marginally subversive

Advertising and Poverty

I read somewhere (cannot remember where now) that more and more companies are beginning to consider setting up separate subsidiaries or sub-units that are focused on philanthropy and making a difference in the world around them.  Some are talking about climate change and how they are making a difference in the world through new technologies and research-thrusts.  Some are talking about their moves in aiding countries in the African continent, in South and Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world.

I have a thought:  What if these advertisers - everyone of them (and most of them will be governed by some association of some sort) - all agreed to stop advertising for one day - just for one single day,  and donated the savings of that single day to charity - the Red Cross and Red Crescent Organizations, CARE.Org, UNICEF, UNCHR, Caritas - I am sure that they will make a very significant difference.

I am going to take Singapore as an example because I have the industry figures off the top of my head (but this is in no way just a call to Singaporean clients... it's a call to all clients globally):

In Singapore, the total advertising media industry is estimated to be 2.0Bln SGD - that is based on monitored and published rates of media companies.  Let's say that's discounted by 20% - and we are still left with some 1.8Bln SGD or roughly 1.1Bln USD.

(I won't add in "sunk costs" - e.g., production costs of print ads and TVCs, since those will not need to be halted - or will be impossible to halt since advertisers would still need those.)

On average, the industry in Singapore spends 4.4Mln SGD per day on advertising media.  Or roughly 3Mln USD per day.

This number is only for Singapore.

The US ad marketplace is far much bigger than that.  Japan's significantly higher than that.  And China's - man, that's a treasure trove right now.

If advertisers in Singapore actually all agreed to stop advertising for one day - just one single day - we can potentially raise 3Mln USD in one single day!

Think of what a difference that would make!

Now why would advertisers think of stopping their advertising for one day?

1.  What difference does a day make?  Any sane media planner - I hope - would not argue against stopping the campaign for one day and resuming it the next day.  GRPs can still fall within the magic +/-10% band  and reach within the ideal +/-3%points (ideal for some clients who are so concerned about metrics) even with a one-day-off.

2.  There are spillover effects from the previous day - and the day before that and still the day before that.  Any sane advertiser does not advertise for only one day a year and stops.  More or less, she/he will have approved several waves of advertising.  All the we're going to ask for is one day.  One single day.

3.  Media companies are probably going to go berserk - but heck:  do you think shareholders (of publicly listed companies) will actually think negatively of this gesture?  Of this one day of total blank, no ads day?  Sure - the "market" (i.e., Wall Street) is driven by greed and the rational expectation of profits.  But once demonstrated that this is neither detrimental to their portfolios nor beneficial (one day!), I am sure they too will see the value of doing this.

4.  Imagine sitting through your favorite couch and not seeing dreadful TV commercials - or for once, have a thin, all-news newspaper.  Audiences would actually love that, I think.

What can you do with this money?

Well: a lot.

Singapore will generate 3Mln USD in one day by simply not advertising for one day on all media.  But the US is perhaps (for argument's sake) 10x bigger than Singapore, and Japan is (say) 7.5x bigger.  Let's assume that China is 7.0x bigger.  (Don't shoot me about these assumptions: I don't have my notes with me and I don't store figure in my head...)

Given these assumptions, we will have raised - in one day - 73.5Mln USD.

That figure does not even include the UK, Australia, India, the Middle East, and key markets in the Americas and Europe.  But that figure on its own, for example, will be enough to meet 10% of the needs of feeding the people in Darfur for one year (estimated to be 685Mln USD).  If we put all the other countries together - and well, if my estimates above are corrected and were made far more accurate - I am sure that we will be able to meet this figure.

My dad once told me that if you really want to do something - if you really, really, really want to do something - you'll find a way to do it - regardless of the obstacles.

And I say the same thing:  If advertisers and companies really want to do something about these things, they can.

musings on a Sunday

I cannot say that I have been very diligent lately.  The past few days have seen me trying to cut corners - only to be racked by an inner voice that states "This is not you.  This is not your work.  This is not worthy of you."

And the funny thing is, the voice - no, I am not schizophrenic - wins.  I would revisit all the areas where I did all my cutting-corners and redo them - all "motherhood statements" and all regurgitated analytics that I have been doing were all deleted and I re-started my report.

And the funny thing is, had I not listened to the voice (again, I am not schizophrenic), nobody would have noticed the difference.

The reports that I had initially generated would have met the standards of others.  It would have passed as a "profound view of life" (I am exaggerating).  If a 'hole' would have been found, I would still be able to find my way through it - it's numbers, I always thought, and I knew these numbers. 

Which was true.  I did know my numbers.  And I would have gone through the questions relatively unscathed.

But the voice won.

And I did what I had to do. 

