Sunday Paper in Romania?

Madeleine, a reader of this blog, sent me an email asking how I would like to be able to buy a Sunday paper and if Romanians would adopt this kind of paper. Here's an excerpt:

Very simplistically: this paper will have to be distributed to big cities across
Romania, and the distribution could be worked out through supermarket chains,
petrol stations, or... thinking waaaaaay ahead, through a system similar to
those "coin boxes" where you insert the coin, you open up the box and get the
paper (this will be costlier given the fact that the paper only comes out on
Sundays, but other newspapers can fill the box during the week; the cost is then
dropping off the paper, the money collecting, maintaining the boxes and such,
and of course, whatever authorization protocol that entails. This, though, will
be something a third party would work out (i.e. an already existing kiosk
distributing firm) by possibly partnering up at some point.

My 2 cents

Romanians usually buy news papers because of the "news" not of the paper (at least those who also read them :) ). You would have to target a niche, in my opinion the wealthy 5%, and offer them a subscription service while projecting an image of "classy" and "snobbery". By the way, the price would be high ;).

If I would be interested? Well, I'm not in those 5%, but I would occasionaly buy such a paper and if you position it right, so would other Romanians.

Regarding your thoughts about a national distribution system, I would recommend to start small (Bucharest) and enter new cities as the business grows. (Look and sapte seri for example).

Dear reader, please feel free to comment about Madeleine's initiative.

Seth Godin on Apple's Marketing

Favourite Quote:
"Hadley Stern: What do you think of Apple’s marketing?
Seth Godin: Oy! It’s so great, and so classic and it so often completely misses the point. I’m jealous and I wish they would do better, all at the same time."
read the whole interview

Macs and Catholics

"Macintosh is Catholic and Windows is Protestant", this is what I read a few days ago in a Romanian newspaper. Well, I'm able to google things up so I have searched for Umberto Eco's article on this topic. The result? Umberto Eco's "Holy War: Mac vs. DOS" is a back-page column called "La bustina di Minerva", in the Italian news weekly "Espresso" published September 30, 1994. As the title mentions it, the article talks about Mac and DOS, not Mac and Windows :).

A brief excerpt:

"The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant."

If you're asking me, Eco is right, but let's compare Apple's market share with the number of Catholic people.

Some possible conclusions:
1.) Catholics don't use Computers - False
2.) Catholics don't have the money to buy Macs - hm, not enough data
3.) There is no correlation between religion and computer buying patterns - My favourite conclusion
I'm sure there are more conclusions possible ;)


Sources: Eco's essay, World Population, Catholicism in Figures. Apple's market share is a personal estimation.

IE is losing "market share" to Firefox but is still offering Netscape switchers pieces of advice on how to surf the web. My tip of the day: Get Firefox from mozilla.org ;-) 

BIG TIME: slow fast food and low brand experience

I’m a party animal ;) So yesterday I went out :). I visited this new fast-food chain "BigTime" in Bucharest.

"Meat Me!" is their slogan. However, one can also buy veggie burgers there... :)

[Our objective is]"to offer BIG FOOD and BIG MOOD by delivering services which are better than our customers would expected them to be", says one of the key persons at Big Time Romania ( My rough translation for: „Sa oferim BIG FOOD si BIG MOOD prin servicii care depasesc asteptarile clientilor”). However, the buying experience is quite frustrating: You go to a lady and say what you want to eat. You pay. You find a table and sit down. After a few minutes you're called to get your food. Hm... And THIS is fast-food? :p

Good food though... :)
I also liked the way their trays are made. ;)

Verdict: Good product, poor marketing/branding.
Solutions? Hm. Keep quality high, get faster, get friendlier.

PS: I found this news-clip (Romanian only)Imagoo :: BIG TIME - un nou concept de fast food pentru Romania: "Sa oferim BIG FOOD si BIG MOOD prin servicii care depasesc asteptarile clientilor.�"