We would like you to meet our opinion former

Si Mason, a connector was chosen as our opinion former. Michael from New Balance described him as the perfect New Balance consumer.  We thought that a connector would be most appropriate for this task, as they will really get the brand 'out there' with their naturally social personality.

'You can't be gloomy in these bad boys can you!' Laughs Si

Si is a second year Architecture student at Nottingham Trent University. He is currently President of the Architecture society, spends over 50 hours in University every week and has a hectic social life, living with 13 other boys. He is a definite social butterfly, and seems to always be a mutual friend of whoever I come across...It will be interesting to see how he handles this task! We have even made him a New Balance diary to record all the info we need!

As you can see, Si's house are messy, but Mavern Tobi Cieslik keep (admittedly in a very strange manner) cut outs of trainer magazines, this helps spread awareness of brands and products within the house, and ultimately their group of friends too. 'Connectors spread ideas simply through the amount of people they know' (Gladwell, The Tipping Point)

Si's Room

The products shown in these pictures say a lot about Si. The brands in the picture below are well known, well stocked in the UK, but interestingly they are not the cheapest available to a student. This shows that he values brand quality and acceptability within his demographic. He only uses established brands that he can rely on to do what he needs them to do.

Si has the smallest room in the house so it is very unorganised! He is used to a cluttered environment, so for an advert to stand out to him it needs to be something really different.