Thursday 16 October 2008

Fox Me Harder


 
One of the upsides of the current financial turmoil is my new found love for Fox News. I'm no CNN fan boy though, as they feel hopelessly incapable of appearing either robustly partisan or assiduously impartial. CNN strikes me as trying too hard to be a friend and having no solid position apart from the pursuit of ratings.

Fox has succeeded in invoking nauseous feelings with me, ever since our paths first crossed. The 'fair and balanced' tagline is Orwellian, and it perturbs me when reasonably educated people sing it's praises as the lone voice of truth against the liberal bias in the media (while forgetting about right-wing radio, the WSJ editorial and a slew of right-wing blogs).  Bias is evident in the media but it generally balances out. However the ferocity of the Fox presenters against the Democratic party members is distasteful, and symptomatic of everything  that is divisive about modern day politics in the United States.

Watching Fox presenters at work is like seeing a co-ordinated and telegenic gang of thugs at work. Like A Clockwork Orange with impeccable presenter hair do's, lickable teeth that blaze sparking enamel, and blusher that smoothes out aging and skin-colour differences under the intense bright lights. It is for me ugly, unhealthy and has reduced the U.S. media landscape to a default position of defining plurality of opinion as un-American activity, which is quite the reverse of what largely made the U.S. great in the first place. The makeup may be flawless and the colour graphics capable of rekindling the glare on the dimmest of aged TV screens, but it's the hate that fuels a grotesque spectacle of 'Newspeak' on offer 24/7 by Fox.

Despite avoiding Fox (or even TV as a general rule in recent years) I know their key political pundits reasonably well through Al Franken's book which did a pretty good job of demolishing the individuals who drive the ratings on this channel, including the token 'Liberal' Holmes, who hasn't quite figured out that Hannity on occasions is evidentally  a borderline sociopath (I believe if I heard correctly that the man admitted he'd never danced with his wife the other day, thus revealing as any double left-footer knows, a cauterized personality that is in need of therapeutic liberation.

It's not how well you dance it's about the joining in and participation Hannity. What next? No foreplay in case it distracts from and contributes to the time saving serious business of getting down to business? What next?  Supreme court appeals against fellatio and cunnilingus as incontrovertible evidence that Roe Versus Wade exclude all else that has no direct contribution to conception? What a tool.

Recently though I've started to enjoy the dysphoria that Fox News is experiencing through observing everything they have stood for, in the last eight years and more, disintegrate in daily live broadcasting of their televisual dingo pack life. All that they have despised, smeared and belittled is now becoming the bipartisan and consensually agreed way forward for their beloved government to avoid sparking off financial paralysis. The U.S. among other measures is nationalizing  financial institutions, and has done so to the worlds 20th largest company, throwing taxpayers money into anything that can be rescued if it keeps Wall Street propped up - whether that is strapped to the lamp post in a vein attempt to bluff sobriety matters not.

The rationalization for this remarkable about-face on the government's role in business and their increasing intervention  by the Fox news presenter line-up is more perverse than say the genre of fisting pornography popular with smooth talking Japanese admen. But all that Bill O'Reilly, Hannity et al can say in these astonishing times, is that these Trotskyite measures are not as painful as the alternatives of an instantaneous meltdown. What are we talking about here? Hot-dripping-wax meltdown on crying Japanese schoolgirls or just economic collapse? I must remember to write the Japanese humiliation sex post one day. It will be a corker. You can count on it.

If however that's what happens when a country avoids short sharp shocks and opts for long drawn out economic decline as medicine, drip fed over a decade or more, as the US is seemingly inclined to do, then I question the efficacy.

Break it up now and rebuild quickly no? Didn't Jung say the best thing to subvert human growth is the delay of legitimate pain?

Isn't this perverse denial by the Fox line-up called ideological bankruptcy?  Shouldn't this require some measure of contrition if not a full mea culpa? The Fox/Republican ideology that the markets are unfailingly wise has been unmasked as a laser focused and greed-driven wealth-acquisition spree with no concern for the people who are now being asked to pick up the bill or more accurately left with bills they will struggle to pay should their salaries be the next victim of liquidity problems.

Now that my former prejudice against Fox is dropping quicker than the dollar is about to in markets that have figured out how deep and long the US congress is going to embrace economic decline, I've discovered the upside of the Channel such as unexpected broadcasts  of the people I've seen as reluctant to be interviewed by serious media in the manner that proper journalists do. It's a complete revelation to see Donald Trump predicting that oil prices will drop like a rock (they will because of demand) and that this will be a silver lining (a slim one, the system is broken - not the cost of energy you cretinous syrup)

Here we have a phenomenally successful property tycoon incapable of providing anything close to the inspiration that these critical times are crying out for, and all the while  ingnoring impending complete loss of systemic confidence. I was however chuffed to see Bill O'Reilly lambast Karl Rove for the first time ever on home turf. I suspect that this was fueled by the realisation Bill's pension fund is looking like toast. Typically many Republicans feel outraged when it's their own financial well being at risk or when their prescriptive morality is challenged on say abortion or gay marriage. I could go on about Karl Rove and his constant appearances on Fox of late, although I doubt he's going to demand his own arrest any time soon now that the fake yellow cake from Niger for WMD's in Iraq has been discredited at the expense of outing a CIA operative so the case for war was perceived as robust. Karl Rove; yet another chicken hawk who sent the young sons of the United States to a war that will line the pockets of people in oil, defense and private security such as Karl Rove and his jackal consorts.

