RETROWURST: Playmobil April 2007

 

In April 2007, I wrote about the colourful, happy world of Playmobil. Pirates, cowboys, builders ... a world that revolved around people, not bricks as Lego used to. Twelve years ago, with the burgeoning Playmobil film industry on YouTube, and the opening of fun parks, the world seemed to be Playmobil’s oyster ...

-------------------------------------------------------

It is time that I let you into a few secrets of a race of little people who are steadily taking over the world. It is estimated that are over 2 billion of these little characters in the world today – that is more than the Chinese! The little people are 7.5cm tall and even the baddies have a cute little smile: Playmobil!

 

Playmobil is the main brand of the company Geobra Brandstätter GmbH & Co. KG, who are based in Zirndorf, which lies in Frankenland, the northern part of Bavaria. The company has been going since 1876 and originally produced toys made from wood and metal. The current owner, Horst Brandstätter, the grandson of the founder, introduced plastic toys to the range in the 1950s. These were typically larger toys such as hula-hoops or pedal tractors.

 

All was going pretty well for Brandstätter in the halcyon days of the 1960s – the baby boom had reached its peak so there were plenty of eager customers for his toys and the economic miracle meant that most German parents were relatively happy to open their wallets to indulge their offspring.

 

However, the oil crisis of the early 70s meant that reliance on large unit size plastic toys would be dangerous for the company. Brandstätter had to find some way of using less and less solid plastic for his toys. A couple of years before, an inventor by the name of Hans Beck, who had trained as a cabinet maker, pitched a range of model aeroplanes to Brandstätter. Brandstätter was impressed with the designs and asked Beck to develop a range of toy figures.

 

Beck did not summon a crew of child psychologists and educationalists, as far as we know, but designed the figures based on common sense. The size of the figures, 7.5cm, is just right for a child’s hand. The face was based on a child’s drawing: a large head, smiling mouth and no nose. The figures could move their head, hands, the arms separately and the legs together. The first series launched were knights, Indians and builders, the latter complete with crate of beer! (Difficult to imagine in the world of Bob and Wendy!).

 

Since 1975, Playmobil has been sold worldwide with series as far apart as Romans and Fairytale Castle joining the staple collections. Playmobil “worlds” include just about everything but there is nothing too overtly military or aggressive from recent history. In addition, certain ranges seem to go down better in some countries than others – Cowboys and Indians is not a big seller in the USA.

 

Playmobil is one of Germany’s success stories. Despite rising material growth and general stagnation in the toy market, where even Lego has had serious problems, Playmobil had sales of some €380m in 2006, a 5% increase on 2005.

 

Horst Brandstätter, now 73, still heads the company. He appears to be somewhat eccentric, publicity-shy and stingy, rather like a German Ingvar Kamprad. Stories go around about Brandstätter that he picks up golf tees on his golf trips in exotic locations, in disbelief that anyone could be so wasteful as to discard such a thing. He himself relates the story that, as boy, his Granny gave him a coin to buy an ice-cream with. Young Horst did so but then bitterly regretted not having his coin anymore and vowed there and then never to buy an ice-cream again, a promise that he kept for a couple of decades!

 

Although Brandstätter is still a strong presence and appears not to want to let go, he did appoint a marketing expert, Andrea Schauer to run the company, considering his sons not to be up to the job! Frau Schauer has been in this role since 2000. The marketing of Playmobil is very clever: although no educationalists are used in its development, parents do believe that it is educationally sound, somehow, and are quite happy to shell out €158 for something like the Knights Castle. Any parent of a small child is probably well aware of the reaction of the average 6-year-old to the Playmobil Catalogue: “I want that, that, that, that and that…oh, and that!”, while happily running up a bill for 000s of Euros. Predictably, the little pieces get hoovered up regularly so replacements must be bought and there are additional and top-up packs available for €5-15 Euros for birthday presents and the like. Individual figures are also available which are well within the reach of small children’s pocket money. And at Christmas you can even buy a Playmobil Advent Calendar with little figures inside.

 

The 56-strong development team does not work with child psychologists but still seem to get it right most of the time. I think that the secret of Playmobil lies within children’s imagination: enough of a “world” is presented as a stage but children are then free to devise their own adventures and mix Vikings with Pirates and Policemen, if they feel so inclined. Unlike Lego, which is more about the building and less about the ensuing adventures, Playmobil has an appeal to boys and girls because of its human element. The key element is a human figure, not a brick. And it is a safe, friendly world at the end of the day where even the fiercest pirate has a cute smile under his stubbly beard.

