JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!

Gratz on making it pass what i call the worst day of the week! For all Muslim readers, Happy Hari Raya and for all Singaporeans, enjoy the hol tmr (while i’ll be mugging in sch for ethics…)

Anyhows, today’s post will be short cause I just finished doing some work and i’m pretty beat…

But I can’t contain my excitement and I wanna share 2 sites with you. Remember how is tot there were 2 industries whereby web2.0 can be used perfectly because of the community spirit within these industries?

Well, I’ve been given a chance to view them and let’s start with the pet industry!

Vivian has shown me this social networking site for pets! I remember saying on my post on Pet Industry and social media in Singapore and how i tot web 2.0 would fit in perfectly!

Well, the social networking site is called wuffstaff for dog owners and it’s a pretty cool site whereby dog owners come together and share photos, stories, swap discussions on a social networking site! Neat huh?

Thank Vivian!

Next, i wanna share a social networking site on the sports industry. Oscar stumbled upon my post on Sports and Web2.0=Sports 2.0, Should Asia Embrace it? He’s got an interesting sports social networking site called sporting connections he’s set up for sports people to gather and not only discuss, but arrange team matches, training sessions etc.

However, his comments on my post were that while his target market were for Asians to join in, he’s getting more and more European based members.

I’ve asked him how has he engaged the Asian audience but he has yet to reply. While I haven’t seen any efforts to push the site out to Asians, I believe that by posting it on relevant sporting sites (soccer’s pretty big here in South East Asia, basketball’s huge in China) and engaging people who are on those sites to come and join his site.

I really hope to see his site take off cause its got so much potential! So does Wuffstaff, great examples of how industries have leveraged on the community spirit of the industry and used a medium which leverages on precisely the same thing!

Knock yourselves over those sites and have a good holiday as you read this. To the readers who don’t celebrate Hari Raya, its Wednesday, hang in there, we’re reaching the weekend!

Creative PR, Microsoft’s branding and Ethical blogging

You know what its like when you procrastinate over something (like reading up on your exams tmr) and hitting a road bump in your blog?

Well, to avoid that road bump of wanting to do 3 small posts, i decided to do a mash up of them all here.

Creative PR

So first its about creative PR. Michael sent out an article to my class today regarding how Sanlu tried to do a PR cover up. While I’m not going into the debate of saying why they did what they did, what i want to point out is how they actually thought of paying $640,000 to Baidu to block negative stories about the brand.

I mean ingenious isn’t it? Who was their agency? Block the starting point of where people would find the articles on such a case!! OMG, if this was a crisis management class with creativity as part of the grade, I’ll give these guys an A plus, lol… (Ethical standards aside…)

Microsoft’s Branding

So meeting Vivian today (who has asked me to blog about us and I will), she asked me, what’s the core essence of Apple’s branding? Why is it so successful?

I mean we all know the Mac and PC ads and the shadowy ads with the iPods rite? But what is it that really turns us on to them? How did they do it? I was kindda stumped….

And going through my Google reader tonight, i found this! Why Microsoft is loosing the ad war.

Interesting how Microsoft is putting its positioning the same as Apple.To position Microsoft as reliable? I don’t know… Like BMW focuses on its performance? or Volks on safety? Hmmmm….

Read the article, it’s got a few great insights and the comments have pretty good recommendations too. (I hope i dun keep doing this referral thing, lol…)

Ethical Blogging

Lastly, ethics in blogging. Jason Falls pushes a good read on ethics in blogging called One Nation under Blog by David Wallce. I felt this post really addressed my previous concern on a post i did about the blogosphere to be the next tabloid.

I especially like the analogy of early driving days to our modern traffic system for cars as compared to blogging today in its infancy stage. It’s a long topic to discuss howthe non bloggers might view us as yellow journalists tabliods out to exploit advertising money versus setting a certain code of conduct which i feel is necessary.

So there you go, time for me to stop pushing the readings away, see ya’ll at JUST FR FUN TUESDAY!!! tmr!

