Because a quirky one grabs more attention, hence processed more and remembered better. (study here)
What will you use for your next presentation instead of Arial?
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Change your font
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Quote of the day
'Self-love is an often misunderstood concept. Most people think it means liking yourself. True self-love, however, is the ability to love and bring together all our inner disparate parts. It is about achieving symmetry between the mind and the emotions.'
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Emotions
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Emotions
‘Advertising that amplifies passion’
Advertising should amplify passion instead of ambushing it.
Chris Anderson promoting TED talks initiative of ‘ads worth spreading’.
Chris Anderson promoting TED talks initiative of ‘ads worth spreading’.
Visualising Friendships – Facebook
‘When the data is the social graph of 500 million people, there are a lot of lenses through which you can view it. One that piqued my curiosity was the locality of friendship. I was interested in seeing how geography and political borders affected where people lived relative to their friends. I wanted a visualization that would show which cities had a lot of friendships between them.’ (Paul Butler, intern on Facebook’s data infrastructure team)
The result? The result:
Thanks to Political Calculations for posting it.
Monday, 27 December 2010
Word trends
I have just tried the Google NGram – fun!! Fresh from Google Labs, it allows you to check Google books for the occurance of specific words through a period of years (1800 to today). The graph shows the popularity of these words on a time axes. Cool.
Thanks to Michael Wade of Execupundit, Culturaloffering.com and Eclecticity for posting it!
Check it out here. 
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Know thy roots – the post for Christmas Eve
While according to Peter Fisher (as below) knowing your ancestry can boost your IQ, personally, I’d go further and say that knowing your heritage can also give you a solid base, and a belonging. And we need to know where we belong.
‘Peter Fischer and his colleagues at the Universities of Graz, Berlin and Munich have shown that thinking about our ancestors boosts our performance on intelligence tests - what they've dubbed 'the ancestor effect'.But how can these be connected? And where does Christmas come into the picture (the post for Christmas Eve)? Well, aren’t religious celebrations are to remind us to our roots? The reason hasn’t changed for over two thousand years… We celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of Jesus and Easter to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. We celebrate to honour, to memorise, to perpetuate. We do so to remember our roots, and our heritage. Putting it that way makes more sense, doesn’t it? So go ahead and celebrate. It’s good for you in more ways you can think of!
Merry Christmas!
Friday, 24 December 2010
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Mindset Shift 7
The life changing, enlightening, motivating Nicholas Bate:
Mindset Shift 7 - Nicholas Bate
Two Californias
Shocking… truly shocking…
“Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.”
Thank you to Michael Wade for posting a link to Victor Davis Hanson’s article. Execupundit.com: Two Californias.
The years are short
Thank you to Michael Wade of Execupundit for posting this. Click to reach a short but deeply moving slideshow about the shortness of life.
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Busty Russians & ‘targeting’
Targeting is so important.
We are getting bombarded with thousands of unselected and irrelevant marketing messages every day, and one of those that found me today prompted this entry. I was just surfing the net a few minutes ago when I spotted a top leaderboard advertisement promising ‘Busty Russians’ after the click – no, I was not on an x-rated site at all. But wait, it doesn’t stop there (oh, I must share). The ad went on to say that according to a study Russian girls are highly attracted to Western men and that ‘Men join for FREE’. (So does that mean women have to pay if they want to join?) Enough criticizing, it’s clearly a low budget ad (everybody has to make a living) that has to get a simple message across. While I think it’s a cheap one, we all know sex sells, so who knows, it could even have a surprisingly high CTR (click through rate) performance.
But then my question is: in today’s age, with all that digital advertising technology, such as IP address, geo, age, and time targeting, just to mention a few, why I got served this particular ad at ~7pm on a Wednesday evening (AEST), I will never understand. As established above, it’s not a branding ad, it has a crystal clear purpose, and a clearer than that target market. Into which (in case you were wondering), no, I do not belong.
Targeting is so important.
The ad that probably sells but wasting its efforts on people outside its target market:
We are getting bombarded with thousands of unselected and irrelevant marketing messages every day, and one of those that found me today prompted this entry. I was just surfing the net a few minutes ago when I spotted a top leaderboard advertisement promising ‘Busty Russians’ after the click – no, I was not on an x-rated site at all. But wait, it doesn’t stop there (oh, I must share). The ad went on to say that according to a study Russian girls are highly attracted to Western men and that ‘Men join for FREE’. (So does that mean women have to pay if they want to join?) Enough criticizing, it’s clearly a low budget ad (everybody has to make a living) that has to get a simple message across. While I think it’s a cheap one, we all know sex sells, so who knows, it could even have a surprisingly high CTR (click through rate) performance.
