A+M

Be there or be square

2010-06-30T13:32:00.016+08:00

I take the bus to work, and I take it from USJ 6 in Subang Jaya to downtown Kuala Lumpur. Today was no different but my Rapid KL brand experience has seen better days that's for sure.

I left my apartment around 7:20am this morning with a 100% feeling of certainty that I'd get to work well before 9am, given that the bus usually comes at 15-minute intervals.

At 8 am, I was still waiting for Rapid KL's U63. It finally arrived about 20 minutes later after nearly an hour of me waiting at an increasingly crowded bus stop.

I don't own a car and taking a taxi isn't the best solution for my wallet - for those of you who live in Subang, you know how awful the jams are along the USJ 2 area can get (it can take up to an hour just to get from the Goodyear Court 1 stop past Summit Mall).

I can understand if the bus broke down on-route but no back-up for a whole 60-minutes? I reached the office at 9:45 am.

So, I've emailed my feedback to Rapid KL via its website. Let's see what happens next.

UPDATE FROM RAPIDKL IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS. NOT BAD AT ALL.
Thank you for your e-mail which we read with genuine concern. We understand that efficient service is essential in today’s fast paced world, especially for our valued customer like you. Thus, on behalf of RapidKL, we would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused.

The delays you mentioned was due to the shortage of buses and has affected the bus frequency tremendously. However, believe us that we are constantly upgrading and improving our scheduling, especially with the continuous increase in number of passengers.

RapidKL would also like to assure commuters that we will continuously work toward increasing the quality of service provided which includes increasing the size of RapidKL’s existing fleet of buses which would improve bus frequency and reduce waiting times and congestion on the bus.

Battle of the boots

2010-06-14T10:19:00.003+08:00

An interesting battle is emerging at the 2010 World Cup between Adidas and Nike - and it happens everytime a goal is scored.

Adidas are the official ball of the World Cup, a pretty prestigious tag to be. And one that guarantees repeated brand exposure through action replays and close-ups which invariably occur when a player scores a goal during the month long tournament.

There's just one problem - Nike are getting lots of exposure too.

In the first few days of matches so far I've noticed the Nike logo on the boots of the players scoring most of the goals. It's very clear during the slow-motion action replays.

In fact by my unofficial count so far - Nike have had five such golden moments.
1) Tshabalala's goal for host nation South Africa against Mexico.
2) Marquez levels the match for Mexico against South Africa.
3) South Korea finishes off Greece with a Park Ji Sung goal.
4) Clint Dempsey provides a double whammy as his scuffed shot from his Nike boot is somehow fumbled into the net by England goalkeeper Robert Green (double whammy in that there was so much criticism in the media about the flight pattern of the new Adidas ball)
5) Robert Koren scores for Slovenia - and another goalkeeper fumbles the ball.

While Adidas has only had the limelight to themselves on two occasions when Gerrard scored for England (Adidas sponsored player scores with Adidas ball) and this morning's humiliation of Australia by Germany (they scored four times in that game).

I didn't watch the Ghana v Serbia game so I can't comment on that and I've also not included headers (i.e Heinze's effort against Nigeria)in this unofficial rant.

Adidas are official sponsors of the tournament but in a Nielsen study conducted between 7 May to 6 June it was Nike's "Write the Future" campaign which resulted in Nike being linked to the tournament more than any of the official sponsors.

I suppose a slight negative for Nike so far has been England's draw with the USA where Wayne Rooney - the star of Nike's Write The Future campaign - couldn't lead England to a win.

P.S. I know this isn't a really scientific way of looking at things but when it comes to football boots - I reckon there's alot of us out there who buy the boots of our favourite players who score the goals.

I should feel better in a month

2010-06-10T13:54:00.005+08:00

If you listen closely you can almost here the sounds of the vuvuzela trumpets slowly building towards the start of the World Cup 2010 tomorrow night and marking a month of fake sick days and low office productivity.

That's according to recruitment and HR services specialists Randstad which said that employers in Malaysia need to consider the impact of the World Cup on their workforce and productivity levels when the nation catches football fever.

It warned that Malaysia's passion for the World Cup was likely to have an impact beyond tired faces at the office as employees are likely to watch replays on their computers in the office, have post match discussions, as well as participate in online forums – particularly as the final approaches.

"Some businesses, especially those which are tightly resourced and still trying to build up from the Global Financial Crisis, may find World Cup Fever to be irritating and a major distraction to achieving their goals," Sahun Nadarajah, General Manager and Director of Randstad Malaysia, said.

"However, instead of dampening people’s spirits and expressing your frustration, it’s actually an ideal time to embrace the spirit of the sport, have fun and build employee morale through celebration and a culture of teamwork."

Nadarajah's advice? Allow people to express their emotions and be passionate about this global sporting event because it can have a positive impact on the overall happiness and mental attitude of staff in the workplace.

"Themed marketing and business development activities can also be effective tools to generate sales and build stronger relationships with staff and customers," Nadarajah said.

"It’s actually a great time to celebrate diversity in the workplace, by encouraging people to get behind their favourite team. Employers should see this as an opportunity to build a sense of team spirit, boost the overall culture of the company and demonstrate to their workers they are a supportive employer inside and outside of the workplace."

With that... let the games begin. Go Oranje!

What's the big idea?

2010-06-01T14:18:00.005+08:00

You know World Cup fever has peaked when even your admin staff starts sending you links to football ads. On this particular occasion, the really interesting part played out in the commenting section - not in the ad.

You can view it here.

I think most football fans would agree the ad is amusing but there were a lot of negative comments about the idea not being original enough - "done, done, done" were some of the repeated comments left by users. Some went to as much detail as to name other campaigns by brands which were similar (i.e. Burger King).

The ad was made by an advertising school so its not good if their students are stealing ideas.

And just as I was starting to feel a little judgmental myself, a different comment caught my eye.

"So what if it's been done before? Everything has been done before. Does it fit the brand? Is it in context? Will consumers remember your message or that the message was sponsored by you? Those are what's important."

Slightly defensive but point made. We operate in an ideas business and the stealing of ideas (or magazine mastheads) is something we totally oppose but in terms of advertising, where do you draw the line between inspiration and copying?

If a marketer gets inspired by another person's work, adapts it and uses it in a way which creates effective results for their brand - should we judge the work based on the results or cast it aside as a copycat effort? It depends on the severity of the similarities between the work I suppose.

I've heard many brand marketers complain before about ad agencies who think they are in the business of creating art, not realising they are in the business of creating business for brands.

Maybe sometimes we are a little too quick to categorise new ads as copied.

Nike Writes The Future

2010-05-24T09:05:00.005+08:00

Following in the footsteps of past Nike football ads is the latest effort by the sportswear brand titled "Write The Future" which doesn't disappoint.

Nike went all out this time - the three minute spot is packed with football stars like Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, Franck Ribery, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fabio Cannavaro, while also including cameos from other famous faces like Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer.

The goal? To set the scene for the World Cup where many a player has, for better or for worse, etched his name in the history book.

"One touch, tackle or free kick could crush a nation's hopes or cause them to build a statue in your honour. Drogba, Rooney and Ronaldo are ready to Write The Future," says Nike.

I wont spoil it if you haven't already seen it (it aired during last weekend's Champions League Final) but the best bits for me are the scenes with Rooney - although Cannavaro's (he's the Italian defender who clears Drogba's chipped shot off the line) future is pretty hilarious.

Enjoy.

The only negative thing I can think of is: Why does Rooney end up becoming a bankrupt trailer park slob? Did he have shares in the stock market (see 1:03 in the clip).

As if Rooney didn't need another reminder that the hopes of an entire nation are resting on him! No pressure! Write The Future or the media will do it for you.

Volvo's PR accident

2010-05-12T16:01:00.004+08:00

A Volvo demonstration in Sweden of its new collision warning system fell to pieces last week, literally, when its S60 model smashed into a parked truck.

Luckily for us, Wired.co.uk was there to document the PR nightmare and you can watch the video here.

To the reporter's credit - it was mentioned in the story that the collision warning system had been working fine earlier in the day. But it's still pretty amusing to watch the brand new Volvo S60 fly through the testing tunnel at 30MPH and smash into the back of the truck - in front of a group of journalists.

A nightmare scenario for any brand. Reminds me of the time when a BBC reporter broke a phone that was being marketed as "unbreakable" during filming. Clip below.

Singapore's World Cup draw

2010-05-11T13:33:00.006+08:00

I think most Malaysians would have felt a perverse sense of amusement at watching the "car crash" that was Singapore's recent bid for the FIFA World Cup 2010 broadcast rights.

Then, from a marketing point of view, it started to get really interesting last Friday when finally, with less than a month to go before kick-off, SingTel and StarHub secured the non-exclusively broadcast rights.

Time to sell the sponsorships. There isn't much time for all parties involved to recoup the fees but the World Cup is such a huge draw and marquee event that any brand would want to attach themselves to it.

I met up with a friend who works in Singapore's sports marketing industry over the weekend - he thought Tiger Beer and Singapore Pools would be at least two definite sponsors.

My colleagues in Singapore beat me to the punch on that one with a story today confirming that talks with Singapore Pools were indeed ongoing - but the tone of the story reflected a belief that the Singtel-StarHub World Cup deal had come a little too late.

Perhaps this unique situation leaves the door open only for Tiger Beer to emerge as the main sponsor - APB declined to comment when approached by Marketing mag Singapore.

And since we're on the topic of the World Cup - here's something we can all enjoy.

For the upcoming tournament in South Africa, the World Cup trophy will have its own Louis Vuitton carry-case.

"When you have the most beautiful girl in the world you hope she will wear the most beautiful dress," Jerome Valcke, secretary general of FIFA, explained. "That's exactly what we've done."

Web Wednesday refresh

2010-05-06T11:46:00.004+08:00

Last night's Web Wednesday, although there was still plenty of drinking and networking going on, seemed a bit duller than usual. Is now the right time for the MDA to freshen up this monthly industry night?

I am pretty sure the numbers last night were the lowest for Web Wednesday so far this year - was it because there was no drink's sponsor this time? Maybe. But Khairul Syahar from Malaysia Airlines and Ian McKee from Vocanic were scheduled to speak which should have made the event, on paper, more attractive or maybe it didn't - how many of us want to sit and listen to another hard sell?

In the end, I didn't see any presentations being done last night but to be fair I am actually open to the idea of having client marketers on stage at Web Wednesday talking about what digital marketing means to their brands. And then get a conversation going with the audience.

They would have to do it early on in the night though, judging from past disasters, the later you leave it the less chance it gets noticed.

Over to you guys.

Life after tobacco advertising

2010-04-19T11:10:00.006+08:00

Over the weekend I spotted an interesting post from 'enter the sponsorship dragon' (Ben Flint) which broke down what the repercussions for Indonesia's sponsorship industry are should its Govt go through with a plan to ban tobacco advertising.

It's a topic A+M Bootleg has touched on before here shortly after Malaysia launched its latest anti-smoking effort.

Flint said the ban on tobacco advertising will include sponsorship and accounts for a whopping 62% of sponsorship in Indonesia.

Just some of the sponsorship money that will need replacing includes Djarum's USD4.75 million annual sponsorship of the Indonesian League, Sampoerna's USD5 million of the Indonesian Basketball League, and Djarum's USD250K for the Badminton Open.

Hopefully, the respective leagues mentioned will get the support from non-tobacco brands to keep it commercially successfully - nobody wants to see the Govt take over and run it into the ground (i.e. What happened with our Malaysian Football League after the cigarette money disappeared).

To end, I'd like to link to another industry blog which I sometimes so happen to come across. Saatchi's Andy Greenaway recently created this comic strip to poke fun at the way politicians show their concern about our health regarding cigarettes.

Over to you guys.

Samsung awesomeness

2010-04-15T15:18:00.004+08:00

The market has been flooded with 3D products of late and while I have yet to be convinced about the idea of wearing special 3D glasses at home, this ad for the Samsung 3D TV is beyond funny - it's brilliant.

I just can't imagine inviting my friends around to watch football and having to buy 3D glasses for everyone.

The Tiger comeback

2010-04-09T12:17:00.005+08:00

A vulnerable looking Tiger Woods faces the camera as questions are posed to him by the voice of his dead father. That’s the new Nike ad by Wieden+Kennedy which aired recently to mark his comeback to golf at the Masters 2010.

Day 1 of golf’s Masters this year at Augusta National is over. Tiger Woods played like he never left. He opened with a 4-under 68 – his best first round ever at Augusta National – and only two shots behind leader Fred Couples.

He must have been nervous out there. There was an incredible amount of observers waiting to see how he would respond this week – in our region ESPN STAR Sportshad more visible Masters lineup this year.

ESPN STAR started with coverage of the Par 3 contest on Thursday and was building towards the opening tee-off by Woods. An email from their PR department reminded me not to miss the exclusive coverage of Tiger Woods’ first tee shot at the Masters 2010.

"Time: 1.38AM – 1.45AM."

Inside… Woods must be feeling ecstatic. By most accounts, the support he received on his first day back at work was very positive. Fans stood along the first fairway, some a half-hour before he arrived, to wait for him to tee-off his golf career after five months of what must have been hell for him. Among those in the gallery watching was Nike chairman Phil Knight.

Nike was one of the sponsors who continued to back Woods at the height of his sex scandal. This advertising spot is a reward for the support. Yes, the ad is a little self-serving but it’s also brilliant. Those who have followed Tiger Woods’ career, even casual followers, will know he’s had a strong relationship with his father (Earl Woods).

Only Earl (whose had his own marital problems in the past) could ask those questions to Tiger - "did you learn anything?"

Tiger never speaks during the commercial. This morning, he let his golf do some of the talking – and perhaps a bit of mending as well.

The long haul

2010-04-01T13:49:00.010+08:00

An advertising agency actually advertising. No, it's not an April Fool's Day joke - I know of at least one agency running an ad in next week's The Edge.

Fresh from helping four clients or brands win awards at the recently concluded Putra Brand Awards, Lowe will run a self-promoting / thank you ad in The Edge.

I expect to see more agencies doing the same.

Not a big deal. But according to Lowe MD, Khairudin Rahim the wins for his clients that night at the Putra Awards (which tracks consumer preference) show why it is important for brands to build longer term relationships with their ad agencies.

In case you were wondering, yes i've purposely skipped the debate on whether advertising actually builds brands - lets save that for another time.

"It is a fact that there is a high correlation of strong brand equity and market leadership being built, once an enlightened advertiser and its agency mutually commits to remain with each other for the long term. We are fortunate that Unilever (49 years), Sara Lee (15 years), Johnson & Johnson (16 years) and Cerebos (4 years) think so too," Rahim said.

"Many Asian or local Advertisers don’t share this opinion," he said.

SIA always comes to my mind as one account which went long term with Batey - perhaps too long term though for both parties.

Over to you guys.

Earth Hour II

2010-03-25T14:11:00.004+08:00

Earth Hour is back again after last year's effort saw 1 billion people across 4,100 cities in 88 countries participate but will Malaysia make a better go at it than last year?

I only ask because when I did a quick search of Malaysian blog posts on Earth Hour in April 2009, a few bloggers raised some valid points to support their argument that Earth Hour Malaysia had flaws.

The biggest one being that the point of Earth Hour might have been missed by brands and corporations who probably saw it as a night to celebrate their 'green' credentials with Malaysians instead of making a commitment towards sustainable practices.

Case in point, one blogger's complaint about an Earth Hour event at CapSquare last year where tubs of coal soaked in kerosene and fire-eating performances was hardly being mindful of CO2 emissions.

This year Earth Hour has continued to receive support from brands in Malaysia. Even conservation group Green Kampong signed up to support a regional CSR initiative from online ad network Admax.

And YTL Corporation said close to 30 iconic landmarks and establishments across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand will go dark for one-hour.

The company said the move was in line with its "long-time commitment to environmental protection, which over the last decade has seen the Group make sustainable development and energy efficiency a core part of its business strategy particularly in its construction, utilities, property and infrastructure businesses."