I  doubt a better time to enjoy Fox in their current predicament will occur again quite so soon. Here we have a bunch of people with a clear ideology that is articulated often and openly with more than an whiff of superiority, about where tax is taken and spent, the importance of business over society, war over peace, tolerance over intolerance, self sufficiency over charity, prison as a lucrative business necessity, war on drugs, war on terror, war on anti-war, and war on anything that galvanizes people to respond to the knee-jerk corrosive nationalism that fear invokes. Fox have supported the government on every major decision taken by the GOP; from the Iraq War to their negligent response over Hurricane Katrina. There is not an envelope to squeeze between them and the GOP, and so the impending displacement of U.S financial supremacy surely has their fervent endorsement held fully responsible? Some people say that if you're not on the left when young you've no heart and if you're not on the right when older you've no head. I say if you're not capable of conceding disastrous errors of judgement or acting with contrition towards society as a whole then the word sociopathic springs too mind again.

I don't wish this post to give the impression that I'm some fully paid up evangelist for the entire Liberal sentiment or that the Democratic party are the solution to the unprecedented challenges we are all about to face. I'm heavily disappointed with the lack of Democratic backbone in recent years, and their inability to voice the unpopular when a few years in the wilderness would have earned their stripes as people of principle and conviction. They've overseen a colossal failure of duty, and hardly deserve to inherit the cyclical momentum that appears increasingly likely to go there way. I'm on record as saying that Ron Paul was my preferred candidate for the presidency because of his sheer courage and frankness in policy proposal. So please no blind partisan loyalty from this neck of the woods. Binary views on life are unhelpful and probably anachronistic given the complexity and volume of  the information age we live in.

But for the time being Fox is making great TV as their reality disintegrates around them. Thanks for the show guys.


Monday 13 October 2008

Economics - A Reality Construction

Noah has written one of the most intelligent and thought provoking pieces on the demise of U.S. Economic supremacy I've come across on the net. However I've been reliant on a tiny N95 mobile phone for internet usage of late and it crashed twice after considerable effort.
I have now secured the Wifi needed to respond fully to both his post and questions in the comments section. However I decided that here is more appropriate to respond given they are quite extensive.


"Hey Noah, as you know my N95 browser extinguished some pretty extensive comments I laboriously squeezed out through predictive text to respond to both your questions and terrific post. It's disappointing because they were more coherent than what will follow but now I'm in front of a traditional keyboard I'll try and resume the key thoughts.

I think the point you make early on that everything is imaginary echoes my hyperbole of simulacrum as insanely useful. It lends credence to the notion that much of what we hold as valuable or important is largely illusory, Baudrillard's work supports that much is not as it seems, or indeed is largely defined by what we collectively determine it to be. The Herd dynamic is a potent one for reality definition.

Buddhism has plenty to say on the folly of illusions, but I'm not in the business of proselytizing so moving onwards, all this intellectual posturing is of little value should a not inconceivable liquidity breakdown come about, causing the economic eco-system to stall rapidly, incurring supply shortages through cash flow paralysis, inflationary pressure and a dysfunctional and erratic distribution of basic goods such as food.

Should hunger present itself in such a catastrophic scenario as this, then simulacrum will provide no relief for stomachs, save for the likes of the intellectual and pampered elite such as ourselves. I hope such a scenario doesn't take place, as in an interdependent world we all need to find a commonly beneficial solution.

However it's clear when referring to simulacrum, that the financial institutions have played fast and loose with their customers money and furthermore expect to be rescued from their excesses with additional funds that the taxpayers will bear the brunt of. As you point out, any run on the banks hurts the customers just as much as the key stakeholders . There is an emerging consensus that banks need to have the bricks they indiscriminately loaned money for covered - over and against say a food/travel subsidy program that will keep Joe Sixpack sufficiently nourished and mobile to do the work he is compelled rather than would elect to do. That's the nature of mass unemployment but more importantly that emerging consensus is wrong. People first not bricks and mortgages.

There is no imaginary dimension to the naked greed that gave the likes of Dick Grasso a $200 million pay-off for ringing that triumphalist Dow Jones, record profit-taking bell, which to the outside world rang more of hubris than fairness.