But then my question is: in today’s age, with all that digital advertising technology, such as IP address, geo, age, and time targeting, just to mention a few, why I got served this particular ad at ~7pm on a Wednesday evening (AEST), I will never understand. As established above, it’s not a branding ad, it has a crystal clear purpose, and a clearer than that target market. Into which (in case you were wondering), no, I do not belong.
Targeting is so important.
The ad that probably sells but wasting its efforts on people outside its target market:
The digital story of the nativity
You’d be forgiven to think that this is a viral ad for Google, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Brilliant work. Enjoy!
Merry Christmas to all of my blogger friends out there!
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Quote of the day
'Fear. The most debilitating emotion.'
'There are few emotions that make life as unpleasant as does fear. Indeed, fear and joy are inversely proportional such that the more fear, the less joy - and the more anxiety. Those who live in fear witness the gradual diminishment of their humanity, becoming less adventurous, less truthful, and ultimately less alive. They also become deeply cynical.'
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher emotions
Friday, 17 December 2010
Quote of the day
'Guilt addresses the weakness in our character and tells us, 'Don't feel so bad about doing the wrong thing. You're weak. So is everybody else.' But success in life requires determination and resolve. Guilt accomplishes absolutely nothing, so the determined individual simply hs no time for it. It is a parasite that sucks up our energy and renders it useless. It has no power to transform us into someone better.'
Shmuley Boteach: Kosher Emotions
Shmuley Boteach: Kosher Emotions
A well known American story
Welcome to Zombieland: Ladera Ranch, California 
A CNN article highlights some of the underlying problems of the troubled US housing market and that the problem is far from being solved just yet…
‘Yet for the housing market to return to health, there needs to be resolution for these zombie loans that won't ever be paid in full and won't quite die either. Until they can be eliminated through short sales, foreclosures, and permanent modifications, the zombies will keep home values from recovering and suck momentum from the economy. They're not departing soon.‘
Weddings–a big business in China
Because getting married is no quiet business in China. It’s all about ‘keeping up with the Zanghs’ and no money or effort is spared.
‘A venture capitalist, for instance, recently flew a wedding cake from London to Beijing for his daughter's wedding, because it came from a bakery used by the British royal family.’
The Knot Looks for Slice of China's $57 Billion Wedding Market - AdAgeChina - News
Monday, 13 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Happy Festive Season!
Different cultures, different traditions. I have Christmas Carols to look forward to, but this looks like great fun, too and an innocent but very positive profile raising for Judaism.
Magen Boys Entertainment Presents Hip Hop Chanukah
Magen Boys Entertainment Presents Hip Hop Chanukah
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Quote of the day
'The third and deepest level of loneliness is the most troublesome because in some ways it can never be overcome. This deepest level is the understanding that, even within a relationship, we will never ever be fully understood.'
'Herein lies the paradox, and ultimately the tragedy, of human existence.'
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Emotions
Creative idea meets technology
Every marketer wants to ‘imprint’ their logo ‘inside people’s head’. Well, looks like BMW managed it… No, seriously.
All the people who saw this commercial live had to do was to close their eyes to ‘see’ the BMW brand at the end of the commercial. Creative idea meets technology. Fascinating.
Return to the earth
It's the ultimate in recycling - recycling ourselves:
Shoalhaven City Council [NSW, Australia] is to conduct a "natural burial" trial where bodies are buried in a cardboard box with just a rock or shrub to mark the grave. (source: Return to the earth)
The festive season (in Sydney)
This Christmas tree is beautiful! Thanks to Nicholas Bate for pointing me to it. Christmas is different in Sydney, ten years on, and I’m still finding it a bit challenging to get into the spirit of things. Isn’t it amazing how much weather has to do with how you feel (or is it more to do with the traditions one learns growing up)?
I have a ‘tree’ but it doesn’t even reach knee height. A little gaze over it just then, and I have to admit, that even describing it this way makes it feel higher than what it really is… It’s a symbol never the less and will keep us going until we’ll be celebrating white Christmases in the not so distant future hopefully. Until then, bring on Santa on Bondi Beach!
