OMG! It's leaves on the line and the 'O' from SNOT!

Yep, that was last autumn. The leaves, I mean, not the snot. Those wonderful leaves which cause so many problems to the railway system. Chop all the trees down is what I say. Every one. Nothing but trouble.

Anyway, that sensible suggestion aside, British Rail (the Southeastern bit of the network) tried a bit of clever, pre-emptive, anti-marketing when the threat of leaves hovered over their delicate lines back in October.

It was clever marketing, because it addresses a problem before it exists. And people are far more understanding if told about a possible issue before it happens. Really.

BR should try the same with their sandwiches and punctuality. BR regrets to announce that the 8.35 to Victoria may be late again next Monday for reasons not known yet - oh, and the sandwiches will be a week old by then. But don't worry, we're aware this. We're on the case. Have a nice day!

I am also vaguely surprised by the fact that Network Southeastern have some official counting every leaf that drops on our lines, all the way up to 50 million. The leaves I mean, not the officials doing the counting.

Anyway, this is kind of anti-marketing has a delicious term which I wish to share with you all - Defensive Pessimism! Yes, really. It's a very woke answer to marketing in a positive/negative and very acceptable way in our 21st century society.

Yes, this is the reverse alphabet of anti-marketing and we have reached the letter O (hence the OMG poster, which is a somewhat flimsy way into a difficult letter).

This is when we have a brief look at all things anti-marketing, which are remotely connected with the letter O.

Which naturally leads us to those fantastic OASIS drinks posters which regularly spring up all over the place. You know the ones I mean. They don't bother selling the drink, which is nicely refreshing in itself. Honesty and truth meets brazen cheek in one poster. There isn't a mention of how wonderful the drink is, just lots on the sales department needing to sell their wonderful drinks so they can hit their targets. Anti-marketing at its best, using 'light' shockvertising and parody in all its glossy forms. There are other anti-marketing OASIS posters, too - all along the same lines. Google OASIS and you'll see the full range.

And we couldn't get through all things 'O' without looking at something called OUTBOUND ADVERTISING. This is probably the most hated form of the beast, because it caters for everything surrounding intrusive marketing. This is where the anti-marketeer muscles her or his way into our lives with TV ads at the worst moments, cold calling, pop-ups when we're trying to do something quickly online and constant email spam. It's called outbound because it's a message pushed at us, whether we like it or not.

And finally, the letter O is a common addition to every marketing acronym you can think of (OK - not PESTLE). So, and I kid you not, have a look at this breathtaking acronym array. Sit back and enjoy.

SWOT, SOAR, NOISE, SCORE, DOE, SOPA and.... yes, SNOT (it really is an anti-marketing acronym). I'm not going to peddle through an explanation of all these absurdities, except to say that the O in most of them stands for OPPORTUNITIES, of course. If you want to know what they mean and have the time, energy, willpower and inclination, then go to the link below and buy at least three copies of this book immediately. It will not change your life but it will make you laugh out loud at the madness that marketing has become.

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/adrian-liley/the-anti-marketeers-handbook-directors-cut/paperback/product-166jzkq8.html?page=1&pageSize=4

And that's it for the letter O - I know I've just dipped my toe into the ocean of Os possible, but this is more than enough for this blog, I think.

Next stop, the letter N - and all things negative and non-pushy.

Happy Easter everyone and hope you all haven't gone crackers yet!