As I was flipping the newspapers today, I spotted this pair of uncannily similar advertisements from two beauty establishments. See if you can spot the difference between these pair of “identical twins”.
New York Skin Solutions touting miraculous cures for all kinds of skin ailments.
Came across this interesting post by Seth Godin on his experience in applying for a VISA at the Indian Consulate. Totally agree with Godin that little touches like this make a world of difference to the way people perceive a country before they travel there for whatever purposes. I guess this is why in branding and marketing, every single customer touchpoint matter, right from the start (warm welcome) of the experience till the end (fond farewell).
“..Many of the chairs are broken, leaving sharp steel platforms on which to crouch. And there aren’t enough chairs, broken or not. The signs are confusing, the two clerks are protected by a sheet of glass a full inch thick (which is twice the thickness of a typical bank’s) and the little machine that dispenses deli-style tickets is broken.
Fixing the consulate would be easy. I’d start by putting in phone lines to a call center in India and making it easy for anyone waiting to get questions answered by a helpful person with plenty of time to invest in the conversation. I’d buy some comfortable chairs. I’d invite airlines and hotels to have brochures or even better, a booking agent right there in the waiting area. I’d hire seven more clerks. And I’d definitely lose the glass.
The more important issue is this: this is a business. They take in more than $20,000 a day in fees, but even more important, the way they market themselves has a direct and important impact on travel decisions. No visa, no trip. Big hassle, no trip. Given that every single person traveling to this vast country must deal with the consulate first, think of the leverage… Just a small influence on the quantity or quality of travel to India would be huge.”
Last Saturday (28th April) we celebrated my dad’s 67th birthday at Broth, a charming Australian style restaurant along stone-cobbled Duxton Hill. For the unitiated, Duxton is a charming little neighbourhood of clubs and restaurants sandwiched between the financial district and the more boisterous Chinatown area in Singapore.
Good things come in small packages, and this boutique restaurant never failed to live up to its promise. After reading several rave reviews here, here, and here, we decided to give it a try. I worked with its owner Steven Hansen before on an event at a museum and it went pretty well. A nice and friendly chap who came here from Melbourne a couple of years ago, Steve also runs River Cafe located at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute at Robertson Quay, another quality Aussie style dining joint.
The overall ambience and food quality was superb. We gave a thumbs up for most of the dishes, including the lamb loin, steak, pork chop, salmon and starters. Of course, the dessert of sticky date pudding literally took the cake!
Colourful cows along River Valley Road below Fort Canning Park
Many would have noticed the return of the colourful cows in open fields in the city. Those of us in the marcoms profession may recognise these “moo-ing” mascots to belong to Moove Media, an outdoor advertising company owned by the transport behemoth ComfortDelgro group – a conglomerate which operates most of the buses and taxis in Singapore.
Apparently, these latest “herds” of cattles are part of an Adopt A Cow promotion that the company is running. You can actually bring home a cow at only S$100 each. What’s more, there are 5 of these cute cattle friends with different names to choose from.
In the world of advertising, the first and most important rule is to capture one’s attention. This is the basis for the age-old acronym AIDA, which is namely:
Attraction – Grabbing their attention from amidst the sea of clutter.
Interest – Drawing your audience to view/read/listen further.
Desire – Making them want/need/lust after your stuff.
Action – Where the wallet meets the business owner.
Do you know that Singapore’s founding father Sir Stamford Raffles used to live up on Fort Canning? Or that this used to be called Bukit Larangan or “Forbidden Hill” in Malay?
With about 45 minutes to kill after breakfast and before Ethan’s Chinese enrichment classes, my family decided to frolick this hilly green oasis in the middle of our concrete jungle. It was a certainly a pleasant walk in the park even with the warm midday sun beating down upon us.
Our climb started with a peek at the map of Fort Canning located beside the stairs.
View of coconut trees at Siloso Beach
After dinner on Friday, I drove my family over to Sentosa just to check out its night vibes. As usual, there were the tour groups who were just leaving after attending the island’s new night attraction Songs of the Sea. We decided to check out the beaches and along the way, decided to hop by the Cafe del Mar, the happening new beach club just outside Siloso Beach Resort.
Spotted this funkily dolled up postbox just outside UE Square along Unity Road recently while waiting for my son and wife. Its a bid to add much needed colour, vibrancy and art to the city. Apparently, this is part of STAMP, a nation-wide competition organised by URA and Singpost which looks at making over 40 postboxes in the city.
Nice touch there which helps to rejuvenate the old and weary brand image of snail mail. After all, we do know that it is fighting a losing battle against email and other forms of online communications. These splashes of art certainly gives us more reasons to visit our mailboxes to pay our bills!
Now, if only they would do it for all the 800 postboxes around the island instead of just those in the city. That would definitely add a few notches in rebranding and repositioning Singpost as a creative and fun loving provider of an essential service.
Update: Saw that Sparklette also posted about this, albeit in a series!
OK folks, I thought that I should do something wacky, deposit some goodwill in emotional bank accounts and do the meme thing upon the advice of “Da Jie” and good friend eastcoastlife, an A-list blogger. For this I was tagged by environmentalist Pauline. I still owe tags by Oceanskies and Zeezee and will try to work on them soon.
Layer One:On The Outside
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Name : Walter Lim (aka coolinsider)
Birth Date : 24 August
Grrr…. I just realise that my home has been downgraded lately – from a HDB flat to a pig sty! Obviously, we need a lot more public education efforts to support the recent Earth Day celebrations and Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) campaigns.
Our problem of littering isn’t fresh news. In fact, it has been happening all this while. The reason why our island still remained clean and green is largely due to the huge army of contract cleaners and waste management workers that we employ. Without them, I shudder to think what state of decay and filth we will end up with.
I took the following photographs a couple of days ago to show you what I mean, and I didn’t even have to travel far from my flat.