How to make Microsoft not part of the game

I’m sure many of you have heard of the ad partnership btw Google and Yahoo! which was announced a few months back and will be going live in October. While there have been loud protests by netizens saying this partnership effectively allows Google and Yahoo! to dominate the ad partnership, I sure don’t see whats wrong considering they have been doing a pretty good job. In fact, considering that the starting point for most user’s hompages are a search engine page, this deal really makes sense to both companies.

However, while i don’t want to get into the debate of Google and Yahoo! ad partnership, i want to address how they’ve actually responded to all the protests and trying to quell users dissatisfaction (and possible lawsuits from the American Antitrust authorities). You can also read about what some sites think about the deal here and here

Seems like Google is coming out short on this deal… But thats not my concern

They’ve set up a mini site here which you can check out and they basically state and i quote:

In June 2008, Yahoo! and Google announced a non-exclusive advertising agreement that will provide Yahoo! with access to Google’s AdSense advertising programs on their U.S. and Canadian web properties. Here are the facts:

• This is a non-exclusive deal that will strengthen Yahoo!.
• Ad prices will continue to be set by competitive auction.
• The deal is win-win for consumers, advertisers and publishers: more and better ads.

I’m just glad they did this to avoid further controversy. Most companies would have just kept quiet and carried on with the deal. The openess of the web giants is great and i think they might’ve avoided a whole lot of trouble. What was interesting was how they showed other examples of suppliers in the slide show…

So kudos once again to Google and its corp comms team to address the protesters of the deal and the law ppl, would’ve been nice if u came out with this a little earlier rather than just before the launch…

But the best part of the deal? It effectively ends Microsoft hopes for online ad money… wahahahahaha….

Google’s 10th Year Branding Campaign

It’s been 10 years u say? Yup, Google has marked its 10th year anniversary with a nice little branding project. After all, I always think a company achieving a milestone of a certain years in exsistance makes a good opportunity to push a brands name forward.

I think Google has marked its 10th year with a great branding theme. They’ve come up with a project 10100, its underlying theme is “a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.”

You can check out the video below. But whats interesting in this campaign is they’re emphesising how much Google has played a part in our everyday lives. From Youtube to Crome to Google map to the basic search engine, they’re providing services which have become ingrained and allowing us to be dependent on them. Smart eh?

So you can see here from an interactive timeline of the history of Google and an interactive video logging session of how any user has been using Google. It’s a pretty good way of using web2.0 to allow users to share their brand experience. Plus it allows idea sharing of the use of products. My God, that’s pretty darn smart considering ppl are saying “Google is God”, lol…

So what do you think of Google’s appraoch to celebrate its 10th year? I think its great but i would have liked to see some video showing the inner “personality” of the company. They have a pretty good blog which u can check out here, but it hasn’t said anything about the 10th year anni.

So u see Google, just caused i interned at Yahoo! doesn’t mean i’m against u, i just didn’t like your mobile services although ur andriod phone is pretty slick! So what are your thoughts on this campaign? Thumbs up or down? Could more have been done? Plz share your thoughts with me!

JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!

Congratz on making it through Tuesday, U’ll be hitting mid week tmr!

Anyhows, i just wanted to share a little but of myself today. Having a grade 7 in playing the piano, music has always been a pretty big influence in my life. (No, i dun play it anymore cause of the traumatic childhood experience of learning it)

As an angsty teen, i grew up listening to a lot of metal (Metallica, rob zombie, silver chair, etc.) then i moved to kid rock which eventually lef to hip hop. All these were pretty suitable for an angsty young punk like myself. However, once in a while, a little pop rock never hurt. So my ‘happy music’ back then was Matchbox 20 and I’m glad to say i just got their Exile on Mainstream album which puts back some pretty sweet memories to me.

So that’s pretty much it, dun ask me to give an album review, go try it for yourselves. I like it, i posted it and for those non marketing ppl, this is a fine example of word of mouth advertising(Duh…), partially anyways, lol….

Gonna read up on the big China cover up (Again…)

The blogosphere to be the next tabloid

Apologies for the lack of updates, its been a busy week. Today’s tot came over me as I was walking Remzy, I was wondering about the blogosphere becoming a huge tabloid media.