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
BBC News - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London
Guilty or not, isn’t my place to say – we’ll hear the decision in due course. But the fact that he was bound to get caught for something (anything), that’s for sure.
The Wikileaks saga continues:
‘The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police. The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.’
BBC News - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London
Austrian Parliament’s response to immigration
For someone to express such level of emotional intensity, they must have been robbed of their tolerance in its entirety. This doesn’t happen overnight, neither without any reason.
thanks to CulturalOffering.com to post this video:
Cultural Offering.com: "Your devotion to freedom of religion is pure hypocrisy. . ."
Beautiful life…
An excerpt from a recent study to see whether fathers, similar to mothers, prefer to hold their babies close to their hearts:
‘Women and mothers prefer to hold infants and young children on the left side of their bodies. The results [of a recent study] showed that a significant percentage (65%) of fathers preferred to hold their newborn infants on the left side. This holding bias in fathers was governed by neither the couple's number of children, nor handedness, nor hemispheric specialisation in emotion perception.’
Monday, 6 December 2010
BBC News - South Korea begins live fire military drills
How will this end…
South Korea has begun a series of major live fire exercises in disputed waters off the west coast, despite warnings from the North against conducting them.
Afternoon indulgence
Seth's Blog: The world's worst boss
With hundreds of likes in Google Reader, 1,824 re-tweets (at the time I read it), this one is clearly a winner with the Seth-tribe. For a thought provoking and (hopefully) motivating read, check out Seth’s blog post on ‘The world's worst boss’.
Quote of the day
‘Beware of any rule that is written by those who are exempt from its effects.’
More Michael Wade at Execupundit.com: Random Thoughts
In love with Cornwall…
Pictures courtesy of Nicholas Bate:
It must be Cornwall 1
It must be Cornwall 2
It must be Cornwall 3
It must be Cornwall 4
It must be Cornwall 5
It must be Cornwall 6
Thank you!
A Yuletide Gift of Kindness | Smithsonian Magazine
What an amazing true story about genuine giving just before Christmas in the middle of America’s Great Depression of 1933. (A Yuletide Gift of Kindness | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine)
Thanks goes to Execupundit for posting it.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Quote of the day
'The essence of passion is novelty. The secret of recapturing it is to approach everything as if for the first time.'
Shmuley Boteach, Kosher emotions
This is nuts…
There is just too much weirdness in the world. This one (‘Australian man marries pet dog Honey’) is close to ‘home’, too.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
What? We can’t see the Great Wall of China from space?
List of misconceptions from Wikipedia:
‘It is commonly claimed that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the Moon.[42] This is false. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing any man-made object from the Moon. The misconception is believed to have been popularized by Richard Halliburton decades before the first moon landing.’
Courtesy of E. (Eclecticity). Thank you, amused. Again.
Visual persuasion – powerful stuff
The various tools that are available to a marketer, have their advantages and disadvantages. What a TVC can do, that is combining vision and sound, no other medium was able to before video became widespread on the internet. Radio can do the latter, and print can do the former and while each are reduced to half of that what a TVC can offer, work of generations ensured that both have mastered theirs respectively.
Radio commercials are over in 30 seconds (or in an ephemeral 15 seconds or less) like most TVC’s, but visual advertisement is something you can linger on for much longer; exploring it, immersing yourself in it, uncovering the hidden or not so hidden messages and let the picture speak to you. In fact, there is so much information that can be conveyed through seeing, that sight is often quoted as an intelligence rather than a sense. Radio also has its place, but it will only suit certain brands at certain times. Hence it’s not an accident that you have never heard a prestige watch being advertised on an FM station.
Some visual ads however are works of art…
I spotted the this Rolex advertisement on the BBC's site this morning and one word came to my mind: exquisite. There is more information in this image than what a 30 second radio commercial or even a TVC could convey. It ‘speaks’ of quality, luxury, prestige, and style. It also conveys the message the the ‘Yacht-Master II’ watch is durable and waterproof. To me, it’s also elegant and timeless. And there you have it. A visual advertisement that achieved what it set out to do. And because visual ads are ‘silent’, one way to do this is printing the words you want to convey. For example ‘the Yacht-Master II Rolex watches are in store. They are durable and timeless and also make a perfect Christmas present.’ Or, marketers, as they do, can use juxtaposition. Why? Because more often than not, a juxtaposed product has a much stronger persuasive power than the product by itself. Without stating words explicitly, a picture can convey several key messages by relying on the audience’s intuition. You look at an image and it all happens almost immediately. It never has to be said out loud, but it’s understood.