The US is an amazing country that was in part built on the notion of an optimism for today, driving future growth. It's still an incredible idea; however, the point of crossover not entirely removed from a 'prosperity simulacra' emerged when today's growth fueled the optimism for tomorrow's continued success. This is an entirely different, and logically unsustainable scenario - indistinguishable to many who prefer swift moving scenarios that are easier to track.

It's about optimism driving fortune as opposed to fortune driving optimism. One is the free and self determining dynamic that pays a dividends, the other the dividend that encourages more and increasingly greedy higher risk-taking.

I don't concur that events are as random as you assert. I've pointed out that attendants of the World Economic Forum at Davos were raising the flag of an impending crisis quite some time back, and that on page 225 in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan the footnote could not be clearer of the statistical backflips performed by J.P. Morgan's 'Riskmetrics' and the dangerous situation Fanny Mae was in. I would include my post in July that while in the States I saw what was coming and that the reluctance to even discuss the subject of recession and financial collapse by perfectly intelligent Americans was of a magnitude I've encountered in Beijing during the recent Tibetan crisis when any mention of sovereignty was met with the same furious indignation that another point of view could have some validity.

I am however still fueled by a recent rereading of Talebs 'Fooled by Randomness' to concede that it's difficult to divine where this will eventually flesh out. Sure developed economies will hurt more, and developing economies unexposed to the toxicity of goofy financial instruments will experience a rise in commensurate currency-strengthening which, while not stratospheric will have a contextual rise in influence. Those are just broad sweeps but a consensus that it's still early days is one I agree with fully.

As for the lack of moral clarity, you write about, I understand your point in resolving the complexity of being both resentful towards the bank's actions and the need for ostensibly indiscriminate bailouts to diminish the potential for loss of savings. I think there are creative ways of making sure the punitive measures are soaked up by errant banks and not their customers. The idea that they have a carte blanche get out of jail free card, is unacceptable. All it takes is resolve, creativity, strong government defending the populace and not the privileged, and the banks can sit on the paperwork they have a claim to,while the real task of ensuring that the day to day needs of the people who are invariably screwed time and time again are taken care of.

It's crucial in these unprecedented times to ask ourselves the question: am I going to trust the same people who screwed up my mortgage, credit line, savings, security, national liquidity, international credibility and much much more to provide an answer that is audacious, creative, transnational, collaborative and most importantly punitive on the people who at present have mistaken their ability to create wealth with the randomness that potentially could clean them out if the panic concludes they are no longer to be trusted.

Should this come across as supportive that now is a good time to adress poverty redistribution you wouldn't be far wrong right. The disparity between the haves and the have nots globally is unacceptable and now is a good time to to ensure that culture drives economics and not the other way round.

These are quite remarkable times and the opportunity for a new approach is way more tempting than propping up the greedy people who never fail to fleece the people and ask for more."

A sensational post Noah. Exactly what I'd expect from you and an heroic attempt to use intellect to impose a sense of much needed order. We only probably differ on what that order should look like.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

The mother of all market meltdowns



This is real propaganda (or messaging)  from the ministry of information in 1939. George Orwell would have seen this no doubt.

I'm surprised so few advertising people are acknowledging that we're in truly remarkable times. It's been a year of credit crunch with Bear Stearns on 'emergency loans',  Merrill Lynch sold to the Bank of America (convenient) Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae nationalised, that's proper nationalised like my heroes Ernest Bevan, Clement Atlee and Tony Benn would have done long before there was any trouble, Lehman brothers down and AIG about to bite the carpet. There's more to come as well.

I've been rereading my Nassim Nicolas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness, not The Back Swan) and although I can see like Johnnie Moore suggested to me that he's a bit full of himself, he has taught/reminded me that we know so little (the past is relatively short) that we've no idea about the future and so I'm not going to make any predictions except some light water colouring.


We're in for a change, I think monetarism might get a good spanking and selling stuff will still be vital but what is sold and how it is sold will change. (although more slowly) I don't think economic growth is the metric by which we can always measure a country's success. Just one example is that they shut the factories down in China for the Olympics and we had the cleanest air in Beijing for a few weeks.
I'm pretty sure someone somewhere in the oxyacetalyne growth obsessed Chinese Politburo must have said 'hang on what's it all for if we have a better quality of life by doing less'? Well greed is intoxicating isn't it so maybe not, and let's not point the finger because we thought we won something when Communism was beaten by the West. What we lost was the chance to grow slower-quicker but that's another post I guess. I absolutely love thinking and talking about those 'what if's'. One thing is for sure I'm sick to death of the word growth being used as if it's a sign of success. It's a sign of intellectual decay. We absolutely need to go slower in life. A rich man is one who goes slowly and takes their time. You can't buy time, you can only spend it so the wealth aquired usually means expending effort so hard that your life slips by before you can really start to enjoy it. I'll say it again. Rich people go slowly.
So that's enough from me for the time being. I sympathise if you're heavily exposed in mortgage on property that will be in negative equity but there's nothing for it but to adapt lifestyle and sit it out till money starts moving around again. Hopefully in a more intelligent way than the neoliberal economics that played on peoples greed and extended many of us way beyond our capacity to operate in harmony with the planet.
Anyone disagree?