If you've ever met YTL's Ruth Yeoh, you'll know she's pretty active in the area of conservation and climate change. Here's what she said:

"Climate Change is a very real phenomenon and as sea levels rise and our climate grow more erratic, each and every individual on our planet will no doubt feel its impact."

"In its message of hope and action, Earth Hour underlines the very simple fact that every individual should take responsibility for the impact they create on our precious environment. Earth Hour sets an excellent example of how simple it is for every individual to contribute towards saving our planet."

Earth Hour Malaysia also has an impressive online presence this year although do we consider having 16,000 Facebook fans a powerful figure for this campaign?

Not sure.

So there you have it. You can enjoy a drink on the rooftop garden of Lot 10 this Earth Hour and feel like you've made a difference - just remember to turn off the lights before you leave home.

Paint My Ride

2010-03-17T10:39:00.003+08:00

If you haven't already heard, there's a competition to design the most creative outer skin for a Lamborghini Gallardo with the proceeds going to The Narine Poverty Reduction Program (Naporee).

It's called "Paint My Ride" and is a local design challenge to innovate a paint scheme for the Gallardo, and it's calling out to the creative industry to enter.

"We have managed to garner strong support from the 4A’s and alongside this, we hope the advertising industry’s best minds can come together to support Paint My Ride and make it a success," Dr. Rodwin Bahadur, Organising Chairman for Paint My Ride, said.

Lamborghini, Microsoft, Lenovo, Canon, Red Bull, One Utama, and Pavilion, are among the partners involved in the project.

You can click here for more details or have a read below.

The Competition
The competition is open to all interested individuals; with categories for students or professionals. The competition ends 31 March 2010, upon which time the international panel of judges, put together by the 4As, begin their judging.

The public will be encouraged to support the charity effort by purchasing on the spot photos with the winning entries – an effort supported by Canon Marketing Malaysia.

How to Join?
Applications can be submitted via fax or email; instructions will be posted on the website www.paintmyride.org when the competition begins. The application fees are RM 150 for the students’ category and RM 350 for the open category.

The cause
Proceeds garnered from various activities carried out during and post competition will be allocated to micro-projects for Naporee.

This program aims to develop skills in the underprivileged for life-long opportunities for generating income and sustainability: enabling and equipping them to deploy the best effect their talent, knowledge, resourcefulness and creativity that will enable them to improve their life chances.

The prizes
1st Prize RM5,000 worth of cash
2nd Prize RM3,000 worth of cash
3rd Prize RM1,000 worth of cash

In addition to that, the three winners will also get an opportunity to drive the Lamborghini LP560 at the Sepang International Circuit, and showcase their winning design on the actual Lamborghini which will be displayed in two major shopping malls and online

Student winners will also be offered internships at an accredited advertising agency for four to six weeks.

4th and 5th Winning Entries get RM 500 cash each and the opportunity to be driven around the Sepang International Circuit in a GT race car by a professional driver.

What's in a name?

2010-03-05T09:40:00.005+08:00

The sixth and seventh stages of the Le Tour De Langkawi Malaysia 2010 makes its way through the city centre this weekend - why's it still called Le Tour De Langkawi when the islands never feature in this year's race?

I live in KL and so when I heard that several roads in the city will be closed this weekend because of the Le Tour De Langkawi Malaysia 2010, naturally I went to the official website to find out this year's race route so I know which roads will be affected.

To my bemusement I saw outlined on a map of the race route (below) that Langkawi (circled in red by me) doesn't seem to be part of the race at all. What gives?

It's not like the race is an uninteresting proposition - sponsors this year include brands like Milo and Gatorade while Astro is the official host broadcaster. Resorts World Genting, Proton, and TM are also event partners.

I suppose the organisers wanted to continue to tap on the Le Tour De Langkawi Malaysia brand name to attract sponsors and participants but it still seems strange to me.

Yours or mine?

2010-03-03T11:11:00.005+08:00

Is it ethical for a company to keep active the email address of ex-senior staff months after the person has left?

The question might seem a bit odd. But so far with nearly a year under my belt in Malaysia I know of a few incidents where this has happened with the companies in question using former employees' email accounts to chase business leads.

"I have a problem with my ex-employer who refused to disable my old email address and also did not want to include an auto reply to say I am no longer with the company," a source told me.

"The problem arises when some agencies mistakenly sent proposal requests and bookings to my old email address because Microsoft outlook system recommends the last email address used in the 'To' column. My ex-employer used these email leads to talk to the agencies which I think is unethical," he says.

In this instance the source told me he had written to his ex-company on several occasions for them to activate an auto-reply message telling people he is no longer with the company. Because he still works in the same industry (and is chasing the same clients) as his former company, he declined to be named.

What I can say is he left the company in late 2009 and only this week his email account has been deactivated.

"They told me it [his e-mail account] was company property and they will decide when the time is right to disable it," he says.

A lawyer friend of mine unsurprisingly told me the email accounts are indeed company property despite the huge amounts of personal and confidential information they can contain.

The only question mark is whether it should be considered diligent work on the part of companies who keep old email addresses active (with no auto-reply message) and follow-up business on any potential leads or whether it's unethical to do so.

Over to you guys.

F1 stalls at Sepang

2010-02-23T12:53:00.007+08:00

A friend of mine is a huge F1 fan. Having been to most of the F1 races in Sepang over the years, he isn't convinced organisers here are doing enough to keep the event attractive in the face of Singapore's spectacular start.

"Just collecting your ticket in Singapore is an experience," he told me.

"People pay a lot of money for their tickets. Here you get paper, in Singapore you have high quality plastic cards with lanyards in a cool box that one would like to keep sealed," he said.

His disappointment in the way the last few F1 races at Sepang have been organised is a far cry from how he felt just four years ago when there were F1 parties aplenty, free food in KL's clubs, fireworks, and F1 wherever you looked.

"It was the Mega event. Now, it seems that the thunder has been silenced in recent years," he said.

Just last year he told me he had to wade through knee deep mud at the Malaysian Grand Prix to catch the entertainment headlined by an artist who hasn't been popular since Y2K.

"Virtual insanity", indeed. (That's the title of his hit song in 1996 in case you forgot).

This year my friend isn't optimistic about Sepang and it's not because Beyonce isn't part of the show.

Having booked his ticket online already, a confirmation mail read: "All advance booking will be closed by 28th March 2010. Ticket collection at SIC Ticket Counter at the Circuit or in KL Sentral by 2nd April 2010."

However, what the mail failed to say is that the tickets are only available mid-March which he found out after a trip out yesterday to collect the tickets.

He now has to go back again. Such a simple thing, yet not considered.

"The poor sales girl told me that many people complain about having to come here, and not being able to collect the ticket," he said.

"The only reason I am going has nothing to do with Sepang’s F1 promotion. Schumi is back. That’s it," he said.

He's also puzzled by this year's tie-in with a shoe festival to sell F1 tickets.

Needless to say, my friend is now contemplating spending 25 times more to watch the F1 in Singapore instead of KL.

Let the games begin

2010-02-18T09:36:00.005+08:00

Around 41,000 people turned up at Singapore's first ever Casino when it opened during the first three days of the Lunar New Year.

I checked out the action on Tuesday night, and you couldn't get a look in at any of the tables without waiting at least a half hour. Although, a large section of the main area was shut when I was there.

In an interview with Channel News Asia, Resorts World Sentosa said they expected the crowds to dip from Wednesday onwards as more people start to head back to work. After Wednesday it will be interesting to see if any newspapers / media outlets decide to take the moral (sensational?) route and go hard against the evil the Casino supposedly brings to society.

A search of 'Resorts World Sentosa Casino money' on Google already turns up interesting results. The top result is a story from Channel News Asia about an Indonesian man who lost all the money he brought with him to Singapore and was caught trying to rob someone at Changi Airport.

It's been picked up by Yahoo and a few other news outlets as well.

Of course, some of the papers might write a story about all the jobs the Casino created (there were a lot of first time croupiers on the floor when I was there) and the tourism dollars it will bring (there were a lot of people from China when I was there) but who wants to read about that!

For the record, I had to pay the S$100 levy to get in (damm the timing of my Singapore PR status) which I failed miserably trying to win back at Baccarat.

Superbowl creativity

2010-02-08T14:34:00.005+08:00

The New Orleans Saints have beat the Indianapolis Colts to clinch a truly historic Superbowl win for the city which went through so much heartache just five years ago. Which marketers managed to rise to the occasion?

This year there was plenty of slapstick humour coming from the likes of Doritos and while the E*trade spots were still amusing -- talking babies are getting old! Also, the GoDaddy.com stuff was pretty tame this year.

While the Denny's spots are just funny, the Megan Fox (in a bathtub) ad for Motorola is also worth a mention.

As always you have to remember these ads are mainly for the American football crowd so leave your feminist hat at the door.

You can watch all the ads here.

Here are my favourite five.

Google "Parisian Love"

Snickers

Doritos slap

FloTV "Jim Nantz"

Audi

The Social Media Guru

2010-02-04T14:58:00.005+08:00

Any client, agency, or person involved in digital marketing will cringe when they meet someone who has just introduced himself as "the social media guru."

And it's not because you expect to learn nothing new or practical from this "guru". The cringe-worthiness instead comes from someplace else. A place brilliantly illustrated by this YouTube video below.

WARNING - There's foul language in the video so you get offended easily don't click play. Otherwise...

User generated creativity

2010-01-25T13:49:00.004+08:00

Two weeks ago, Hewlett-Packard and Cartoon Network announced the winners of its inaugural Toon Creator Awards – I finally managed to find the clip of the winning entry.

The judges evaluated over 31,000 individual and school contest entries from budding young animators spanning the Asia Pacific region. Mohammad Aidy Adham (aged 9) was named as its Individual Country Winner for Malaysia, which received a total of 2321 entries, as well as this year’s Asia Pacific Grand Prize Winner.

You can watch the clip here.

I am not the biggest fan of UGC contest mainly because there has been an overkill of brands running such competitions in the last two years. But I thought this idea of letting kids get creative with popular brands like Ben10 was pretty neat.

Plus, he gets an HP TouchSmart PC and a Cartoon Network Digital Pack with Ben 10 branded goodies including an MP3 player, a pre-loaded MP4 player, a digital camera, a USB flash drive and an MP3 speaker for his troubles.

He also won an HP Digital Makeover consisting of more HP products "designed to nurture his creative abilities".

The sheer number of entries from Malaysia (2321) must be very pleasing for the two brands as well. A pretty good alliance marketing campaign all around although at nine years of age, I don't expect the winner to stay loyal to HP at all after this.

"As the number one kids’ channel in Asia Pacific, we strive to animate kids' lives across all platforms. We hope this regional initiative will continue to serve as a community platform to promote self-expression and imagination in a fun and exciting way, encouraging young talent to showcase their creativity through technology," Benjamin Grubbs, regional director for Turner Entertainment Interactive Media said.

Lessons from Steve Jobs

2010-01-20T11:25:00.007+08:00

Sometimes you look at YouTube and think what a waste of time but then every once in a while you stumble upon a video or someone sends you a link to a video which is just pure inspiration.

It's easy to forget how awesome YouTube is. I regularly check out the Six Pixels of Separation blog to catch up on what Mitch Joel is doing. I met Mitch two years ago at a blogging event in Singapore where he gave a fantastic presentation on digital marketing and new media.

Anyways, it was on his blog where i stumbled upon this video of Steve Jobs delivering a powerful speech to a bunch of students at Stanford back in 2005. I'll let the video speak for itself but it's a great lesson in business and in life from someone who knows what he's talking about.

And the hits keep coming

2010-01-13T11:17:00.003+08:00

As much as we would like to think there is a full-proof way to create the next internet sensation or YouTube hit - it's just not true.

Meet YouTube's latest star attraction with nearly 600,000 views and over 2600 comments in less than a week. Is it a marketing gimmick? Is it some cleverly shot piece of work done by a YouTube user?

Nope.

It's footage from an Irish news bulletin showing a man slipping and falling on an icy pavement.

I found the clip hilarious but not as funny as seeing BBC technology reporter Dan Simmons break a mobile phone marketed as "unbreakable" during a LIVE demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Now that's a marketing disaster - although the CEO handled it pretty well. You can watch the clip here.

And since we're on the topic of disasters. I can't help but have a slight dig at Liverpool director (or should I say ex-director now)Tom Hicks Jr who committed the cardinal sin in CRM by telling the customer exactly how he felt and putting it in writing.

Responding to an email enquiry about the state of Liverpool's finances, Hicks Jr wrote back to the supporter (who is a member of the club's supporters' union) telling him to "Blow me f*ck face. I'm sick of you."

Guess he wont be too sick of Liverpool fans anymore now that he's no longer at the club.

Firebombed churches burn tourism

2010-01-10T16:58:00.013+08:00

On Friday morning, a colleague turned to me and said: "So is your church alright?" Puzzled, I responded by nodding my head slowly but at that point little did I know by Monday Malaysians would be reading reports on how seven churches were attacked.

At first, I thought my colleague was trying to associate what happened with Calvary Church with my own church but he was not.

We all know the story now so lets not get into the politics of that again. I just wanted to bring up a point made by the Tourism Ministry which feels that these disgusting episodes might deter foreign tourists from visiting Malaysia.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen was quoted as saying the religious tension could cause fear among foreign tourists wanting to visit Malaysia.

She said the church attacks were sending the wrong message to foreign tourists when Malaysia was always touted as a harmonious country despite its multi-racial and multi-religious society.

On your left, an article from the reputable TIME which unfortunately for Tourism Malaysia does not paint the nation as being very religiously tolerant.

Maybe it is time our industry stepped in and offered up some advice. Would launching an advertising / public relations campaign help or worsen things? What would need to be done?

I went to church on Sunday and there was a full attendance for all three services -- no one seemed panicked or worried the church might suddenly erupt in flames from another attempted fire bomb.

Domestically at least, there isn't a lot of fear but it's not us the tourism ministry is worried about.

Guess who's back

2010-01-04T11:48:00.005+08:00

First day back from our break and going through a 1000 emails and alerts is never fun – but at least it gives A+M the chance to recap some of the unusual and interesting news bites from the last two weeks.

Making headlines over the last few days was the High Court’s decision to allow Catholic weekly, Herald to use the word “Allah” in its publication. Today, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak called for calm over the ruling.

The Star said the PM and the government was “quite aware about the feelings of Muslims in the country and would deal with the matter as soon as possible.”

Those opposing the High Court’s decision to allow Herald to use the word “Allah” believe it could lead to confusion among Muslims – and the word could be exploited.

On a lighter note, the Daily Telegraph reported the story of how a Malaysian teenager’s name and an Icelandic TVC had turned her into a Facebook sensation in Iceland.

Why all the fuss?

The 19-year-old girl from Port Klang is named Essasa Sue which sounds very similar to “Essassu” (Icelandic) or “Is that you?” (English) and was the catchphrase used in a popular Vodafone commercial.

Also, if you've seen our report on the Malaysian backed Lotus F1 Racing there was less positive news on the team from The Malaysian Insider. The Petronas move to sponsor the Mercedes Formula One team next season is seen as a blow to govt supported Lotus F1 racing team - it could also have political consequences for its chief executive.

"While Petronas's decision may have been the right one commercially — Mercedes's superior brand name and its experience in F1 racing — it could have political consequences for Tan Sri Hassan Merican, the oil firm's chief executive whose contract expires in February.

Tan Sri Hassan does not have a great relationship with Datuk Seri Najib, his immediate boss, especially after the oil firm's board rejected the premier's request to appoint one of his candidates to the board."

It certainly was a big decision for the state's oil and gas company to make. It cost RM1 billion a year to sponsor a Formula One team, luckily for retail giant Parkson it will cost them considerably less to go ahead with its sponsorship marketing idea.

Parkson has inked a one year deal with the winners of the Ford Supermodel of the World Malaysia 2009 competition to be brand ambassadors.

