november 27 – philippine stock market index reaches new historic high, 32nd in 2012

the stock market broke record high on three (3) consecutive trading days days – november 23, 26 and 27.

wawamTECH: globe telecom customer service greenhills’ cruel sense of humor

i went to the brand new globe telecoms customer service center at the ground floor of V-Mall at the greenhills shopping center at san juan city to have a micro sim card converted to a regular sim card. while waiting for my turn, i overheard a girl teenager who is also a customer ask one of the customer service agents what the wi-fi password is.

i was shocked and yes i laughed aloud, so loud that the teenage girl gave me the look.

whoever thought of that password “StayWithGlobe” has a cruel sense of humor or he is brutally honest. we all know globe is having major network problems for many months now with dropped calls, delayed texts and calls, outages and awful ineffective customer service that many globe subscribers have moved away from globe and transferred to smart. the migration of globe subscribers to smart has been massive according to globe insiders. it is so bad that smart took advantage and launched national ad campaigns urging globe subscribers to move over to smart.

so this person who thought of the password must be playing a huge cruel joke on globe and its customers or the person is just being totally honest about the situation in globe and is trying to help the company.

on the other hand the password does indicate just how desperate globe is at trying to keep their subscribers to stay with them and not move to smart.

the question in my mind is this – is this a password used just in the greenhills globe customer service center or is this a password in all globe customer service centers? if this is the common password in all globe customer service centers, then this is probably some kind of a perverted marketing effort to keep globe subscribers to stay with globe.

since i have revealed the password, they will probably need to change it into something else and if this is a password dictated by corporate, these are my suggestions:

i think #3 is the best. it is direct, a simple message and even more honest than the current. more importantly, it has the strongest potential to keep globe subscribers from moving to smart.

Real Leaf Frutcy Apple Green Iced Tea – schocking new product launch that is more like an ampalaya juice drink

it was an interesting packaging and i was thirsty and this was the only drink available at the store. it was the first time that i saw this brand and i thought i should get an apple drink variant. i thought choosing the apple variant was the safest bet, how can you go wrong with an apple flavor?

well, i was wrong. this one tasted bad.

the drink i bought was Real Leaf Frutcy, an apple green iced tea. okay, fine the brand name “frutcy” was trying too much to be cutie, but it had an interesting packaging – the green frosted plastic bottle was unique and it had a wide ribbed body that felt good on the grip.

it was cold when i bought it. being thirsty, i thought a cold apple drink will be great. but i was disappointed – the drink had a bitter after taste. the bitter after taste was so strong that it felt like i drank some kind of ampalaya juice drink. to make things worst, the ampalaya bitter taste stayed in my mouth for a long time, a few hours after i had take the drink. the drink tasted so bad that i was able to drink only 1/3 of the 480 mL drink.

i wondered who made this lousy product, i thought this must have been made by a cheap run of the mill juice drink maker. i was driving when i drank the green tea drink so i was unable to read who made it.

when i hit a stop light, i looked at the label to see who was the manufacturer of the Real Leaf Frutcy drink. i was shocked when i read the label – it was from the Coca Cola Company (Coca Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc.).

first thing that came to my mind – how can coca cola launch such a lousy product into the philippine market?

coca cola is not only the leading drink company in the country but also in the world. it is also one of the best marketing companies in the world. they do everything right and takes pains on doing things right.

coca cola does a lot of consumer research and for sure they must have done not one but a few consumer researches on this product before they launched it into the market. a product consumer research must have been done to vet the flavor and other things about the product.

how did coca cola miss on this one big time on the bitter ampalaya taste of this product?

for sure this one is the equivalent of a WAWAM on product launches. it’s not a waste of advertising money but a waste of product launch money.