 

The core market of 3–8-year-olds is declining in Europe so Playmobil must seek new ways to continue their success. Theme parks is one area that they are already in, and they are looking to the potential of the Asian markets: China, India and Japan.

 

Playmobil also has an assured place outside of the core target market as a cult brand. Everyone in Germany under 40 has grown up with Playmobil and one can see that in the popular culture. A German comedian famously produced the life of Franz Beckenbauer with Playmobil and there is even a yearly “Playmo Convention” where Playmobil freaks display and discuss their customised Playmobil scenes, such as a re-enactment of the entire American Civil War.

 

And there is a growing body of Playmobil film-producers. YouTube is littered with them. One film promises “a brave Playmobile fights against the chess pieces with the hymn of FC Barcelona.” You can also see Playmobil versions of “Pirates of the Caribbean” or even “Casablanca”.

 

As a final thought, I leave you with YMCA, Playmobil-style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3skx_oqKzOc

-------------------------------------------------------

In the intervening twelve years, I haven’t thought that much about Playmobil. Our sets are packed away, awaiting grandchildren or sale. During Covid, I remember Fasching taking place via YouTube and Playmobil characters - and although the film clip I linked back in 2007 doesn’t work any more, there’s plenty to replace it. This creator of great world literature as reenacted by Playmobil is a particular favourite of mine. 

Playmobil’s all-time best-selling figure (a rather unlikely one for non-Germans) hit the headlines a few years ago - and rather than the DIY Village People that featured in my 2007 link, you can now get the real thing (or close to it). 

But maybe my adult-at-a-distance viewpoint wasn’t telling me the whole story. I made a trip to our local stationer/toy shop yesterday and the picture was less rosy. The windows were full of huge, fading boxes of Playmobil at reduced prices. Inside the shop, it wasn’t much better. Almost everything was reduced. Gone were the pirates, Romans and Vikings. The Playmobil sets on offer seemed rather drab and insipid. A pastelly dolls house. A watered-down Game of Thrones wannabe fantasy world. A few random horsey and mermaidy bits and pieces.

All is not well in the state of Playmobil. Horst Brandstätter died in 2015, and I get the impression that the brand has lost its way and simply not kept up. Despite the YouTube film activity, the official feature film was a flop. Sales have declined from €736m in 2021/22 to €571m in 2022/23 down to €490m in 2023/4. 

It makes me sad, but the fact is that a brand can’t live on nostalgia and jokey special edition sets for adults alone. The main problem is the impact that digitalisation has had on childhood and play. Playmobil used to be for children up to 10, but these days the 7/8 year-olds are already lost. Add to that worries about plastics and sustainability and it makes you wonder if Playmobil is doomed.

But ... look at Lego and maybe look at Barbie. Is there hope?

There are signs that things can turn round. A new positioning was announced in January this year. I’m not convinced by what I’ve read (“The future is now” - strengthening brand relevance - reach new target groups - drive globalisation) but let’s see. A new line called Sky Trails will be launched. Looks like an aerial Hot Wheels to me, but maybe ...

I hope Playmobil can turn things round. But I suspect what is needed is for a hoard of playful, ruthless, fun-bent, devil-may-care pirates and Vikings to leap onto the dull old ship, shine it up again, set a completely new course and watch the gold bullion roll in.

BREXILE: Lost Content

 

A spot of Brexile nostalgia - one of the first things to make a new home in Germany was The Shell Nature Book, published in 1964. Fifty years later, in 2014, I wrote about how this early example of “branded content” (yeurgh!) stirred my childhood imagination. 

My imagination (slightly addled) continues to be stirred.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

LOST CONTENT

 

The usual portal to the landscapes of childhood, those blue-remembered hills, is a photograph album. Something with tassels and stiff dark pages, perhaps. Or from a later era: once-sticky backing sheets that now release fading squares like autumn leaves.

 

But not for me. Those happy highways are captured only in slides, packed in their yellow and white boxes, dated with Dymo tape and relegated to the category of one-day-we’ll-sort-those-out.

