Lessons from China

Recently, the local news and the likes of Time Magazine have been flocked with all those scary articles about Chinese products being defective, poisonous, or at the very least, of very low quality. And such, people may say China will be the next great superpower, but just like Al Ries, I really beg to differ.

Let’s forget about the danger that lurks within Barbie dolls or that lettuce (from China) you just had for lunch. I want to talk about something else that is less, well, important. Remember FIT? Most probably you don’t but that’s the vegetable wash (from P&G? Unilever? Anybody wants to claim that catatrophe?) Anyway, I just want to say that just like that brand, which was launched with a multi million peso marketing budget, this brand I am about to talk about also had that financial capacity but has now clearly failed miserably to penetrate the market.

ANTA.

Do you know what Anta is? Anta is a basketball shoe. Jeez. If you look closely at how they locally promoted the brand, you’d realize they have been very aggressive about everything as follows:
1. Yao Ming as endorser, which was okay because heck Chinese for Chinese, right? In the local scene, they got PBA superhero Danny Seigle, which I heard was offered a “ridiculous amount of money” just to sign-in. Uhm, was it P4,000,000.00? If you remember, Danny Seigle had an injury. You can just imagine how much he was paid to risk loosing his foot and ultimately his dribbling career should he end up using the wrong kid of footwear.
2. Television ads for Anta are very recurrent in Solar Sports. Now, does TV ads still work?
3. Nice island modules. Period.
4. For outlets, well, they are everywhere. They even have the nice stores in Trinoma and Bonifacio High Street. Classy locations, huh? But come on, do you honestly think that made their shoe appear classy as well?

However, if you check out their shoes now, they are heavily discounted at around 40 to 50% off SRP. Imagine, from a staggering P4,000 amount (in the leagues of Nike, Adidas, Converse, Puma, and AND 1), they are now cheaply priced at around P1,000++.

Call it a pricing tactic or whatnot, but all I can say is that it is what we can call as a bitter realization. If I were whatsisname, the guy behind Anta, I would have cried right now and hoped that I just invested my money instead on real estate (not at Megaworld, trust me!).

What happened to Anta is just a basic marketing mistake: lack of marketing research. Just like Fit, a large marketng budget cannot assure you of a marketing success. Fit as a product works, and perhaps maybe Anta is a nice basketball shoe. However, if you dig deeper, you’d realize that if you plan to take on a particular market, some preconceived notions are so strong, that even trimedia would find hard to alter.

Fit Vegetable Wash? Why would I dunk my tomatoes with chemicals?

Anta Chinese Basketball Shoe? I’d rather have Anta Chinese Basketball Siomai, if ever there is one!

It might be too late to do something about this now. Money has been invested, and inevitably lost. The best option for them right now is to learn from their mistakes. Haha! Honestly, since they played fool and went on a price war, might as well refocus their resources and just go head on with the likes of World Balance and Accel.

Forget about domination, Anta. You’re just too far away.

The Experience

Here’s a new one. I applied auditioned for this very original hiring process TV Reality Show which aims to hunt for GreenPrint’s VP for Asia Pacific.

Anyway, I blindly went through the selection process even though I had no idea whether

• the job is really a job
• the job will be contractual
• the perks, benefits, etc.
• will there be an allowance for the duration of the shoot
• who the Trump-wannabee will be
• and so much more

At any rate, I passed the second interview and, of course, was supposed to go to the third. There are, they say, a total of four interviews at which by then the FINAL 14 would be selected. I didn’t push through. It’s not because I chickened out, I didn’t get accepted, or whatnot. It is simply because I’m supposed to be disqualified at the very first level.

F*CK. I have an expired passport. Hehehe. You see, shoot begins in 2 weeks and I was told I had to present it by then. And if ever you win get hired, off you go to the Land of Milk and Honey and the Star-Spangled Banner by January 2008.

Shucks. Lesson learned. Renew my passport ASAP.

The Impending (Flop) of Josh Groban Live in Manila

Who wants to watch Josh Groban live in Manila (Josh Groban. PICC Plenary Hall - October 17, 18, 2007 8:00 PM)? I’d raise my hand. Who wants to watch Josh Groban live in Manila for P5,000 (roughly $100). Still raising. Who wants to watch Josh Groban live in Manila for P10,000? It would hurt, but yeah I still would. Now, how about P15,000? Jeez, I’d probably starve myself afterwards, but since he’s good and chances are for that amount of cash I’d probably see his tonsils reverberating and all, then why not, huh? That’s what you pay those insanely huge amount of money just to get the preferred seats and not the usual nosebleed area.

