True Business- real life for small businesses

This week marked the culmination of what is, in my opinion, one of the finest turnarounds in brand/marketing history. The O2 Arena, nestled in the elbow of the River Thames in Greenwich, has become the most successful live events venue in the world. With over two million people scheduled to walk through its doors this year, it eclipses some of the world’s other famous venues like Madison Square Gardens into a cocked hat.

Most remarkably, let’s not forget that this is the building we came to loathe when it was called the Dome. At the turn of the millennium, it demonstrated everything Britain did badly. A great piece of British engineering rightly admired around the globe, but filled with stuff designed by a committee which couldn’t decide whether it should be educational or entertaining. Nobody wants to go to a funfair with a message! Worse still, by the end of the first week, the press was full of pictures of exhibits which had already been pulled out of service. Post-it notes with “Out of Order” were already cropping up. The taxpayer picked up the bill for a dismal failure.

It took a Frenchman, the irrepressible P-Y Gerbeau, to start the turnaround (he is, I believe, now involved with the X-Scape entertainment arenas). Some American noses were sniffing around too- because they could smell a bargain. Here was a perfectly good entertainment space (if only it was used properly); with excellent shiny new transport links to central London; which had a terrible reputation and represented a political liability, and therefore would have a fire-sale price tag.

The eventual buyer was AEG (the US entertainment group, not the washing machine people…), and they’ve done what I think are some pretty clever things. Here are just a few.

• Make sure people forget “The Dome”. That needed a change of name; so they killed two birds with one stone by bagging a fat sponsor too. The “O2 Arena” was born.
• Provide world-beating facilities. The O2 isn’t just visually spectacular, it’s genuinely an enjoyable experience to go there. From ticketing to toilets, everything works properly.
• Surprise everyone. O2 highlights have included Prince’s almost passport-deserving residency last summer, the Spice Girls’ (er… triumphant) UK comeback, and of course the incredible Led Zeppelin one-off gig.
• Appeal to everyone. Large venues should find it fairly easy to cater to all markets. After all, Cliff Richard could be appearing one day, Slipknot the next. But the O2 is redefining the meaning of live events, and in so doing appealing to the broadest of audiences. Residencies like Prince jostle against all-night events (DJ Tiesto recently headlined, and New Years Eve at the O2 is a legendary club-fest). Whichever generation you represent, the O2 now delivers a consistent performance.
• Push the brand: The O2 now has a little sister, the IndigO2, which caters to a more arthouse audience, and has held cultural events like the Tutankhamun exhibition.
• But keep it simple: Unlike the dreaded Dome, AEG have kept things simple. It’s a venue. It has space. It uses that space to host events. Events will make or lose money according to how many people buy tickets, and how many T-shirts and programmes they buy. And that’s it.

So, there you go. It’s a shame we needed an American buyer to make it work. It’s a shame the public sector didn’t do a very good job of things with the Dome first time round. But the above points show it really is possible to turn round a national joke- a brand in big trouble- and not just recover, but recover to become a world-beater.