Ok, so that's the quick recap done. A+M year two can officially get going now.

The short goodbye

2009-12-17T14:08:00.006+08:00

We shut our Malaysia office today for the Christmas break. We’re back at work on the 4 January 2010 to start a new year with more breaking news and industry issues mixed and packaged together in true A+M style, and delivered to you in a (cross my heart) timely fashion.

It’s been a challenging year for everyone in business – media wasn’t spared. But as a young new brand which is still finding its footing but nimble enough to roll with the punches, we have a lot to look forward to next year.

Next year on the magazine front you will see a combined December / January issue to start 2010. It will hit desks in mid-January complete with new columnists and more content as well.

After that its back to the monthly format while A+M Daily returns on 4 January 2010.

2010 means we’re one year older but it also means we’ve got one year of local knowledge under our belt.

In the past year we’ve experimented with live blogging of news on marketing-interactive.com and our Twitter (MarketingEds) account is still going strong. Expect to see more video from us and more.

If you’ve been reading magazines like Wired and Esquire you would have noticed the emergence of ads in augmented reality code – our very own October edition featured a nifty coded ad done by Arachnid to thank clients for voting it Digital Agency of the Year.

Cool stuff.

Speaking of cool stuff, today also marks the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons. Amazing. Its glory days may be long past but 20 years running on TV is a long time in anyone’s book.

So, on that note I’d like to wish you all happy holidays and look forward to meeting and writing about you for many years to come (D’oh!).

Cheers!

On the road

2009-12-10T15:51:00.003+08:00

Please forgive us if we haven’t been answering the phones today or have been responding to email slowly – Advertising + Marketing is on the road (bus) to Singapore to make it in time to celebrate our company’s Christmas party tomorrow.

L-R: Pamela, Anita, and Excell

Not to fret, there will still be A+M Daily arriving in your inbox today and tomorrow. For me personally, I am just glad to get out of KL this weekend. It’s been a hellish 24 hours for me personally. I arrived home late last night after Web Wednesday’s networking (drinking) session to find Tenaga Nasional had cut off the power to my apartment.

Eh? Sudah Potong?#@! Why!?

So after spending the next hour arguing and shouting at any staff I could find working in my building (who were of no help), I then went defeated back to my place to take the coldest shower of my life (which I repeated again this morning).

Thanks Tenaga Nasional for cutting off my power without any warning. Yes, I did get your warning slip dated one week ago – thanks for giving me so much warning time by slipping it under my door the same day you kicked me off the grid.

Classy.

Powered up! Happier times on the bus

Politicians join the party

2009-12-09T13:49:00.003+08:00

Sarawak’s Housing and Urban Development Minister recently said Facebook had now become an important mechanism for him to receive feedback from the people – and in doing so joins the growing list of politicians on social media.

Already we’ve seen Malaysia’s most prominent politician, Dr Mahathir Mohamad try his hand at blogging which on the surface looks like he’s doing a good job of. My Bahasa is way too rusty to actually judge the content for myself but his last five posts averaged over 227 comments which is significant – it’s not easy to a) Keep a blog going and b) Convert readers from lurker mode into commenting mode.

Reportedly, when his blog first launched it got 1 million hits in just 30 days. What was the motive behind the move online? Well, according to a documentary I watched on cable TV last month it was driven by his desire to be heard again because mainstream media was now apparently ignoring him post retirement.

Dr M is also on Facebook but somehow his blog seems more like a window in to his thoughts than his Facebook account which feels more like a PR machine.

The minister on Facebook intends to use his Facebook account to ultimately improve his service to the community but a politician’s blog never quite feels like it was set up to do that.

Yesterday, I was a moderator of a session at the Marketing Chapter event organised by AdExcel which talked about social media and the outlook for advertising in 2010. It was here the topic of blogger transparency came up again. And it was clear from the panel that although they might all like bloggers to become more accountable, audiences in Malaysia didn’t (as long as the post was entertaining) seem to mind as much currently as compared to the West.

It was in the second session where Aegis’ David Ho said one day bloggers in Malaysia would “turn away” because blogs would no longer be neutral.

Over to you guys.

15 ways to engage with youth

2009-12-01T13:03:00.005+08:00

CSR and mission statements aside, its a rare sight to see an organisation develop a project which actually works in encouraging young people to express what they are passionate about in an entertaining way.

15Malaysia is one of them. This short film project ended with Joshua Chay, UCSI University’s Film and Television student from the School of Mass Communications bag first prize beating 27 others.

Joshua’s video was titled Mama Leong (who is the elderly woman who talks about her life during the time when the Japanese ruled Malaysia in the video).

The clip is well shot and the scene at Jalan Pudu - Bukit Bintang is compelling not least because I know now that our office is located around the corner from where Mama Leong witnessed the Japanese beheading protestors.

Other clips from 15Malaysia project that captured my attention was Meter by Lim Benji and Potong Saga by Ho Yuhang. They were very viral and hilarious. Meter even featured Khairy Jamaluddin, a politician, highlighting issues of language (education) among others, in this country, and the importance of embracing them.

Potong Saga, on the other hand grabs your attention with its message about a Chinese guy who goes through an unnecessary circumcision to get himself eligible for an Islamic bank account because of misguided information regarding the application from three Chinese old chaps.

The films from the 15Malaysia project also made it to the 14th Pusan International Film Festival, giving the filmmakers more exposure than they could have ever dreamed of.

You can watch the films here.

Battling the drink

2009-11-16T14:57:00.007+08:00

So it looks like the state Environment and Public Health Ministry is considering conducting a campaign to curb alcoholism in Sarawak – and it could be similar to the way Malaysia’s anti-smoking campaigns have been done in the past.

In August, I blogged about the state of Indonesia’s cigarette advertising scene which resulted in a good conversation going about our government’s latest Tak Nak anti-smoking campaign.

Similarly with the issue of smoking numbers, the government is not going to have much success tackling the problem of alcoholism if all they do is fund a cleverly crafted communications campaign. The grassroots support is vital and according to the Star there are currently no specific institutions for the rehabilitation of alcoholics in Sarawak yet.

Sarawak recorded 87 admissions for alcohol-related illnesses last year and 27 from January to June this year – although reportedly there is currently no specific institution for the rehabilitation of alcoholics in Sarawak and patients are advised to consult psychiatrists at various government hospitals.

Malaysia is a very different alcohol advertising market compared to most of its neighbours in Asia Pacific. Alcohol brands here are not free to market themselves as freely as they would like but I don’t buy for a second that a country with stricter rules on alcohol marketing equals less alcohol abuse.

There’s literature out there which supports the idea of a relationship between alcohol advertising and consumption – I just haven’t seen any studies which can significantly prove this.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev recently ordered tough new restrictions to try to curb alcoholism in Russia which he described as a national disaster.

He wants to allow local authorities to ban the sale of alcohol in specific locations at specific times of the day and have jail time replace fines for anyone who sells spirits or beers to people under the age of 18. He also wants to ban liquor advertising but I honestly think the first two regulations are what are going to help curb the problem in Russia – and not the lack of alcohol ads.

In fact, if the Malaysian government wants to get really serious about the problem of alcoholism in Sarawak, maybe they shouldn’t make an anti-drinking ad. I can’t remember the last good alcoholism ad I’ve seen – they usually come and go so quickly it’s hard to tell.

My colleague Ben Burrowes did point me to a movement in New Zealand which on the surface looks pretty promising. I’ve put a poster execution from one of their campaigns in this post.

When’s the last time you saw a good anti-alcohol ad? There’s been a few good anti-drink driving ones from Australia while I was studying there and who (SNL fans) can forget this Dennis Leary spot from years ago.

Maxis adds Facebook et al

2009-11-05T14:13:00.002+08:00

Maxis has acknowledged Facebook’s impressive growth in Malaysia over the last year, with the launch of a new service called fb2mobile.

The company had previously launched the Friendster Alert service in May 2009 which gave subscribers the ability to receive updates on their Friendster account via SMS. And with the launch of fb2mobile, Maxis now says it is the first mobile communications service provider in Malaysia to provide a full range of mobile services to Facebook, Twitter and Friendster.

Maxis can now connect its mobile subscribers to Facebook and Twitter via SMS and MMS.

It’s not exactly earth shattering news but is another example of the social media craze taking over… everything. Did you know a company called NetProfitQuest (NPQ) is now conducting a "Certificate in Social Media Marketing" programme? It’s supposed to help companies bridge the gap between business goals and the technicalities of social media implementation. (Sounds like something your media agency should be doing).

Anyways, back to the Maxis fb2mobile news. The company says it is also looking to include other major social networking services such as Yahoo and MSN Messenger as well. And anyone who subscribes to fb2mobile alerts get free monthly subscriptions until 28 February 2010 (After that then it’s a monthly charge of RM2).

I guess the last word on this would be it’s good for consumers that a player like Maxis is encouraging, making it easier and cheaper for us to use our mobile phones for something other than making a phone call.

Over two months ago, Aegis (Carat) brokered a deal with Maxis and three leading dailies. It allowed readers of Utusan Malaysia, Sin Chew Daily and The Star to have free access to news via the mobile internet on the Maxis network until 31 October 2009.

Still waiting to hear back from Carat on what the uptake numbers were performing like during the ‘free’ period. Come on, Roy. Share!

Beyonce blamed

2009-10-20T15:39:00.005+08:00

Another day in Malaysia, and another high profile international artists postpones a concert days before the event is scheduled to go.

This time it was Beyonce’s turn to disappoint – and disappoint she did if we are to believe the official word from organisers who have denied the move was due to the threat of protests by Muslim groups.

Organiser, Marctensia said in a statement yesterday that the postponement was “solely the decision of the artiste and has nothing to do with other external reasons.”

If the name of the organizer sounds familiar it’s because the company also had to deal with Akon’s last minute pull out of a separate event back in June. H1N1 was said to be the culprit.

But speculation was rife the move was due to Chivas being a major sponsor of the event as Malaysia has several rules regarding alcohol and cigarette companies as sponsors.

It also has rules on dress attire and it Beyonce’s “inappropriate dress sense” was the subject of PAS protests.

However, officials said if she adhered to the dress code there would be no issue.
One thing is for certain though. It’s not only the fans who lose out again. The brands, sponsors such as Hotlink and Guess will have to pour cold water on their Beyonce marketing efforts and restart them at a later date (unless the concert does get cancelled).

Worse still, whatever the reasons are this time for the postponement – it still portrays brand Malaysia in a bad light.

Mystery Google

2009-10-15T13:14:00.003+08:00

Imagine a search engine where you get what the person before you searched for. Well, you don’t have to imagine too hard just visit http://www.mysterygoogle.com/ to experience it for yourself. Why would you do it? Let's discuss.

I tried to ring Google offices in Singapore to see if I could get an explanation but it was lunch time and there was no answer. So, I checked it out for myself and spent a good 15 minutes on the site trying to figure out what the hell its purpose is.

I type in “earthquake” and I get search results for “university of south Florida”. Ok, I guess there is a market out there for people who are curious to get other people’s search results – or just want to spend a few minutes seeing what other people are searching for.

But it gets creepy (or funny depending which football club you support) when I typed in “Manchester United” and get “anyways brad and jake touched me all weird that night and were all over me”.

Still, I did spend 15 minutes of my life trying to see if there was any patterns emerging (yeah good luck!) from my search results. From what I can tell most of the search results are random (try searching Manchester United for yourself and you’ll see) or even try “Yahoo.” I got “go outside I need a clear shot” when I entered Yahoo in Mystery Google.

The only things I’ve discovered so far which are not random is when you type “Mystery Google” and search. The result is a message on the search bar telling me “that is the site you are on.”

And when you search for “Google” it says “No. Mystery Google.”

There’s even a copyright message at the bottom which reads: © Mystery Google, 2009 | GOOGLE is a trademark of Google Inc.

Whatever it is, I am sure someone with enough smarts and time will figure it out. So far, the only search term I’ve entered which correctly takes me to the site is “Facebook”. I did it several times. Search for “Facebook” in Mystery Google and it will take you straight to the Facebook home page.

Oh yeah, if you don't type anything and hit search it tells you to "please don't type gibberish".

If you do type "gibberish" - it responds to you sarcastically!

And gets angry when you only search for "mystery" as well...

Below today’s marketing threshold

2009-10-05T13:57:00.003+08:00

Malaysia’s broadband quality was described as “below today’s applications threshold” in a study conducted by Oxford University and sponsored by Cisco.

The Malaysian Insider has the in-depth story, and it doesn’t make for good reading if you’re a digital marketer.

Malaysia ranked 48 in the study of internet broadband in 66 countries – behind the likes of competing Asian markets such as Hong Kong (3) and Singapore (7) but also ahead of China and Thailand.

Countries like Singapore were listed above Malaysia as having internet speeds “meeting needs of today’s applications” while Hong Kong rated as country which “comfortably enjoy today’s applications”. (Korea and Japan were said to be markets with broadband speeds that were “ready for tomorrow”).

Even as I type out this blog I can remember the frustration I had posting links on my previous A+M Bootleg entry. I linked to two different online campaigns which an agency based in Australia called Spiral did. It was taking forever to load when I was trying to test out the link and I almost dropped the idea of adding the links.

We tend to be rather impatient when we’re online and any page which takes longer than a minute to load is 30 seconds too long. Which is such a shame because the good social media marketing campaigns are meant to be shared but how can I enjoy something after I’ve lost my temper waiting for it to load.

My Hong Kong colleagues enjoy speeds of 100 Mbps but I can’t even access Google sometimes from home on Saturday afternoons.

UPDATE: You’re not going to believe this but while attempting to post this blog entry my wireless connection at the office went offline for at least 30 minutes.

Big Day Out

2009-10-02T11:19:00.002+08:00

Figuring out social media marketing in Malaysia was the topic up for discussion at yesterday’s Starcom MediaVest Group Digital Day Out.

No easy task – but Starcom managed to assemble DiGi marketer Lau Sulin, Starcom’s executive director Lee Yew Leong, Nuffnang’s Timothy Tiah, TV host Jojo Struys, and Scott Wenkart from Australian agency Spiral Digital+Media+Lab to represent a mixed bag of point of views for the discussion.

The usual what is social media question was followed by a series of others ranging from whether advertisers should care about social media to the all important question on effectiveness and ROI.

At one point, Nuffnang’s Tiah even shared how one campaign the company did for a debit card brand flopped big time.

The client wanted to get bloggers to write in about how they would spend X amount of money using the debit card and then reward them with a trip to the Gold Coast.

But, against Nuffnang pleas, insisted that bloggers would have to first apply for the card, get the card, use the card, and take a picture of the receipt and send it in with the write up.

“It was a total disaster,” Tiah said.

“A record breaking four entries to the competition but a lot of emails from bloggers complaining about the competition and that the card never showed up [after they applied for it],” he said.

I asked the panel for their thoughts on Malaysia’s social media marketing scene where we are seeing a lot of brands experimenting on the medium with some launching campaigns which are not really engaging at all. Does this turn consumer’s off from using something like a Facebook if they are being bombarded with unsocial like ads?

“The cream always rises to the top,” Spiral’s Wenkart said.

“People will only engage with something they like,” he said.

The rest – I guess – is just seen as noise and gets ignored.

You can watch some of Spiral’s work here and here.

Renault: Counting the brand cost

2009-09-25T14:26:00.002+08:00

More bad news for team Renault ahead of this weekend’s Singapore F1 night race as two of its biggest sponsors quit because of the much publicised FIA ruling.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks, Renault have been handed a suspended disqualification from F1 after team principal Flavio Briatore, executive director of engineering Pat Symonds and driver Nelson Piquet Jnr were found guilty of a plot to deliberately crash in last year's Singapore Grand Prix.

Renault’s principal sponsor, ING has cut short its sponsorship (which ends after the 2009 season wraps) to immediate effect. And left no room for speculation as to the reason why it has ended the association with Renault four races early.