 

No, my vehicle to the vistas of days gone by belongs to the collective, not the personal. A book, one that I’m sure many 1960s families possessed. But with the boundless and borderless imagination of a child, I made it my own. The process of growing up involves the setting of more and more boundaries. What is real. What is imagined. What is present experience. What we can see. What we can’t. As a child, these merge into one, as they did each time I opened that book. I made it an interactive medium before the notion was ever dreamed of.

 

My copy of The Shell Nature Book was published in 1964. Bought, I expect, by my parents on their return from the barren rocks of Aden. Were they driven by underlying guilt? Their two small offspring had been deprived of the British countryside for most of their lives. That we had paddled daily in a warm sea and conversed with camels did little, perhaps, to mitigate this imagined deficit.

 

The book has seen better days. Although, like a much-loved toy, I still see it as I did then. The cover picture, with its unlikely juxtapositions of butterflies and bats, birds and beetles, night and day, lies under cellophane courtesy of my mother. As a primary school teacher, she knew the secrets of protection from eager clumsy thumbs and sherbet-licked fingers. Inside, the pages are still shiny as mother-of-pearl, faintly redolent of the print room.

 

I still wonder that “branded content” – for this is the 21^st century term for such publications – can be of such high and utterly lasting quality. Shell’s reputation these days has so much of the negative baggage associated with the fossil fuel industry that the words “Shell” and “nature” sit uneasily together. But the list of contributing painters (not illustrators) reads like a Who’s Who of mid-20^th century British talent. S.R.Badmin, Edith and Rowland Hilder, John Leigh-Pemberton … In between war service – often as not for the RAF – their work was commissioned by the Ministry of Information, by London Transport, by Ladybird Books.

 

These paintings captivated me, and I would lose myself in their Arcadian landscapes. The Flowers of the Countryside section, arranged by month, features a detailed foreground by Edith Hilder against a backdrop stretching into infinity, by her husband. In June, a rustic wooden pail brims with dog roses, foxgloves and wild irises, buzzing with summer, while the background of ivy-clad ruins – and a blue-remembered hill – fades mysteriously under a high sun.

 

S.R.Badmin’s painting of Trees and Shrubs for May beckoned me in, from the balcony, overhung with Horse Chestnut candles, down, down, under caterpillar-green beech leaves and wild cherry blossom, to the lake, where a boat waits ready to row to the island. John Leigh-Pemberton’s Life on the Downs scared me a little with its soft eeriness – sinister fairies had surely not long departed the ring of mushrooms nestling under that foreboding, rainbow-streaked sky.

Many of these paintings merged into real places plucked from my 1960s Home Counties world. The Hilders’ May with its backdrop of oast houses and rolling hills mirrored the view from my paternal grandparents’ Kent garden. Badmin’s July, all clipped hedges and lawns, seemed to echo with the clipped accents of the Air Force Staff College. And the Rowland Hilder and Maurice Wilson sun- to moonlight scene with young badgers frisking oblivious to the stateliness of the white mansion in the background was surely a corner of Windsor Great Park.

 

Amid these scenes of moor and meadow, cornfields and copses, like the evil godmother at the christening, lurked a stranger section to the book. Entitled Fossils, Insects and Reptiles, the paintings are by Tristram Hillier, who I have since learned was a British Surrealist, influenced by de Chirico and Max Ernst as well as Paul Nash, with whom he worked. And here they were, the bits that didn’t fit in the golden land of the other paintings. Creepy-crawlies, lower forms of life. Parts discarded by death. Or that not yet alive. Shells. Moths. Birds’ eggs. Skulls.

 

Hillier’s painting entitled Fossils epitomises this curious world that skulks below the surface of the sunlit British countryside. A quartet of books sits on a desk, two of these perched on a Pandora-esque box. Proper learned books, with stiff spines, muted cloth covers and old gold lettering: Elements of Geology, Vol II. And growing out of the volumes, like petrified fungi, are the fossils. Corals the shade of ancient teeth, a sea-urchin resembling a decaying bun – and the “ites”, iron-grey relics from way beyond the Iron Age. Belemnites, Pyrites, Ammonites.

 

One ammonite sits at the centre of the display, a perfect specimen, although all ammonites are perfect in their neatness, coiling for eternity to the centre. They are described in terms of extinct weights and measures – “vary from penny size to giants two feet across.” 

