Need I say more?
Source:firstpost.com
LOL! What has happened to the US politics. Or should I say no more since I mentioned ‘Politics’?
source:firstpost.com
TOKYO — Japan’s Parliament passed a law on Wednesday that will allow the use of public funds to shore up the company operating the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and help it pay what is expected to amount to billions of dollars in compensation claims.
The law creates a state-backed fund that will pay damages to victims of the disaster at the plant, where three reactors melted down and spewed radiation after cooling systems were lost in the March tsunami and quake. The government will initially pay nearly $26 billion into the fund, Banri Kaieda, the trade minister, told lawmakers on Tuesday.
»read more on NY times’ link.
The Billboard Wars - Comparative Ads
They are huge, they are colorful, they are everywhere and seen by each of us every day; they are called Billboards. In the US, over $6 billion were spent on outdoor advertising in 2010, but what I want to share here is not the stats and facts but some thing else.
“The Billboard Wars”
It gets very interesting when you see two big rival brands having a word fight with each other and trying to out smart the each other. In many occasions it brings out the creative genius in their ads and serves as a medium of entertainment for us consumers. I remember the Cola wars in India between the two giants, Coca-cola and Pepsi Co. Each used prominent Bollywood stars in their ads and almost clearly degrading the image of its competitor. However it was not comparative marketing in absolute terms because, in India, one product’s ads cannot take name or show the rival product in them. Whatever, it was still very clear to see whose pant they were pulling. In the US, comparative advertising is very common where products can not only take the name of its rival product but also show it in its ads. And then starts the word game. They all try to make sure that they have the last laugh. The classic example in the billboard wars in the US is BMW and Audi. Look at these billboards from Audi and BMW, where Audi says on its Billboard displaying its A4 challenging BMW - “your move BMW”. What possible answer you could come up with if you had the BMW account. Think, go on… any response? Any ways here’s what BMW said in response. BMW put its ad on a billboard right opposite to it featuring its M3 and says, “ Check Mate”. I am not taking sides or am biased to any of these brands (too poor to own either of these bad ass cars), but BMW clearly got the last laugh here.
One of my favorite is the Airline companies’ Billboards from India which I thought was brilliantly creative and intelligently funny. I don’t need to mention who gets the last laugh here, look at the image and decide for your self.
What are the advantages of this kind of fights? For me they are very entertaining and fun (doesn’t mean I always have fun watching two people fight) but for a lot of consumers, it provides the insights of a product’s weakness (some times), which might help them decide what product they want to go with. Who can forget the very famous Mac vs. PC ads that were the talk of the world for quite a long time. These fights are not limited to one medium. Here are some examples you’ll love to watch.
I am attaching a few picture and videos for you to enjoy.
This was placed by McDonald’s in Seattle, WA, Starbucks home town.
Notice the Jaguar running away?
Here BMW is not talking about Mercedes cars for sure. Notice the truck?
BMW Physics Class
BMW Vs Audi Old Ad
Audi Ad ( People leaving their cars for Audi)
BMW Jump of Joy..Funny!
Mac Vs Pc - Ad Collection
A Good Piece of Marketing. And Simple.
(Make sure to read the cup)
Copy-writing Plays an essential role in marketing business. It is the talent of a copy writer that makes it interesting for a customer or a reader to go on reading and probably even buy the product. In a way it’s persuading through writing. I found this picture on my phone that I had taken a few months ago of a soda cup at Panda Express in San Antonio. I thought it was interesting from the first sentence and I thought it was very creative. Wanted to share it with you.
What do you think?
No Wonder why Japanese Cars Rule!
I have always been a fan of how the Japanese think in terms of technology and their vision in building futuristic vehicles keeping the eco system and the environment in mind. They have proved from time to time that to bring in a better technology to the people it is not necessary to compromise with the nature. In 2006, I was learning in a project about how Toyota was trying to produce plastic from plant sources and also seat cloth material which were bio degradable.
Nissan has achieved another milestone by introducing an all electric vehicle which is actually practical and already on the roads in the United States.
