The New York innovation consultancy PSFK created an inspirational report about the future of health and technology for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Imagine the creativity of thousands of medical, technology and creative professionals applied to persistent global health problems. Amazing work, very dense, more than 200 pages of new solutions, presented in simple visuals. Solid evidence for encouragement about the future.

Above, an instructional baby blanket prototype by the advertising agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay, from page 133 of the report.

Last week marketing agencies in Shanghai and Toronto announced with breathless enthusiasm that everybody who wants to sell something should jump into social media immediately.

On 14 July, OgilvyOne released a study on social media in China saying that “social media users are no longer discriminating between ‘brands’ and ‘friends.’ They are simply identifying a third group that they can engage with – ‘frands.’”

On the same day, Espresso, a digital agency based in Toronto, distributed its third evaluation of the state of social media. The summary, in two words: BLAZING HOT. David Armano, a digital strategist at Edelman, provided this quote to Espresso: “Social media is the crack cocaine of the Internet. We want it, we need it, and we go into withdrawal when we don’t get enough of it.”

Social media may well be the new crack cocaine of marketers. But the foaming-at-the-mouth tone of these reports doesn’t convince me that consumers in China, the United States, Canada, or anywhere else are stupid enough to think brands that want to sell stuff to them are actually their friends. I am also skeptical of the presumption that if companies are clever enough about insinuating themselves into social media, they will succeed at levels beyond their wildest expectations.

I’m a 20-something graduate student in communication in New York, media capital of the Western world. I grew up with social media in China, enjoy it as much as anyone else, believe it is a powerful tool, and have a vested interest in knowing its impact on behavior. But as a consumer, I know when I am being treated like a mark.

OgilvyOne, for example, states that Chinese “social media users are going online to experience a relaxing, social place full of information about products and brands that can be shared with friends. It’s about feeding a fascination for consumerism and it’s about being able to influence others with what you know.”

The majority of Chinese people probably have no idea as to what “social media” means. This doesn’t prevent them from being major players in the social media landscape in China and worldwide. Millions of Google users in China cannot spell the word “google,” according to Kai-Fu Lee, the founding president of Google China. But Google services are still important to them.

Instead of claiming that social media is a relaxing place to talk about brands, I would say social media is a place where potential consumers go for peer comments before making purchases. Social media is a buzzword now, but it is not a magic wand for generating gigantic amounts of profit. Companies might choose to become facilitators for conversations and discussions online, rather than believing they can manipulate the behavior of online influencers. Social media ushers in a new age for marketing methods and research, but it’s not going to replace the basic psychology of consumer behavior.

OgilvyOne makes sense in identifying some passionate brand chasers as “frands.” But it is awfully soon to declare, and rather disrespectful of human beings, to say they no longer know the difference between brands and friends.

Social media might be a relaxing place. But is it really true that people have nothing interesting to talk about but brands? I doubt that.

Wang, a graduate student in communication at Columbia University, is from Maanshan, China.

Above, an illustration from OgilvyOne’s July 2010 report on social media in China.

“It’s quite obvious. You’re seeing a knuckle-ball effect.”

– Rabi Mehta, an aerospace engineer at NASA, on the official ball of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

FIFA announced the official ball of the 2010 World Cup — the Adidas Jabulani — in December 2009. Adidas called it the roundest and most accurate ball ever made, citing wind tunnel testing at Loughborough University in England and its own laboratory in Germany.

In June, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, released analysis indicating the ball wobbles at speeds of 45-50 miles per hour. It doesn’t look like the Loughborough people were talking to the NASA people.

Two observations:

1. NASA’s timing and use of sports to teach concepts of physics is brilliant.

2. Experts in computational fluid dynamics, such as physicists at NASA and designers at Formula 1 racing teams, have an opportunity to collaborate on equipment for future sports events. The potential for co-branding, education, and credibility is substantial.

]]> http://www.mercurybrief.com/2010/07/nasa-on-the-world-cup-ball/feed/ 0 http://www.mercurybrief.com/2010/06/entrepreneurs-in-singapore/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=entrepreneurs-in-singapore http://www.mercurybrief.com/2010/06/entrepreneurs-in-singapore/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:05:36 +0000 Geraldine Kan http://www.mercurybrief.com/?p=3477

Funny how things in work and personal life converge — maybe because one is feeding off the other. I’m building a communications consulting and training business in Singapore, LINEA, and meeting some really cool, independent businesspeople as a result. I’m also working with volunteers to beef up the learning program for children at the Whampoa Family Service Centre.