 

Before leaving this page, the eye is drawn to the left of the desk. A used match lies there, carelessly placed but carefully painted. Did Hillier light a pipe – perhaps the one that appears in his otherworldly study of moths three pages later – before he embarked on his work? Was this a hint towards the carboniferous era? Or simply a surreal gesture?

 

In these days of Google Earth, we can travel to any landscape on the globe in a matter of seconds. We never have to visit the same scene twice. Yet I still have a yearning for these scenes of my childhood, for they have not been fossilised. Viewing them today, memories and experience combine with my immediate perception, to create something of wonder anew.      

Dixi-Klo: A brand in need is a brand indeed

 

I woke up in the night during the annual carnival carousing. On the way back from the comfort of our own bathroom I wondered why on earth I’d never blogged about what must be one of Germany’s absolute brand leaders.

It’s a brand whose name has become the generic here, like Tempo. I’m talking about the humble Dixi-Klo. From building sites to Fests of all kinds, here’s a brand that’s not going to save the world, but has certainly saved most of us from nasty spots of bother and embarassment.

The Dixi-Klo was invented, and given its name by a US soldier based in Germany, Fred Edwards. While on manoeuvres in 1973, he identified a gap in the market - presumably through bitter experience - as an alternative to the proverbial convenient grove of trees.

A German company founded Dixi’s main rival, TOI TOI ten years later. Toi Toi Toi  is best translated as “touch wood” - so a remarkably clever brand name all in all. The two businesses fused in 1997 and now give jobs (big and little) to over 4,000 people. TOI TOI & DIXI is said to be “the world’s largest portable restroom provider.”

On the company website, you can even find a Fan Shop, which sells everything from cool bags to drinking flasks to carnival outfits (could cause all sorts of kerfuffle for the inebriated and short-sighted as well as the wearer, I fear). And my favourite - an air freshener to hang in your car.

Who said Germans are short on humour?

I haven’t seen many case histories on TOI TOI & DIXI on LinkedIn, but both are brands that deserve a little more praise. 

The classic question on Meaningful Brands goes along the lines of “which brands would you miss if they were to disappear tomorrow?”

I rest my case. 

RETROWURST: Brand consultancies March 2007

This month’s Retrowurst is less about brands and markets and more about those that earn their living through understanding what brands are, how they work and helping helping them to grow. In March 2007, I examined Germany’s brand consultancy agencies - and came to the conclusion that the choice was more limited than in the English-speaking world. 

Eighteen years is a long time in the world of brands and marketing. 2007 was pre- Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow (2010) and Les Binet and Peter Field’s The long and the short of it (2013). I also note that the only business-orientated social media network mentioned was Xing. LinkedIn was launched in 2003, but in 2007, it would only have attracted English speakers working internationally.

----------

My Extrawurst this month is inspired by my recent work with a UK-based International Brand Consultancy which left me wondering why this particular market is so under-developed in Germany.

 

My last month seems to have been one workshop after another and, interestingly, it has given me an opportunity to muse on the German way of doing things and on the UK (or perhaps I should say International) way. This led me to wondering why the market in Germany for Brand and Innovation Consultancy is so underdeveloped, so I have had a quick look into who is there, what they do and a few reasons for why, in my opinion, they are not doing it better.

 

The first point is that there is no lack of companies and individuals in Germany who set themselves up as some sort of Brand Consultant. I suppose that I belong to this motley bunch as well! If one starts with doing a Google search, on something like Markenberatung (Brand Consultancy), there are pages and pages of links. In addition, there are whole networking websites such as www.marketing-boerse.de or www.xing.com  where you can seek out and contact companies and experts in whatever field of marketing or branding you fancy.

 

Most of the companies that come top of the list in the Google search are what I would call “old-school brand management consultants”. Typical of these is www.brandmeyer-markenberatung.de (which you can look at in English) which is full of process and promise to pinpoint precisely what profit each element of your marketing mix will bring. The idea of “brand core analysis- or whatever else they may be called (Sic.)” is heavily pooh-poohed as being fanciful, flakey and having no connection with commercial reality.

