The Dragon

The Dragon
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This dragon guards a house in Bucharest (Bvd. Aviatorilor) It's neither from harry potter nor Dracula. But it actually used to be useful by carrying a light torch or a flag.

View This Data (ep. 1)

PCsPeople
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Now.
Worldwide, for every 6 people there is 1 computer.
6 out of 10 computers are located in mature markets, i.e highly industrialized / OECD countries.

In the future.
By 2014, the number of computers in use is set to double. Growth will mainly come from emerging markets.

Source: Gartner via Reuters, icons: http://www.userinterfaceicons.com/

Thoughts on... Doing Business in Romania

As today's news regarding Mercedes plans to build a new car plant in Hungary and not in Romania shows,
Romania really needs to build its infrastructure if it still wants to be more than a consumption based economy.
By the way, retailers in Romania should soon see important pressures on their margins as road infrastructure will hinder their stock management strategy.

Tips for Price Increases via HBS Working Knowledge

The 7 steps seem intuitive, even too general at some point:
(1) Know thy customer
(2) Invest in Market Research
(3) Redefine Value
(4) Use Promotions
(5) Unbundle
(6) Monitor Trade Terms
(7) Increase Relevance

Now, 1 and 2 generate 3, 5 and 7 and are related to consumers because you know them you will be able to serve them and to convince them to keep their business with your company.

4 is the all-time favourite pain killer for inflation and price increases. I remember that a few years ago soft drinks in Romania used to hide price increases by organizing a promotion. So, by counting the number of promotions for cola, I was able to estimate whether the Leu is doing better or worse than it used to do a year before. I know, it's not a scientifically sound method but it worked. :)

While 1-5 are focused on defending top-lines, 6 and 7 are aimed at profits. Brands and bundles are profit generating vectors.

Letting aside all these musings regarding the steps described above, I think that the end of the article is really funny. Especially because it's very unorthodox. I would not apologize for price increases... and I have never heard of a company apologizing for charging more.

"The key here is to educate the consumer, apologize for the uncontrollable price increases, give price-sensitive consumers some promotional options, and reemphasize product benefits."
Seven Tips for Managing Price Increases

Thoughts on... Voice Recognition

The Economist wrote in May that French teachers are upset that pupils have less and less spelling skills.

Their scapegoat: "fingers are pointed not only at progressive teaching, the decline of the dictée or the legacy of May 1968. The new culprit is text-messaging." Article is here

My two cents: SMS is doing to spelling what fast food is doing to food. However, imagine what will voice recognition do to spelling... :)

Later edit: How does "br&ly urs" sound? :)

Shifting Perspectives

Marketing myopia, anyone? Here's the curing lens.

Perspectives
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Web-Ads: Enough is enough

I'm from Transylvania, Romania. People from this region of the country are known for being patient and calm. However, enough is enough.

Whenever I open newspaper sites in Romania, my browser freezes for 10 seconds because some advertisers just need to show me some razor-blade, apartment or mobile internet app. (The razor blade even shaves the letters off the screen!)

This morning I installed Adblock on my Firefox browser. Guess what? I am happy again :)

Where's the content?

Apple announced the 3G iPhone for July 2008.
My question now: What will be the source of content loaded on iPhones all over the world?
The iTunes store is currently present in 22 countries but, coming this year, the iPhone will be present in 71.
Hardware is great. But where's the content?


Data sources used: Apple's site and Wikipedia

Later edit: This article from Time, takes a look at Apple's business model for the iPhone 3G: Steve Jobs Bets the Apple Farm

Plants recognize their relatives

Cakile maritima
Originally uploaded by waen ♡

"Some plant species show an ability to recognize (and prefer) their own relatives." Wow. Let me tell you this: Frank Herbert was right. :)
In his Pandora series, Frank Herbert talked about conscious plants and a tangled web of ecology, politics and philosophy. Jesus Incidentis the first book of this SF series. I've read it one or two years ago and am talking to plants ever since :)


NYtimes: Loyal to Its Roots By CAROL KAESUK YOON


Later edit: "No one knows, yet, how significant such effects are. Moreover, we’re
only beginning to make an inventory of who’s down there — the identity
of most intraterrestrials remains mysterious." from NYTimes.

What's next?

Keynote coming soon

Get this widget!

Later edit: widgets and web2.0 seem to cause problems today...

What's My Prize?

Breakfast Cereal
Originally uploaded by Chris Toumanian

As I struggled to choose which breakfast cereals to buy, I caught myself asking: "Who's giving me something? What's the best surprise?"

This is the way we all tick nowadays. When buying stuff from low-involvement categories, we're tricked into choosing convinced to pick brands via these useless but fun bonuses.

So, breakfast cereals seem to be my low-involvement category of the week. But, hey... a man has to make sure he drinks milk :)

Uncluttering OS X Naming Architecture

The Apple Blog wonders:

So is dropping the “Mac” from OS X a sign of things to come? Or is it just to unify the marketing between the Mac OS and iPhone OS? Stay tuned.

I'll stay tuned. But is Apple ready to become a mainly-software shop? No, I'll put it this way:

Are the software developers ready to port Windows software?
Are the enterprise customers ready to switch massively?
Are the Apple customers ready to give up some of Apple's can't-touch-this glamor?
Are you sure, Steve Jobs is ready for this? :D

On the same topic. I'm still waiting for that biiig 'Ipohone' ("Imagine this..." from last year)

Seinfeld on Marketing

I found these Seinfeld-based seven tips and tricks on marketing.
Included: Naming, Procedures and Competition.

On the same topic, as I'm watching this years Democratic primaries in the US, I remember Seinfelds lesson on positioning:

[But you win that silver, that's like "congratulations, you... almost
won". "Of all the losers, you came in first of that group". "You're the number 1 loser". "No one lost ahead of you".]

Local Perspectives

Every time I travel by train to Sibiu I tell myself that I have to write something on this blog.

It's just a personal idea, something often mentioned by smarter people. However, every time I'm in Sibiu (or any other location outside Bucharest) I notice differences in people's behaviour.

For example, people in Sibiu have totally different shopping baskets. The combination of fmcg goods is considerably different from the one I'm seeing in Bucharest. Two of the possible reasons identified are:

• distribution. i.e. there are important meat producers simply not present on the supermarket shelves in Sibiu
• buying behaviour. i.e. people in Sibiu seem to behave differently with respect to certain fmcg categories: relying more on taste and promotional package than on brand

Now, simply looking at some shopping baskets is not representative in terms of market research but it sure ads colour to market share and consumer reports. So, as just mentioned, smarter people urged marketers before, and I also recommend that every marketing - and brand manager takes time to visit cities across Romania.

The only 'new' part of this piece of advice is that - now that regional development starts gaining momentum, Romania might be ready for a marketing strategy customized in terms of geographic differences. Simply put: local perspectives could make or brake brands and marketing initiatives.

Mephisto luring under the bed

Saturday evening was a dream-come true. After reading the German original for high-school, I finally saw a live adaptation of Goethe's Faust.

My 3 tags are:

• spooky
• a_must_see
• great_director_great_text_great_mephisto_great_set_design.

Foto: Scott Eastman, source:liternet.ro

PS: Should you not find the time to see it in June, the show has already been sold to this year's Goethe festival in Germany (at the beginning of September)

Thoughts on... Pistachio

Is it possible that pistachio is the rich man's sun flower seeds?

I've noticed that "nouveau riche" consumers are substituting sunflower seeds with pistachio. I guess old habits die hard.

This is great news for pistachio sellers and by no means bad news for sellers of sunflower seeds. As living standards improve, new users of sunflower-snacks will emerge.