An ING statement read:
“In light of the verdict of the World Motor Sport Council of 21 September 2009 concerning the events that occurred at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, ING will terminate the contract with Renault Formula 1 with immediate effect.”

“ING is deeply disappointed at this turn of events, especially in the context of an otherwise successful sponsorship.”

On top of this bad news, Spanish insurance firm Mutua Madrilena also announced it would end its backing calling the incident “something that can affect the image, reputation and good name of the team's sponsors.”

And added that: “The behaviour of the relevant people in the team was extraordinarily serious and compromised not only the integrity of the sport, but also the lives of spectators, drivers and circuit personnel.”

Strong but justified words from the sponsors given that the incident has been declared as the “worst single piece of cheating in the history of sport” by Simon Barnes of The Times (Have a read of his article he makes a solid argument for his case).

But aside from the financial cost the incident will have on Renault, the car maker stands to take a hit in another crucially important area – brand value.

Seven years ago when Renault made the investment into the incredibly expensive sport of F1, one of the goals would undoubtedly have been to grow brand value and be associated with success.

And since then it would be fair to say they have done just that through Fernando Alonso’s driving and winning.

It’s a whole different ball game now.

F1, as expensive as it is, is also a very high profile sport and the “crashgate” incident only lives to associate Renault with arrogance, cheating, and even worse still, a nonchalant view of humanity.

And it’s also a violation of the brand’s CSR policy which, like many companies, advocates transparency.

Who wants to be seen in a Renault car after this?

Hope isn't a bad thing

2009-09-18T16:15:00.003+08:00

I started Ramadan on a slightly negative note by blogging that it could be the start of bad customer service so let’s see if I can end it on a more positive note. How’s this? The 1 Malaysia campaign just might have a chance after all.

There I said it.

But before you flood my inbox with comments like “you’re an idiot” and “I don’t like you”. Please give me the chance to say that I never thought it stood a chance but I came across this story from the The Star via AP while surfing Google Reader. (Free Hari Raya plug for Google!).

A great little story from Virginia of how members of a local Synagogue suggested Muslims come and pray in their building after hearing the Muslim community was looking to rent a place for overflowing crowds during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On Friday afternoons, the people coming to pray at this building take off their shoes, unfurl rugs to kneel on and pray in Arabic.

The ones that come Friday evenings put on yarmulkes, light candles and pray in Hebrew.

"People look to the Jewish-Muslim relationship as conflict," said All Dulles Area Muslim Society Imam Mohamed Magid, saying it's usually disputes between the two groups in the Middle East that make news.

"Here is a story that shatters the stereotype."

Magid, who grew up in Sudan, said he did not meet someone who was Jewish until after he had moved to the U.S. in his 20s, and he never imagined having such a close relationship with a rabbi.

But he said the relationship with the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation has affected him and his members.

Beyond being tolerant, the synagogue and its members have been welcoming.

Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk, who leads the Reform congregation of about 500 families, said the relationship works both ways.

"You really only get to know someone when you invite them into your home ... you learn to recognize their faces. You learn the names of their children," Nosanchuk said.

What’s the marketing angle here? Well, can we just call this a stretched example of what the 1Malaysia marketing team needs to remember – people are generally good and want to live in harmony with one another.

So 1Malaysia should forget about the outdoor advertising or any advertising for that matter until it can come up with ways to actually physically show Malaysians you are in a real way delivering the 1 promise.

It won’t be easy – I certainly don’t have any well researched concrete ideas to offer here – but it can be done one small step at a time if the right people get behind it. America finally has a black President and one who so far has done nothing to suggest he was elected based on his race.

On that note,here's wishing you all Selamat Hari Raya.

Are you adventurous enough?

2009-09-04T15:29:00.003+08:00

Singapore Management University's Micheal Netzley was at Menara Star today to talk about
Adventures with Social Media – Lessons from Asia’s Internet.

Netzley's presentation was further proof that social media is not just a leisure activity. It is now the new media which can be used to disseminate news and market your product and services instantly. It is something to be strongly considered as a networking tool by PR agencies as means to address challenges.

He shared some case studies which showed why Facebook, Twitter and blogs should now be considered an important tool in the marketer's toolkit.

One example is the growth and success of KFC Australia Facebook campaign for Cayan Grill in June 2009.

In 48 hours KFC enlisted more than 17,500 fans to its Facebook page, which was launched on 13 June. Now they have 86 174 fans and growing.

To drive participation in the Cayan O’Clock events KFC placed advertisements specifically targeting 18 – 24 year old Facebook users who live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - and directed them to the fan page.

"If Facebook has more the 2 million people on it wouldn’t you want to market your product there," Netzley said. In a nutshell, he asks marketers to tap into what channel works best for your part of the globe.

"Take the best from the West but make sure you adapt to the rest," he said.

His other examples were Lenovo’s marketing strategy which answered the question – How do you position Lenovo as solution provider? And how do you keep people engaged?

The answer – "Voices of the Olympic Games 2008" campaign where 100 athletes from 25 different countries blogged to share their experience with the world. Check out the video:

Over the course of the Games, Lenovo’s Athlete Bloggers published more than 1,500 posts and received over 8,000 comments from fans around the world. “Voices” was a huge success and demonstrated the value of amplifying Olympic athletes’ real, unfiltered voices.

From here we can see the full networking power of social media to create a network or your own community, social media. Another example, when there was the 5th H1N1 case in Singapore, Netzley was shocked that it was someone from his campus. He had received the SMS at about noon while Google search had the news in the evening BUT it was Twitter which had spread the message as early as 9.30am!

And that is how you too can get the otherwise would-not-have-known news.

“If you wait for the paper, you will be the last to know,” he said However, he disagrees that traditional media is becoming irrelevant though the trend is definitely changing.

To emphasis the impact of social media, Netzley talked about his Twitter friend that he added sometime ago. Siok Siok is a filmmaker based in Singapore, and she promotes her movies using Twitter. Her recent work is called Twittamentary – a documentary where Twitter determines what goes in the documentary. How? She uses Twitter as a crowd-sourcing tool.

Excerpt from her website: What is the project about?
Siok Siok’s new film,”Twittamentary” looks at how lives connect and intersect within the Twitter community. Her new film is to be created in the open spirit of the Web. Twitter users will be invited to contribute story ideas, rich media and videos to the film. When the film is completed, it will be shared online with the Twitter community and the world at large under a Creative Commons license.

And finally I leave you with this video.

The world is changing - The funniest videos are a click away

Smoking Merdeka Celebrations

2009-08-31T11:56:00.004+08:00

Started my Merdeka weekend on a bus to Singapore then a ferry to Indonesia's Batam island for some fun in the sun. Is it me or are the cigarette advertisements in Indonesia getting out of control?

I have to admit I'd read about and heard about how criminal the cigarette marketing landscape was in Indonesia but you never really fully take it in until you actually see some of it because people tend to exaggerate. But no, there I was on a shuttle bus from the ferry terminal to the resort and I saw the first of a series of outdoor ads pass by.

I couldn't get a decent shot from camera as the bus sped along but here's what I can describe to you from memory of one of the more shocking executions:

Two young boys (I'll be kind and say they looked like 14 year olds but that's debatable) are in a competitive game of tug of war against an unknown team (the other end of the rope disappears into the bottom left corner of the billboard). The sweat and strain on the boys faces make them out to look like they could be winning while the slight hint of muscles on their arms show that the two are not your average skinny 14 year old weaklings. Up above their heads is, of course, the product shot.

Couldn't decipher the Bahasa Indonesia copy but the cigarette maker is Sampoerna and judging by the light blue packaging of the pack it must be for a lite brand suitable (??) for the younger demographic but being positioned as cool and macho enough so you don't think its for women.

Where did I see the giant billboard? As we passed a nearby school and headed into a small road where makeshift convenience store huts littered either side of the road - and where the cigarette brand amongst others can also be found.

About 6 or maybe even 9 months ago I read a great article from BusinessWeek which reported about Philip Morris International's race to win market share in developing markets around the world. That article cited some interesting figures like:

The company bought local kretek maker PT HM Sampoerna for $5.2 billion in 2005, which has since helped it grow from less than 10% of the cigarette market to nearly 30%.

In 2007, PMI had $2.7 billion of sales in Indonesia and spent $220 million on marketing and related costs.

Almost a third of the population is under 15, and nearly 50 million people smoke.

According to a recent study funded by the Bloomberg-Gates initiative, smoking rates are rising fastest among the young, with rates among Indonesian males age 15 to 19 up 139% between 1995 and 2004. Data tracker Euromonitor International predicts 10% more Indonesians will take up smoking by 2012.

And although Malaysia is certainly more relaxed about smoking laws than Singapore, there are more marketing restrictions here in place when compared to Indonesia. If I am not mistaken, Dunhill hasn't been allowed to sponsor football tournaments for a while now.

As for me, I'll admit that I am no saint (everybody hates being preached to anyways) and that I used to smoke regularly and am still prone to occasional drags when the mood sets in ( I still find pleasure in having a smoke on a rainy day with a teh tarik in hand).

This latest anti-smoking ad from MOH takes a pretty hard line and it's hard to watch. It did leave an impression on me but I am still not sure whether the gruesome facts work on the majority of smokers. The spot was created by Spencer Azizul.

Hermawan Kartajaya's tips

2009-08-26T11:48:00.005+08:00

Last week, the president of World Marketing Association, Hermawan Kartajaya was in town to talk about new ways approach marketing in today's economic climate.

During my college days, I learned about the four P’s of marketing (price, place, promotion and product) but in Kartajaya’s approach he says there are 12 C’s to the new marketing wave. Without trying to bore you with too much detail (it is a blog post after all) the 12 C’s, in a nutshell, clarifies when, what and how to do marketing right.

Here are some of his tips:
1) Strategy is vital as it is the key to successful marketing
2) When selling your product, sell the differentiation not the product
3) Online marketing only creates excitement but not intimacy
4) Database is NOT a community. You must have interaction
5) Most new product launches will fail so co-creation is very important.

He then cited Starbuck Baristas tell their story campaign as a good example to support point (5).

And Kartajaya's advice to marketers attempting to figure out how boost their brands during the current economic climate was:

"Redefine your advertising and marketing terminology. Try to rethink about traditional media when it comes to what product you are offering."

That time of year again

2009-08-24T13:32:00.004+08:00

The fasting month has well and truly started but other than the plethora of F&B promotions I am expecting to see - who else thinks a dip in customer service is also just around the corner?

This will be my first time experiencing Ramadan in Malaysia but having spent over 15 years in Brunei - I think I know what to expect here. Good food, bad driving, and tired grumpy hungry customer service staff -- am I right?

Just yesterday I went to Watsons pharmacy at KLCC to get something for my ankle which I sprained badly last weekend (yes it still hurts) and the service was terrible. First, as the pharmacist saw me approaching she decided to strike up a conversation with a passing colleague and when I reached the counter and said "excuse me" she carried on her conversation giggling for another 10 seconds while gesturing for me to wait.

When I did have a attention, she wasn't the best example of what a Watsons brand experience should be. I lifted up my ankle meekly and asked her "do you have anything for a sprained ankle, something to take the swelling away?" She didn't even bother to stand up and look at my ankle - she just pointed behind me and said "there".

"What..!? where is it? what is it called?"

She replied, "the next row, bottom."

Can I get some service here, or what?

Not realising how pathetic I was about to sound to anyone who just happened to walk past and hear me, I scolded her saying, "Well, aren't you going to help me get it - I am crippled here!"

"Ah..never mind then, i'll find it myself."

So I did.

I don't know if I would have got better service had the lady not been fasting but it reminded me about a conversation I had recently with a friend's father. He used to train all the pilots for Royal Brunei Airlines and he was pretty cutthroat about pilot's who intended to fast before and during long-haul flights.

"If you're fasting, you're not flying," he would say.

Sounds harsh but the reality is - the pilot needs to be full focused all the time, not for brand experience reasons but for safety!

Anyways - if you have any customer service nightmares send them in (marcusc@marketing-interactive.com) and I'll see if I can share it on The Volatile Customer.

Take a deep breath

2009-08-12T15:41:00.007+08:00

If you're like me, when someone sends you an email about some sort of business competition you usually hit delete faster than you can say Skype. Well, a few months ago I got an email about the First Skype for Business Competition.

For once, instead of thrashing it, I thought... hang on we can win this! We use Skype all the time, for everything, and it helps make our business run so efficiently across Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

And today Skype's regional PR agency Upstream Asia sent a press release confirming my first thoughts -- we won! (release below)

Winners demonstrate how Skype enriches their business communications

Singapore August 12, 2009: Skype has announced the winners of the first Skype for Business Competition, which puts the spotlight on how companies can use Skype for cost-effective communications around the world.

The month-long competition - launched to celebrate the new look for the Skype for Business portal (www.skype.biz) was open to companies in the Asia Pacific, EMEA and Americas regions. The judges looked not only at the creativity and originality of how Skype is being used, but also the range of Skype features used and the geographic spread of their use. Entries were judged based on the following criteria :

Creativity and originality of submission and use of Skype (50%)
Range of Skype features used (20%)
Geographic spread of Skype usage (20%)
Clarity of case study (10%)

Prizes include bespoke Skype solutions for first place winners, along with Skype Credit and Skype Certified hardware.

The winning companies in Asia Pacific, who best demonstrated how they are saving time, saving money and staying ahead by using Skype, are as follows:

First Place: Lighthouse Independent Media, Singapore – An international publishing company that has made Skype an integral part of its daily editorial and production processes.

Second Place: RareJob, Japan – A company delivering more than 2,000 English conversation lessons via Skype each day.

Third Place: Rusty, Australia – An international surfwear and apparel brand that uses Skype to enable close collaboration between its employees around the world.

And here's what they said about us:

Lighthouse Independent Media: A publishing company with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur uses Skype to operate seamlessly across borders. Lighthouse Independent Media uses Skype as an everyday communications tool to keep all offices and all people in all offices connected throughout the day. In addition to the conversations and file sharing capabilities, Skype is used in the three market morning news conferences held between the different editorial teams as well as a medium to address the entire company over Skype via speakers. Apart from work purposes, Skype is also used to celebrate birthdays across geographic markets. They even had a two office bar night via video Skype- making it a tool that is used effectively to balance work and play!

Nice bit of mid-week news for us but in the spirit of Web 2.0 -- let's keep the conversation going with comments on how we can use internet companies like Skype to drive business forward.

The madness of Murdoch

2009-08-07T12:07:00.005+08:00

There was a lot of feverish conversation around the watering holes of KL last night over the latest table thumping declaration by News Corp's Rupert Murdoch that enough was enough of the free content ride - online news will cost damn it!

Actually there was less fevered conversation and more me just ear bashing anyone who would listen, in the end I got told to shut my pie hole and go and write it out of my system, so here I am.

If you took the time to read through News Corp's results yesterday you can kind of see why Murdoch's in an angry sweat again - an overall US$200m loss is just part of the story. There was a US$400m plus write down on myspace and a 60% decline in profits in the newspaper division.

It might seem simple to just ask people to pay for online content in much the same way as they pay for a newspaper, but ah, and I hate to be the one to say this, people aren't paying for newspapers anymore.

Murdoch just doesn't seem to get the post newspaper world - and anyone who doesn't agree that that's where we are now, is kindly invited to follow this link, but only if you agree first to come back afterwards. It's a time line of closures of newspapers in the US - check out the carnage around December 2008 to say, July 2009 it's not pretty.

Yep print newspapers are at a pivotal point in their history - it's called death.

But hang on before you sit me in the corner, with the other old media hating, facebook friend whoring, twitter follower harvesting, myspace single launching, Bing V Google war declaring, "OMFG", "WTF", "ROFL", "pwned", "epic photoshop fail" saying, Rick rolling brats consider this, and I hate to come on all "when I was a boy" but, when I was a boy I worked my way up from a copy kid in a newsroom to editing a daily newspaper.