 

In a similar vein, but dry and intellectual rather than aggressive and dismissive is www.taikn.de . This is a website that I don’t think you can read in English but be thankful. A little better are www.esch-brand.com “The Brand Consultants” who appear to be a husband-and-wife combo with more academic qualifications than you could shake a stick at. They offer all the usual fare of Mission, Visions, Positionings and Architecture and make big of their academic connections to the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. However, despite their intellectual posturing, the site is loaded with marketing clichés of the “Win-Win” or “Whole is more than the sum of its parts” type.

 

Another category of Brand Consultancies is P.R, advertising, market research or media agencies who obviously want to add a bit of added value and substance to their offering and thus add a bit of Brand Consultancy to their menu. For example, www.k-mb.de, Kamps Markenberatung or www.brandaide.de . 

 

The Planning or Strategy part of an advertising or communications agency may also set themselves up as an independent Brand Consultancy, taking on their own clients as well as those of the main agency. A good example is Publicis-Sasserath www.markenfreunde.de who offer consultancy to clients outside the Publicis stable via their own tools and methods, such as the MarkenWesen. The question here, though, must always be: how independent are they really? There are other Brand Consultancy Agencies, who appear to be independent but on closer inspection, they are part of one of the giant communications networks. One example is www.economia.de , which offers trend-watching, innovation and new product development in addition to brand consultancy but appears to be part of BBDO. Another is www.21twentyone.com who promise to “make your brand an everyday hero” but who seem to be something to do with Carat.

 

The final category is Brand Consultancies who position themselves more on the innovation and creativity side of the spectrum but who are independent of major communications networks. These seem to be rather few and far between, but I have managed to find a couple of examples. First up is Dr Krüger & Equity, www.equity.de who formed as the first Strategic Planning Agency in Germany in 1995. They position themselves as “Creativity based on Information”. Another example is Diffferent, www.diffferent.de who also offer a combination of creative spirit and analytical expertise. Diffferent take on strategy for brands and communication, innovation and product and brand development.

 

Getting back to my differing experiences with the International and the German workshops, I suppose I can sum it up by saying that the International camp centres more around a way of thinking where a number of avenues are pursued in parallel, where we have to move out of comfort zones and where we must have faith that things will fall into place. The German experience was far more about following a linear, deductive process (“when we have got the answer to this, we can move on to the question for that”) with far more of a feeling of (false?) security that everything would be approached “step by step”. Maybe it is my UK training and upbringing, but I found the UK/International approach preferable in that it seems to lead to a number of possibilities rather than a definitive solution to one problem. 

 

While it is easy to dismiss the German way of doing Workshops as rigid and German Brand Consultancies as being inferior to ours, it did get me thinking about the why and wherefore and what we can do about it, especially if we are working with clients who are from a predominantly German culture. I think it is true to say that Germans are very reliant on structures and definitions and dislike ambiguity. This does not make their way of thinking inferior to ours, only different. After all, they have some pretty strong brands, too! I was reminded of a recent personal battle I have had here with the Finanzamt (or Tax Office) about my status. While I have argued that I am a professional freelancer, they want me registered as a “trade”. While I initially was more concerned about the tax implications, it became a matter of professional pride about what I do. My mistake was to call myself a Werbeberater (Advertising Consultant) instead of an Unternehmungsberater (Management Consultant). Now, these were the only two job descriptions in the Finanzamt’sapproved list (compiled in 1974, I have found out) that came anywhere near to Strategic Planner. Once I tried to argue that I was a Management Consultant with specialization in Brands and Marketing and not someone who advises the local nail studio on how the layout of their flyer should be, the Finanzamt demanded that I produced evidence that I had appropriate qualifications, that is, a Business Studies degree. To cut a long story short, I only achieved my desired status after much argumentation from my husband, who happens to be a German lawyer!

 

This little story sort of illustrates the problem about the fixed circle of ideas: in Germany, you can only set yourself up as a Brand Consultant if you have the relevant qualification. Although I do not have a German degree in Business Studies, I know plenty of people who have and the sort of stuff you learn there is not the stuff of creative innovation. And if you have studied something else, maybe rather more “academic”, there is a sense of “selling out” if you go into commerce. There is a distinct feeling of distaste in mixing the academic and the commercial. If you should go into qualitative research after studying Psychology, for example, you only do this on the grounds that everything is taken very earnestly and seriously. You will stress your qualifications on your business card and website and write lots of learned books about the state of the German psyche: “pop psychology” will have no place in your offer.