Through these seemingly unrelated events, people and places, I’m learning that diversity and differing points of views are crucial in strengthening the collaborative process. Yes, it takes longer to get to a conclusion and if not managed well, becomes a spaghetti-like mess of meetings and endless talk. But without it, originality, creativity and ah-hah moments would be few. And how would we develop if we don’t take in new ways of looking at things?

Take something as simple as goals, for instance. The small-and-medium (SMB) businesspeople I’ve met have an independent streak tied very tightly with pragmatism and a link to their business goals. Paradoxically, their goals aren’t measured purely by numbers but whether they’re doing something tied with their beliefs and ideals and ultimately makes them happy. In my mind, business success had always been tied firmly to the bottom line.

After starting LINEA with a focus on public relations for small businesses, I also quickly realised that small businesses don’t care about putting marketing disciplines in silos — they don’t have the time or resources, and they want everything linked together. So I’m working with other independent partners to meet SMB needs so they don’t need to go hunting around. Larger companies call this Integrated Marketing and sometimes view it as, uh, a Utopian state. Happily, I’m meeting other independent consultants like myself — and am looking forward to meeting more potential partners and learning from them.

Through a photography class, I’m also meeting independent shopkeepers who are totally going against the grain. Each photography student is shooting a single travel-related theme. I’m shooting “Singapore Retail: Beyond Orchard Road,” to extend the boundaries of the usual Singapore shopping experience.

I’ve discovered that stores in the area of Ann Siang Hill, Club Street and Haji Lane (away from the usual tourist belt called Orchard Road) have strong, distinctive personalities and are run by young people with guts and strong vision. Their view is that the books, clothes, accessories, homeware and other products that make them happy will also make their potential customers happy to hang out there — and buy stuff.

Tying this back to the volunteer work I’m doing, I’d like to take some of the older, 11- and 12-year-old Whampoa kids to visit the area and meet these store owners and hang out in bookstores. There’s a really cool kids’ bookstore called Woods in the Books on Club Street. I’d like the kids to be able to chat with entrepreneurial young people who aren’t confined to the mainstream, so that the kids realise they’re not on some unchangeable hamster wheel that defines conventional success.

And at Whampoa, new volunteers have come up with some really cool, specific suggestions to improve the program. One volunteer suggested we weave in some mathematics rather than focus on English all the time. So we’re experimenting with a “manufacturing and commerce” game. We placed the kids in teams and gave them Monopoly money that they “earned” by answering mathematics questions. With this money, they bought raw materials to make simple stuff — like bookmarks and decorate clothes pegs. Next week they’re going to make goods, price them and “sell” them back to the volunteers.

Quite honestly, our strategy was good but execution less than perfect. We’d forgotten the power of little boys’ cliques and weren’t prepared. Pandemonium broke out when the boys didn’t want to be in the same team as the kids from a different neighborhood. (Sound like the real world much?) But – we’re learning.

While work, retail, and voluntarism seem like diverse worlds without natural links, I’m discovering an independent streak does exist in a country many have called, rightly or wrongly, a Nanny State. I’m hoping this streak develops quickly into strong brushstrokes that bring colour, originality and innovation to our canvas.

Top, a staff member at “Books Actually” on Club Street in Singapore. 2010 photograph by Geraldine Kan.

Geraldine Kan recently founded LINEA in Singapore.

A systematic approach to watching football in South Africa boils down to airplanes, buses, hydration and comfortable walking shoes. Alastair Cameron, an operations expert in global sporting events, provides an update from the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Alastair operates Global Nomad, a sports marketing consultancy, and has supported four editions of the Olympic Games: Sydney, Athens, Beijing and Vancouver. An Australian, Alastair’s portfolio also includes the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay, two Commonwealth Games (Manchester and Melbourne), the Sydney Paralympic Games and the Doha 2006 Asian Games. He last reported for The Mercury Brief from Vancouver.

Q1. What is your role in South Africa?

My role is Match Day Experience Manager, working with a USA-based agency handling arrangements for various sponsors. I am here for six weeks. Based in Cape Town, we fly to matches all over South Africa. The agency primarily supports the Olympic Games, but supports other global events as well.

Our day typically begins around 5 a.m. when we meet at the hotel, gather our guests and head to the Cape Town airport. There we board our flight, often to Johannesburg some two hours away. There we are met by our ground transport supplier and transported to the pre-match hospitality venue where the guests can relax for an hour or two and have lunch and refreshments. However, sometimes the drive between the destination airport and the stadium can be up to four hours. Then we head to the stadium. We attend the match and then reverse the process, skipping the hospitality portion. We often return to Cape Town in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes 22 hours after we first started.