Actually that's not strictly true I actually did some God awful degree, regularly touted as one of Australia's best journalism degrees (note I don't hate the degree or the institution just that people think it takes three years in University classrooms to learn how to write for a living) then landed a fourth year cadet's job on a daily newspaper.

It took approximately six months to unlearn everything I learned at University and then relearn how to become a halfway decent journo (and approximately two weeks to learn how to drink properly - which as everyone knows is the only way you can become a halfway decent journalist).

Why do I tell you the sordid tale of my journalistic apprenticeship? Because it's important that you understand I'm not a new age blog journalist who has a vested interest in the downfall of traditional print media.

I was crazy passionate about newspapers, but hey I got over it.

They were fun, a lot of fun and there is a powerful attraction to being the first to know everything, which is how newspapers used to be. You would impatiently wait for the newspaper every morning to see what happened and to hear how it unfolded. That just doesn't happen anymore and it's what's killing newspapers. The newspaper now, if you do read one, always seems like the last one to know.

Newspapers just aren't fast enough any more which brings us to online. A lot of newspapers do a pretty reasonable job online, but they are still largely written by traditional journalists in a pretty traditional way.

I have to admit I consume a lot of news content everyday and to be honest a reasonable amount of it is Murdoch owned content, but I'd be a sadly uninformed individual if I relied solely on newspapers. In fact a lot of the stories particularly in the online, social media, media, world affairs, entertainment and "shaggy dog" space has usually been broken in the non-traditional media sites and then is picked up - usually about a week later (poor old newspapers). Consider how the Iran elections were reported - most media outlets were reporting using twitter sources.

If all of the Murdoch content disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow - and lets face it when he starts charging for it, it might as well have disappeared, I guarantee I will be no less informed and neither will you and I certainly won't be paying for it.

Murdoch runs a pretty old fashioned media operation - ie massive and expensive with an army of journalists all sitting between the expensive walls he rents. This makes it a low margin, moving fast towards a no margin, game particularly when you consider bloggers sit in cheap space (usually a bedroom at their Mum's house) and have no overheads and aggregation news sites harness the wisdom of mobs who cost the site nothing. Agreed the content has to come from somewhere but the links to articles on sites like Digg and Reddit are rarely to places like the New York Times or the Asia Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch like many of the other big old fashioned news organisations are trying to re-establish news journalism as a premium product, when the market has already decided it's a commodity and a not particularly difficult to produce commodity.

As someone who has seen the best of both worlds, slogging it out in an old fashioned newsroom, chasing ambulances and competing for the front page, as well as the new news collective where everyone contributes and news is told by the minute not the day, both are exciting, but one's time has past and the other's has arrived.

Swing the gate open, get smarter about ad serving to free content and become part of the search for better ways to monetise content, rather than protecting an outdated model that consumers don't want anymore.

Alas poor newspapers we knew them well, but hey, whatever.

Web Wednesday does Microsoft-Yahoo

2009-08-06T15:07:00.002+08:00

There was plenty of boozing at last night’s Web Wednesday but not before we all got stuck into the curious Microsoft-Yahoo deal which promises to bring the fight to Google.

On the panel for the discussion was Integricity executive director Warren Tan, Carat managing director Roy Tan, and Media Prima’s GM business development and strategy Navonil Roy.

So, what do the guys think about the deal which basically sees Microsoft take over Yahoo’s search operations in exchange for some value?

Carat’s Roy Tan described Google as a “frienemy” and said the partnership was a good idea because anything that brings more competition to the market is a good thing.

“Google has so much of our information that it’s scary,” he said.

While Alt Media’s Paul Moss got involved and added that it was good Microsoft’s Bing gives you a different set of results from Google because “you don’t always get what you want from Google.”

I asked the panel whether they thought the deal showed Yahoo had given up on search and that Microsoft with Bing, and the upcoming Windows 7, was now back -- I got varied responses.

However Media Prima’s Roy did say he thought “Yahoo had walked out of the search space” which we all know is a highly lucrative market globally.

My own thoughts is the deal is good news for Microsoft because it will help propel them forward in markets which they haven’t been performing very well in – search and online advertising.

Plus when the news was announced, it was Yahoo’s stock that went down while Microsoft went up which goes to show what Yahoo shareholders think of the deal.

Sure, Yahoo doesn’t need to invest in search anymore which will make them more profitable but they are breaking up their search team – the guys who built something great – and if they want to be a top internet company they need smart guys like that around.

Anyways back at Web Wednesday and the conversation swiftly turned to Twitter.

“Twitter democratises search,” Integricity executive director, Warren Tan said.

Tan reckons because of this he would put Twitter on par with Google and that he trusts Twitter search more. But Carat’s Roy Tan argued it was a case of search for information versus search for opinion.

Good night!

Agency Of The Year Malaysia

2009-08-03T13:49:00.007+08:00

Arrived back in KL last night, after a week of helping to put together and celebrate our Agency Of The Year awards gala night in Singapore.

Yes, while Pamela was holding down the A+M Daily fort in KL last week, I was in Singapore learning what it means to play host to over 750 marketing professionals. I only bring it up because although A+M will publish the Malaysian results in our August edition - we'll have to wait till next year before we can put on a similar show here.

L-R: John Davidson, Ben Burrowes, Tony Kelly, Matt Eaton

We live blogged the event on marketing-interactive.com and we'll leave the event active for another day so you can check out what happened (warning - spoiler ahead)

And what happened that night was, for the first time in its history, the Agency Of The Year award did not go to a creative agency heavyweight like your O&Ms or Saatchis.

Nope, this year marketers (your clients) voted digital agency Blue (founded in Singapore)as the winner. Amazing. Fantastic. Shocking?

Sure, you can say the survey results are based on client perception and not by a panel of judges (isn't that a good thing?) but perception is reality. And while huge organizations like O&M (with its creative, PR, digital, direct, activation arms etc) tend to dominate and take home the overall Agency Of The Year honour, it seems so appropriate it went to a digital agency this time.

Blue win

So, you'll just to wait a few weeks to know what the Malaysia results are - and next year we'll buy the beers.

Me having a beer with Futurebrand ECD Andrew King

The Malaysian

2009-07-27T12:43:00.008+08:00

Recently Nielsen released survey findings which revealed recommendations by personal acquaintances as the most trusted forms of advertising globally – the same can be said for Malaysia as well.

The twice-yearly Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey had over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries as respondents and found that 93% of Malaysians said recommendations from people they know were a source they trust.

Followed by editorial content (83%), brand websites (75%), and brand sponsorships (75%). Newspapers and television ads scored 74% trust. While ads served in search engine results (39%), online video ads, online banner ads and text ads on mobile phones all scored the lowest on Nielsen’s chart showing consumer trust in different sources.

Looking at Grey Group’s Eye on Asia study - it sheds some light into the psyche of Malaysian consumers. The agency says the study has identified unique segmentation of Asians based on how they think, feel and react to brands rather than traditional geo-political boundaries.

It says the five Asian brand tribes are:

Malaysia (28%) predominantly sits in the red portion of the pie called “Perceived Value Seekers” which means they look beyond functions and look for added value and emotional connections. While more developed markets like Singapore and Japan tended to favour the green “Individualistic Believers” tribe. This, according to Grey, means they are not looking for trendy or fashionable but are looking for brands which can imprint individual taste.

Basically, I gather that these individuals prefer to find out about products on their own – perhaps even through the internet. Malaysia also registered a score of 21% in this category.

And also registered 20% in the “New Brand Enjoyers” tribe who are said to treat shopping as a treasure hunt and give importance to variety and experience.

Domains with personality

2009-07-22T15:17:00.003+08:00

My Domain Registry, the government agency which handles .my domains is looking for a speaker to fill a slot specifically on online brand management at its upcoming forum titled "Contemporary Developments in Electronic Addressing".

Topics that they want to address during the talk include ".my" internet address as a brand personality, brand strategies and marketing campaigns, and product & service management under a ".my" website.

The talk is slated for 30 minutes but i reckon it would be useful to open up the topics further to give brand managers help with their online branding management. Like how can you use .my domains to monitor and protect your brand online, or in social media strategies, and in search engine optimization, are all possible examples maybe?

In conjunction with National ICT Month 2009, .my Domain Registry has been pretty active of late. When they announced its promotional campaign offering 50% reduction for all new registration and renewal fees, Shariya Haniz Zulkifli, who is the director, said: "In this day and age of the internet, having a unique online identity is just as important as any conventional identity. This is true for both businesses and individuals and in Malaysia, this means having a domain name, or web address, that ends with a .my."

Anyone got thoughts on this?

Anyways Hill & Knowlton are helping them communicate this campaign and are also looking for speakers for the conference which is how I found out about it. The closing date for responses is 29 July.

Over to you guys

The truth is out there

2009-07-14T15:39:00.007+08:00

The viral campaign about a mysterious figure roaming the streets in KL continues to make the newspapers today following yesterdays front page advertorial in The Star.

Today, the advertorial appeared in NST as well and continues the tale of a guy called Ahmad Shazali who made a report about a figure he saw in his neighbourhood at Sri Cempaka. He said it was about 12 feet tall with many heads and stood on two legs.

A quick call to The Star today revealed little, they refused to say who the client was which makes it even more likely that it is a teaser or viral marketing ploy for something.

“Look out for another ad by the end of this week” is all I got before they hung up.

The consensus among the bloggers seems to be that it’s for a new extraterrestrial movie called District 9.

The Mysterious Figure Seen in KL news is also being aired on Hitz.FM and My.FM.

Someone out there has got to know so feel free to drop us an anonymous comment below!

UPDATED: DiGi is behind the mystery ad.

Fan or Fad? Scoring social media

2009-07-13T11:39:00.005+08:00

Buzzmedia’s David Wang recently blogged that social media is the world’s biggest fad for marketers and said that there seems to be “an almost unhealthy fascination with social media among marketers at the moment.”

In the end, he said, “we’ll all realise that social media will become just regular ol’ media.

It’s a fairly detailed post – you can check it out here – and one that makes a really strong case for his argument. And addresses points which marketers definitely need to consider when using social media in the marketing mix.

One of the points which stood out for me (I just had a conversation with someone else about it before I read David’s post) was how social media was rife with experts but starved of authorities.

Untapped marketing tool?

Sure, there is a need for consultants and agencies to show marketers how to get started but I think when there are too many “experts” pitching advice and services to marketers it can have a negative effect. And I am not just talking about the obvious examples like if they hurt the brand through a less than relevant campaign.

On a basic level, I think when there are below-par experts pitching to marketers to spend on social media yet can’t convincingly address all of the marketer’s concerns or argue convincingly about why they should be using Twitter for example – it reduces client confidence in the medium. Makes it even more difficult for them to consider social media as a viable marketing tool, and in turn, also doesn’t help stimulate the growth of online ad spend either.

I know I’ve simplified the argument down a fair bit (1+1 doesn’t always = 2) but I wanted to raise another issue which I think is important which is about whether we need a digital agency scorecard. Are there any credible ones out there in the industry at the moment? Something which is able to tell marketer whether an agency is strong with social media but weak in other aspects.

Going back to David’s post, he said “agencies specialising in social media should be familiar with technologies like Open Social, Facebook Connect, community platforms like KickApps or social widgets and be able to build engaging applications that fit into a brand’s overall marketing strategy.”

That’s one good way to check – any other ideas?

MJ's midas touch

2009-07-09T15:52:00.006+08:00

The King of Pop may be dead but it seems not everyone was crying too hard for Michael Jackson when he was laid to rest on Tuesday night.

The Staples Center played host to the memorial / tribute service aired all around the world to millions and talked about, reported about, and social media-ed about for days afterwards. And if that wasn't enough, Forbes points out that the service got underway half an hour late leaving millions watching as cameras lingered on the oversized sign which read 'Staples'.

The company paid $116 million in 1999 for the 20-year naming rights to the arena and according to Forbes it "got a raging bargain for the naming rights there."

Let's put this to the test shall we? Go around the office and ask a handful of colleagues to, without thinking for too long, name where the MJ memorial service was held. We scored two out four correct answers on our end.

Reports out of the US say some 31.1 million people in the United States watched the Michael Jackson memorial on television, with millions more catching video streams on their computers.

How did it compare to other events? President Barack Obama's inauguration in January was seen by 38 million people on TV, and the American Idol finale in May had 28.9 million viewers.

Jackson's family wont be too happy about the Staples Centre cashing in on MJ's star power -- then again they might be too busy figthing each other for the rights to the Memorial DVDs to even notice.

The Twitter Top 50

2009-06-29T16:23:00.005+08:00

Jeff Zweig (Web Guru Asia) recently released his list of Asia’s Top 50 people ranked by Twitter followers. According to his stats, people from 11 different countries made the list which goes to show how universally popular the service has become.

Malaysia had four people on the list ahead of China with three but behind Hong Kong with five and Singapore was represented by seven people. India led the way with 14 ahead of Japan’s nine.

You can check out the full list at his new blog (sonuvapitch.com).

The numbers of followers these guys are getting are impressive and it’s great that there were 11 countries on the list. And with four Malaysians on the list, I asked Jeff when is the right time for a brand to enter the Twittersphere?

“As soon as relevant conversations for the brand are taking place on the platform. This can be conversations about the brand itself or about topics that are relevant to consumers of the brand’s products or services.”

He said there a number of free Twitter monitoring tools which can easily enable a brand to assess when the time is right to move onto Twitter. One example is to use the advanced version of Twitter’s own search engine.

“Here, we can enter the relevant search terms within Twitter conversations we would like to track. We can even specify specific geographic locations to ensure we are covering only the areas we are concerned with. Then we can save each search as a custom RSS feed.”

”Once we see a trickle of relevant Twitter conversations start to become a flood, we know it’s time to jump in,” he said.

Jeff also recommends that marketers read a post from Mashable.com called 10 Twitter Best Practices for Brands.

So then I asked, other than fear of unknown, what’s another reason why marketers aren’t jumping at the chance to use Twitter? And is it fair to say they are reluctant because they know they will not have control of the conversation.

He said:

Loss of control is a mindset issue for brands with any type of social media—not just Twitter. However, in my view, brands should embrace this loss of control as an opportunity and not a threat. There are many good reasons for changing to this new mindset.

Here are just two of my favourites:

1) Negative (and positive) conversations about a brand are going to occur across the Internet regardless anyway. Therefore, it’s far better for a brand to engage than to stick its head in the sand and ignore what’s going on. In fact, a mindset of rejecting engagement is far more risky to a brand than not engaging in today’s social media environment. After all, when there is no engagement to a popular negative conversation, everyone can see that the brand has run away scared. Who can trust a brand that does this?

2) By responding in a transparent, sincere and authentic way, brands can even turn avid detractors into loyal fans. And if these originally avid detractors have large followings of their own in social media, brands can benefit immensely through the power of social proof. This is far more convincing and authentic than a press release.

Although I’m certainly a fan of press releases (especially search engine optimised press releases for online distribution in addition to traditional offline releases), here is another reason why only issuing a press release is not good enough:

Offline press releases are one-way messaging that allow no interaction with consumers. Furthermore, the voice of the release is 100% controlled by the brand and this is rarely, if ever, 100% trusted by consumers.

Similar issues were addressed at a recent Tweet-up I went to organised by FusionBrand at TwentyOne bar. Any other thoughts on this?

PKJ's Italian affair gets serious

2009-06-24T14:30:00.005+08:00

Times may be tough right now, but that hasn’t stopped luxury jewellery brand Luca Carati from officially making its debut in Malaysia this week at a launch event at the Hilton Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

At the event was Poh Kong Jeweller’s (PKJ) Dato’ Choon Yee Seiong who is responsible for the company’s overall strategic and marketing directions among other things, and the Ambassador of Italy to Malaysia was there as well.

PJK is the current distributor of Luca Carati in Malaysia.

Now I am not really the sort of person who knows a great deal about luxury brands and especially luxury jewellery brands. So I had never heard of the brand until the press release about the launch arrived in my inbox. But I was curious to see how the brand marketed itself (and even more curious to see how expensive the product is).