 

I think that there are two main points to this Extrawurst: firstly, that there is a real need for good Brand Innovation Consultancies here and secondly, that maybe we should have a good think about how we can really make use of people’s creative and thinking skills in a way that doesn’t alarm them too much when we’re working with predominantly German clients.

----------

There are a lot more players in the Brand Consultancy market in Germany these days. I guess that, as Account Planning in German ad agencies reached its critical mass a lot later than in the UK, it took a while for the idea and principles of Brand Strategy to take root. I came to Germany in 1996 to develop a fledgling Planning Department at Saatchi & Saatchi. At that time, people looked to marketing people in organisations such as P&G as the brand experts, rather than anyone within an ad agency. 

Many of the agencies I mentioned in 2007, particularly those that were offshoots of a communications agency network have bitten the dust. But most of the “pure” brand consultancies are still going strong. And although these have relished the rise of performance marketing with theit own Customer Journey models and growth flywheels, I’m pleased to see more acceptance of “fluffier” ideas about the nature of brands, too. In other words, that creating and growing brands is as much art as science. 

There’s a lot more choice on the market, from one-(wo)man bands to sizeable agencies, from the academic and learned to the design-thinky and innovative. And it’s good to see plenty of formal and informal networks of brand strategists as well the sharing of useful stuff on LinkedIn and beyond. 

Will the brand consultancies all have been gobbled up by AI by the end of the decade? I’m inclined to think not. In the end, you can have all the synthetic respondents and data you want, thousands of AI-generated concepts, research summaries at the touch of a button - but none of this will replace human insight.

   

BREXILE: The Light at the end of the Chunnel

More reanimated scribblings from me on the subject of belonging (or not). I wrote this in June 2017, reflecting back 21 years to June 1996 and that football match.

Even June 2017 seems a distant world now - “Germany - under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel - is being hailed as leader of the free world.” Well, there’s not much hailing of that sort going on at the moment ...

-----

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE CHUNNEL

 

21 years ago, I sat down in a cellar in Mittelbuchen and wept. 

 

And then I got up and demanded a taxi to take me to the airport, to go home, back to England. This, of course, was absurd. I was plastered and was expected at 9 o’clock sharp in a Frankfurt West End office the next day. All I had were the clothes I stood up in and a large artwork board bearing a Magic-Markered cross of St George and pictures of Gascoigne, Shearer, Sheringham et al clipped out of the newspapers.

 

They were oblivious to my anguish, my German friends. Oblivious to my cries of how England had deserved to win, needed to win, for the good of the whole country. The tragic irony of it all. Beaten at Wembley – the hosts! It just wasn’t cricket. 30 years of hurt. Hurt to the bone, and what’s bred therein. It was like finding your new spouse cheating on your honeymoon.  

 

In March 1996, three months previously, I’d jumped the great ship Britannia as she sailed towards the island of Cool. My one-way ticket cut through the Heathrow fog like a landing light. Terminal 1 echoed with finality – no going back?

 

Who in their right mind would want to go there? We had Oasis, the Spice Girls, two World Wars and one Word Cup. They had bad haircuts and even worse music. I arrived at Frankfurt airport with the baggage of ignorant superiority and (relative) youthful arrogance. And a yuppie hangover.

 

Last night, 27^th June 2017, was the half-final of the Under 21s. England vs. Germany, and history seemed to be repeating itself, although none of the players on the pitch had even been born, that fateful night in Wembley. Maybe their mothers had wept, as I had, clutched their bumps, and dreamed of their little man growing up to be the saviour of English football, a young lion. Or maybe not.

 

Has nothing changed? Maybe not on the football pitch, but there’s a world beyond that. In that world, Germany seems to have achieved a feat even more remarkable than an English football team winning on penalties. Germany – under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel – is being hailed as the leader of the free world. This isn’t about economy, or defence but about values. Who can’t fail to be delighted seeing Angie’s scornful glances and wry smiles in the presence of Donald Trump? 

 

Meanwhile: Oh! England, my hamster heart.

 

The great ship Britannia sank unceremoniously amid illegal wars, lies, cheating, fraud, bad banks, dissent, phone hacking, unscrupulous journalists and I could go on but it’s just depressing. The country is a stirred-up wasps’ nest. Full of sound and fury and signifying I’m not sure what. People have forgotten how to be human.

