be heard!
Check out www.beheard.ae … I saw a series of outdoor hoardings advertising it while driving along Beach Road this morning. I first had an idea for a website just like this about a year ago – but did nothing about it. 
It’s such an excellent way to have your finger on the pulse of a region! People can post questions and answer them anonymously. The yes-no answers are available for all to see. You can look up results of overall respondents and also split by gender, age and ethnicity. I’m so excited to see this in effect. Not only is it a good idea, the site is well-designed.
Anyone aware of who the originators of this website are? There is no webmaster or contact information. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s The National that’s behind it, but I could of course be wrong. I’d so like to know either way!
end of an affair?
I’m a devout CK One girl. It’s the only fragrance that I simply cannot do without. Sure, there’s been a fling here and a flirtation there, but my relationship with CK One has lasted many years. I made an exception for CK in2u (For Her) recently – although I quickly realized it comes nowhere close to my one true (unisex!) love.
I’m in advertising and so it’s often tough for me to be seduced by brands – I work on the strategies that underlie them after all. But CK One is one of those rare brands that I’m intertwined with somehow. I love much of the advertising as well. In a sense, the brand – like a strong brand should be – is a part of me. So when I see the “limited edition” bottles Calvin Klein puts out once in a while, it makes me a bit sad. And less loyal.
The CK One Summer and CK in2u Pop lines look awful. So much so, I honestly don’t care about how it smells. Why CK would dilute/taint their brand this way, I’ve no idea. These colors are unacceptably garish; give me the classic, clean, minimalist feel of CK any day. No CKitsch please!
If their strategy is to seasonally expand the consumer base (with younger folks?), then CK should consider whether it’s putting (older!) loyalists at risk of switching. Shouldn’t brand aficionados be tripping all over themselves to acquire a limited edition? Maybe they’re taking the brand from somewhat niche to totally pop…
Or maybe, just maybe, I need to find another with which to move on! Ah but I might have to stick it out with the One for a bit. I think I’m still in love. =)
such a shame
I met with a Europe-based client today, who expressed concern over how moving their factories to India would affect the marketing of their product. Relocating manufacturing makes sense for them financially because the cost of production is lower, but they worry about whether the MADE IN INDIA on the package will affect sales in the Middle East. So they suggested we help them conduct market research that tests consumer reactions to the product (brand appeal, purchase intention, etc), highlighting in one group and minimizing in the other, information about where exactly it is made.
As an advertising professional, I understand the dilemma – sure you do what you can to sell your product. But, as an Indian, I must confess it makes me cringe. Just the same way I cringed when I still lived in America a couple of years ago. ‘Outsourcing’ had become (quite literally) a rage by then and I noticed a lot of brands had begun displaying MADE IN AMERICA signs prominently on their websites. That was when I realized that businesses truly fear the boycott of their brands based on where their products are made. Amongst others, India and China are on the (s)hit list.
Funnies aside, I see that the quality of products is often at stake – if I remember right, Mattel recently had issues with the toxicity of paint used on kids’ toys in their China factory. There are indeed some very real concerns with the kind of ‘globalization’ that exists today – companies will do anything to save money. The loss of jobs that occurs locally from such cost-cutting is awful and remedies** clearly need to be institutionalized. But is the stigma, which gets attached to developing countries for taking away the jobs in question, appropriate? The people there are often simply struggling to rise above the poverty line.
If companies adopted suitable quality control, perhaps they wouldn’t have to be so embarrassed about those involved in the creation of their products.
** What if, for example, the people laid off could be transferred to a barrage of new businesses (perhaps mandated by governments in the West) such as the Swiss Life Straw? Now that sort of thing could actually give us a shot at building a truly ‘global community.’
who would jesus vote for?
As part of a recent poll, Relevant magazine – which caters to young evangelicals in America – asked the following.
Barack Obama 18.4%
Dennis Kucinich 2.1%
Mike Gravel 0.5%
John Edwards 24.9%
Joe Biden 0.9%
Hillary Clinton 2.6%
Mike Huckabee 16.6%
Rudy Giuliani 4.1%
Fred Thompson 4.8%
Ron Paul 5.4%
Mitt Romney 13.2%
John McCain 6.6%
Who would be voted Most Likely to Be a Preacher?
Barack Obama 19.8%
Dennis Kucinich 0.8%
Mike Gravel 1.3%
John Edwards 7.5%
Joe Biden 1.0%
Hillary Clinton 0.9%
Mike Huckabee 37.3%
Rudy Giuliani 1.2%
Fred Thompson 6.5%
Ron Paul 4.8%
Mitt Romney 12.9%
John McCain 5.8%
Who would Jesus vote for?
Dennis Kucinich 2.8%
Mike Gravel 0.2%
John Edwards 4.7%
Joe Biden 1.4%
Hillary Clinton 1.8%
Mike Huckabee 24.2%
Rudy Giuliani 4.3%
Fred Thompson 6.0%
Ron Paul 15.6%
Mitt Romney 3.7%
John McCain 6.6%
marketing memes
Folks in evolutionary studies have this idea of memes. If I understand it right, a meme is the fundamental unit of cultural evolution – like the gene is to biological evolution. Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976, and it seems to have become quite the thang, in academia and out. According to Dawkins, some memes – like genes – will propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others will survive, spread, and mutate.
I see memes as ideas that evolve in to trends – the iPod revolution, for example. It’s like a cultural contagion for better or worse – an idea that leaps from mind to mind. Santosh Desai, a brilliant commentator on popular culture, explains: “A meme is something that is imitative, almost in a reflexive way rather than a cognitive way. Like a tune which gets into your head and refuses to leave. It is possible to infect other people with it. It bypasses the intellect.” Think catchy. Viral marketing and religion are other examples of memes cited by Desai.
Sort of a side note: Dawkins contends that memes can at times be even more powerful than genes and gives the example of celibacy. There’s more on the spread of ideational infections – whether bad or good – in this TED talk by the remarkable Dan Dennett.
google trends
Don’t know how long the Google Trends Lab has been around, but it’s lots and lots of fun.