My role is to manage all aspects of the day, working with the suppliers, coordinating with our locally based venue staff in each city, any airport teams we have in place, the airlines we fly with, and the hospitality providers. My number one objective is making sure the guests have an enjoyable and safe day, returning back to Cape Town with me.

Q2. World Cup football is being played in 10 stadiums in South Africa. As people around the world watch these matches, what should they know about the unique logistics of the tournament?

Several sponsors have opted for a Base Camp model to manage their operations because it is not practical to have hotels and teams in 10 cities. So the distances we cover in a day are challenging. At least five of the stadiums require us to fly into Johannesburg and then bus to them. Four others we fly directly into. And we can actually walk to the stadium in Cape Town. One of our key concerns is always guest safety, so this is a great way, and a great city, for us to operate in. We know where all our people are all the time.

Q3. From your position on the ground, how does the FIFA World Cup feel different as an event than, for example, an edition of the Olympic Games?

The vibe here is fabulous. Like an Olympic Games, people are from all over. The South Africans are very warm and welcoming. The noise from the vuvuzelas, the loud South African horns you hear in the background as a constant drone, has even grown on me. The big difference is that this is a single sport event, so if you are not a huge football fan, you may be out of luck. Whilst I have never been an avid football fan, I have always watched World Cup matches over the years. There are more similarities than differences.

Q4. What events so far have stood out for you in this World Cup experience, and what are you looking forward to?

I was at the Opening Ceremony and Match 1, South Africa vs. Mexico. The local fans were very much in evidence, but so were many Mexican fans. I am also looking forward to Match 64, the final, when we will be back in Jo’burg. Attending one of Australia’s matches, the draw between us and Ghana, was also exciting. It was terrific to be amongst so many of my countrymen in a distant land supporting our team, although, sadly, they did not make the second round.

Q5. What Cape Town bar has been taken over by insiders managing the operations of the World Cup?

I have not had a lot of chance to hit many bars. But here in Cape Town we are based in the Waterfront area, where Ferryman’s is popular, as is Quay Four. There have been a number of temporary structures built in this area as well. Also, in Cape Town you have Long Street in the center of town, where there are some great bars in big, old colonial buildings with great verandahs looking over the street below. A few miles away is Camp’s Bay out along the coast where there are some good bars too.

Above, Alastair on one of many bus trips to a World Cup football match in South Africa.

The Nielsen Company released its latest three-screen report on 11 June 2010, documenting significant changes in media consumption during the last two years. The report has implications for the way stories are told, including format, duration, content and production values.

In the USA, moving-picture storytelling expanded from the movie screen to the television screen in the 1950s. The Nielsen reports show expansion now taking place into the smaller screens of smartphones.

The pace of strategy and tools to integrate storytelling for multiple screens is accelerating. Last month Adobe, for example, announced HTML5 extensions to Dreamweaver software that enable website developers to optimize content across multiple screens.

Highlights from the Nielsen first-quarter 2010 three-screen report on televisions, personal computers and smartphones:

• HDTV: More than half of US television households now have a high-definition television and receive HD signals. HDTV penetration grew 189 percent between 2008 and 2010.
• DVR: More than a third of homes have a digital video recorder, up 51 percent since 2008. This makes it possible for more viewers to watch TV programs on their own schedule, or “time shift.”
• Broadband: 63.5 percent of homes now have broadband Internet access, with high-speed connections that improve online video delivery.
• Smartphones: Nearly a quarter of households (up 38 percent year-over-year) have smartphones, simplifying the process for consumers to “place shift” and watch video wherever they are.
• Mobile Video: The audience for mobile video grew 51.2 percent year-over-year, and now includes more than 20 million users. Fifty-five percent of the audience for mobile video is aged 25-49.

Above, on 19 May 2010, Adobe released HTML5 extensions to Dreamweaver CS5 to support web developers optimizing content across multiple screens. Graphic by Adobe.

Seven hundred people in North Carolina are basing a new business model on the idea of me and my family changing our behavior when we go to the beach this summer. They are re-inventing the T-shirt, and they are some of the most optimistic people you will ever meet.