 

Am I a patriot? I don’t really know. All I can say at the moment is that I love my country for what it was and what it could be, rather than what it is today.

 

So, what about the football? Did history repeat itself for me too? Well, this time, no. There were no tears on my part and no alcohol. Maybe the two were connected.

 

The only barriers between me and getting my German citizenship now are time and money. I’ve passed the tests, gathered all the documentation and all I need do now is make an appointment and hand over my Euros.

 

I read an article pertinent to my situation, the other day:

https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/countries-for-losers-countries-for-winners/

 

The idea is that there are countries that reward winners richly, but where the losers pay the price. Yes, guess which country is top, followed by – yup, got it! And this all works because many people naturally assume that they’ll win at some point.

 

Germany is on the other list of countries – those where voters graciously admit they are and will remain losers and where public transport, housing and schools are fit and decent for the majority of the population: the ‘losers.’

 

I do wonder if my wish to become German has something to do with my middle-aged but happy acceptance that I’m not one of life’s ultimate winners?

 

So, German citizenship, here I come. Watch this space.

 

But I would like to see those bastards once, just once, lose at football! 

-----

These days, I’m clutching both passports as I scurry back and forth across the Chunnel. 

And soon we’ll get a new government here. Let’s see.

Whatever happens, and politics aside, as far as I'm concerned, There’ll Always Be a Europe. 

I’m the bad guy

 

Last week, I was in a local school, doing an author visit. Over the years, I’ve developed this into a kind of show. You don’t want listen to me droning on, I say to the class, and instead recruit a few volunteers to act out scenes from the book. There are props - a ruby-encrusted cane, a “bomb” in a biscuit tin - and a few costume bits and pieces such as tiger ears. And, of course, the villain get-up of eye-patch and stick-on moustache. 

I get the feeling I have more volunteers for the mad dictator and his bodyguard, and the evil drummed-out-of-the-RAF ex-officer Featherstonehaugh than for the young heroes of the story. And maybe it’s no wonder, as - hand-on-heart - I have a lot more fun writing the bad guys. I’m sure that’s true for a lot of writers - just look at James Bond to Batman to Harry Potter.

This article for Contagious, by Tom Beckman of Weber Shandwick, references another article from Wired. Both note the trend to villainy in popular culture - very clear in the world of films (Wicked, Joker: Folie a Deux, Deadpool and Wolverine ...) and showing up on the fashion catwalk too. The author then moves to music and I’m afraid my attention started to wander at the mention of Charli XCX and “brat style.” I began to wonder whether Tom had been given some kind of trend-cliche bingo card at that point. Still, there does seem to be something in the air as far as being on the wrong side of the tracks goes ...

Brands are also having a go at showing their bad side. It must be a relief after all that po-faced, goodie-goodie stuff to do something like Nike did for the Paris Olympics - no it’s NOT about “taking part”!!!

And why not? Villains have more fun, as the school visit demonstrated. If your brand isn’t in some deadly serious, responsible category, maybe it’s more entertaining and memorable to try for world domination with a bit of tongue-in-cheek that holier-than-thou saving the planet.

And talking of that, here’s Javier Bardem (somehow inspired by Iggy Pop?) for Uber Eats. Is your brand good at being bad?

 

RETROWURST: Sports February 2007

 

Now, here’s something I’d all-but-forgotten-about. Eighteen years ago, hot on the heels of the 2006 Sommermärchen, Germany was whooping it up with handball fever...

________________________________________

Germany are World Champions! Since Sunday evening, the streets have been wild once again with red, gold and black, with scenes not observed since back in July last year. The media went wild, Angela Merkel and other politicians were falling over themselves with praise, the Public Viewing arenas were bursting at the seams and the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin was blocked with a victorious, hooting, celebratory car convoy.

 

In case you missed it, the World Handball Championship has been hosted by Germany in Köln over the past three weeks and the championship came to its climax on Sunday afternoon with the final, which the German team won against Poland 29:24. This is the third time that the Germans have won: 1978 was the last time. 12m viewers watched the match which is reported as being a record.

