Business and management articles | Cooler Insights

The Whats and Hows of Global Brands

November 18, 2008 • Blog • no comments

I was invited to a sharing session yesterday afternoon by David Shaw, Director at Effective Brands and a former marketing stalwart at both Lenovo and HP. Founded by Marc De Swaan Arons, the company embarked on a worldwide global brand study seven-years ago which now includes close to 100 global brands with a database of about 40,000 marketers. In the study, the branding consultancy focused on global marketing challenges and possible solutions to overcome them.

Here are some of the key highlights which I picked up.

Don’t Listen to Me. Listen to Them!

November 17, 2008 • Blog • 2 comments

Marketers need to hear better! (courtesy of OrientalAsylum)

Once in a while, you come across a gem of a post that you have to highlight. This one comes from Branding Strategy Insider, one of my more thought provoking regular reads on marketing.

Regional Marketing Budgets Sliced in 2009

November 14, 2008 • Business and Management • no comments

Enough have been said about the impact of the global subprime crisis on the financial markets, economy, and jobs. The axing of 900 staff recently from DBS is just the tip of the iceberg.

Against such a backdrop, how will marketers in Asia fare? Are the roaring years of record marketing budgets well and truly over?

R3, a regional marketing consultancy, recently published a study on Regional Marketing Budget Allocations in 2009. The study was conducted through phone, email and face-to-face meetings with 50 senior marketers in Asia, covering 100 of Asia’s top 500 brands. They include Unilever, DHL, Samsung, VISA, Maybank, Pepsi, Tiger Beer, and Haier.

Four New Careers in Marketing

November 12, 2008 • Blog • 4 comments

Seth Godin, the world’s most recognised internet marketer, has identified three new positions that would be vital in the new age of Word Of Mouth (WOM) and digitally enabled marketing. These are as follows:

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER. Find and connect and lead a tribe of dedicated users that contribute to and benefit from the work you do.
STATS FIEND. Measure everything that can be measured. Do it efficiently and consistently. Find out what metrics are important and cycle until they improve.
MANAGER OF FREELANCERS. Find and hire and manage the best outside talent in the world. If it can be defined as a project, and if great work defeats good, seriously consider having the MOF get it done.

Other than these positions, perhaps I should also add in a fourth position that is vital in the age of social media as follows:

4. STORYTELLER. Create, produce, write, and record compelling and fascinating content that excites, entertains and interests. Be able to spin a great yarn in words, pictures, videos, or sound.

Are there any other positions that we should take note of? This is exciting stuff and is in fact how I intend to organise my team in the future. Loosely that is.

Are We Living in a Flat, Spiky or Curved World?

November 9, 2008 • Business and Management • 2 comments

Photo by Pedro Lastra on Unsplash

In the age of networks and social media, it seemed that there are more and more gurus of globalisation emerging.

Just look at the bookshops and see the number of titles touting one worldwide effect after another. Naturally, some ideas are more worthy of consideration than others.

Podcamp 2.0 and The Story of Yesterday.sg

November 3, 2008 • Blog • 5 comments

Giving my two cents worth on Yesterday.sg

At the kind invitation of Yi Xuan from SMU, I had the privilege of attending Podcamp 2.0 – an unconference of sorts organised by SMU, where doyens of the digital space proferred their views and insights on social media. Together with me were several bloggers and podcasters like Claudia, Melvin Yuan, Priscilla Tan, Daniel Tsou and Farinelli (of Tech 65), DK, Coleman, Preetam, Michael Netzley, Amelia Wong and others.

Sharing the story of how the National Heritage Board (NHB) – probably Singapore’s most ancient organisation – could leverage on social media, I hoped that I inspired some of the corporate representatives to venture forth. As an interest-based blog, Yesterday.sg took the slow and steady growth approach and the blog is still going strong after being around for two-and-a-half years (or 31 months to be exact). Social media outreach is a team effort driven by my great colleagues from team CCIP (especially Kim, Wei Chong, Kenny and Roy), as well as our dear Friends of Yesterday who have stuck with us through thick and thin.

Debates, Discussions and Dilemmas at DMFest 2008

November 2, 2008 • Blog • no comments

Panel discussion on Web 2.0 and Building Online Communities moderated by Mark Laudi

At the invitation of Text 100 and the Singapore IT Federation, I had the privilege of attending the recent Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008 Television 2.0: Internet Services & New Media Mashup.

Together with me were other bloggers and podcasters like Shunjie, Pat Law, Claudia, Bernard, Darryl, Daniel, Coleman, Clapping Trees, Preetam, Howie (from The Digital Movement), Andrew Peters, Shalabh, the Tech65 crew, and a few others.