Going to the beach is a series of rituals. We overload the car. We drive six hours from Chapel Hill to Hilton Head Island although other beaches are only three hours away, because that’s the place our family adopted. We pack cold drinks in coolers and sit in the sand under umbrellas and build castles with moats and turrets. We ride bicycles along paths shaded by palmetto trees to the plantation ruins of William E. Baynard, who grew cotton before the Civil War. We pay $18 for T-shirts that say “Salty Dog Cafe.” Sea Island cotton hasn’t been grown on Hilton Head since 1920, but when we return home, these T-shirts from Honduras and Peru remind us of happy days.

We buy T-shirts because of the messages printed on them, but we spend very little time thinking about where they come from, what they’re made of, or who makes them. This is what Eric Henry and Tom Sineath want to change.

They run TS Designs, a small apparel company in Burlington, North Carolina, and they ask a simple question. Would my family make different decisions if we knew who made the T-shirt? What if we could point to the Stanly County farm of Ronnie Burleson, who grows cotton for TS Designs, on our drive to the beach? Or to Wes Morgan’s cotton gin in New London, where the cotton is cleaned? Or Mark Leonard’s yarn spinning plant in Thomasville or Brian Morrell’s knitting plant in Wendell? It’s a 750-mile path for their shirt, about the same as our trip to the beach and back. But it’s much shorter than the 17,000-mile global supply chain for most T-shirts.

What if knowing all this would cost us $21 rather than $18? Henry and Sineath (pronounced SIGH-neath) believe we’ll spring for the extra $3, because we all want to help our neighbors and we all want to reduce consumption of petroleum. So they and about 700 other people in the textile business created a brand, “Cotton of the Carolinas,” that connects you with the people behind your shirt at the same time you’re showing personal connections to beaches, universities and football teams.

There are other reasons to buy their shirts, or, more accurately, to suggest that beach shops, schools, companies, brewpubs and athletic teams source them from TS Designs. Their smallest quantity is 200 shirts — where the price is about $10 each — but starting this summer they’re offering one-off designs on their website for $26. They use ring-spun yarn, which is more expensive than open-ended yarn, but stronger and softer. They patented a printing process that embeds the design into the fibers of a garment-dyed shirt, in a high-tech version of batik. They print with water-based inks rather than non-breathable plastic inks containing polyvinyl chloride or phtalates, which have questionable effects on people and the environment. They maintain a company garden so their 25 employees can afford to eat local organic produce. They sew on a thoughtful tag showing where and when the cotton was harvested.

Almost 40 years ago, based on her experiences in southern France, Alice Waters launched a local food movement in Berkeley, California. Henry and Sineath believe the same kind of movement can happen with cotton. Like William E. Baynard and cotton from the Sea Islands, they believe we’ll pay a little bit more to know where and who it came from.

Above, a ‘Dirt to Shirt in 750 Miles’ T-shirt from TS Designs. Below, the state flag of South Carolina celebrates the role of palmetto trees in the Revolutionary War battle of Sullivan’s Island on 28 June 1776.

I walk my daughters to the bus stop each morning, and today is the last day to do this before summer vacation. When they get on the school bus I tell them that I love them and hope they have a great day, and then a Piglet line from Winnie the Pooh, “I wonder what exciting thing will happen today?” If I forget, Annie insists on reciting it.

Annie and Colette

These daughters are twins, Annie and Colette, and they have one year of elementary school left. Only 180 more walks to the bus stop, and then middle school, where their older siblings have not been as interested in parental accompaniment.

Last week, Amazon released the third in a series of literally handmade commercials by Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths. Kohler and Griffiths are still-image photographers in Los Angeles with almost no experience in motion photography, and they made their very first commercial in one exciting week last summer as an entry in an Amazon competition. They won. In an interview with Lou Lesko, another Los Angeles photographer, they said they wanted these storytales to be childlike and magical in an increasingly digital world by appearing to have been made with materials found around a home. They show how the Amazon Kindle, a digital storytelling device, holds lots of stories.

Annie Little

At one point in the interview Kohler holds Griffiths‘ hand to stop him from fidgeting, and they seem as charming as their commercials. They praise Annie Little, the actress of the first two commercials who also wrote and sang the childlike songs in all of them. My Annie and Colette look like miniature versions of this Annie.

Kohler, Griffiths and Little inspire us to tell more stories with the simple tools we have on hand. They also invite us to buy one more device for our household digital zoo. But when their pitch is this enchanting, when it celebrates the joy and escape of reading, I can live with that. I wonder what exciting thing will happen this summer?

Lou Lesko interview with Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths.

Above, still image from Kohler and Griffiths’ third Amazon commercial, released Thursday 3 June. Actress Paula Miranda and child model Melissa.

How do you persuade someone to buy a $4,000 Rolex watch, use it for two years, then throw it away and buy another?