Well, without trying to hard, I found out that Luca Carati’s current brand ambassador is tennis star, Ana Ivanovic and her collection is available in Malaysia at Poh Kong PJ Gallery. And the whole collection will set you back over RM1 million for the three pieces. The most expensive piece being the Diamond Chain (pictured) piece which costs around RM700, 000. It's on the model's head.

Not Ivanovic

Will have to wait and see how Luca Carati markets its products in Malaysia but… I am thinking not newspapers? Although months ago I did remember seeing an uber-luxury pen brand being advertised in one of the dailies here even though the brand didn’t have an outlet here yet – just Singapore.

Go figure!

Not keen on green

2009-06-19T10:31:00.003+08:00

The ability for green IT to cut carbon footprint and improve ROI for companies is a well known and founded idea, yet a new survey has found less than 10% of firms across Asia Pacific have formally implemented a green IT strategy.

The findings were from Springboard Research which surveyed 1,200 firms in Malaysia, Singapore, greater China, India, and Australia.

The question is why are so little numbers of IT firms not going green when it can (a) help give companies a business advantage, (b) should be part of the company’s CSR strategy anyways, and (c) reduce costs in areas such as energy.

According to the study, when respondents were asked to give reasons for not implementing a green IT strategy, a noteworthy amount of responses were they felt there was no need, and they had other priorities at the moment.

Ok guys, we're going green!

However, the survey did also find that 60% of all firms without a green IT strategy in place plan to implement one in the next 24 months, despite the economic recession.

If the recession isn’t really proving to be a factor in stopping IT firms from going green then what else is?

Perhaps a clearer definition is needed of what constitutes a clear green IT strategy? And how do you implement it as well?

Suggestions?

The year the media died

2009-06-16T14:44:00.001+08:00

Sung to the tune of Don Mclean’s American pie. "So bye bye those big upfront buys. Pitched my client who was pliant. But the pitch didn’t fly. And old ad boys were drinking martinis dry. Singing tech has taken us for a ride…"

A bit long but funny stuff. Check it out.

Judge for yourself

2009-06-08T15:51:00.006+08:00

There’s an interesting backlash developing online towards the two entries (one is from Malaysia) which won the viral ad competition to become 'Team YouTube', the 39th team competing in the 2009 Young Lions Film Competition.

Over the weekend, Malaysia’s own Adeline Chew and an Israeli entry were deemed winners of the ad competition which this year chose Oxfam as its charity partner. The brief for young creatives across the world was to create a short ad of up to one minute on YouTube to promote their climate change campaign.

Here's Adeline's 'Listen Don't Watch' video

Guy Dayan's 'The YouTube climate thermometer'

Creatives were given 48 hours to submit their ad and then had a further two weeks to make their YouTube ad go viral by any means necessary.

A lot was at stake -- 'Team YouTube' the winners get an all expenses paid trip to Cannes to attend the International Advertising Festival and compete as the 38th team in the prestigious Young Lions Film competition.

PR from Cannes said the competition received 692 entries and over 100,000 votes in two weeks. And that a panel of worldwide creative leaders had selected Adeline and Guy as the winners based upon their ads' creativity, number of views and video ratings.

But, as with most creative judging, not everyone's happy with the results. And it's starting to turn nasty out there in YouTube land.

Check out some of the comments made by YouTube users (or one very free YouTube user) which in most cases accuses the winning videos of lacking creativity, being boring, and in the case of Guy’s video, being an outright stolen idea.

I’ll check back tomorrow to see if the backlash goes the distance for another day… but what do you guys think? A case of sour grapes or do the haters have a point? Or can we chalk this up as another reason why clients should no longer be impressed with an agency's creative award show haul.

FYI the YouTube Contest Judges were:
Rory Sutherland - Vice Chairman, Ogilvy One (UK)
Alexandre Gama - Chief Creative Officer and Founder, NeoGama BBH (Brazil)
Stephane Xiberras - President / Executive Creative Director, BETC Euro RSCG (France)
Nick Law - Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer North America, R/GA (USA)
Yuya Furukawa - Executive Creative Director, Dentsu (Japan)
Ariel Abramovici - Copywriter, BBDO Argentina (2008 winner Young Lions Film)
Bruno Acanfora - Art Director, BBDO Argentina (2008 winner Young Lions Film)

Twitter goes to Hollywood

2009-05-27T11:08:00.004+08:00

Yes it’s true. Reports out of Variety reveal that the San Francisco-based web phenom has partnered with Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment to develop an unscripted TV show.

The show has been described as "putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.”

“…a compelling way to bring the immediacy of Twitter to life on TV,” reports Variety.

So what does this all mean for Twitter? It certainly legitimises the brand even more and follows shortly after Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to be the first to collect 1 million followers on Twitter.

But now that traditional media has again shown faith in Twitter services, should we expect to see more marketers using Twitter features in campaigns?

Like what Skittles has been doing in the US?

The YouToo problem with YouTube

2009-05-22T15:12:00.003+08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how high the quality of the original content can get on YouTube. Some of the short films /clips broadcast on the site are inspiring. And that’s the trouble isn’t it?

Recently Creative Review blogged about the YouTube dilemma which opened by saying YouTube provides a steady stream of inspiration to advertising creatives, but it also leaves young directors vulnerable to having ideas stolen and agencies open to accusations of plagiarism.

And posed the question, how can both directors and agencies protect themselves?

It then went into great lengths to report on some of the more high profile and recent examples of this, such as the new Sony Bravia ad featuring Brazilian footballer Kaka and a life-size zoe¬trope which is currently airing across the region.

It was deemed to be too similar to or at least based on a short film by Mark Simon Hewis.

I am not going to go through all the cases Creative Review highlighted (You can read the blog posting here) but it’s certainly worth a read and raises more than a few questions.

How advertising agencies / creatives protect themselves from being labeled as plagiatists because… everyone always assumes the agency are guilty. And how do young directors protect their ideas from being used without any commercial gain when some would say they shouldn’t be broadcasting their work on YouTube if they don’t want people to be influenced by it or re-interpret it.

One commentator on the Creative Review blog summarised by saying: “copying of ideas will and should always be punished (by law or reputation damage). But re-applying parts of others people's output in new context will and should not be punishable.”

Yasmin Ahmad who directed a TVC titled ‘Funeral’ for the MCYS in Singapore has already responded to The Pitch which blogged about how bloggers had slammed the TVC for “ripping-off” a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting. See the post here.

Over to you guys.

Lighthearted look at communication strategy

2009-05-20T13:15:00.004+08:00

England’s bid for the next World Cup kicked-off on Monday with a ceremony at Wembley attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and football icon David Beckham. And they’ve already identified what not to say in their communication strategy.

Don’t say football’s coming home.

The Guardian has an interesting (if you’re a football fan) piece on why England should steer clear of that catchy slogan which embodied the 1996 European championships hosted by England.

Those of you who watched the Euros that year will no doubt remember the slogan – and the great Lightning Seeds jingle to go along with it. But on Monday, the 2018 World Cup bid committee went on the record to say they would not adopt the “tone” of that communications this time round – calling it “arrogant”, among other things, to believe the country had the right to think of themselves as the home of football.
Lord Sebastian Coe, who led London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, was in Singapore for the World Effie Festival last year to talk about effectiveness in communications, and his clear message to anyone trying to reach out to youths in today’s cluttered landscape was: “If you don’t reach out to them in language they understand, someone else will”.

You should check out the Lightning Seeds video here and read the comments (yes people are still commenting 12 years on!).

Maybe the committee should reconsider their stance on this.

England's eight rivals for 2018 are Russia, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, the United States, Spain/Portugal and the Netherlands/¬Belgium.

The best campaign in the world

2009-05-07T15:04:00.003+08:00

The much talked about ‘Best job in the world’ campaign has taken the top prize at the One Show Awards in New York. Is there more to come?

Created by Australian shop CumminsNitro Brisbane for Tourism Queensland, the campaign added to its Best of Show win by also winning the Gold Pencil in the integrated branding campaign category at the One Show.

For those of you who’ve been living under a rock (you missed your big chance!) the ‘Best job in the world’ campaign was part of a three-year AUS$1.7 million global marketing strategy where a selected person would get a paid six-month job as a brand ambassador living on a Great Barrier Reef island.

It was positioned as a global search for candidates for the caretaker role of Hamilton Island for six months with a salary of AUS$150,000. And the competition received something like 34,684 applications from 200 countries – while achieving close to $100 million worth of publicity globally. Not bad for $1.7 million campaign.

The One Show accolades also come just one day after Ben Southall was named the winner of the ‘Best job in the world’ competition.

But what do you guys think? Will there be many more awards for this marketing campaign and what about it made it such a great success?

Already we’re seeing other tourism bodies following Tourism Queensland’s lead.

McHappy no longer

2009-05-05T15:45:00.006+08:00

The debate on intellectual property rights reared its ugly head again in Malaysia following last week’s high profile court ruling against McDonald’s in the case of the McCurry restaurant.

At the tail of end of last week, the news broke that McDonald’s in Malaysia was on the losing end of an eight year long court battle against an Indian restaurant calling itself McCurry.

The latest court ruling said that the fast food giant cannot claim an exclusive right to the ‘Mc’ prefix and there was no evidence to suggest McCurry (which stands for Malaysian Chicken Curry) had misrepresented itself to the public and confusing consumers.

Headline from theSun

The case is just one example of the struggle big-name consumer products face in attempting to protect its brands. Now I am not here to debate whether McCurry is in the wrong but McDonald’s clearly thinks the Indian restaurant has.

In a statement to A+M, the company’s VP of marketing communications, local store marketing and business / consumer insights, Stephen Chew said McDonald’s intellectual property includes the ‘Mc’ prefix and that intellectual property was considered to “be highly valuable company assets.”

“Over the years we have been vigilant in vigorously protecting and enforcing our trademark rights wherever we do business,” he said.

“We note that we originally won this trademark protection case in 2006 – so naturally, we are disappointed with this particular appeal court ruling.”

When asked if he thought the ruling might see a string of F&B outlets challenge the use of the ‘Mc’ prefix in their names, Chew would only comment that McDonald’s “will continue to protect its trademark in the future.”

The ruling certainly brings up an excellent question – will other big brands or multinationals, right or wrong, look at this market as one that does not particularly respect intellectual property rights?

If you hadn't already listened to it before, we also brought up the topic on our weekly spot on BFM which you can listen to here.

Over to you guys.

UPDATED 7/9/2009: MCDONALD'S HAS CHALLENGED THE RULING AND THE CASE HEADS FOR A MALAYSIAN COURT AGAIN. http://tinyurl.com/mj9z5u

It's gonna cost you

2009-04-24T15:32:00.002+08:00

Recently the press picked up on the impending English Premier League rights bidding war that’s about to kick-off around the region. It was timely given that I just got a hold of some figures from ESPN STAR Sports which tells me (a) EPL is still mind-numbingly popular, and (b) it’s not going to come cheap for both the broadcaster and in the end, the football fan as well.

ESS says the current season of the Premier League live matches and ancillary programming reached more male viewers 15+ than the combined reach of news, education and entertainment programmes between 15 August 2008 to 25 February 2009.

According to AGB NMR, over the same period, more than 63% of all cable viewers aged 15+ in Malaysia have already watched the BPL (Barclays Premier League) 2008/2009 matches and its ancillary programming.

The BPL match between Manchester United and Liverpool on March 14 hit a Top 3 spot^ over the March 1 - 15 period, achieving an average rating of 6.6% among male viewers 15+ on cable, with the highest audience share (among regional cable broadcasters) of 17.3% during television viewing primetime, only second to a local-language channel.

But it’s not just the matches that ESS is able to tap on. It produces close to 1,500 hours of original football content a year including Nokia Football Crazy, Football Focus, Goals, Football Forecast, First Edition and Football Extra.

And because ESS also has the rights for the UEFA Champions League FA Cup, the company’s senior director of marketing and corporate communications, Paras Sharma is confident they will retain the EPL rights for next three seasons (from July 2010 onwards).

Still, ESS has lost out before, back in 2007 in Singapore (although they still handle the ad sales for that market).

StarHub paid a reported $250 million for the Singapore rights which were also seen as a strategic attempt to ensure rival SingTel wouldn’t be able to add the Premier League to its IPTV mio-TV platform.

Closer to home, Malaysia's state-owned Telekom Malaysia recently went on the record to say it may challenge Astro and bid for the exclusive rights which will open for bidding in the second quarter of this year. TM is hoping to secure attractive content for its IPTV platform which launches at the end of 2009.

So while Singapore is sold as a standalone market with other markets a part of a cluster - who knows what will happen this time.

Whatever happens, you can bet it’s going to involve a lot of money and it’s going to cost the football fan.

“You can make corrections if the business isn’t going up but clearly it is,” Sharma said.

*During period 15 Aug 2008-25 Feb 2009 in Malaysia. Refers to CNN, MTV Asia and Discovery. Source: AGB NMR
^Source: AGB NMR, Top 100 Broadcasts on Cable TV channels in Malaysia for March

Sucked in

2009-04-21T16:03:00.006+08:00

My daily consumption habits of news online brought me to an interesting story by a Singapore news portal which asked the question, how many people out there think that Singapore sucks?

The answer, according to the news portal, can be found in the number of members who belong to a Facebook group called ‘Singapore Sucks’ – which has 375 members at the time of writing. And was created by a Singaporean (so it has been reported).

Under Basic Info, the Facebook group says: “While Singapore has enjoyed stable economic growth for decades now, its people and culture have not progressed forward. Prolonged periods of tight government control on all aspects of life have created an atmosphere of workaholism because there is simply nothing else to do.”

“The purposes of this group are to raise awareness for people from everywhere in the world about the current state of Singapore and for members to vent their frustration.

And it goes on to say that “Singapore needs a liberal government... and for that to happen Singaporeans have to change and have to start asking for a change.”

The page goes on to list a number of “facts” which supposedly highlight Singapore’s backwardness in a number of areas and mentions everything from its rankings in the Reporters Without Borders’ Worldwide Press Freedom Index, to accusations the nation is supporting the Burmese military junta.

To be honest I am surprised the Facebook is group still active (it gained nearly 50 more members since the article in the news portal was published) especially now that mainstream media has turned its attention to it.

But what do you guys think? Will it get shutdown – does it deserve to be? And if the Group gets shutdown now does it not prove the point of its creator about Singapore’s media laws?

If something similar were to happen here with an anti-Malaysia Facebook group being discovered - what would the media’s reaction and government’s reaction to it be?

But your Facebook status says so

2009-04-01T15:35:00.005+08:00

It's always amusing when social networking sites provide the headliners for daily newspapers. Just yesterday, on April Fool's Day no less, the national newspapers were taken for a good-humoured ride by politician Teresa Kok.

Kok, who is Seputeh MP poked fun at the day's events when she posted a link to a news story which said: "Oh no, I am now national news!"

The joke started much earlier in the day at 9.41am when she set her Facebook status to read "Teresa Kok is Luvin' It although her marriage plans have as many combinations as a McDonald's menu."

The 45-year-old DAP stalwart - a member of the opposition coalition - was then subjected to a barrage of phone calls from journos who were waiting to get the dirt about her tying the knot.

It didn't help that there were a flood of congratulatory comments and questions left on her page.
In the end, The Star got the scoop before mid-day reporting that Kok said she is not getting married, clarifying her Facebook posting, adding that it "got the media buzzing".

At 12.06pm, Kok, who was reportedly at a state exco meeting (it's usually held on Wednesdays) in Shah Alam, then updated her status to read: "Teresa Kok's last status msg about 'marriage plans' was her April Fool's joke. Too many reporters are phoning her up for comments so she has to, reluctantly, reveal it's a joke today, instead of tomorrow".

Nice.