Upton Sincliar, author of books such as the Jungle had another interesting read titled The Brass Check (which i have yet to read but i will). The synopsis can be found here. In essence its really about promoting business interests of various constituencies (Politicians, businesses, etc.) through the mass media.

Now consider during that time whereby journalism was skewed to political or business interests and the masses had little or no control over the information they received. Pretty shitty reading things that were so skewed huh… Centralized power at play…. Our initial perception of this information is vital and given the limited resources back then, how can we not help but be skewed towards the tots these greedy ppl wanted us to think of.

Now consider today’s world whereby, we the consumers, have total control of the information we receive. Yet we have businesses coming to PAY bloggers about adverting their products.

What’s wrong u say, consider this first. Social media is about interaction between users. There is a certain level of trust if this interaction is built on a day to day basis ( Reading a blogger’s post on a daily basis and have him respond accordingly builds a certain level of trust because of the similarities you 2 share.) Now extend this trust to thousands of ppl who read a blog and other blogs similar within a community. You begin to trust the opinions of the tot leaders within the community and the people who respond shape your perception.

Now these are the people getting PAID by companies to push a product to u. While I believe most bloggers work within an ethical set of rules about being truthful about the pros and cons of a product or service, there are some who would love to get their hands on more of that advertising fee. A positive review of the product or service with their readership will certainly influence some readers.

These bloggers don’t work with the ethical code of a journalist to be objective. They can act on their own free will. What is that similar to in today’s media? Here’s a hint. Think Hollywood gossip, scandals of footballers and politicians blown out of proportion. Half truths that are not reflective of the true story and form perceptions amongst its readers because it sensationalizes things. What is that similar to you ask? A tabloid media. They SENSATIONALIZE THINGS TO GET MORE READERS (MORE MONEY)

Now move to the digital space and think about blogs. It’s a people place after all. Would bloggers stoop to get a $3000 pay cheque to blog a positive review of a crappy product or service? Half truths that do not reflect the true story? Sensationalize the positives and not mention the negatives? Why not… People have been known to kill for less…

So here we are at a junction in social media, with marketers leveraging on bloggers as a medium to get a product or service out.

My question now is WILL THE BLOGOSPHERE BECOME THE NEXT SOCIAL TABLOID?

Will there be a set of guidelines to stop unethical bloggers from reacting this way and repeat the history that Sinclair mentioned about companies buying their message in the mass media?

With diary blogs more prominent in Asia, are we going to be the first to suffer from The Brass Check?

Asian CEOs and Online Videos

I’m sure many of you have seen the video with Jerry and Bill, if you haven’t you can watch it below. And while many critics are wondering what the hell is Microsoft trying to do with this campaign, I’m not gonna go there. You can read the TechCrunch post on their tots (which i fully agree on) on what a bad ad this is and how its not positioning the brand where the ppl want it to be positioned.

While I think its great companies are using their CEOs as an icon, another medium, it only appears that the wetern companies have done it. Check out my earlier post on Yahoo!’s videos…

Are our Asian companies to shy to do it? Seeing an Asian CEO in an online video is like finding a bull mastiff in my neighborhood. You see Steve Jobs doing it, so why not others? With online video being touted as the next biggest online medium, should Asian companies start embracing it?

I would like to see MS Ho Ching (CEO of Temasek) come and do a video like those above.I wouldn’t be surpirsed if our PM does it soon. But why the hesitation? The cultural differences? What happened to the shrinking world?

The CEO shouldn’t just be coming to do an online video when a crisis happens or when shit hits the ceiling. I think giving the head a more human approach should be encouraged. An annual report with the CEO statement in the form of a video would be interesting. I’m sure there’re more applications other than a crisis that a CEO should appear…

Of course all this is subjected to how comfortable the CEO is in front of a screen. If the CEO looks like an undertaker, plz dun put him on, unless u own a morgue business… But generally, i think a human face to the company is always something ppl like. It makes the corporation more sociable, makes it easier to use web2.0, makes communications easier. It is after all people talking to each other, its just how many ppl one person is talking to…

So what do u think? Should CEOs (who have the capability to appear on screen), especially Asians come out and do online videos? Whats ya take?

JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!

Today on JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY (I should start a podcast with someone saying that first line…), I’ll be talking about death… or at least i wanted to and realized how depressing and personal it was… So instead, I’ll just mention the top 5 things i wanna do or have before i die…

But firstly, the Saturday past marked the 12th year death anniversary of the great Tupac Shakur. Rest in peace pac, we miss u. You have no idea how much ur work has inspired me to do what i do, in a good way of coz…

So here’s the order of my list:

1) Visit the places in that darn book, “Places to go before u die”

2) Die after my dog and wife dies (It’s painful to be alone so i’ll take that)

3) Do an intergrated multi-media campaign that Harvard will use as a case study of how to do it right in Asia.

4) Set up an organziation for dogs or kids ( Personally, the most rewarding to help)

5) Never having to die in debt and never having to depend on my kids

So there u go, i dun ask for much, I’m a simple kindda guy. So what’s ur list?

Digital MarketingComms Executive

As I’m trying to get off my ass to look for a job before i grad at the end of the year, i came across these really interesting articles.

Firstly, its the fact that digital marketing is growing, not as much as those crazy over it would like, but still its got much more potential than traditional media’s growth which is pretty much stagnant. You can read it here.

Secondly, the article, the agency of the future is the digital marketing agency of today. The top 10 wish list of agencies of the future are really what some marketing courses in school are lacking. But look at reason number six! Thank God for social media evangelists and fans that we aren’t going crazy about social media and living in our own circle.

Sure there’s a lot of buzz going around how its just a phase and how we defend it its something that involves interaction with your target audience and that is what ultimately matters when u want to push awareness or trial of your product or service.Its the best way to keep your brand in the forefront of your consumer’s minds at low key periods. It will make your integrated marcomms campaign a lot easier with them at your side…

Lastly, if you think we’re just living in our glass house screaming these facts and we can’t get ppl outside the glasshouse to pay attention to us? Check out this article on five ways to use social media to reach out to ppl who dun use it…. Great for internal comms!

Hah, i can already see you grinning. Grads like me wondering what should we do with a marcomms majors, here’s a tot… Digital marketingComms executive( Wow Vivian you have a gift for seeing the future)…

So just food for thought for readers like myself!

F1 Singapore digital media efforts

This is probably the most talked about event in Singapore currently, it’s even bigger than MAN U and Liverpool’s match tonight.

With the road down from Brass Basah heading towards Suntec looking like the Mexican boarder with all the lights, Singapore is really gearing up for the most lucrative sporting event ever. I mean you have A list stars coming down to see THE FIRST EVER NIGHT RACE right here on our little island.

So let’s take a look at some of the digital marketing efforts that some companies have done to leverage on this sporting event.

1) SingTel. It seems their entire marketing budget this year is probably gonna be on the Grand Prix (a little going to PR for the Iphone Launch). They have been banging on this since the start of the year and you can check out their site here. From race simulations to the grid girls, SingTel is really leveraging on the sport to increase its reach for it MioTV.

The only social aspect of this? The Grid girls having blogs and photos of them being posted. Good move on their part? I think so. Consider this before I sound like i’m making a sexist statement. Porbably more than 70% of the fans of F1 in Singapore are males. Sex sells. Enough said.

2) Singapore Tourism Board, or STB for short have also included the F1 as part of a main attractor to tourists. It’s a glamor glitz party for tourists and they’ve even endorsed a 1 million dollar fashion party. This is to attract more Malaysians to come and watch the event.

But whats interesting is that their putting up their efforts on their website here. Think about this for a sec and you realize that tourists come to this site looking for information about Singapore.

So why is it just a one way web1.0 static page? What happened to asking us? (the people staying here for our opinions? Showing videos and allowing comments for the preparation of the event?) Bah… They should have listened to the prime minister’s speech last month about using digital media.

Right, I’m sure they’re other companies and I would really like for you to share with me their efforts!