Say Yes to Everyone

‘Say Yes to Everyone‘

I love this thing.

links for 2008-07-30

• Ich Bin Ein Campaigner
  “Barack Obama is the candidate of “we.” In fact, he used that word 58 times, while uttering the word “I” only 10. “
  (tags: branding politics us speech presentation)

links for 2008-07-29

• People in wealthy areas perceived to be most attractive
  “Finding healthy people more beautiful could be an evolutionary explanation for attractiveness, while a link between wealth and beauty points to a more cultural explanation.”
  (tags: status culture relationships)

links for 2008-07-25

• The tyranny of the big idea
  “Big Ideas, they’re just huge buckets to contain a whole bunch of small ideas”
  (tags: advertising branding creativity ideas planning bigidea marketing simplicity accountplanning)
• More on new targeting models
  “Great brands tend to create their own audiences, rather than simply serving an existing group. If the role of a brand is to attract like-minded customers then being true to yourself is the best targeting approach of all.”

Dude.

Okay, I’m so sorry, I had to say it, I think this captures the essence. It’s stupidly funny to me. I have sinned.

links for 2008-07-22

• Charlie Brooker on ‘Tribal Wives’
  “Can’t we have a travel show in which the presenter lives with a remote tribe for a week and comes away shrugging and calling them a bunch of boring, backward arseholes?”

links for 2008-07-21

• Don’t Date Him, Girl!
  This could be a FB hit
  (tags: advice community dating culture funny)

Interestingness #3 – Bulgaria

A few weeks ago I ended up in Bulgaria as my parents live there as expats; sometimes during the week, sometimes during the weekend, all I know it’s a very long commute, of about 380km to Sofia from Bucharest.

An Iranian licence plate! Tehran!

it was a strange experience to say the least as everything is a lot different in Bucharest as opposed to Manchester or London or any other place I’ve been to but Bulgaria beats the Romanian ‘different’. I was used to seeing people out on the streets on Saturday and Sunday mornings. In Bulgaria I’d see almost none and the population is rather numerous, which was strange. You suddenly wonder ‘Where is everyone?’. The answer is, they’re probably at the seaside, on the Black Sea coast. Somewhere tucked away in Varna, Obzor and other places with funny names for foreigners.

Driving around Bulgaria I saw quite a few UK cars, a sign that people do choose to live very far away from their homes for a lot less money (get a house for 30,000 euros and the UK idea of ‘house prices going down’ will seem ludicrous). And it’s not bad. You could get used to it. You’d have trouble deciphering the cyrillic alphabet if you’re not used to it or a former communist country or just a language fanatic but it all makes sense after a while. It’ll take a while before you get used to the fact that you can’t use your credit card everywhere you go. Or that in Bulgaria, nodding your head means ‘no’ and shaking it means ‘yes’. Troublesome conversations are troublesome. Understanding of what ‘lemonade’ means also.

I drink lemonade, I dunno wtf you drink. But this is not lemonade.

They’re not shopping-mall people, which is a good thing. There’s no obvious pattern for their consumption although you can guess some of them simply by going into their supermarkets. Like Piccadilly (Пикадили/Pikadili). You notice what products go out of stock, you notice that they’ve got the best baked bread I’ve ever had and deli stores that would make any deli store in the UK blush.

Luxury and status are still major concerns in Bulgaria. Custom licence plates, white SUV’s (did I mention Eastern Europe has somewhat lax pollution legislation?) and their local ‘wags’ can be seen strutting their designer shoes, clothing and expensive cars, licenced ‘6699′ or ‘9999′ (over 9000!) around the city. while their boyfriends work out the upper body muscles that make them look like penguins when they walk. People would park their cars inside shopping malls if they could, anywhere but indicated places. I’d assume corruption is a problem as everyone seems to get away with it. The funniest moment was when two policemen sped past driving a Porsche Carrera, all blue and white, in police colours. See, now this would be frowned upon in the UK. Eastern Europe has some rules of its own. And less shame I think. Because put together, Romania and Bulgaria have half the population of the UK…perhaps less.

Somehow fit Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in this.

I was somewhat shocked and scared one night when I woke up at about one or two to gunshots. You’d think BLOODY HELL, someone’s getting shot out there! Call the police! But shortly after I was informed that a lot of people own guns and when drunk, they just shoot blanks in the air. There’s no violent gun crime. Or knife crime. Everyone’s actually very peaceful! And I’m not being sarcastic. They don’t have each other and the most violent murder that reached my ears was some local mafia boss found dead in the city. Suppose that balances everything out? If police won’t do you justice, you go do it yourself! Police decided not to comment on this event!

I quite enjoy taking pictures of food.

For those daring, there’s skiing and snowboarding going on around Sofia (on Viitosha) and in Borovets (‘ts’ is spelt like ‘tz’ in ‘Ritz’) but obviously none in summer, you can just enjoy the view from 2200m altitude.

Guitar Hero as entertainment

Overall pretty fun. Just kinda annoying to get around with if you don’t own a car. And don’t speak Bulgarian. I asked for the way out somewhere and got pointed to the toilet. Not fun!

Planning at 40, Jon Steel Talks

I’ve been so slow catching up with the news, JWT’s Vimeo channel posted videos from the ‘Planning Starts at 40′ thing and I must say, Jon Steel’s speech was very sensibly written and had some valid points that seem to be ever so true, at least with the economical disaster the world has gotten itself into.

Jon Steel: Planning at 40: Solving the wrong problems from JWT on Vimeo.

He talks about the fact that planning used to be about setting the right objectives and that we should be celebrating 40 years of planning, not planners. Planning itself should be about doing the right thing and nowadays, we should be angry that planners are being asked to give the right solutions to the wrong problems, that money talks and it talks loudest unfortunately. And that we should fight against the idea of ’short term’ and accountability mindsets that consider things need to be completely measurable in order for them to be successful. And that we should be angry because of a general lack of interest. That planning is not about looking cool and hanging out with the creatives, but about rigorous work and discipline, which is something rare nowadays.

Hats off to that.

Watch the rest of the videos from JWT too, they’re good ones.

links for 2008-07-20

• Confessions of a Sex-Shop Salesgirl
  “Understand, we were not just selling motorized sticks. We were also teaching women how to never be submissive. A woman with a well-stocked toy drawer isn’t dependent on anyone and is unlikely to hurl herself at a lowlife just for nooky.”
  (tags: sex sales marketing life)
• 10 Questions for Tim Gunn
  I don’t know of any designer, any brand, that is really global in its thinking. It may be global in its reach, but in terms of global in its thinking, that remains ahead of us.
  (tags: fashion lifestyle us)