Walter | Cooler Insights

Cold Cold Heart

February 1, 2007 • • 15 comments

Sad bear in a cage in Hokkaido

Lately, the weather seemed to have turned particularly chilly and windy, and I have felt relatively cool even in mid day. Suddenly sunny Singapore has gone temperate.

Something seemed to have also gone wrong with my body system. I usually get very warm easily and prefer to switch on the air conditioning at a lower temperature at my home. Lately however, it feels as if the “yang qi” has left my physical self, leaving me feeling all cold and chilly. Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the TCM.

Why Are We Still Neglecting Word Of Mouth?

January 30, 2007 • Blog • 8 comments

Church of the Customer’s Ben McConnell pointed to this interesting bit of research by BIGresearch recently. Apparently, advertisers have been making all the wrong investments in mass media advertising when most people still relies on family and friends to give their recommendations on what to buy.

According to BIGresearch:

As more marketers seek to make media expenditures accountable to the bottom line growth of their company, the consumers in the survey don’t seem to be on the same page as advertising expenditures. When asked which media most influence their purchase decision for various product categories, consumers’ choices are rarely in line with advertisers expenditures.

January 29, 2007 • Blog • 4 comments

I came across this interesting concept of 2000 bloggers which was started by Tino Buntic. The idea was to create a link to 2000 bloggers from anywhere and anytime and feature them on his blog. I spotted quite a few Singaporean bloggers in there, like Andrew Wee, Veron and eastcoastlife, as well as prominent blogeratis like Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, Robert Scoble and Seth Godin.

See who you can spot and have fun clicking on the faces. I hear that Tino is still looking for bloggers to link to, so go ahead and drop him a note here!

Chinatown Crush

January 28, 2007 • Blog • 3 comments

Brought the family to the Chinatown Light Up ceremony last night, amidst the drizzling rain, nursing Ethan’s raging fever (he insisted on going nonetheless), and the extraordinary crowds.

As usual, there were the fire crackers popping which ushered in the festivities, as well as the street lights. I found the accompanying reveberations and echoes rather eery – they reminded me of a warzone and sounded like multiple bullets firing away in the night. At certain critical periods, there were even low lying pyrotechnics which lit up the night sky.

Haughty Horses and Clueless Crocodilians

January 25, 2007 • Blog • 13 comments

Two things caught my eye today as I scanned the newspapers.

The more highly publicised one was of course the untimely demise of Crazy Horse Paris, a topless cabaret show that kicked off 14 months ago with much ra-ra and buzz. Touted to bring Singapore’s entertainment to an exciting feverish pitch, it somehow failed to live up to expectations.

What led to its early departure from Singapore’s nightlife scene?

Bangkok – SEA’s Hottest Tourism Destination?

January 23, 2007 • Blog • 4 comments

Bangkok’s Chinatown bustles with nightlife!

Bangkok has changed quite significantly in recent years. The city has positioned itself as one of Asia’s most happening shopping and dining destination, cleaned up its act, and become increasingly sophisticated, modern and cosmopolitan. In fact, if you look at the cityscape at night, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from Singapore, Hong Kong or KL.

In our recent trip there (amidst the NYE bomb scare and other toddler catastrophes), I have observed several points which we may wish to note here in Singapore.

How Retailers Can Go Wrong

January 21, 2007 • Blog • 12 comments

Recently, my wife and I had the chance to speak to a young girl working at a specialty retail outlet at VivoCity.

The circumstances which led to this were rather unpleasant, and I prefer not to go into details. Our conversation was pretty enlightening though.

Making Purple Cows Sneeze

January 19, 2007 • Book Reviews • 4 comments

Lately, I have been reading a little more than usual. Have only just picked up Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

It isn’t exactly brand new but some of its insights are still worth considering.

Superstars and Rice and Everything Nice

January 17, 2007 • Blog • 10 comments

I am sure everybody would have noticed lately Singapore’s biggest pop export Stefanie Sun’s elfin face peeping out at you behind a bag of rice. Part of the New Moon advertising campaign for its new brand of rice, she beckons with a disarming “Ni chi fan le ma” which translates to “Have you eaten rice?”

It is interesting to note the marketing strategies of food manufacturers and importers in recent years. What is especially intriguing is how they can take a commodity item – like rice – and put a sexy spin on it to make it more palatable to the market.

Author: coolerinsights