"It's all about the packaging - and the selling."

Which is partly true:  If you packaged a concept right, if you considered whatever it is you're selling and the needs of the audience and the buyers, and present such a concept with commitment, the chances of getting through with a signed deal is good.

But there are some people - and perhaps, I am amongst them - who cannot stand by something that I judge to be below my own personal standards.

Personal Standards of Excellence.  I think that that is what's missing in our professional - and even in our personal - lives.  We believe that "if it's good enough, then it's good enough".

It could very well pass other people's standards - but not me.

I keep high standards - and I expect much from myself and from my team.

Dream big, work beyond reason, and deliver beyond what's expected.

That's the essence of Arete. 

Great Jobs, World-class Jobs, Jobs People Kill For - don't get filled by people with resumes. Ever.

Seth Godin writes -

Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for... those jobs don't get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.

True.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with writing the best - which was equivalent to comprehensive, 5pages-long - resume.  I landed my first gig in advertising with that resume - which I couriered 24hours to an ad agency in Manila.  I did get a call within 48hours and offered the job within the next 24hours.  I guess the A's and B+'s in my Philosophy, Theology, Chemistry, Anatomy, Maths, and other classes (I gave them a copy of my grades... to be sure - hey I was desperate!) made a difference.

These days though, more and more people rely on what they have heard of you.

That is until you shift industries.

Dada Engine - When Words Don't Mean Anything...

OK.  It's almost midnight in Singapore and still I have yet to stop surfing and writing.  I guess I am on a roll.  (Er... boss, I am going to be late tomorrow.  No worries, I still got the projections data in mind.)

While reading FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, he mentioned something about a Dada Engine - a software that generates grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and even reports that don't mean anything.  Developed by Andrew C. Bulhak (and I honestly don't know what the reason behind it is... I think to showcase artificial intelligence and natural language processing?  No idea...), Taleb uses it in his book to showcase how we can make use of "intelligent, esoteric words" to sound, well, intelligent and learned.

Here's a snippet from the post-modernist stream:

If one examines social realism, one is faced with a choice: either reject the dialectic paradigm of reality or conclude that society has objective value. In a sense, Bataille uses the term ‘preconceptualist semantic theory’ to denote not construction, as the dialectic paradigm of reality suggests, but postconstruction. The main theme of the works of Fellini is the role of the observer as participant.

However, the absurdity, and hence the stasis, of subtextual socialism intrinsic to Fellini’s Amarcord is also evident in Satyricon. If the dialectic paradigm of reality holds, we have to choose between preconceptualist semantic theory and the material paradigm of consensus.

It could be said that Reicher suggests that the works of Fellini are postmodern. The characteristic theme of Parry’s essay on semioticist appropriation is the common ground between sexuality and sexual identity.

Therefore, Lacan suggests the use of the dialectic paradigm of reality to read and deconstruct art. The primary theme of the works of Madonna is not theory, but neotheory.

OK.  Explain that me.  Please?

If you're interested to read more, here's the link to the entire article, entitled The Dialectic Paradigm of Reality and Social Realism.

And why this blog entry? 

Hmmm.  To sound intelligent.

Irrational Exuberance - and Depression...

The stock market does not interest me a lot, to be honest.  I don't own that many stocks.  I don't follow my portfolio as much as my friends think I should.  I don't interact with my broker that much - and my broker's recommendations are usually left as that: recommendations.  I still decide on which to invest in - and when to bail out - which is almost 'never'.

My portfolio is full of, well, boring stocks.  I guess if you were to rate the "excitement" level of the stocks that I own on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the max score and 1 being the minimum score, mine would be in the -1 to -2 region.

I guess it's all part of the strategy:  Let time run its course.

I know I'd be really down if I did monitor my stocks on a regular basis, I would be torturing myself for every downward change in my portfolio - and I know that I don't handle these pretty well.  So why torture myself?

Anyway.  I digress.

My thoughts about all these?  I am no expert - but let me weigh in some thoughts:  If there is such a thing as irrational exuberance, consider the possibility of irrational depression or gloom.

Finance theories assume that markets are efficient - and that their efficiencies are derived by the availability of information.  I would go a little further and say, it's not so much the availability of information that matters - it's the response of people towards the morass of information that they - collectively and individually - receive that matters more. 

The dot-com bust (well, it's the only one I really am familiar with - not that I was burned) taught us irrational exuberance.  The things that are happening now could well be irrational gloom or irrational depression.

And the funny thing is, we find ways to rationalize why we are in "depression".  (Pretty much similar with the psychological, "clinical" depression - we rationalize why we are depressed!)  Hindsight bias - hindsight is always 20/20.