 

While some of the hype and hysteria that surrounds the win here undoubtedly comes from the tournament’s proximity time wise to the football World Cup last year, with the inevitable comparisons being made, the handball team and the game itself have a number of elements which naturally lifted a victory in a somewhat niche sport to more of a media extravaganza. There was the spirit, development and character of the team, a likeable and largely photogenic bunch who steadily improved their performance over the duration of the tournament. They had humility (unusual in Germany) with no arrogant assumption that they would win at the out start. There was a cliff-hanger semi-final against France, where the French team led most of the way. And then there was the drama of the final itself, with the goalkeeper retiring with an excruciating injury at a critical point.

 

The trainer, Heiner Brand, was also critical not only to the success of the team, but to the way the media and the public became infected with handball-fever, too. Herr Brand is an instantly recognizable figure with his trademark walrus moustache and is known as “the face of handball” – no wonder as he was also a player in the World Champion team of 1978. Herr Brand’s almost iconic status was celebrated by the team as they donned stick-on droopy moustaches and what looked like Burger King crowns to receive their medals and the trophy. Although the total effect may have looked like the Village People do Panto to UK eyes, the team paid homage to their trainer and further proved that the Germans do have a sense of humour in one fell swoop!

 

Overall, however, it is the nature of the sport handball itself that is perhaps the biggest factor in making this victory a particular subject of media jubilation. Handball is a typical Volkssport, a sport “of the people”, a sport in itself something of an underdog. In the short tournament which lasted all of 17 days, there was very little of the glitz, glamour or spectacle associated with football or the Olympics, just good, honest sweat, energy and deserved celebration at the end. And although the sport was something of a minority interest (not anymore, it seems!) it is a classic spectator sport; fast-moving and entertaining. Handball is a sport that comes from local clubs in little villages, and, in that respect, it is a most democratic sport that requires no special equipment or perfect weather conditions, simply a hall, two goals and a ball. There has been a definite move in Germany away from the glitzy, the glamorous and the global to honesty, authenticity and Heimat, qualities of which handball has perfect possession.

 

It is hoped that the handball triumph may be the impulse that German sport needs to regenerate itself. While the popular professional sports that attract big sponsors and pay TV are thriving, the “grass roots” side is looking around desperately for the next generation. Sport in Germany is centred mostly on sports clubs, rather than schools. In any one village, you’ll find an impressive number of sports clubs, offering anything from gymnastics to handball to hockey. Many of these clubs have been around for well over 100 years and proudly display their year of founding in their name or crest (no logos, please!). There are very strict laws in Germany about how much money clubs are allowed to make and most of the money raised via subscriptions or events is ploughed straight into equipment and trainer’s salaries. Children tend to follow their parents into clubs but with increasing mobility and more working women, membership amongst the younger generation is tailing off. 

 

Not just the clubs, but the sports shops and sports article industry will be looking to the handball triumph for an upturn in their fortunes. This branch is facing a rather grim year: there has been a VAT hike from 16% to 19% and there is no football World championship to generate sales. On top of that, the extraordinarily mild winter has meant that sales of ski and other winter sports clothing and equipment have fallen drastically. It is estimated, for example, that the ski manufacturers will only sell 3.8m to 4m pairs this season, some 10-15% less as last year.

 

But maybe there is a ray of hope: already, since last Sunday, handball tricots have been flooding the sports stores. If there is no snow on your ski holiday, perhaps you can at least get a few friends together and have a quick game of handball in the village hall.

________________________________________

... and, then? Well, 2014 happened with the football, but since then, there hasn't been that much cause for whooping. The biggest success of Euro 2024 was probably the pink away shirt. 

But I try to remain optimistic - I see plenty of evidence for sports enthusiasm on the local and regional level, despite a lot of doom and gloom hand-wringing. Sport sponsorship is a brilliant opportunity for local and regional brands to play a part in the local community and bring people together. Despite the obsession with putting people in boxes, I remind myself that love for a particular football team can override differences in political views.

On the global stage, I was talking with friends last week about how Germany could well use something like the Olympics to get the sport dynamo back up to speed. We’ve probably missed the boat on 2036, and I’m not convinced that the centenary of 2036 is a good look for Germany however it’s packaged. (There was a proposal for a joint hosting with Israel, but I really can’t see that one working out well, sadly). 

But how about 2040, which would be 50 years after the reunification? My idea would be an emphasis on the former East German cities outside Berlin - Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz. Could be a hat-trick for solving a few of Germany’s problems?