Visual persuasion. Powerful stuff.
* A marketer can achieve an integrated marketing campaign by using the same image on the website and also in all of their other visual collateral.
Radio commercials are over in 30 seconds (or in an ephemeral 15 seconds or less) like most TVC’s, but visual advertisement is something you can linger on for much longer; exploring it, immersing yourself in it, uncovering the hidden or not so hidden messages and let the picture speak to you. In fact, there is so much information that can be conveyed through seeing, that sight is often quoted as an intelligence rather than a sense. Radio also has its place, but it will only suit certain brands at certain times. Hence it’s not an accident that you have never heard a prestige watch being advertised on an FM station.
Some visual ads however are works of art… I spotted the this Rolex advertisement on the BBC's site this morning and one word came to my mind: exquisite. There is more information in this image than what a 30 second radio commercial or even a TVC could convey. It ‘speaks’ of quality, luxury, prestige, and style. It also conveys the message the the ‘Yacht-Master II’ watch is durable and waterproof. To me, it’s also elegant and timeless. And there you have it. A visual advertisement that achieved what it set out to do. And because visual ads are ‘silent’, one way to do this is printing the words you want to convey. For example ‘the Yacht-Master II Rolex watches are in store. They are durable and timeless and also make a perfect Christmas present.’ Or, marketers, as they do, can use juxtaposition. Why? Because more often than not, a juxtaposed product has a much stronger persuasive power than the product by itself. Without stating words explicitly, a picture can convey several key messages by relying on the audience’s intuition. You look at an image and it all happens almost immediately. It never has to be said out loud, but it’s understood.
Visual persuasion. Powerful stuff.
* A marketer can achieve an integrated marketing campaign by using the same image on the website and also in all of their other visual collateral.
Quote of the day
An old Jewish aphorism declares, 'The difference between the wise man and the clever man is that the clever man can get himself out of a situation into which the wise man would never have been in the first place.' The trick is thus to be wise rather then clever.
Shmuley Boteach: Kosher emotions
Friday, 3 December 2010
When you don’t know what to do or say…
Cultural Offering.com: Cancer etiquette
A useful read, because when it happens to you, or to someone in your family, in the shock that’s sure to follow, all of life’s wisdom seem evaporate... You are near or apart, and want to do (something, anything) and help, but not sure what and how and don’t have the words. Only the cliches.
And to know that it doesn’t matter what you say, just showing support is enough, and is best and it’s sometimes all you can do is reassuring… even if that’s an email, a text or chat if you are twenty thousand km’s away from the loved ones who are suffering… and from those who are suffering no more…
Can you make a toaster from scratch?
A creative young man, Thomas Thwaites did, and documented the process all the way. The project has been exhibited at various locations, including London, Rotterdam, Dublin and Lancaster. Very clever.
‘I'm Thomas Thwaites and I'm trying to build a toaster, from scratch - beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that Argos sells for only £3.99. A toaster. After some research I have determined that I will need the following materials to make a toaster. Copper, to make the pins of the electric plug, the cord, and internal wires. Iron to make the steel grilling apparatus, and the spring to pop up the toast. Nickel to make the heating element. Mica (a mineral a bit like slate) around which the heating element is wound, and of course plastic for the plug and cord insulation, and for the all important sleek looking casing.’
The end result: 
versus
the Argos Value Range 2 Slice Toaster:
Argos Value Range 2 Slice Toaster from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.
Learnings: specialisation and the division of labour has its uses.
A good TVC never ages
…or does it? Well, I’d say this would pass today.
Check out the young Brad Pitt in a Pringles ad from the 80’s. With the 80’s fashion enjoying its renaissance the ad (bar the recognisable superstar in it) may even pass these days…
Thursday, 2 December 2010
What a lesson…
We can all learn from Gerald, the cabbie. Check out the story at CulturalOffering.com.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Cultural Offering.com: The other Pop
Great story, thank you for sharing.
Cultural Offering.com: The other Pop
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