Am I immune?  Of course not.  Is anyone immune?  I doubt so. 

It is human nature.  We are "wired" to think this way.

The best we could do:  Let it run its course.  And wait.

"Fooled by Randomness"

With all the ruckus that's happening in the US economy and the repercussions that are being felt across the globe, I thought it would be timely to revisit the things that Fooled by Randomness,written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, are talking about.

Every single day, I see explanations of why certain things are happening - and grim prognostications of financial analysts and economists.  Just today, I was amused by the news on how Bear Stearns was acquired by JP Morgan - and how Bear Stearns, an institution in the finance industry, was bought at a very, very, very low price.

As the market opens, I am sure that traders and investors are all rushing to "unload" and sell, sell, sell.  (I can imagine one of my colleagues now tracking his investments online... I expect that he's going to be up all night tracking the movement of Wall Street.  And that tomorrow may not be a good time to catch up with him.  Maybe, next week.  Post Easter.)

Now how does this tie back to Taleb's book?

Significantly.

If you have not read it, read it.

Well... let me take that back:  If you're used to romance novels and fiction and other light reading, be prepared.  Taleb discusses interesting - but deep - stuff in his book.  You need to exercise those neurons a little bit. 

If you were asleep during your basic stats and probability class, you'd probably have a hard time catching his drift.  But a little patience will do you good.

Fooled By Randomness is a good read.  And a good reminder.

That this - all these ruckus about the economy in the US and its effects on the stock market of different countries - will happen again.  We never learn.  We are not conditioned to learn from our mistakes.  Unfortunately.

Company policy - and say what?

I wasn't so sure whether this quote made sense:  It's company policy not to talk about agency relationships but ... say what?

From Brand Republic Online - Brand Republic.

“As a matter of company policy we do not usually comment on our agency relationships, but we can confirm that we have recently appointed Starlink - a subsidiary of Starcom Philippines, as media agency-of-record for the Philippines.”

Well then again, it says "unnamed" executive and "usually", not always.  So if it's "usually" and not "always", then it's not a "matter of company policy", right?  Because if it were, then there are no exceptions to the rule.

Live Search is getting better...

OK, I am no search-guru.  The farthest I have gone to implementing a search strategy is watching my colleague who is a search guru do a demo on how to do a search strategy.  But I am an avid user of search.  My search default right now is Google - primarily because I search a lot of research materials and their scientific/academic journals search seems to be good.

For other non-serious stuff though, I tend to not really stick to any one.  I want my search to be everywhere I am at - which is mostly these days within the MSN Windows Live network.  (Since I am a Live Mail fanatic and Windows Live Mail desktop app heavy user [it's always on and it aggregates all my email accounts - both for work- and non-work-related email]...)

I stumbled upon this site on the developments in Windows Live Search.  Pretty impressive.  I particularly liked the idea of the photo-search/image-search.  My biggest problem with Google Image Search is that I have to click through to so many pages to look at all the images - and not only that, I have to get to the source file/site in order to see whether that image is indeed what I was looking for or not.  Waste of time.

The one on video search is good, I thought.  Google has integrated video results into their search - and have a dedicated search sites for Video.  But I think this one from Live Search is good:  You get to see lots of videos in one go - and preview them without actually leaving the search results site.

Hey, not bad.

Do people need this?  I surely do since I tend to multitask and want things done in a jiff.

I wonder though when are they going to roll this one out.

And when will they make other people know more about these pretty powerful stuff?

C'mon, guys.  Just because you got something good you can't relax and say "they'll come".  Do some marketing - for once, be a marketing company.  You've made the first step towards making great strides in improving the search experience - and you may have stumbled upon something that could be useful to people.  Get them on the bandwagon if they are not yet.

It's time that we tell people how good and consumer-centric Microsoft is.

Media and Ad Agencies, Technology Companies, Marketeers, and Audiences

In another life, I delivered a vision for a business division that I was working on and the bigger company that owned that division.  My vision was predicated on something: 

What we were offering now (it was 2005 then) will become commoditized.  It will remain
to be  significant part of our business - for business won't change overnight.  But it will be one that will see lower profits because it will demand a lot of human resources.

What we need is to look into the future.  And the future is in the realm of providing accountable advice - frameworks and solutions whose results can be measured against an  agreed-upon set of standards prior to us coming into the picture.

Such businesses will not merely be won by the discounts and savings - though these will remain to be a part of the criteria, perhaps - as old habits are hard to change.  But we can go beyond that.

One pillar is the integration of due diligence and rigor into our business - acting as objective consultants bordering on being academic and theoreticians, yet delivering real, measurable results.

