an online booking form:

COURSE BOOKING FORM

So lets go to it!  Another chapter in the journey that is Naturally Made Soaps.

 

Wella Kolestint : Deep, Longer Lasting Color

Brand : Kolestint
Company  : Wella ( P&G)

Brand Analysis Count : # 491

Competition is hotting up in the Rs 1200 hair color market in India. World's leading hair color brand Wella's Kolestint is upping the ante in the fast growing premium hair color segment in the Indian market. Wella is World's biggest cosmetic company based in Germany. Wella has a rich heritage dating back to 1880 and was  created by Franz Stroher. 

In 2003, the company was acquired by P&G.

Kolestant is the premium hair color brand from Wella. The brand was launched into the Indian consumer market in 2010. The brand is currently on a promotional overdrive with a series of campaigns across the media.

Indian hair color market has seen significant shift over these years. The segment was pioneered by Godrej Ltd with its hair dye products. From hair dye targeting the greying Indian consumer, the category has seen a remarkable shift in the last few years. Hair coloring has now become a part of  urban Indian consumer's personality. From a product used to mask ageing, hair color has become a part of fashion . While hair dye was predominantly used by the greying consumers, hair color has found tremendous acceptance across various age groups. Hair Colors infact has consumed the hair dye market atleast in the urban market.

This product category has found so much acceptance that ET puts the urban hair color market at Rs 600 crore growing at the rate of 25% per annum. This stupendous growth has got the attention of all major cosmetic brands to enter into this segment.

Kolestint is a premium hair color brand directly competing with the market leader Loreal. Hair color market is classified into three product categories - powder/cream/henna. Powder form is popular in the economy segment while premium segment prefers the cream product form. The top end brands target the SEC A segment of the Indian consumers.

The market leader Loreal is positioned on its brand equity and premiumness while the new entrant Kolestint is taking the benefit positioning. Kolestint's USP is that the hair color lasts much longer compared to competing brands. The brand had a consumer insight that most of the time, hair coloring goes unnoticed.Consumers complain that even after spending lot of money on hair coloring , the effect is not noticed and the coloring lasts only for a few days . Kolestint has used this insight to position the brand as a hair color that not only lasts longer but also will get you noticed. The brand has used this proposition very effectively using celebrity testimonials.The brand has used Noticability Attribute in its launch ad with John Abraham and Bipasha Basu.

The brand used popular television/bollywood celebrities like Shruti Seth , Ragini Khanna etc in the subsequent campaigns which talked about their own experience with the brand. In the follow up campaigns, the brand focused on Long Lasting Color benefit as the USP.

Watch the campaigns here : Shruti Seth

Here the brand is using the same strategy of Loreal to break into the market leader's position. Loreal have also used celebrity testimonial ads to boost its image.  Kolestint was wise enough to not to chose high profile celebrities for the testimonial ads because most of the time consumers discount those testimonial ads. The choice of popular cine/television artists like Shruti Seth gave more authenticity to the testimonial ads compared to high profile celebrities. 

In the hair color market, longer lasting colors and noticability are two major attributes that consumers look for. Kolestint has made a major marketing gain by focusing on those two important attributes. The brand has followed up its brand campaigns with a below-the-line activity of running a Switch Event across the markets. Consumers are asked to bring their unused non-Kolestint hair color packet and exchange it with Kolestint hair color. Since hair color products are experiential in nature, getting consumers to try the brand is very essential. These switch events aims at encouraging the users of competing brands to switch to Kolestint.

The premium hair color market is going to witness huge competition in the coming months. The market leader Loreal is not going to wait in the sidelines and will rather fight Kolestint directly . It will be a category worth watching.

Kate Moss and soaps

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well and happy.  I am now in my 4th week since quitting my day job and its great!!  I am loving making soap and working on the business every day, I find my thoughts flow better not having to put it all down and pick it up again after rushing off to do another totally different job.  I realise I am a bit isolated in my work though which is why I am so excited about my new project.

You may know, my partner Rik and I have a lovely house in Portugal which we have been very slowly doing up, in fact so slowly its now 9 years this month since we bought it!  But, hey, the best things come to those who wait, so I am told.  Well I have a very good friend who is also a superb soap maker, in fact she was one of my inspirations for starting myself, and we have decided to go for it and launch a new range of soaps specifically for the Portuguese market.  So anyway, exciting times ahead, lots of work and, best of all, more trips over to Portugal!  I am off on 8th of September for 2 weeks and again in November, don't worry if you want to order from the website, My wonderful family are coming to the rescue again, packing and posting orders off for me.



IN THE NEWS
I really sat up and took notice at this latest news announcement........

Kate Moss Wants Own Soap Range
Well I thought, shall I contact her NOW to suggest that I make them for her?  No, apparently Kate Moss is set to release her own range of soaps after experimenting on making some home-made bars.  The supermodel has been sorting out fresh ingredients from her garden in the Cotswolds, central UK, grinding them together and then trying them out in the shower and is now keen to create her own line of products.

From The Sun newspaper

A source told The Sun newspaper: "Kate loves her new hobby, she's gone soap mad.  She's been trying to master the art after one of her mates sent her a batch of home made bars, which she loved.

"She's adamant all the ingredients should be fresh and natural.  She's sent quite a few to her girlfriends to try out.  Depending on the feedback, she's thinking of releasing a range."

As well as being a soap fan, Kate has previously revealed she would never leave the house without a perfume and has her own line of fragrances as well as a range of clothes and handbags.

Well....................  could this be an opportunity for us soap makers?  making soaps for celebrities to endorse?


Which comes first - Honey or Heather?
I was out on Woodbury Common yesterday walking the dogs and the smell up there is simply intoxicating.  It was a warm sunny afternoon and it must have been the warm air that brought out the wonderful honey aroma of the heather which is blooming everywhere.  There must be at least 4 different varieties just in the one place I walked.

Perdy in the flowers

It got me thinking, has heather evolved to smell like honey to attract bees?  Why does honey not made from bees visiting heather smell like heather?  Anyway, whatever the answers it is absolutely lovely, I wish that we could create a fragrance for soap that smelt exactly like it.

 

Woodbury heathers in full bloom

Lastly, I just wanted to let you know about a fab new website that I have discovered.  It's called Pinterest and is a really fun way of collecting images from your computer sources to create an inspiration board or a virtual pinboard.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.
Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.  I am currently busy putting together some inspiration for our new Portuguese range as well as a new kitchen for our house in Portugal, I have only just started so I have not got a huge amount on my pin boards but it has been really good fun.  To get started you need to request an invite and they will contact you with joining details.  I think its well worth it - well if you have time to spare!!  It is very easy to use as well.

I have added a "follow me" button on the right of this page so you can see the kind of images I have been collecting myself. 

Well, thats it, I have been busy cutting my new Xmas soap testers and I am very, very happy with the results, I shall post photos soon.

Don't forget, my first soap making course starts on 8th October, email me at soapchick@naturallymadesoaps.co.uk if you are interested in getting information.  More to follow very soon.

Take care and please leave a comment X