November 23, 2012 – philippine stock market breaks new record, 30th time in 2012

 

 

 

 

must see Thailand anti-smoking TV ad – one of the best ever

it is said that the simplest ads are the best ads. that certainly applies to this anti-smoking tv ad from thailand.

cinematic and directorial techniques used were simple and direct to the point, very much like the reality tv shows that is the rage on tv. this directorial style lends to the reality of the ad, making us believe these are real people with real problems on smoking.

the story is also a simple one but its delivery to good dramatic effect. it dramatizes very well the dilemma faced by many smokers – they know it’s bad for them but they keep on smoking cigarettes just the same. they know that it is so bad to their health that they will not recommend it to kids.

the irony in the ad is what makes this ad works very well – smokers consume something that they know can kill will not recommend it to kids but does not seem to realize it is actually on the way in  kilingl them. the note the children give to the smokers hits us who see the ad – don’t worry about me, worry about yourself.

it pulls the right strings in our hearts. let’s hope it does the same in the hearts of smokers that they take action for themselves and stop smoking.

wawam photo : the sound on an impossibly quiet beach

the sound on an impossibly quiet beach

(double click photo to enlarge view)

we were four families in 4 cars that went to this beach in zambales between christmas day and new year’s day. it was a spur of the moment decision we made on christmas eve to head to the beach before new year’s eve.

i took a walk at the beach as i always do with my camera with me. i don’t know what happened but for some reason i was alone on the beach with nobody in our group there with me and none of the guests from the hotel we were staying in were there even though it was fully booked. on that beach i found quiet.

how can you find a quiet beach at a time like that? impossible! in fact i  thought it is impossible to find a quiet beach at anytime, anywhere.

but i did.

the gentle waves were there and they did make the usual sounds they make but somehow it felt like it was a quiet beach to me. i took this shot to capture the moment. i wanted to capture the absence of sound on the beach in the picture.

but when you listen more intently, i realize the reason why sound was possible in an impossibly quiet beach was this – i heard my heart talking to me.

makati skyline you may have never seen – rockwell condos and buendia buildings

condominiums at rockwell

we don’t think many have seen these scenes. they were taken on top of the rockwell flyover on EDSA. few people would have walked on top of the flyover and take these photos. most of us just zip by at the flyover on the way to rockwell or mandaluyong or san juan.

we were on the flyover and took these pictures just before sunset. it was a difficult shot because you ran the risk of getting run over by cars on that flyover under approaching darkness.

buendia buildings

willie revillame show at TV 5 to close in january 2013?

revillame according to rappler.com has said he will be announcing something on january 5 about what he will do with his life. at the same time, it was reported that he has told his staff and artists at the show to look for other jobs and have asked the audience to look for other shows who can help them. revillame’s shows are seen by many as “helping the poor” with prize money in easy to win contests in his tv shows.

 

 

read full rappler.com article here: http://www.rappler.com/entertainment/16592-willie-revillame-to-wrap-up-show

apparently, his tv show at TV 5, Will Time, Big Time has not been getting the tv ratings that it should. we thought TV5’s decision to air the show on the evening prime time slot was a very good move as it avoided clashing with the established noontime shows such as GMA7’s Eat Bulaga and ABS-CBN’s Showtime. revillame was then considered a big draw despite the numerous controversies and inanities that revillame got himself into at ABS-CBN before he moved or was he fired (?) from there. the good thinking that i appreciated was that it will be easier for revillame to beat the tv news shows than the noontime shows of the same format as his show.

it came as a shock to us to read the rappler article saying his show has not been rating. the revillame magic apparently has reach a  limit.

we will be looking forward  to the january 5 announcement. or is this another gimmick from revillame?

november 21 – philippine stock market breaks new high, 29th time for 2012

 

when the stock market index’ record high was broken yesterday, we said on a whim that perhaps today will be another day when a new record high will be made. before this day, 23 out of the 27 days the record was broken were on 2 consecutive days. we wondered if it will happen today.

well, it did. as of today, 25 out of the 29 days or 86% of the days when new record highs were made were 2 consecutive days. its an odd number of 25 as there was one time when the record high was broken for 3 consecutive days.