The second pillar is the integration of technology into every aspect of our operations:  to streamline repetitive mundane tasks and reduce overhead costs, to reduce "communication costs" by capitalizing on new technologies, to automate processes and "thinking processes" into databases of expert systems and algorithms.

More importantly, the integration of technology in the analysis of audiences and markets, and in the delivery of message to audiences and markets - both in the back-end and in the store-front.

Essentially, Marketing departments have to embrace technologies - and we - as their partners, their vendors, their suppliers, their contracts, and whatever way they want to see us - need to embrace it too.  And we need to embrace it much earlier than they do.

Decision-making processes need to be aided by technology.  Predictive techniques need to be grounded on technology and theory.  Real-time data and accountability are needed - and these too will be driven by technology.  Simulations - pricing and demand and communications and worst-case scenario planning and most-likely scenario planning - all these will be driven by technology.

Should this be driven by "digital planners"?  No.  They should be driven by "traditional planners with a keen sense of business".  Should it be driven by one business unit?  For now - yes.  But it will need to cascade - the sooner the better - to the rest of the organization.

This is the only way we can avoid being a commodity - and being relegated into the background as mere vendors, as mere contractors, as mere suppliers.  This is the only way we can escape the never-ending discussion on "discounts-value-adds-freebies".

I guess I didn't do enough to make these thoughts clear (and I doubt if the above is any clearer!)

But think about it:  If technology is so pervasive in the lives of our audiences, then why shouldn't agencies and marketing companies embrace technology as part of their systems, processes, and well, communications with consumers and with other stakeholders?

Things that I miss, things that I would like to do

I miss going to company leadership meetings and presenting my viewpoints - presenting results to things that I had worked on for five nights in a row and making business cases and debating the pros and cons of decisions that are being made.  I miss the philosophical and "principles" debates - and the perennial question "But will it make money for us in the long-term?".  Either with clients or with other leaders in the company.

I miss presenting my viewpoints about how training and tools and employee-development should be managed.  I miss arguing with my peers who amongst the team has the highest potentials - and what we can do to maximize those potentials and keep them loyal to the company - or at least happy.

I miss the voice of my former peers - those passionate voices that sometimes fill the boardrooms at 7pm when we all just finished back-to-back meetings and teleconferences.  I miss the arguments - inane or otherwise - but nonetheless, fruitful.

I miss the announcements of new businesses - no, not half million wins, not 1million wins, but 2.5 or 3 or 4 or 5 million wins.  High-profile or low-profile wins.  Wins that make a difference to the company's bottomline - and wins that you know - I know - made a dent and made it possible to deliver bonuses to deserving people in the company.

I miss working late 2-4 days before a major pitch - against 2 other competitors, against 2 more powerful competitors.  We may not win it - but we knew we wouldn't go down without a fight.  We will give our best - even if it all boils down to price and relationships.  We believe in strategies - my peers and I.  We believed in processes - beyond the tactics and shortcuts into real business solutions that went beyond the media plan and discounts and negotiations.

I miss the things finishing worthwhile at 11pm at night or 1am in the morning - knowing that at 9am in the morning, I will be taking this presentation - "hot off the oven" - and present it and make a stellar presentation, answering questions that are sometimes inane ("How much discounts will you offer?") to the visionary ("So ten years from now, how do you think this brand will look like against your vision of the media and communications landscape?").

I miss going to meetings - representing Asia Pacific and the different countries that this region encompasses.  From the "emerging" to the "developed" to the "high-pop" to the "high pop-density".  From the "then-tiger" to the "new tigers" to the "elephants and dragons" to the "kamikazes".  I miss working inside a metal tube for 18 hours, not sleeping and knowing that when I get to the hotel on the other side of the world, I was expected to act as if I were in my natural world - my 'own' timezone, my 'own' rhythm, my 'own' life.

I miss going to Starbucks - or at least, getting the Concierge to get me Starbucks ("Quadruple Shot of Espresso Hazelnut Latte - the biggest cup that they can offer, whatever it is... please!") - as I go through last minute over my notes and my documents and my index cards which contain my agenda, my itinerary, my goals:  "What can I do for my region, for my markets, for my clients that I could take home from this series of meetings?"

People think I am soft - patient - kind.

I may be.

But I am a lot tougher than they think.

It's just that I don't believe in freebies.  I don't believe in politics.  I declare my thoughts even if it puts me at risk.  I come up with rational explanations - even if it runs counter with the accepted norms.  (And yes, I may not go far with these beliefs.)

I have proven myself - to others and to myself.  I have delivered businesses - and more importantly I have paved the way for others to build their own businesses and reputations.

That - I am proud of.

That - I would like to do.  Again.

In a big company - or in a small company.  In a for-profit company - or one involved with non-profit.