Update Lehman just got propped up for 85 Billion Dollars by the Federal Reserve. Partially renationalised.

Status Anxiety

Imagine a society where the people congregated in public areas to sing, dance, skip and play games in the evening. Where they did it publicly and with happiness in their hearts. Where they did it for no cost at all and were unaware that they were so much richer than other people. That they were enjoying life at it's best. Spontaneous and free.
We'd think it was some sort of Nirvana woudn't we? An impossible dream, don't we work all our lives to achieve that kind of carefree feeling for a few remaining healthy years when we retire if we're lucky? Instead we fuel our days with envy of our peers and suffer from status anxiety. I want to thank Grumblemouse for bringing my attention to these videos by Alain de Botton on Youtube and also to share a little video I took two nights ago by Houhai which is a a popular lake area, North of Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City where I live in Beijing.

Tuesday 16 September 2008

AirAsia - Very On Brand


AirAsia Berhad (MYX: 5099) is a Malaysian-based low-cost airline. AirAsia is Asia's largest low-fare, no-frills airline and a pioneer of low-cost travel in Asia. AirAsia group operates scheduled domestic and international flights to over 400 destinations spanning 25 countries. Its main hub is the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). Its affiliate airlines Thai AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia have hubs in Suvarnabhumi Airport and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport respectively. AirAsia's registered office is in Petaling Jaya, Selangor while its head office is located in Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Air Asia plans to open ASEAN regional headquarters in Jakarta by August or September 2011. The airline itself will maintain its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur for the time being.

AirAsia won the Skytrax World's best low-cost airline award in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. It has the world's lowest operating costs at $0.035/seat-kilometre in 2010. It is also the first airline in the region to implement fully ticketless air travel system.

I love this


Age and a few others have a problem with it that I've addressed in the comments of his blog but in short its going to be very tempting to do my Woman Whisperer imitation the next unreasonable request I get. I'd have scripted and directed the last few seconds less cliche bit in any case it's very very meme like for me. Whoa whoa ...ssssssshhhhhh... Easy there.

Best Practices in Social Media

 


Gavin over at Servant of Chaos has kindly tagged me for my view on best practises in Social Media.
I'd really like to talk about some of the ways I think brands could be behaving and talking to customers in social media because there's a valuable contribution for business entitites to sometimes (not always) get involved with the emerging media topography, but it's mainly theoretical stuff at the moment as I've not persuaded any clients to put some money and action into where I think they should, or even recommend how to conduct themselves in this enviroment but that will come in due course and I think some new legal entities might need to be established for that because the existing corporate structure doesn't allow for making mistakes and yet humans do that all the time, so unless we want brands to sound artificial we're going to need some human contribution at some point.... As I say, more on that later.

In the mean time I really think it's important to share one golden rule that I learnt the hard way with mIRC (early Twitter I like to say)  back in the mid 90's and through to a couple of years ago. It's crucial in social media to be unfailingly polite and for most people this is the opposite to how they feel behind the security (and often the anonymity and distance) of a keyboard.

Those who know me in real life are fully aware the only power I respect is that which is earnt. I've no hesitation in telling anyone what I think if I believe they are being innapropriate and that's because nobody owns me - It's a two way street though for mutual respect. One has to take it to give it.

However in social media I take a different approach. Despite sometimes wanting to be more combative or plain speaking I try hard to be polite, courteous and silent under criticism in social media. I'm not like that in real life particuarly when I lose respect for people and it's interesting that even those who know me through my blog can sense that. My temper has got me into more trouble than I know where to begin, in the past but it's also saved my life too in violent encounters.

Aside from that, the usual authenticity, transparency and honesty are very important. As indeed they are in real life but the internet is a different media from real life and requires different rules. Capiche?

Anyway now that I've got that out the way I think you should all know that Gavin has made a really smart move and started a social media jobs website which is going to keep him comfy during his retirment years because he just got on with it. The widget isn't working for me on this post but you can go check it out over here.

Zimbabwe

It's the start of a long journey once more, but this is the first piece of good news to come out of Zimbabwe for more years than I can remember. Morgan Tsvangiri is an African hero. - what a guy. I hope the power sharing works better than it sounds as they invariably don't solve that much. Hats off to Thabo Mbeki too for brokering this first step.

Sunday 14 September 2008

Boguskysoft

 Lots of people that I have a healthy respect for in the advertising world have criticized the new work by Crispin Porter for Microsoft and I can't agree with them. I'm with Grant and Adrian on this one because from what I've seen so far the work achieves two important goals.

