Lammo in Mourning – Well, it finally happened.. Plymouth Argyle were relegated from the Championship last week, and we’re going to be plying our trade against such giants as Rochdale, Yeovil and Bournemouth next season. Heck, we might even be playing Aldershot Town in a league fixture next season – This from a club that claimed to have ambitions of “Premier League football within 5 years” – You have to wonder if they meant the Blue Square Premier?

It’s been a long time coming to be honest, and if we’d stayed up this year, we’d only have struggled again next year, so it may be better to re-group, get some positivity back in the stadium (where we’ve only seen 11 wins in the last TWO YEARS), and mount a promotion/play-off campaign where we might actually have half a chance, and get the momentum going the right way for a change (and then crucially, build on that momentum rather than wait until we’re in decline again, and chuck money at bad/awful/indifferent players as we have done over the last 2 and a half years). I’ll be there cheering the team whatever happens next year – hopefully it won’t take us another 12 years to “bounce back”!

Note: Yes, I know the pic is of Exeter getting relegated in 2003, but it looks a much better picture than any Argyle one I could find, and a scene that I’m sure will be repeated at the end of the 2010/11 season (assuming they stay up this season of course!)

Spare some change guvnor? – So the Sunday Times Rich List 2010 was released yesterday, and shock horror! I wasn’t even listed – still I wasn’t listed in the obituraries column either, so it wasn’t all bad! Someone who was listed though was fellow Plymouth entreprenuer Chris Dawson, who I profiled on this blog last year. Chris has had a fantastic 12 months, increasing his net worth from £160m last year to £250m this year, meaning he’s got more cash to splash than TV Dragon Peter Jones, Elton John, Mick Jagger or Michael Douglas.

How did he achieve this? By making sensible decisions during a recession, buying bankrupt stock at rock bottom prices from the likes of MFI and Empire Direct, and selling it via the Internet where overheads are low. He has further plans to expand his “The Range” chain of stores across the UK during the next year, and you wouln’t bet against him breaking through the £300m barrier in the 2011 poll – well done Chris!

It’s not big and it’s not cleverat – As well as Plymouth Argyle, last week also saw the inevitable decline of my least-favourite network, as Cleverat finally brought in the liquidators and closed their doors for the final time.

One of the very first blog posts I made on Lammo was concerning the launch of this network, asking what was the point? During their brief time on the Affiliate Planet, they managed to win not just one, but TWO Muppet of the Week awards for their general incompetence and awful attitude.

I doubt many affiliates will be shedding a tear over the demise of this “network” – I know I won’t!

Now that’s what I call an affiliate event 74 – I must say a big thank you to Linkshare for putting on their Symposium UK affiliate event in London last week, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was very well organised and an excellent chance to network (I even got to chat with a former Apprentice winner – fanboy heaven!) and pick up tips from some great industry bods. Why was it great? Everything ran smoothly, the day weas really well paced, with never a dull moment, but without feeling rushed.

The venue was stunning, with views of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye basked in sunshine, the food was amazing – really top quality. The speakers, whilst covering familiar ground managed to captivate their audience with interesting tales and info. There were goodies galore in the trade-show style session, and even the evening event managed to avoid the all-too-familiar problems: the free bar wasn’t abused and so getting a single drink didn’t take 40 minutes, there was plentiful (very tasty!) nibbles on an almost constant supply, and on the few occasions that the DJ tried to pump up the volume, a quick word in his shell-like soon sorted that out!

So a huge thanks to everyone at Linkshare for a fasntastic day – I’m looking forward to the next one, although you’ve set the bar quite high now!

This week I have been mostly hating: Queen’s “We are the Champions” (here’s why)
This week I have been mostly loving: Spending some time as a tourist in London, rather than just rushing from meeting to meeting.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Down, Down. Deeper and Down.

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1. Big thanks to Existem AM
2. Green Army marching onwards (and maybe upwards)
3. Plymouth needs your vote!