corporate greed : telcos with multi billion revenues refuse to refund consumers on overcharging on text

this is the news today – giant telcos Smart and Globe have been overcharging consumers on the text messages they have been sending in the past year to the tune of a total of P1.4B according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI).

philippine consumers have taken to texting as the most often used way to communicate with each other that the philippines has become the texting capital of the world. the PDI article says filipinos send a total of 20M texts a day or 600M texts a month.

the overcharge is a result of the telcos charging consumers P1.00 per text instead of P0.80 as directed by the NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) effective December of last year.

the order to reduce text costs to consumers was a result of a separate directive by the NTC to reduce interconnection charges. interconnection charges were reduced to P0.15 from P0.35 but the telcos did not pass the savings on to consumers.

the whole idea behind the reduction of interconnection charges was to reduce the cost to consumers but telcos instead decided to pocket the savings and fatten their profits.

(read PDI article in full here: Text overcharging bared)

the telc0s in their interviews are saying they will contest the refund in the courts. in other words, they really want to keep the P1.4B for themselves even though these savings were obtained for precisely the reason of reducing charges to consumers.

what will happen to the telcos if they refund consumers? nothing.

for sure, they will not go bankrupt nor will they loose sleep even for a night, not even during siesta if they give the refund. the P1.4B refund is a mere 0.8% of the combined revenues of  Smart and Globe of P166.8B (source: PDI article). the telcos refunding the consumers will hardly affect their bottom line.

while for sure the telcos will not go bankrupt, it will certainly be appreciated by consumers. around 85% of the philippine population belong to the DE socio-eco classes and that means these are the bulk of the customers of globe and smart. in the first place, it is  this high percentage of the poor being their customers which has made texting the most popular service of the telcos. to the poor, even a few peso savings and in this case in texting cost matters a lot.

happier and appreciative consumers will mean increased usage by the consumers. so in the end it will be a no loss and in fact a gain by the telcos. whatever amount they give to consumers for sure will come back to them in increased usage.  except of course when corporate greed strikes.

philippine stock market breaks the 5,500 mark, 28th time record high broken in 2012

the philippine stock market reached a new and important milestone today – it reached the 5,500 index mark and breaks the record high an impressive 28 times this year. the 5,500 mark is an important psychological barrier. we almost felt it will not be reached this year but it is great news that it did so towards the end of november.

this new high was reached at the back of the impressive recovery of the Dow Jones last night. the philippine stock market tends to react positively on good news from the dow jones.

the philippine stock market will probably be one of the best performing not only in asia but also in the world by the end of the year. unless the dow jones tanks by january 2013 with the fiscal cliff happening in the US, the philippine stock market is expected to rise even higher in 2013 as it is an elction year and the phillippine economy usually spikes up during election years. it is possible that the philippines stock market will go up as well.

death defying theft on EDSA Rockwell flyover

we went up to the rockwell flyover on EDSA to take some pictures. we were surprised to see a lone security guard right on top of the flyover. since the the flyover is overlooking some private homes in one of the exclusive subdivisions, i thought the guard was guarding one of the homes there. i found it strange that a security guard will guard the rooftops of homes but i thought it really did not matter as long as you have the money to pay a security guard to do that.

on my second trip to the flyover, i talked to the guard and asked him what he was guarding. i was shocked to learn that he was guarding the cables, wires and christmas lights that were on the flyover railings. he was apparently a guard of the rockwell center and i assume the christmas lights on the railings of the flyover were installed by rockwell.

we asked the guard who are the people who steal the cables, lights and wires. he said it was someone like the man who was walking on EDSA. i looked down and the man was a ‘taong grasa” that we see on the streets. we asked him if a man like that can run fast enough to evade the security guards. he said yes they can ran fast.

he said that the thieves can cut wires and cables as long as 30 feet. what they do is cut the wires then throw them over the flyover and they run down to get them and we suppose sell them some place.

i thought this was a very risky thing to do. these are live wires that the thieves are cutting and they can get electrocuted and die if the wrong wire is cut. the security guard was surprised by what i told him. i advised him that should he see a man being electrocuted while cutting the wires, he should not touch the man as he himself might be electrocuted as well. he was thankful for the tip i gave him.