 Firstly I like it. Not in a rapturous Gorilla or Monkey kind of way but it's likable and that's not an easy thing to achieve. I've rarely watched Seinfeld even though it's likable and funny content, I'm not a cheerleader for Bill Gates (I think luck was an important factor in his success) and generally I don't find using stars to be a credible route for marketing communications. BBDO starfuckers I think George calls this genre.

 However it's not important what I feel. It's amusing and that is a matter of subjectivity. I'm sure you can make you're own mind up on that.

 More importantly there are a lot of strategic communication problems that are in my eyes being solved by the work I've seen so far. I also think it's kind of interesting that it's quintessentially American advertising and yet there's a Windows Video Channel on Youtube it is universally distributed. A potent communications model for some American centric global brands if you stop to think about it (McDonalds? Nike?). Something along the lines of act local, think global (A word play on an oxymoron I've long disliked). But anyway, Microsoft using a Google owned distribution channel and not their own? Even Soapbox points towards the Youtube content. That says a lot to me after a chat with Geert in LA a couple of months ago where it was pointed out to me that use of non MS software is/was often frowned upon.

 I think it's only the commercially naive who could believe that communications can solve the Microsoft problem. The job of advertising here is to ameliorate the rising dissatisfaction with the brand and possibly communicate that Microsoft is determined to get closer to its customers through more down to earth and likable dialogue; for surely even monologue commercials such as this provoke a discourse that was seldom seen in the fifities when advertising took hold. Look, even I'm doing it. It's the internet you see!

 Back to the problem. What is Microsofts problem? Why is one of the most succesful companies on the planet in trouble. Simply put the operating system is unwieldy. If you pay a army of coders to improve stuff, they will invariably make additional stuff that isn't needed. It's called feature creep and is a recurring problem with technology associated designers. Reliability is also an issue when it comes to discussions of unwieldiness. The bigger the system the more opportunities there are for the system to break down and that is often the case with Microsoft. That's their core problem but the immediate emotional problem is they are increasingly unliked.

 I've recently made the transition from Microsoft to Apple and I couldn't be more delighted with the results but it doesn't mean that I'm blind to the advantages of the de facto operating system of the world. Without Microsoft I'm not even sure Apple would be as good as they are. Who knows? Nobody can prove stuff like that anyway. It's all theoretical. But in any case maybe you can take a look at the first piece of content I saw, liked and decided to write about. It's not revolutionary, but then neither is Microsoft anymore.


 Just off the top of my head I think shopping in the budget shoe store is strategically right for Microsoft. The future for the brand is one of lower entry and upgrade cost for the average user. Apple is still one of the most profitable brands on the planet because it charges a lot more. A sitcom genre is just right for mainstream America as primary customer segment (with Mexican family making a first sensible guest appearance - California is majority Latino in 10 or so years) but also for the wider world. A sitcom is quintessentially American. It's likeable, funny, comforting and about as far removed from excessive oil, corporate greed, dirty politics and war as one could wish to hope for. In short it's the best of America, and I don't even watch them so this is not a fanboy's perspective.
Seinfeld is an excellent pick.


 Microsoft is simply never ever going to be hip and so this is a mainstream ad - Any hint of hipness and the same critics calling for Crispin's blood would be accusing the brand of unreal aspirations or tonality fumbles . Think General Motors over Toyota Prius and a profile of the customer is conjured up pretty quickly. This is a comfortable way to get to know Bill Gates, a man rarely associated with humour and love him or loathe him, he comes across as likeable, keen to be liked and not without a sense of humour. I'll leave you with the lastest segment that I've only seen while writing this article and frankly I think it's close to brilliant in that way that American sitcom writers are the best in the world at. I've laughed out loud while eating in an upscale restaurant in Beijing with my fellow late afternoon diners enjoying my mirth and while I'm not prepared to go back to Windows (Indeed my next move is likely to be Linux) I'm more inclined to cut Bill Gates some slack the next time I'm sat in front of a Microsoft product running on a computer (highly likely). And maybe that's the point, maybe it's about stopping the hate and giving one of the most remarkable people (faults and all) in the history of commerce and technology some room to manouevre. I know I will. What do you think? Do you really still hate Microsoft more after watching this?

Friday 12 September 2008

The Fastest Train Service In The World




The new rail service from Beijing to Tianjin sums up everything I love about living in Asia. I had read about the service, but because of the media storm surrounding the Olympics including all the showpiece architectural projects such as the CCTV building, the Birds Nest, The Egg and of course the new T3 Airport (the best I've used aside from Changi in Singapore) I guess that this remarkable project was somewhat overshadowed.
The Purpose built new station 'Beijing South' is the same as an airport in style and appearance despite being located in the middle of one of those areas undergoing some 21st century urban regeneration. It's a bit of a pig to navigate to because of the road density in that area but on arrival it stands out like a beacon of the new Beijing. Very impressive.