You call it an Apple iPhone.

Watch companies describe the unbelievable precision of their products, the engineered glass and the specially machined stainless steel. They create images of a thin, durable, useful, elegant device.

Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Apple, used this vocabulary to launch the iPhone 4 today. People under the age of 30 no longer wear watches — fashion guides advise baby boomers to look younger by telling time with a phone, not a watch — so this is remarkable marketing judo. When people stop wearing watches, sell them phones styled like watches and charge nearly $4,000 over a two-year period. The anthropologist Genevieve Bell, director of user experience at Intel, says mobile phones have become a form of jewelry. They stay close to the body, like an amulet, and function in social and spiritual ways unrelated to technology.

The iPhone 4 looks like a classic Leica camera, as Jobs pointed out, and also resembles a classic tool watch. The Rolex Submariner created the tool watch category in 1953. The Submariner features brushed stainless steel, a ceramic bezel and a black dial. Sean Connery wore one as James Bond in the 1962 movie “Dr. No.” The iPhone is so pervasive today that Apple doesn’t need to place them in movies or pay celebrities to use them.

In March, the Swiss watch company Ulysse Nardin launched a $50,000 smartphone called the Chairman. Swiss companies do an unfathomably brilliant job of marketing watches. But after comparing the Chairman with the iPhone 4, I believe the Swiss will have their asses handed to them by Californians who stole their best moves. Beyond design elements, 200,000 apps make iPhone the Swiss Army knife of the 21st century.

In December 1969, after Seiko launched the quartz Astron watch, the Swiss watch industry went through gut-wrenching turmoil and then recovered. Forty years later, the question is: How will it respond to mobile phones?

CrunchGear video of an Ulysse Nardin Chairman smartphone.

Above, images of a Rolex Submariner, an Ulysse Nardin Chairman and an Apple iPhone 4.

A marketing agency in Shanghai published a fascinating primer last week on a viral social media campaign in China. Rand Han, the strategy director of BA360, describes an elegant approach to measuring campaign effectiveness that recalls the work of Enrico Fermi.

BA360’s “Little Red Book” website outlines a viral campaign around a hamburger that costs 138 yuan — about $20 in the USA, or 3.5 percent of an average Chinese monthly salary. A Shanghai restaurant, Yasmine’s Steakhouse and Butcher Shop, created the burger as an inexpensive way to make the place memorable.

The campaign localizes a popular tactic from better economic times. Pricey burgers were big in 2008. Burger King publicized a $185 burger in London, and Olde Homestead steakhouse offered a Kobe beef burger in New York for $81 (now down to $41). The Four Seasons Hotel in Jakarta offered a 1 million rupee burger ($110), topped with foie gras and Portobello mushroom.  This doesn’t even include Las Vegas.

While expensive burgers are publicity stunts that actually seem to work, what’s more impressive is Han’s campaign evaluation. It boils down to two charts documenting when the news hit specific websites and discussion forums, page views, and traffic analysis. The campaign targeted Kaixin001, a Chinese version of Facebook. Along with Renren (literally, “everyone”), Kaixin (“happy”) is the most popular place for 20- to 39-year-olds to share unfiltered information with friends. Big Chinese news portals such as Sina and Sohu provide only government-approved information. Kaixin and Renren posts are created by users, making the contents and topics feel more authentic and persuasive.

Han’s second chart from Baidu Analytics (a Chinese equivalent to Google Analytics) shows how well the campaign targeted Shanghai specifically.  For example, the agency posted on Da Zhong Dian Ping Wang (an equivalent to Yelp, literally, “public comments and opinions”) twice in two weeks. Sock puppetry and astroturfing to launch buzz are common in China, with little regulation and oversight.

Companies worldwide need ways to quantify the value of social media, and measurement sometimes requires more resources than they are willing to commit. Han’s two-chart analysis offers an efficient approach.

During the Manhattan Project in 1945, the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi conceived a simple way to estimate the yield of the first nuclear explosion. He dropped strips of paper from his hand and measured how far the shock wave moved them. When we’re faced with a world where measurements don’t yet exist, maybe we’re better off to pare everything down to what we absolutely need to know.

For the record, on the West Coast of the United States, you can’t go wrong with In-N-Out Burger. Outstanding, and less than $2.50.

A marketing strategist in Chicago, Michelle Cui Xiaoxiao recently graduated with a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from the Medill School at Northwestern University.

Above: burger in Tokyo. 2009 photograph by Christian Kadluba of Vienna, Austria.