Unfortunately, this also makes me wonder if watching this concert would be a good investment (watching cultural, high-end shows is always an investment), and such, if it were the case, like any investements, I shouldn’t risk my money on a soon-to-be-flop. I HOPE TO GOD I’D EAT MY WORDS AFTER OCTOBER 18 FOR THE SAKE OF THIS COUNTRY, but based on my own honest opinion, I doubt Josh Groban would want to hold any concerts in our country again anytime soon.

If you are still unaware of this concert, chances are this is because the people who marketed this event sucked! They suck for me because like any sore and uninvited loser, sourgraping is the best way to go. Fortunately for me and my Unlimited Mind, I have a professional assessment of this catastrophe which hopefully would send an embarassing ripple effect all throughout Smart’s Marketing Department and ultimately make the hotshot who thought about the exclusivity concept of the ticket-selling to either:
a. resign;
b. get fired;
c. go home and kill himself/herself; or,
d. kill himself/herself wherever

I mean, f*ck them. I know what they are trying to do. They basically wanted to align the prestige of Josh Groban to the so-called exclusivity of Smart Infinity, but come on, who gives a shit. If you want this to be exclusive, offer FREE tickets to your subscribers. Don’t make it a fake-privilege event by making your special and valued customers just basically have the right to cut in line. Besides, the tickets are expensive enough, why make it even harder? If you want people to experience or believe that Smart Infinity is the way to go, then offer the tickets for sale to the general public. Smart Infinity subscriber? You get a 50% off, or better, get another ticket of the same price for FREE ala buy-one-take-one. I know the concept’s cheap, but that would do far more better than what you are doing right now.

Because of your stupid ideas, whoever you are, chances are the Josh Groban concert will be a flop. You guys don’t seem to learn from history. Remember Andrea Bocelli? Well, even if the venue wasn’t full-packed, it was a cultural event for starters and I bet Baby Arenas brought him here just for art’s sake. Unlike you guys who, I believe, should be perspiring in your seats now because no one in his right mind would subscribe to Smart Infinity now just because. Perhaps some people would make a last-minute check on the date of the event itself. But come on, it wouldn’t be a lot.

Look at the scenario. The concert flops, your subscribers end up watching a show no one else bothered to attend. Does that sound nice? Does that sound special? And what about Josh Groban, what would he feel if he realized his concert is not a sold-out event similar to that of Michael Buble’s? You can’t lie to him. He can see the vacant seats unlike Andrea Bocelli (no offense). Honestly, if I were a Smart Infinity subscriber and I ended up watching this concert at a 20% seating capacity only, I’d deny it. I wouldn’t wanna be a part of an event that the media is surely gonna lambast afterwards. Josh Groban, if for some reason (perhaps Google), you end up reading this, please understand that the Philippines loves you dearly. We just hate Smart. And if you read this just in time (read as before your concert) give the Smart guys the finger and tell them to sell the tickets to anyone who is interested - or else.

Me-Too-Philippines

Even with all the buzz about Web 2.0, this entire concept (if it does exist) is dead this side of cyberspace. We don’t have anything real, we don’t have anything original. It must be true what they say. Unlike them Japanese, we Filipinos are just imitators. Just take a look at our somewhat famous Pinoy websites!

Yehey! is undoubtedly a Yahoo! wannabee. Now, a lot of techies might say Yahoo! is already a has-been, but Yehey! is nowhere near this media giant even if CEO Donald Lim will sell his soul to the devil just to make this website work. Yeah, I commend them for a somewhat brilliant strategy, but they still lack the wow factor. Maybe Mr. Lim should don a more theatrical PR exposure and be the face of Yehey! Hate him, love him, it’s still PR. I’ve seen them do this kind of shindig before, unfortunately, like most, there’s no continuinuinuinuinuinuinuinuity.

Now, there’s WikiPilipinas. Well, at least they did not deny their copycat existence. Now, I find this website really stupid and redundant. What is this site all about? It’s the Pinoy Wikipedia. Now, how can you contain a Pinoy Wikipedia? Does that mean I can talk about Sharon Cuneta but not Heidi Klum? Rivermaya but no Bono? They have impact on me as a Filipino, so how should I deal about it? Say, I have to talk about GMA? Can I not say they are classmates of Bill Clinton? If I could, just for trivia’s sake, does that mean the name Bill Clinton CANNOT have a tag? If it does, you destroyed the Pinoyness of this Wikiversion then! If it doesn’t, what’s the point of your Wiki existence! And how come articles are in English? No Filipino? Do you see the stupidity? It’s gonna be redundant. Arghhh! And what’s with the slogan “Hip ‘n Free Encyclopedia”? Is that even Filipino?