Tianjin is 120 kilometres away from Beijing. It played co-host city for the soccer tournaments of the Olympics and has also been designated a special economic zone to parry the growth of Shanghai. It is also the third largest Chinese city after Beijing and Shanghai in terms of area. In short a city of 10 million plus that nobody has ever heard of. There are lots of those in China. The tickets for the journey are around 6 Euros or 60 RMB and the journey is remarkably fast. I wasn't expecting to go any faster than 250 Km/h but in the event the train topped out at 329 km/h. There is some dispute as to what defines the fastest train journey in the world but part of the equation is the regularity of service and distance between stations. There is however an amazing bit of Youtube for the fastest train journey ever over here on the French Rail service which is worth checking out.



Tianjin is a bit of an urban construction landscape with towering cranes and newly finished landmark projects. I might like living in Asia but the steroid growth of these new cities, particularly in China aren't without their victims. Usually I find that the cities are devoid of much soul, charm or character.


Who knows what his story is but I've included it to break the myth of shiny new cities. In fact I noticed on the train journey out that the primitive housing estates had been blocked off from view, probably to ensure that the Olympic guests weren't exposed to any sights of China that don't fit in with the one the Government wish to project.

 
Despite that, the train station for the return journey is just as splendid and modern. Taking a trip like this really makes me feel that trains are much more preferable for long journeys than by air which lost its attractiveness long before 911 took its toll on the quality for this mode of transport. 

 

The thing that most struck me as different from anything I've seen before on the return journey back to Beijing were the people using this state of the art new service. Anywhere else in the world I'd have expected the travellers to be similar to myself. Middle class people taking advantage of a new service and enjoying the relative luxury of travelling fast and in comfort. But what surprised me most were that the majority of Chinese travelling on the service looked like they had been yanked from the middle ages and thrust into the 21st century. That will sound elitist and snobby but it its only an observation that maybe the democracy of this type of travel opens it up to a far broader customer base than say could be expected from something like the launch of Eurostar. Maybe it's more reflective of what middle class means in China than anything else but in any event I didn't mind upgrading my ticket for the return journey and plumping for First Class (at a cost of  no more than 10 RMB) where an ice cold beer is served in a way that I could get used to. Better than Virgin no?

Sunday 24 August 2008

The Economist - Digital Nomads

"Every morning, when I get up say around 6.30 or 7.00, I go to my God, which sits in my kitchen and I have a two minute word with him, asking him to reduce my broadband costs which we have to incur every month" - I love Indians.

Saturday 23 August 2008

Breakfast at Sulimeys

I absolutely love this. Afer a few thousand hours of watching MTV in the 90's I'm pretty much burned out with chicks shaking their booty to tell me that something is hot, cool or sexy. Also I find putting myself out to listen to new music is tough in a Youtube format even if it's excellent content from people I trust to click through
I want to listen to new stuff with people, to get their opinion, feel some context and that's difficult if nobody is around or has time to spare. These three elderly music reviewers are just great. Joe on the right is open minded and thoughtful for an old codger. Ann seems a bit uncouth and lacks real depth but she is sparky and everybody's opinion counts. Bill is a bit in between and I guess balances things out a bit.
What's great for me is that they take an easy to click away format through to proper engagement. Of course that's because it's me we're talking about and maybe a lot of young people will find it a tortuous way to listen to music. I'm just glad that the elderly get a crack at the whip in a way that isn't charitably forced. It just works for me. What do you think?

Via Jamie at Freshen me up

Friday 22 August 2008

Warte Bis September

This is Nils and he's waiting until September. The Kaiser thinks it's for Ikea but whoever it is they've just gone and nailed advertising on the internet. You can call Nils on +49 40 22 61 11 61 to ask him why, in any language. It's one of the best bits of digital I've seen since the Uniqlo thing. Again simplicity is best.

Via Marcus

Erm....


Yeah OK maybe this changes things. But it's the planner that can admit their mistakes that moves things on. She was kinda hot too.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Planner Wanted In Shanghai

A friend of mine has asked if I can put the feelers out for the following role:

Aside from just saying 'hi'.....I'm actually writing to see if you know a planner that might fancy a stint at XXX agency Shanghai?  They are looking for  a solid operator with 5 years plus experience in planning. Can't reveal the client at this stage but its a multinational brand and would occupy 90% of their time.

Drop me an email which is in the 'about me' section of this blog if it's interesting and I'll put you in touch.

Smile - You're on Camera


One of the first bust ups I had with the Red Bull pitch that we won was the use of this visual. I rejected it on the basis that it used women who aren't the main customer group, but more importantly because it is everything about branding in China that is wrong wrong wrong. It's easy for marketing people in China to look at the smiley happy people in Western FMCG advertising and think that's the way to do it, but what invariably comes out in China is a thick smear of unvarnished schmaltz. The notion of portraying anything approaching real life is anathema to the marketing heads in China including Li Ning who hasn't got a clue that the branding part is the dramatization of the blood pumping through an organisation, not some laquered image projection.