The power of Google

2009-03-30T23:35:00.000+08:00

In a recent whirlwind trip to Malaysia, A+M managed to sneak in a few minutes for some Q&A with Derek Callow, Google's Marketing head of Southeast Asia.
He speaks of how SEM provides marketers the space on the worldwide web to push their products and services and how agencies are or are not stepping up to push the goodness of SEM.

Hegarty's got bite but does he still have vision

2009-03-24T15:55:00.005+08:00

As I begin to finally recover from my Singha beer hangover and the memories of my first trip to Pattaya for AdFest come rushing back, I can now recall the lasting presence - good or bad - that Sir John Hegarty left on the festival.

He was jury president for many of the big awards on offer, such as the Lotus Roots, Film, Radio, Innova, and 360 Lotus, and it was good to see an advertising legend, which Hegarty is, judging work from our region.

But a few things struck me about him during the festival which were that(1) Hegarty still has the aura about him of being one of the world's most famous creative and (2) The man knows how to make great ads but (3) Is he slightly out of touch with today's market?

There's no real need for me to question (1) and (2) - those are facts and it would be pointless for me to argue otherwise. But point (3) is what I want to discuss.

In a room packed full with ad men (and there were plenty of presentations played out to a quarter filled room at AdFest, so Hegarty still has that drawing power) he gave a presentation on the seven basic principles he thought the creative industry needed to consider to succeed.

It was a clear and concise presentation with some great old ads BBH had done in the past mixed in with some new ones like the Audi ad fresh off the production line.

My only problem with the presentation was that it felt a bit old-world. And this nagging feeling was seemingly backed up moments later by the CEO of a competing agency who commented to me that his ideas seemed "outdated".

As a journalist you're trained to be objective and it should be noted that the basis of this post came from Hegarty's reaction to a question posed by another journalist on of ours in fact (Matt Eaton, editor of Hong Kong Marketing and blogger on The Pitch Hong Kong) at a press conference shortly after Hegarty's talk.

In response to a question on whether digital is the place the industry is heading... with reference to waning popularity of TV, Hegarty said the industry had lost the fight against the new digital paradigm.

But when the journalist said, "actually cant you say the opposite? That the industry is taking up the fight and going where people are consuming media?" - he ranted on about how industry journalists were perpetuating some sort of myth about digital and the death of TV. It felt a little defensive.

It's long been unpopular to question the 'black sheep' but there it is but what do you guys think?

Google-killer in the making?

2009-03-11T16:16:00.004+08:00

In case you haven’t noticed – we’ve gone Twitter friendly. For the past month or so, MarketingEds has been working hard with the tweeting and we now have over 1000 followers. But as I start to become more comfortable with this new technology or phenomenon, I realise that Twitter has the potential to be a Google-killer.

Ok I might be exaggerating slightly but if you think of Twitter as a human powered search engine then you can see where I am coming from.

Don’t think of Twitter as a place where you can find out what so and so ate for breakfast, instead use it as a tool where you can get the best search results or problem solving information from.

A Twitter account with a quality following has the capacity to do just this. It’s generally powered by people you know, and who will respond. The next time I am in KL, and unsure of how to get to my next meeting, I might just tweet someone for the directions instead of Googling it.

You know it’s not your day when…

2009-03-06T12:24:00.005+08:00

You know it’s not your day when…a client asks you to reach the entire literate world on a budget of less than $8 million.

Spare a thought for Katherine Kinsella, president of Kinsella Media which is an ad agency specializing in notices for class action lawsuits.

When her client Google settled a class action lawsuit (brought on behalf of authors whose works it scanned for its controversial Book Project) it reportedly agreed to pay $125 million to develop a way for consumers to pay for reading a copyrighted book – Google and the writer(s) will split the earnings.

The search begins for writers.

We got the news from our electronic tip off function but it’s making waves around the world.

Basically, Kinsella Media has recommended to Google to run print ads in newspapers, magazines and journals all over the world in a bid to reach writers – because writers are readers.

No easy task. Especially since the ads intend to drive the audience to a website where the settlement is described, and has to be translated into 70 different languages, and… nobody wants to get on the bad side of Google.

if you’re reading this and you’re an author of a piece of work in Malaysia that Google has scanned for its Book Project – well its good you clicked through – I’ve just saved Kinsella Media some of that precious $8 million dollar budget.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Music industry gets pwnd for epic fail

2009-02-18T16:07:00.005+08:00

(If the headline makes sense to you then you already know all about this, off you go, see you in Digg.) For the rest of us here's the story.

The music industry is having its day in court over unauthorized music downloads in what is billed as one of the most important IP rights cases in history, are they right? Only partially.

The trial, which is just entering its third day in Stockholm, Sweden, the home of Pirate Bay, pits the music industry, specifically, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal, Warner Bros., EMI, and Sony BMG, against peer to peer music, video, games and software bit torrent site the Pirate Bay.

Not to get too technical, Pirate Bay hosts torrent files which allow users to download files in parts and at greater speeds from a lot of different sources. The Pirate Bay is basing its defense on technical details, details which the prosecution is having difficulty understanding - the main argument is it only hosts the torrents on its servers not any copyrighted material therefore it can't be charged with copyright infringement.

The company, in its five year history, has always laughed off 'cease and desist' letters and other threats from the music and film industry before but has finally ended up in court. But is the music marketing machine completely innocent in the growth of file sharing online and therefore deserves to win?

As victims of unethical operators with no regard for intellectual property rights in Malaysia ourselves we are sensitive to copyright and IP issues but I think the music industry and to a certain extent the film industry has got it wrong for a long time.

It is hard to feel sorry for an industry in decay the way the music industry is. Consumers seem to have said if you cannot find a better and fairer way to distribute music well, we'll do it for you.

It's well known that artists do not get a large slice of the profits from the sale of each CD with the music marketers arguing musicians wouldn't be so popular without the millions that go into promoting each album. The trouble is the way musicians get popular is changing as well, there are now about a dozen acts you would class as commercially very successful who started out as MySpace, Facebook or YouTube acts.

Should music and videos be free? Of course not. Who would continue to make music if there were no commercial gain, except hippies and church choirs. But if there was a more equatable way of purchasing music that didn't build in all the marketing costs and pass them along to the consumer they might find the business not looking so precarious.

For instance if you discovered a band online and you went off and bought their CD why should you pay the producer's marketing costs if you discovered the music virally?

Apple has it partially right but not fully. In a number of countries the iTunes store offers pay per
download songs, TV episodes and movies and, despite the hugely annoying DRM (digital rights management code attached to the songs, which means you can only play it on 5 devices and pretty much only in iTunes) it is more convenient than having to chase music on bit torrents, plus the files are stable and the libraries huge.

But it isn't available here in Malaysia like many Asian countries.

Bit torrent downloading here isn't a huge issue I guess because of the terrible broadband speeds Malaysia suffers with compared to many other markets and the ready availability of content like pirated videos, not just at the street sellers around Bukit Bintang but in proper shops across whole floors of malls in places like Little India and China town in KL and throughout other towns like JB.

If copyright owners, like the ones trying to close down Pirate Bay this week decided they wanted to start charging equitable prices for songs that could be bought separately or for a bundled price as an album they would certainly pick up some of the revenue they are losing out on through the massive downturn in CD sales over the past 10 years - due largely they argue to peer to peer file sharing.

But they seem to want to stubbornly protect an old business model at a time when old business models are falling daily in the face of tough economic times and changing consumer habits of consumption.

Also, by taking on a very vocal and very powerful internet community, even if the labels win they won't be winning any friends and the considerable backlash is well under way with blogs, forums, social news sites and tweets pulsing with anger over the trial.

If the Pirate Bay is going down it will go down as it lives, in swashbuckling style. The founders have long run a section on their site where they lampoon legal threats from record companies and artists who try to have their content (err the bit torrents) removed.

The founders have been turning up to the trial in a cheerily painted bus and remain defiant, blogging about the trial as it happens and fans and supporters have been turning up to cheer them on waving Jolly Roger flags and banners. The founders are certainly playing to the crowd.

"The record companies can go screw themselves,” was what founder Gottfrid Svartholm said about the record companies suing Pirate Bay.

Socialising online is having a dramatic impact on consumers and if companies and whole categories don't get that then it paves the way for someone who does get it to create an opportunity.

Maybe the music industry will be walking the plank on this one whether they win or lose (ok that was unecessary...)

The customer is always right (...in the way of my social life)

2009-02-16T13:26:00.006+08:00

Let me tell you a tale of two customer service experiences which reveal a lot about what is terribly right and terribly wrong with the razor sharp edge of all marketing where your front line meets your purchaser, the art of customer service.

The first was a wet market in Chow Kit where I have just started to buy food essentials on a regular basis. It was a little bit daunting at first the market is huge but it's extremely rewarding if you are prepared to dodge flying chicken parts and wade through puddles of animal's blood and other liquids.

Here I can get served by the guy who caught the fish, slaughtered the chickens and grew the chillies. In terms of his company, him and his family, he is the brand custodian, he knows his product, he can tell you where it came from and he can tell you quite a bit about it. Despite clearly getting up at a time on a Saturday morning when many of us are just getting to bed, he's relatively cheery. His prices, even though i am pretty sure I am getting a "special price", are still a lot cheaper than the fancier supermarkets.

Which brings me to the comparative experience.

If the market in Chow Kit sold coffee beans, decent olive oils and poncy tomatoes dried to about five different stages then I'd have no need to go to a more conventional supermarket at all, particularly the sort set up to separate foreigners, who suffer from occasional culinary home sickness, from their money.

I do once a week have to visit a particularly fancy supermarket in the Pavilion and on Saturday I found myself in this very supermarket and with a basket full of over priced items approached a check out.

This and not the prices is always the worst part of a visit to this particular supermarket. Often when you approach there are one but usually two very young staff clearly making plans for the rest of the weekend, none of which involve running your grocery items through their check out.

If they do break up their conversations long enough to provide some customer service, it is only to lazily push things across the scanner whilst getting involved in conversations going on several checkouts away where, like myself, there are more frustrated customers helpless to do anything but wait until the misery ends and they are out of the store.

Instead of providing a welcoming environment, which makes you want to linger and therefore help the store's owners with their ultimate goal of shifting inventory, makes you feel like you are an un-invited, over-aged and therefore somewhat creepy guest at a teenager's birthday party.

I'm fine with this vibe in a clothing shop, because it's a great indicator I am too old to be shopping there, and I am ok with this in a music shop, I can even tolerate a certain amount of it in an Apple store as long as the young staff know at least as much as I do about the products and preferably more - but in a place where I buy bread - no thanks.

Don't get me wrong I used to have part time jobs when to put myself through university myself and spent a bright shining year as a pizza maker where I was every bit not there as these guys, however I had a boss who'd kick us up the proverbial if we ever misbehaved in front of, or disrespected, customers.

The final straw on this particular visit on Saturday and I have to say most visits to this supermarket are very, very similar, was when my cashier and his cheer squad managed to ring up something wrong with my bill and had no idea how to undo it. What ensued was an argument about who would go and get the manager that went on for several minutes and left me asking "aren't there any adults that work here".

Of course my reply was a shrug from my server and his cheerleaders and after several more minutes, during which absolutely nothing happened I grabbed my credit card and said "you know what I'll come back another time". The reply was a giggle.

So the store loses a customer, one who buys something at least once a week and I tell everyone I know, and no one ever even hears about it and the customer service staff really don't care and there in lies the problem.

The marketing department may be pretty busy tying up partnerships, running campaigns both in-store and external, managing the extremely complex art of in store marketing and point of sale for numerous brands, but it never hears that a lot of the good work it does is undone by transient part-time staff who really have no association with brand or even know they are representing one.

It certainly isn't a unique Malaysia issue. Down South the problem there as well but shows itself in a different way (yes even in the service culture of Singapore). Five people will over-enthusiastically yell "good morning" as you walk into a store which is nice, but then really don't know enough about what they are selling or have the communications skills to carry through on the initial promise.

Lets cut back to the stall owner in the wet market, he can tell you anything you want to know, he isn't sitting texting on his phone or talking to his other stall buddies or watching what is going on three stalls over while you are asking when and where the prawns were caught.

He might not have a fancy orange uniform or take credit cards but he's living his brand because he knows his brand and he knows there are 40 other guys who could just as easily take my money.

You'd be surprised how many marketers are talking about a return to values and understanding customers on a more personal level as part of their survival strategy.

I say bring it on.

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! Or not?

2009-01-28T10:55:00.004+08:00

We're all familiar with how festive seasons are supposed to be a time for merriment and happiness.
With that in mind, the Asian community, particularly is reminded to reflect on the values of love and respect for family and loved ones.
But can this be taken too far sometimes?
Petronas has been ooh-ed and aah-ed at many times over for its extraordinary, moral-centred TVCs screened on television for all festive seasons.
Leo Burnett's team, led by Yasmin Ahmad have been the working hands behind the inspiring commercials with work like 'Tan Hong Ming in Love' for Malaysia's 50th Independence Day, which has won and continues to bag award after award and last Chinese New Year's 'Nobody's Child' carrying the message of cherishing your family.
It depicts a seven-year-old Tan Tiam Hock, who is scolded by his teacher for not being able to draw a reunion dinner scene in school.
The TVC then shows why he doesn't draw anything when he goes home to an orphanage.
While it is admirable that the Leo Burnett team incorporates values into its work, has it left the Malaysians wondering if there's too much depression?
Here's a look at the 2008 Deepavali ad and then later this year's CNY ad. Have your say below ...

One More Day

Petronas' The Wings of a Man for Deepavali 2008

The Glitch Brand Forum?

2008-12-05T22:28:00.011+08:00

Kudos to organisers Media Prima and the Global Brand Forum (GBF) who, on the overall, did an excellent job at the Global Brand Forum held on Dec 4 and 5.
While they made sure the participants had their fill of intelligent courses of information and tips of marketing and branding their products in their effort to push Malaysian brands to the global front, the press corp may have had a little bit of challenge.
Not to diss the public relations companies who were charged with looking after the journalists nor the organisers but it was a little impossible - unless you were armed with a DSLR camera - to take close up shots of the speakers on-stage.
There was an invisible camera for security reasons, one would gather, that photographers could not cross to get up close to the stage but the opportunity did come about at the press conferences held a level below (a five minute walk in heels and lugging bags aplenty; three minutes in flats).
At the media centre, unfortunately, there were four lines short of internet connection as there was only one LAN plug-in. Those who had the modern-day USB modem turned out to be the smart ones who did not need to waste any time.
The second day, as reported by Advertising + Marketing (www.marketing-interactive.com) saw the holographic and recorded video conference of Ivanka Trump who saw "a hand waving" shortening her 15-minute presentation.
Let it be known that each speaker had about 45-minutes to say their piece.
But in the defence of the Global Brand Forum, they had exhausted all options including a private jet for the one-time supermodel to turn up, said Karthik Siva - chairman of GBF.
Still, they were told two-days before her appearance, the emergency - an event - could not be forgone.
So the organisers resorted to rope in Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat as a surprise guest but for some reason, there was a delay in her appearance so the participants had a longer lunch break.
Which turned out to be convenient for the Muslim participants who had to attend Friday prayers.
Sherawat, in the end, shared a couch with panelists film-maker and director Samar Khan, Hollywood director Oliver Stone and Melium Group president Datuk Farah Khan to share her thougts on 'Creating Brand Leadership in Entertainment and Fashion Industry'.
Hollywood director Oliver Stone

Sherawat, in the midst of the discussion and taking questions, did get a little dressing down (pun intended as she was dressed in a tight grey-dress which rode up as she took to the stage) from a participant who is quite prominent in the Malaysian marketing, communications and advertising industry.
Stone also took a hit for being invited guest speakers at the Global Brand Forum as Hollywood did not have much to do with direct branding efforts.
She had emphasised that the GBF was "beyond" Sherawat's league.
Riz Khan, played the very mediating host, requesting that the participant respected the speakers who had made the effort and took time to attend the forum, to share their personal experiences and thoughts with the 930 audience who turned up.
"GBF's role was to educate the overall aspects about branding to just the marketing world but to show that the diversity of branding.
"That it goes beyond the serious business and the entertainment industry does have a part in it," Khan said, gaining the further admiration of the rest of the crowd who clapped and cheered for him.
It can still be said the organisers achieved what they had wanted to do which was to educate Malaysians on building their product and brands.