i guess it’s worth risking your life when you don’t have money to feed yourself. but then rockwell also needs to protect its properties. it’s a tough world out there.

philippine stock market breaks all time high 27 times in 2012 & other trivia

just a few weeks more until 2012 ends and the philippine stock market’s record high has been broken 27 times already. breaking the all time high 27 times is more than a good reason to talk about it even though the year has not ended.

the months of august and september 2012 did not have the PSEI index record high broken.

the month of june 2012 did not have the PSEI index record high broken.

click here for other record breaking months:

philippine stock market breaches 5,000 mark, sets 11th all time high record in 2012

Ford Focus direct mail effort – impressive spending but unimpressive mailer material that fails

i got a surprising knock at my house from LBC – they delivered an odd sized package to me. quickly, i made a mental audit – am i expecting a package or document from anyone? the quick answer was – none. bells in my mind  rang!  oh, is this a surprise from someone? 

i opened the pack and i found a mailer from Ford on their new car, the Focus. i checked the envelope and yes it was addressed to me and it had my address. i wondered if it was sent to “occupant” or if it was sent to my house by mistake. no such mistake.

i was impressed with the direct mailing effort of Ford!

it was impressive as this was the first direct mail i got through LBC and this was addressed specifically to me. sending direct mail through LBC is a very expensive proposition. LBC cost alone is a killer of advertising budgets.

the other thing that is equally impressive was that it was  specifically for me. i was surprised they got my name and address. coming from marketing and advertising myself, i have for many years not given out my name, address and even cell phone number to almost anyone or any organization that i thought can  turn my personal information into data in a direct mail effort.

the most i do is sign my name when asked by any organization, including the schools of my children, retail outlets, stores or any other organization. when an address is required, all i put is the city name, not the complete address. for telephone or cell phone numbers, i would usually put some random number and very far from my real cell phone number.

this ford focus mailer was very targeted, having the ability to reach potential buyers. a targeted direct mail effort is very difficult for many direct mail agencies to pull off. this means this direct mail agency has a very good data base.

although i was impressed with the direct mail effort, i was not at all impressed with the mailer material they sent out.

front page & letter

the main weakness of the mailer is that it is just a re-layout of their print ads and a restating of the key elements of their TV ad. not saying the mailer should have a different advertising strategy and ad components from the TV and print ad, as  they should have the same but they should have changed the execution and implementation of the elements.

the mailer does not look like a mailer, it looks like a print ad but printed in glossy paper and folded. except for the letter that came with it, the mailer had nothing in it from a design and content standpoint that will get the recipient to take action or even just enjoy the mailer.

aside from coming up with a new design appropriate for a mailer, it should have some elements that exploit the mailer format medium. it could have been more interactive or leading where the recipient will want to read, interact with or manipulate  the mailer because it is interesting or creative.

the Focus has a few features that are unique in the market and potentially very attractive to potential car buyers. while these were mentioned in the mailer, it was not exploited in a way that is creative and compelling.

the mailer as an advertising medium is self contained and has the target audience practically as captive, designing the mailer to exploit the great features of the car and the characteristics of the medium would have served Ford very well.

inside pages

another key weakness of this mailer is that it does not include some kind of an incentive for the recipient to take action – for the recipient to go to the Ford showroom and look at the car or as the letter suggests to test drive the car.

the end objective of this mailer is not just to generate awareness on the features of the car, it is to get the target audience to go to the showroom to look and test drive the car. the weak design of the mailer fails in achieving this key objective.

the mailer may succeed in informing the target audience of the features of the car but it may be failing in getting them to take action.

lacking this incentive and the weakness of the design and concept makes this mailer a WAWAM! What A Waste Of Advertising Money!

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we will be going to a Ford showroom to complete the experience and effort of this mailer. will post a write-up here.

 

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carrlo arvisu