Next making friends again – Oh dear, Next just can’t seem to get on with their affiliates can they? Not content with dropping commissions for Christmas, bidding on their competitiors brand names and kicking bloggers off the program for posting anything remotely negative, they’ve now kicked half their affiliates off as they’ve “run out of budget” – now I’ll never understand the marketing genius that decided their affiliate program (which after all only pays out on sales, so as long as you get the maths right at the start should make more profit the more it costs you..) should have a fixed budget as with newspaper/radio advertising.

But then with geniuses like that, and a prime minister who sold off the countries gold assets for a 1/4 of their value, raided old folks’ pension funds, and hiked up the national debt to record levels under the guise of a “prudent” chancellor, this country’s got not hope, and it’s no wonder we’re suffering through the longest recession in most of our lifetimes (we hope.. Gordon might actually be elected to do the job come June..)

Apologies for the political rant.. I had a pop at Nick Clegg last week too, so I guess in the interests of fairness I should have a go at Tory Dave next week

Affiliates 4 New – Yes, I know the new-look a4u launched earlier this month and I’m about 3 and a half weeks behind the times, but I was sunning myself on a beach in Tenerife at the time, and have only just caught up with the deluge of emails that taking a fortnight off entails – I could do with another holiday now! So having finally had a decent chance to look at the new improved a4u, I have to say it does look a vast improvement on the previous version – There are some teething issues that I’m sure the team will iron out (excluded forums, vanishing mark as read buttons and having to log in every time to name a few), but I no longer have to look at entire screen full of Murray Newlands blog posts all over the homepage, so that has to be a bonus.

I’m also loving the “Off the record” posts every Friday, and hope they will continue in the same vein they have so far!

Sorry! No discounts! – So Red Letter Days are launching a new system that will hide the voucher code box for non-voucher/discount code traffic. Well done them, and it’s always nice to see a merchant taking ideas put forward via this very blog and implementing them.. What next… Clash Media to start paying their affiliates?

Onwards and.. erm.. Downwards? – Many people have commented that I don’t talk too much about Plymouth Argyle on here these days. Well, a quick peek at the league table will tell you why that might be! We’re currently second-bottom, five points from safety with eight games to go. To be brutally honest, we deserve to go down, the football we’ve played over the last two seasons has been awful, and we’ve seen a skillful side of young, promising players sold off one-by-one and replaced with overpaid, hoofball-playing journeymen. Crowds have gone from 14/15,0000 to 8/9,000, and we looked to be down by about October, having taken just two points from our first 30.

Ironically, the man behind all this failure was Paul Sturrock, the very man who dragged us up kicking and screaming from the bottom league to the Championship. He wasn’t the man for the job this time, and since he was replaced just before Christmas by another living Home Park legend Paul Mariner, performances and results have improved. Unfortunately the board left it too late to make the change, and I don’t think there are enough games left to pick up the points required to survive. This weekend sees the return of the dishonest one to Home Park for the first time since his exit, and it’s sure to be an emotional day for all concerned. There could be some unpleasant scenes methinks if the result goes against us..

This week I have been mostly hating: Affiliates who think they’re celebrities
This week I have been mostly loving: The new Courteeners album, Falcon

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Next making friends again, and a (mini) political rant

Related posts:

1. Green Army marching onwards (and maybe upwards)
2. Plymouth Argyle Aviva Advert
3. Where are you Argyle? Let’s be having you!

Good to see Argyle finally getting the national recognition they deserve… Geddon you Janner!

The ad, for insurance company Avivia (formally known as Norwich Union) features Paul Whitehouse as a “typical” Plymouth Argyle fan driving up to Newcastle for an away game (of course he would have checked out Away Grounds first to find the best route, where to park, decent pubs etc), picking up his mates Big Dave, Boy (pronouced “bey”), Bird, and Janner along the way.

It’s a fantastic advert, and the “jannerisms” are pretty good too! I hear there’s meant to be a follow-up advert in the next week, so I’ll look forward to that one (as long as it’s not about the glum drive back from yet another Carling Cup first round exit…)

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Plymouth Argyle Aviva Advert

Related posts:

1. Where are you Argyle? Let’s be having you!
2. Plymouth needs your vote!
3. Argyle are a good bet!