 

These girls are the Olympic hostesses. They are trained to smile and it's this training that is the problem. Not the solution. The Chinese bless them, have had a tragic modern history, that like the Russians is bloody and dripping in carnage juice not to mention infused with suspicion and fear. Nobody could really deny it, even the Chinese, but they choose to ignore it collectively white wash over what makes them who they are today. That's where it goes wrong.
So you can see that the smile is part of the Olympic orchestrated image. The idea put in front of me (yes this is the level of creative in China we often see) was that after a hard days working at their smile, a gal just needs to take a swig on her Red Bull to make it through the day. Of course the idea is risible and explains why I often want to just write the fucking scripts myself but just to be professional I pointed out that the reasons for rejection were, it wasn't female, it wasn't blue collar enough (lorry drivers are often paid a subsidy to drink Red Bull and not fall asleep at the wheel) and most important of all, that the smile did not come from the HEART. A synthetic smile is exactly what I expect Li Ning to insist upon and make no mistake he doesn't undertand that it's all about saying 'fucking hell, I failed' that makes a brand.

It's not just Li Ning. It's the entire country. 1.3 Billion population and despite loving them hugely for so many things, I've yet to come across one Chinese entrepreneur, or brand visionary who has the balls to embrace their flaws and their run with it.
There are reasons for this and I'll explain some of those in some later posts.
But in the mean time I'd also like to see a Western agency that can see past their noses and their short term immediate profits (show me one ad, just one ad) that knows it's all about saying no to clients who are often under immense pressure to deliver the synthetic goods, on time and on budget. What most Western agencies don't realise is that this is an economic bubble we're living in and that doesn't justify running with what I think is so often some of the weakest creativity I've ever come across and I think I've worked in more countries than most. 

One of my predictions however is that just like punk emerging from the ashes of a charred British society I anticipate an unleashing of the creative Chinese spirit once this amazing country hits harder times. When it's not all about the money because there will be less of it about. 

For the time being though most are on the oxyacetylane rampant consumerism which the smarter people in the West know has a logic that predicts and defines it's own end with a simplicity that will leaving most people gasping......or choking if you wish.

Sunday 17 August 2008

Made in England

 
Currently trekking across the Americas from Mexico to Canada along the continental divide is Cookie from Made in England. Along with his mate Paul he's been blogging the journey and they are both (after what seems like forever) just over the halfway mark now. It's terrific blogging and he and Paul are both doing it for Charity which you can check out over here 
Just as exciting is that if he makes it back to London, Cookie has one of the best digital graphic design blogs that I know of. You can still sponsor him mile for mile as it's not certain that he's going to make it with his toes disintegrating as we speak, thus saving yourself a couple of dollars you cheap skates ;)

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Sell the sizzle

 
I think it's the Swedish who have an expression for food that isn't  rude and translates as "the food was adequate". Anyway this is the closest Pizza restaurant to me in Beijing.

Film & Music Matter

Age picks up on a piece of film that is ace.

Sunday 10 August 2008

Olympic Cycling



Making my way back home earlier I was caught in a road block and managed to catch some Olympic cycling on the N95 camera. I've encountered some of the teams training around Tiananmen square early in the morning and like this ride-by they are a fearsome experience of pedal power and swooshing noise as they rush by. Nothing like my sedate ambling even on my electric bike.

In this clip they are approaching me and have just emerged from the West heading East out of the fog/pollution on Changan Avenue, with the famous Chairman Mao portrait to their left on the north side of Tiananmen Sqaure which must be quite an inspiring sight for those at the peak of their careers in Beijing this Olympics.

Friday 8 August 2008

Marie

 
Marie was a good sport on my last night in California and we had a terrific meal on Huntington Beach before I caught my flight back to Beijing. It was however a real insight into what it means for aging populations and I learnt a heap of stuff I should have known about anyway to put into context for my work. I see here today that there's another contribution to playful elderly that is definitely worth a read. Marie is a bit scared of emails but I've opened up the playing field by sending her video mails through Eyejot.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Paris Hilton

See more funny videos at Funny or Die
When I read Alex Bogusky talking about Paris Hilton's intelligence in this Fast Company interview I thought it an interesting comment, and now I've seen the video I actually think she comes across as articulate and in control. See for yourself.

Zaproot & T. Boone Pickens


While in the States recently T. Boone Pickens (say it like you're wearing a Stetson) was buying an awful lot of mind share in the media with his plan to shift the U.S. economy off oil. A noble effort  considering he'd made his fortune by sucking the finite resource out of the ground all his life, but better late than never I thought. Zaproot's Jessica Wlliamson presents an alternative case by pressing different buttons. Make your own mind up. 

Sneak Preview: Beijing Olympics 2008 - The Cube and The Birds Nest

 
  
  
  
 

Pics via Focus China.