While American automakers are still stuck with the Volt that does Gas and Electricity whose actual miles per gallon average cost is not considerably low, the Japanese have already taken a leap forward. I love a lot of American cars especially the new Chevy line, however I would still be its critic since I believe that with criticism come awareness and with awareness comes change.
Take a look at this commercial for Lexus that I came across. Thought I should share.
Do you have more people to support, because I think EU can only handle one Pillar.
Be careful Uncle Sam, make sure it don’t fall on you.
Yup! Mother Earth has more people to feed now. Food’s running out, resources are being exhausted, but we won’t slow down.
Found some witty cartoons from different parts of the world on firstpost.com. Thought I should share on this blog.
Is God Using Facebook?
With Facebook estimated to be a 70 to 100 billion USD company in close future and Twitter becoming the biggest blogging thing ever, social networking is truly taking over this planet and its people. YouTube, world’s biggest video sharing community is substituting television as the contemporary news and entertainment media. Well did you know that YouTube gets around 2 billion views every single day which is more than the viewership of any broadcast network in the world and has been localized in 22 countries. And Facebook has around 500 million users where an average user has about 130 friends and all these people together spend around 700 billion minutes per month on on it. If Facebook were a country, it would rank 3rd after China and India. Wow! let me catch my breath and come to the point.
With such a wide spread of social networking and cross cultural interaction that the world has never seen before, my easily distract-able little mind raises a question.
Is God Using Social Network to bring the world to order? I know this topic would make you question my sanity, but lets just take this as an intellectual discussion. Ok, lets take it this way, god did use humans in the form of prophets to send his message to people of this planet, agree? So why cant it be social media that has been created by his creation, the humans.
Here my gesture is towards the numerous uprisings and awareness that social media has been successful in creating. One incident was sparked in Tunisia by a 26 year old street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire due to immense corruption and injustice in the political and legal system. This spread like a wild fire and gave birth to not only Tunisian Revolution but to an uprising throughout North Africa and a few Arab nations. Asmaa Mahfouz a 26 year old Egyptian women made a video two weeks before the Police Day, urging people of her country to join her on 25th Jan 2011 at Tahrir Square to bring an end to Mubarak’s 30 years of autocratic rule which was filled with corruption, injustice, suppression of people’s rights and declining opportunities. This video went viral and in addition people started tweeting each other and thousands of protesters took to the street protesting non-violently. You tube aired daily video updates of the revolution in Egypt on its home page and there were hundreds of thousands of comments of outrage and anger. And the rest is history. Just like a global flood sent by god at the time of Noah to eliminate evil.
The Face(book) of Egyptian revolution
The latest in this series of Arab Spring is the Women2Drive campaign started by a Saudi women Manal al-Sharif who is defying the law that bans women from driving an automobile. Now common, no religion permits taking away rights of a woman. This campaign is gaining momentum of Facebook as more and more people join in its support, including Arab men. Amazing huh? So its mostly a few idiots making such laws, because of whom the entire population of that country is misrepresented.
Another huge revolution started in April 2011, this time in an Asian country. India Against Corruption a campaign where Gandhian era social worker Anna Hazare went on an indefinite fast urging the government to implement the Jan Lokpal Bill which has tough regulations against corruption and corrupt officials, which includes even the highest level of government power. I was closely following this movement and observed the followers grow from a few hundred on first day to tens of thousands in a couple of days to 242,000+ today with support from Indians around the world. There were protest held in cities all over India and the Govt. had to succumb to the demands of Mr. Hazare to draft the bill. Corruption has become a DNA of the Indian political system and its no wonder that the rising economic power house still ranks 134th in the world when it comes to ease of opening new business. Almost no work of yours will be done until you put some weight (cash) on your file. Contrary to the laws of physics, Indian govt. officials move faster with more weight in their pocket.
I am not even going to talk about other social network driven projects of Amnesty International, the Pakistani youth who live blogged Osama’s Killing and many others.
So is it god himself who is driving these revolutions against injustice and suppression of his people by his people? Or is is driven by the people themselves who have realized that god has created every one equal, irrespective of their race, color, gender or culture and thus they deserve equal respect, dignity, rights and freedom that a few elites take it to be their personal property.
So you’ve already started thinking? Great.
I would appreciate any comments…