Sony so right, so wrong

2008-12-03T10:26:00.007+08:00

Malaysia - Here comes the venom, but don't worry, the agency names have been omitted to protect the guilty. Actually it's not all venom some of it is nectar, the nectar of a wonderfully good idea.

There are two TV spots that have my attention at the moment both of them are for Sony products.

I have always been a big fan of Sony and I know agencies love them as a client because some divisions can be brave and visionary, they like to get involved with their communications, usually in the right way - I've blogged extensively on work like the original PlayStation creative, particularly the evocative "Double Life" spot.

True to form Sony's creative to leverage on its Quantum of Solace tie in featuring Daniel Craig, is an extremely good ad - it's all about the product and positioning.

Craig, who in the ad plays the character from the Ian Flemming franchise, that he has reinvented as "the Bond with bruises", is bombarded by all manner of ballistics as he calmly stands in an immaculate suit.

The connection with the film is obvious and it's done in a way the never strays from the benefits of Sony's high definition line, the inference, though not the tag line, is it doesn't get any more real than this. The spot concludes with a close up of Craig's battered face and the simple line "Bond in Sony High Definition".

The product is present but not overbearing in a retail way and the ad cuts through the run of the mill film tie ins because it uses bespoke footage, not simply a montage from the film with the logo at the end.

Unfortunately Sony is also the client for the ad that bugs me the most at the moment. It's not because it's a particularly awful ad, and heaven knows there are plenty of those on the box right now (if I see that piece for the Malaysia Savings Sale again I'm going to hurt something), it's more that it forms part of a series which started as an exceptional piece of creative.

I am talking about the Sony Bravia Domino City piece, shot in India and featuring a bunch of over sized coloured dominoes falling over through the streets and temples and ending in a large concentric circle of colour with the tag "Colour Like No Other".

This all started with a spot which launched the Bravia range of TVs for Sony called "Bouncy Balls" (if you watch it plug your headphones in and turn it up loud as the music is half the impact) I am sure you have seen and heard of this stunningly simple and highly awarded TVC which saw the agency dump 250,000 bouncy balls down a San Francisco street and film it to creative a haunting and human ad about colour with the tag; "Colour Like No Other". You can read me banging on about it on another blog I used to write here (yes it's an external link so make sure you come back).

The spot was so successful and awarded (it won a gold at Cannes in 2006 and the Grand Prix at the Midsummer Awards in London) other agencies have made attempts to extend the idea with varying successes but none has captured the spirit of the original.

You may have seen Rabbits (arty and clever but lacking), Pyramids
(which seemed to try to replicate the original - you know throwing colourful things down a steep incline) and Paint (this one was kind of clever and on brief but I don't think it ran in Asia).

However the latest Domino City spot really is the death knell for the idea. It seems like an unnecessary stretching of the idea, in fact it's kind of silly(yes, but not only that seems poorly executed with the dominoes looking kind of tinny and unsubstantial an in general I think there are travel network interstitials that engage me much better than this.

In the end it's a bit of a mess and looks little more than an expensive way to get a production crew, the agency and (hopefully since it's on their tab) the client, to see India.

This idea is dead, it's time for a new position for Bravia Sony.

If you think I am wrong and this spot will sweep Cannes next year, or you think the Bond piece is rubbish, I'd love to hear your counter viewpoints.

The Proximity strategy ...

2008-11-29T22:48:00.008+08:00

"Was there? Were there people shaking their heads?" jury head Ronald Ng responded to questions.
It was the tailend of the 30th Kancil Award Festival - at least for the press who stuck around to speak to the agency who scooped up the Golden Kancil as well as the most number of awards at the event at the Sunway Resort and Spa hotel on Friday.
The rest were ready to call it a night or head to the after-party at a smoke-free club next door.
For those who were at the event, please refrain yourself from reading the next two words - BBDO/Proximity Malaysia held the spotlight for almost all the categories that were up for grabs.
The hall howled and cheered everytime the name was mentioned and truth be told, there were indeed a few spotted shaking their heads at 12 Gold, 4 Silver, 11 Bronze and 15 Merit mentions.
Naturally, suspicion would arise from across the board as Ng also happens to be the executive creative director for the agency.
Almost immediately, he said: "The chief judge does not vote, you know?"
And bless him for being honest and there was truth when he quipped: "It would have been great if everyone wins."
"I think they were happy for us ... They were happy," Ng convinces.

Maybe it was strategy that BBDO/Proximity secured that many successes by submitting more entries for the categories.
Perhaps it was really good work as judged upon by the panel of international creatives without having been put pressure or persuaded by Ng.
But really, Ng says and this was affirmed by Creative Director 'MUN', the team broke their backs to gain the recognition.
"It recognises all their efforts ... Staying till 3am and 4am to work on these pieces, it makes it worth it for them," he adds.
Let's face it, it's human nature to take favour on those under your wing but then again, it's the same human nature to play the blame game when all it really is boils down to pure luck and good work.
Que sera sera ... The deal's been done, the certificates and recognition's been given out. There's no point crying over spilt milk, as the saying goes.
Maybe next year the other agencies should learn the trick - more entries and quality work as tipped by the forces that be.
Whatever is said and done, kudos to Ng and BBDO/Proximity general manager and 4As Creative Excellence Committee head Jennifer Chan on the job well done.
The 30th Kancil Awards Festival was an amazing month-long journey with many a lesson on creativity and change but most of all, I think everyone's mostly relieved it's come to the end.

Eds note: Check out the video below to see the electric atmosphere at the event in general and to see BBDO picking up one of their awards and a few other pics from the night.

Watch Not Far From Here and savour Nasi Kandar

2008-11-28T09:33:00.007+08:00

The Kancil Speaker Series 2008 had a few enlightening moments, with two individuals who are worlds apart. It was during a session where the speakers highlight on an interesting topic - change.

Firstly, the film maker. Just one look you can sum up that he is a composed individual with great intellect, BUT please don’t judge this ‘book’ by the cover. He is far from composed; he lives in the past and constantly believes that the world might come to an end anytime.

Ho Yuhang, a renowned, award-winning film maker who won awards for documentaries such as Semangat Insan: Masters of Tradition (1999) and Not Far From Here (2001) also won Special Jury Prize at Nantes for feature film Min (2006), and the NETPAC award in Pusan for Sanctuary (2004).

For a guy who made a name in the film industry, with other noted film makers, such as James Lee, he does not believe that he has gone through any changes – be it personally or professionally. However, Yuhang ‘ambiguously’ touched the topic of change. I don’t know if he realised it but somewhere down the road he had an epiphany that made him take a giant leap – from an engineering to film making.

Without any money to produce a film, he started off simple by working as a production assistant and ripped off the company by utilizing the books and made photocopies of it for future reference. “They had lots of paper and not going to use all of it” was his excuse.

Reading and writing script to land on a big break was all he did unlike others in the company who had a fair share of fun.
He is also an atheist but luck was shining down on him as he received a call to make his first film, and finally won an award later on after a few rejections.

From then on, revenue was tangible, and fame followed, luring him to make more films and writing more scripts.
The other guy, who very much believed that he went through positive changes in his business, made it very clear that there is more to come. Sirajuddin Mydin, managing director of Kayu Nasi Kandar flew all the way from Penang to tell the audience that we should not be deceived into eating any other nasi (rice) kandar that claims the originality. Because there is only one original recipe that comes from Penang and it uses about 39 special herbs and spices to make this mouth-watering nasi kandar (and no drugs involved, mind you – it is a common misconception among Malaysians).

Sirajuddin has many ideas that he would like to put forth. Among them are opening a fast food conceptualised restaurants and be consistent in branding.

As a noble man he takes interest in others’ comments and critics, and to ensure good quality, he savours the nasi kandar almost every day.

Unlike the 39 recipes, his recipes for success comes down to three - be consistent, committed and constantly keep an open mind. Adding to that Cs is evidently change. He believes change is vital for an industry to move forward. With that he creatively lures more people to enjoy a fulfilling nasi kandar.

Speaking of change ...

2008-11-27T21:11:00.010+08:00

The many hands behind the 30th Kancil Awards Festival were spotted with a pasted smile, keeping their spirits uplifted and convincing themselves 'it's coming to an end'.

Lining the walkways and entrance of the Sunway Resort and Spa Ballroom which will house the awards night tomorrow, were the entries of the finalists who will be awarded at tomorrow's event which is expected to draw a big, big crowd.

It was 9am and the beginning of the Speaker Series - an annual event organised at the Kancils - featuring local influential figures who would speak and keep to the theme of 'Change the Game' throughout the various industries in the country, including the world of politics.

Representing the field was former Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek (left) who did what he did best (I found myself nodding a lot) which was convincing the rakyat (constituents) of the change needed in the administration of the country.

The pattern is one that can seem to be very familiar with - especially when the general election looms (here, it's every four years). And yet, some of us would not be bored to tears listening to what may be rhetorics of the 'needed revamp of the system and the need to discard the ethno-centric mentality and get on with issue-centric administration idea'.

Bravely stating his opinion about how 'ketuanan Melayu' (Malay supremacy) - which is a sensitive term to be played around with or even mentioned by the Chinese, Indians and other races in the country - should be done away with, Chua said it was the solution towards making Malaysia a true melting pot.

Chua took to the podium first before Ho Yuhang (independent film director), Sirajudin Mydin (CEO of Kayu Nasi Kandar) and Carl Zuzarte (Head of Creative and Content MTV Southeast Asia) [pictured right to left] took the spotlight.

Before I get all political about today's event, the most prominent message was the fact that the advertising and creative industry had its own role to play in creating change in the country.

It took Yasmin Ahmad - Leo Burnett's ECD - to rattle the foundation with her benchmark work on Tan Hong Ming In Love.

Tan and his girlfriend Qazrina (a Malay) took international fame with even scoring Malaysia's first Cannes Lion Gold in the film category at the Cannes Festival.

In Malaysia, it was recognised as an effort to break away from the mode of racial cliques - even at the primary school level (Tan's seven) - as Yasmin recently said before being inducted in the 4As Hall of Fame.

"There is a dark side of advertising which is the same in the business of when a woman with a lot of flesh feels ugly and (other such instances).

"If the country can come out of this and in a gentlemanly manner, when we realise that people are people regardless of skin colour, size or race, I don't care if we never win another international award," she said.

This was further emphasised at the panel discussion, after lunch.

The two-hour discussion was moderated by renowned human rights lawyer who is also known as one of the most-hated Muslims in the country (because he was defence counsel for Lina Joy who lost a court case in a two-to-one decision that she could not remove the word Muslim from her identity card) Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, who is seated in the middle of the picture of the panel below.

Providing their voices and opinions with him were Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly (Celcom Malaysia CEO) [first from left]; author and Asean issues consultant Karim Raslan [last from left]; theatrical figure and Instant Cafe Theatre artistic director and writer Jo Kukathas [second from left]; and the very quiet Benjamin Yong (CEO of Delicious Group) [fourth from left] who probably didn't feel like he fit in.

Each had their say - metaphorically or not - about the need for change as time ticks away and change is somewhat forced as it is part of evolution.

Shazalli who was recognised by Datuk Vincent Lee, President of 4As, as someone who did not recognise people by race but as another person, took a swipe at a recent festive season advertisement which centred on a particular race instead of emphasising on a multi-racial value of production.

"The most crucial point to do something different and build an insight is at the point of the brief where the agency is the one comes up with a clear idea," he said, daring the players of the industry who were present to an idea of a "Char Koay Teow Day or a Mee Rebus Day" that challenged the typical norm of "a one-race" focus in advertisements come festive seasons.

"I'd be more than happy to support anyone of you who can come up with one celebration day that does not denote the difference between races," he said.

The end message for the participants to take home were that advertising agencies have the power to change the game and it was possible for the industry to reflect values of a multi-racial society on behalf of their clients.

Personally, it's nothing new that's been said today - except the fact that the advertising industry may perhaps have to shoulder the burden of being forces of change in the country - but I'll go home knowing that there are still a handful of politicans who talk sense.

Then again, I wonder if they really mean what they say or they're just winning favour. It's all in the game but if you check your side of the court, you'd probably find the ball there.

Where's my cabbie's valuable brand award?

2008-11-26T00:17:00.000+08:00

Just got in from Malaysia's Most Valuable Brands awards at the PJ Hilton, quite the hike from Bootleg central but one cabbie, who is trying to rebuild Malaysia's customer service reputation one fare at a time, made it worthwhile. Yep sorry Andreas and Tony, left you guys with the RM40 thief mine insisted on using the meter, bless him.

Anyway, good event and great to see the industry out in force to support the biggest (and...well the biggest spending) brands in the market. If you missed it, the banks killed it, the national carrier did reasonable well as did the telcos, although despite pestering anyone who would listen I still didn't get a satisfactory answer as to why Maxis went from taking out the third slot in 2007 to dropping completely off the list this year.

Like all lists the most interesting parts of them aren't at the predictable top, any announcement for the number one position which starts "For the second time running..." is really only going to hold interest for the tables under the same tent as the winning brand itself, oh and for any agency looking to stable that brand, or at least be considered next time the marketer wants to rattle his AOR by calling a pitch or, for that matter, invited along on a fishing expedition if there is a chance the agency might get a chance to take its credentials out for some fresh air.

The more interesting results were CIMB, which scored, according to the Interbrand testing (I'd explain it but the explanation was a little too long and was, I was convinced, actively getting between me and my dinner so I tuned out of what I am sure was an excellent treatise on the methodology), added growth of around 84%.

Another was the dip that Petronas took, somewhere in the vicinity of a 47% negative growth, the company perhaps was expressing its disappointment, or rather attempting a shot at disinterest, when it sent a PR flack to pick up the gong, where many companies fronted top brass.

So are these awards, leading a week rotten with accolades of every variety and culminating in the Kancils, worth it?

You bet your shrinking ad budgets they are. Given the amount of creatively driven awards the industry endures in any one year on a local, regional and global level, the kind of award that recognises the card carrying, bill paying clients is well worth supporting.

It was excellent to see so many agency and media faces there and while the classical flute notes might not be the sound track to a good time in the minds of some in the industry it is a nice metaphor for the sobering months ahead.

As one excellent fellow who shall remain nameless (only because his name is buried in a stack of to be sorted tomorrow cards) told me tonight the ability for a marketer to show real year-on-year growth in the value of brands and therefore evidence that the marketing budget is actively working, will be highly valued as the economic situation tightens in Malaysia.

However any marketer concentrating tonight a little too much on his delightfully tender chicken and not enough on how he is going to tie his team's efforts directly to the Most Valuable Brands win, is likely to be just as bad off as a marketer attached to a brand which didn't win an award.

The bosses need constantly reminding of how brands grow in value and get awarded for that - through marketing, it doesn't just happen because you're nice to the organisers or pay enough.
Don't get me started on those branding awards.

Good night.

It's a blog

2008-11-25T17:57:00.000+08:00

A big welcome to advertising + marketing Malaysia magazine's (A+M) official blog
where you'll find opinion, ideas, interviews, photos and footage from the team.

While we are busy putting together the launch edition of Malaysia's freshest title for the marketing, agency, media and online business community, check back here to see what we're up to.

We hope to see you out and about as we go around getting to know everyone and I have to say a big thanks for the overwhelming positivity about our arrival on the scene.

Meanwhile (pic) here's part of the A+M team hard at work brainstorming covers in our KL office along with visiting editors from Marketing Hong Kong and Marketing Singapore teams last week.

As you can see it's all hands to the pump to bring our latest addition to the legitimate Marketing Magazine Group into the world.

Cheers for now.

TK

PS don't forget to check out our market leading site marketing-interactive.com and our sister blogs the pitch and the pitch hong kong.