I've been twittering for a few days about the lack of foreigners in town and tonight intend to hit a few hot spots to see if it's just around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City where apart from Olympic Officials and Journalists they are definitely thin on the ground. I'm reminded of Baudrillard's simulacra that if enough people see it on televison around the world, then maybe its an international event. Simulacra or othewise.

Geotility & Cerambycidae Lamiinae Aristolobia Horridula



There's a long and funny (with hindsight) story about how this creature managed to become part of my life for about 12 hours but the reason for putting it out there again is Faris has come up with a really nice term for a concept that I've loosely talked about for a while in a slightly different context and I've been using this picture to explain it. Faris calls it Geotility and its the linking of geographical or location based data with pretty much everything else. I'm particularly interested in the information that is accumulated through social media sites although as I've also indicated elsewhere, it's us who should be in control of that information not the social networking sites who should really act as a broker in any transactional exchange model rather than message pusher. More pull than push (Fuzzy logic?)

So the insect CerambycidaeLamiinae Aristolobia Horridula above came into my life unexpectedly a couple of years back in the Tropics and managed to turn it upside down in such a way that really freaked me at the time but the remaining question I had once it had gone away is, what was it? I showed it to a few knowledgeable people who have lived in Thailand for years but no one recognised it and so I was left mystified as to how I could find out apart from emailing it to entomologists and hoping they might know.


It was only later I realised what could be the future of social media and networking when I saw this guy crouched on the ground taking photographs of insects. I didn't actually know what he was up to at first but once I'd asked (he was cataloguing the decline and fall of insect populations on Wimbledon common from climate change) it became clear that he could help me. I might have missed this guy if he'd just been walking by but what occurred to me as a really useful utility for social media is that if I could have a status update on anyone of my social media sites that I was looking for an entomologist and this chap belonged to one, albeit willing to share information as his status too, then it might prove to be a useful connection builder. What if I could exchange my status as a blogger with some traffic to promote his activities in return for some professional help on bug finding?

Where I think Geotility gets really interesting though are the day to day needs of for example people like students at school. I can envisage a situation whereby a student who is poor at maths may well benefit from seeking advice from a maths student who is weaker at literature, a subject the first student is stronger at. Wouldn't it be great to put those people together in places where time is traditionally wasted like train stations, parks, bus stops or any one of the places that we travel through and are now able to broadcast our location along with needs and wants?

There are thousands of examples I can think of that would particularly be useful for those who would prefer to borrow items than buy wasteful and damaging products to the environment and climate. I'm thinking about John Grant's power drill library that he talks about in his book The Green Marketing Manifesto (a book every planner should read) . Anyway hats off to to Faris for giving it a terrific name. I think it will be a massive concept. Particularly when oil hits 200 bucks a barrel.

Which it will.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Old School

I've had to chuck away the Wilkinson Sword Quattro I bought because after a week or so's stubble it clogs up. Anyway I spotted this in Walmart earlier and thought a back to basics might be interesting to investigate.

Monday 4 August 2008

Friday 1 August 2008

Follow Your Instinct


Just follow it. The ad is in your hands (don't forget to click in the Youtube video to direct the narrative - It's a new format)

Via Digicynic

Dengue Fever


I read about these guys a while back and loved the description of Pschedelic Khmer surf rock. Cambodia is quite special to me as most of my close Thai friends are Khmer in ethnic origin living close to the border and speak Khmer around me. It's also quite timely  after the border dispute over what is obviously a Khmer temple (the architecture speaks for itself) with Thailand bullying Cambodia and flexing its nationalistic muscles (when involving weaker neighbours) over the disputed territory.

Anyway I  was just awoken from a jet lag catch up sleep to the track 'Seeing Hands' and was catapulted back into some amazing nights in Phnom Penh and road trips to Angor Wat in Siem Reap. Khmer Culture is still such a mystery in many ways but here's a bit of recombinant music culture from Dengue Fever on Myspace that stretches from the surfing coast of Los Angeles to the Heart of Darkness. Click on the track called Singing Hands.

It's so good to hear that this music is also connecting in Cambodia with a generation that haven't heard this genre since the late sixites as both the music and the people  were all obliterated in the genocide and insanity of Pol Pot's ultra communist agrarian revolution with the Khmer Rouge. I feel I need to stop off in Phnom Penh sooner than I realised on long delayed trip I need to make to Vietnam. It's on the way I guess. Read about Dengue Fever over here if the music grabs you.
Tenuous link picture of me struggling with a surf board last week ;)

Thursday 31 July 2008

Dave Trott's Blog

Dave Trott was, is and always will be an advertising legend. His Blog is spilling  grade A advertising experience onto internet screens around the world for free and not only that, unlike when I was getting into the advertising business, you can engage in dialogue with him if your comments are in shape. 
If you're not sucking on his RSS feed yet, you should be. It's not too late either to go through the archives without sacrificing a whole weekend. It's worth it.

Everything You Need To Know About YouTube