Do Mancunians and Scousers need separate airports?

Funniest quote I’ve read today is in the MEN from Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary:

“We know that Mancunians and Scousers don't like each other – so Mancunians will use Manchester and Scousers will use Liverpool airport where we also fly from.”

It might be because I’m not actually a Mancunian (born in Halifax, grew up in Solihull... yes, the ‘posh’ part of Birmingham) that I do not appreciate the friction between Manchester and Liverpool inhabitants. All I know is that my Dad supports Manchester United and my cousins support Liverpool, which results in many a banterful family gathering.

Anyway, the MEN was interviewing O’Leary about the news that Manchester airport has struck a multi-million with the low-cost airline (insert your own witty comment about ‘low-cost’ airlines being anything but). From April, Ryanair will be introducing flights to destinations such as Madrid, Alicante, Tenerife and Faro.

So all together now... *we’re all going on a summer holiday*....

If only I could convince the boy (aka Filmrant) to go on an aeroplane.

What’s in a name? Starbucks logo change stirs social media reaction

I haven't written a blog post for a while...*naughty me*... so here's one I wrote earlier this month for the Smith & Smith PR blog. It's not about Manchester, but it is about Starbucks. And there must be like a million Starbucks in Manchester, so it's totes relevant...Enjoy.

So, yet another company has changed its logo, creating a wave of online reactions. Starbucks has dropped its name from the emblem that adorns tens of thousands of spherical paper cups and kept the, um, the… ur… green Rapunzel princess with lobster claws as hands(??).

My Twitter feed has needed a triple espresso just to keep up with the reactions:

@monalis_solis clearly isn’t a fan of change, tweeting: “Oh no! How am I supposed to get used to this?”

While @LogoMotives is equally as perplexed as me as who or what the person in the picture is: “Starbucks logo always looked like woman holding legs in air to me.”

What’s in a name? Well @MikeBellTweets seems to think it’s everything, tweeting: “Starbucks logo has lost its identity.”

To some though, it appears it is a very weird and grotesque thing to have done. @autmurmis tweets: “Starbucks new logo makes me feel uncomfortable. Familiar yet distant. What’s wrong with them?”

Finally, @amylarrick probably thinks we should all grab a frappacino and chill out about it: “Not a huge change really I’m cool with it.”

I can’t help but remember the Gap logo fiasco(see Alex’s blog post “Online reputation – manage it, don’t damage it”). How long do we think it will be until Starbucks hosts an online poll to see whether or not they should change their logo again?