Finally, we have Eskwela.com (Are they also behind Pusit.com? What happened to THAT promising website?). I believe, this website deserves a 10-page, single-space article from moi. However, since Eskwela.com is a Facebook copycat and an actual 2.0 site, why not throw them as well in the lion’s den huh? Now, a lot of people are saying that this website is gonna be IT! This website is gonna be the Filipino’s pride in Cyberspace. I beg to differ though. If this is all we’ve got, I’d rather live in North Korea where there is no Internet and a lot of cool nuclear weapons! I don’t want OUR pride to be just another second-rate, trying-hard copycat. Come on people, what’s new with this website?

To Vid or Not to Vid

Now this website, VidRes.net, deserves a massive kick in the butt. Now, if they don’t know why, they deserve a bitch slap as well.

There are a lot of things wrong about this gimmick (I refuse to call it a business, company, etc.) ever since I first laid eyes on their useless excuse of a billboard. Oh, it’s not that I think the layout sucks and that it does not have a call of action, which is what most ads should have.

In fact, it has a very clear call of action: visit our website. As what I have always professed, if you’re a dotcom and you’d like to advertise off-line, scream your goddam url. Nothing more, nothing less.

Unfortunately, when you visit them, you just get their website the way you see it in the image at the left. The fucking website is still just a teaser. Teaser, a quick lesson my friends, works only if your name is Steve Jobs. For all Steve-Jobs wannabe out there (and that includes me), cut the crap and proceed to the point. Damn it people, you’re gaining trial, but loosing repetition. In Internet lingo (because I think you guys at VidRes don’t know shit about marketing, trial means the first time someone visits your site, repetition, on the other hand, is when they visit it again and again and again). And oh, they’re e-mail subscription form doesn’t work. Nice for a website that has to earn your trust, right?

Second, the URL VidRes.net is just so bad. Sure, it’s actually Video Resume, but what’s stopping people from thinking it’s Video Resign? Video Resolution? Very Idiotic Restaurant? Yeah, I know, my examples are stupid. But duh - a lot of people are stupid. That is why to come up with a great brand name, you should make sure it is descriptive, easy to spell and pronounce, and patentable.

Third, the whole concept of video resumes are just not it. Yeah, yeah, a lot surfaced due to YouTube.com and in fact, I read a lot of articles about it. Unfortunately, video resumes will never stick, even just for now. It’s just a fad, which may work though in 3 to 5 years. By then, VidRes would have exhausted much of its resources, and thus, have to bid goodbye before the supposed ripe time. After all, one still has to make a video? Takes so much effort and time, you know. People are lazy, and it’s not as if you’d have a lot of people uploading their videos for the HR people to see. So, it’s a vicious cycle.

Moreover, the only way the site would become popular is if all videos would be free for viewing for everyone. If that’s the case, would you like the Whole Wide Web to know all about you, your academic, and professional background? Once again, it’s a vicious cycle. The concept will never work. But then again, why worry about that, when, for starters, their website isn’t even working yet.

ASIA BREWERY, WTF

I loved Cobra Energy Drink!

I loved the beer comparison!

And now, some nuthead suggested PET? PET is STUPID, EVIL, and CHEAP! Do you really think Bullfighter is a wow product that you just have to imitate it? What’s worse than a second-rate, trying-hard, copycat is a dumbass who doesn’t know which products to imitate! How could a great product be handled by the wrong people! Arghhh!!!

Double Trouble

What do the Gatorade Propel and Lipovitan Amino Sports have in common? Aside from the fact that these products doesn’t seem to work, well at least on me, it takes forever to mention their brand names. This evil weevil is called double branding and brands, big and small, have fallen to the prey of this big mistake.

How hard can it be to find another brand name? Oh yeah, very hard. So unless you have a eureka moment anytime soon, chances are, you have to do a lot of surveys, FGDs, and consultancy just to get the right one. But come to think of it, if it was these very same brands that are your cash cow, why risk the efficacy of its brand name by using double double branding branding?

Look at GynePro by Unilab. It’s basically pH Care, but did they call it pH Care GynePro? pH Care Max? pH Care Rx? I can bet my balls that the chemist who made the unnecessary chemical structure changes of this feminine wash did not break a sweat doing so. However, they did not risk gambling pH Care’s super profitability by confusing women about which is which?

As what Ms. Sharon Cuneta said, pH Care is not gamot. Thus, GynePro must be gamot. Having a pH Care line extension for this more supposedly potent and clinical feminine wash would have only confused your market if you made this very avoidable mistake. Thank God, there are really nice and functioning brains at Unilab and - tadah - you preserved pH Care’s integrity as a brand.

Way to go, Unilab. Kick ‘em MNCs butt!