While Lithuania stumbles over its efforts to draft the nation's branding strategy or choose a logo for the country, Bulgaria has its own hero.
Three weeks ago I received a short email from a friend in the US saying You may have already seen this and a link to a YouTube video. I'm not a big fan of email jokes but sometimes I do click on the links that my friends promise to be funny, interesting or impressive.
When I first clicked on this one, the video had already been watched some 400,000 times. Three weeks later the number of times the video has been viewed is well over 4 million! A marketer's dream to generate such attention and traffic... The girl in the video became an international star overnight... I wonder how many people has this video made think about Bulgaria, i.e. how many people have learned about the country for the first time?
Have a look at this video and don't take it too seriously. It's a short (1:14 min.) snapshot of Music Idol, a TV amateur song contest, in Bulgaria. Make sure you watch up to the final seconds! Tomorrow, 1 April, is a Fool's Day.:)
31 March 2008
11 March 2008
Holiday. Celebrate!
Lithuanian politicians are interesting folk. Their decisions are sometimes beyond common sense. For example, as regards public holidays and turning them into extended weekends.
It's been a law for a while that when a public holiday falls on a weekend, an additional day off is given as compensation for the "lost" day off. It sounds like an attractive (populistic?) law and most people should be pleased with it. However, purely from the business perspective such additional days off mean lost business income and consequently lost tax revenues for the state. Business losses due to such idle days are estimated at millions of litas.
Don't get me wrong - I do like holidays but sometimes such prolonged weekends are a nightmare for a marketer. If you consider launching a marketing campaign, calendar weeks that consist of only three working days are lost weeks. Unless you trade in Easter bunnies, then this March is an out-of-business month. It's been calculated that this present month of March has as many as 13 days off in Lithuania. Almost half the month! It's impossible to squeeze in a marketing campaign and run it effectively.
By the way, some public holidays always fall on the weekend because they are a weekend-type holiday by nature (e.g. Mother's Day, which is the first Sunday of May). In Lithuania, this is also compensated by an additional day off on Monday. I heard that this particular compensation may be called off.
Today (Tuesday) is a public holiday, the Day of Restoration of Lithuania's independence, and we've had a four-day long weekend (Monday as a working day has been moved to the coming Saturday). Go and celebrate! Because the state tells so.
It's been a law for a while that when a public holiday falls on a weekend, an additional day off is given as compensation for the "lost" day off. It sounds like an attractive (populistic?) law and most people should be pleased with it. However, purely from the business perspective such additional days off mean lost business income and consequently lost tax revenues for the state. Business losses due to such idle days are estimated at millions of litas.
Don't get me wrong - I do like holidays but sometimes such prolonged weekends are a nightmare for a marketer. If you consider launching a marketing campaign, calendar weeks that consist of only three working days are lost weeks. Unless you trade in Easter bunnies, then this March is an out-of-business month. It's been calculated that this present month of March has as many as 13 days off in Lithuania. Almost half the month! It's impossible to squeeze in a marketing campaign and run it effectively.
By the way, some public holidays always fall on the weekend because they are a weekend-type holiday by nature (e.g. Mother's Day, which is the first Sunday of May). In Lithuania, this is also compensated by an additional day off on Monday. I heard that this particular compensation may be called off.
Today (Tuesday) is a public holiday, the Day of Restoration of Lithuania's independence, and we've had a four-day long weekend (Monday as a working day has been moved to the coming Saturday). Go and celebrate! Because the state tells so.
28 February 2008
Radio Ga-Ga
Research is key in any profession and marketing is no exception. Ideally, any step should be based on experience and research. Provided it is done the right way.
In the middle of a working day my mobile phone rang.
- Is this Giedrius CP?
- Yes.
- I'm calling from research company X. Would you be available for a brief interview on radio usage?
- How long would it take?
- 6 minutes.
- OK, shoot your questions.
Sometimes I'm the good guy and agree to take part in a survey, just out of professional curiosity. The girl was reading a zillion of questions and multiple-choice answers very fast.
- Which radio station do you listen to most: A, B, C or D?
- A.
- Which radio station do you turn to for business news first: A, B, C or D?
- B.
- Which radio station would you rate as least unbiased: A, B, C or D?
- C.
- Which radio station would you..........: A, B, C or D?
- None.
A couple of times I asked the interviewer to repeat the answers as she obviously had way too many questions on her list. Soon I got tired.
- How much are there left? I think we've run out of time...
- There are just two final questions.
Of course, there were more than two questions to be answered.:) Anyway, the girl did a good job. When the interview was over, my mobile showed 7 minutes and 20 seconds as the duration of the call. I was pleased with myself (didn't turn the interviewer away) and her (did her job quite well).
BUT! I was also grinning - the questionnaire lacked one key (opening?) question: WHAT RADIO STATION DO YOU LISTEN TO MOST? Because it's neither radio station A (that obviously commissioned the survey), B, C or D.
Because it's a niche radio station, Jazz FM.
In the middle of a working day my mobile phone rang.
- Is this Giedrius CP?
- Yes.
- I'm calling from research company X. Would you be available for a brief interview on radio usage?
- How long would it take?
- 6 minutes.
- OK, shoot your questions.
Sometimes I'm the good guy and agree to take part in a survey, just out of professional curiosity. The girl was reading a zillion of questions and multiple-choice answers very fast.
- Which radio station do you listen to most: A, B, C or D?
- A.
- Which radio station do you turn to for business news first: A, B, C or D?
- B.
- Which radio station would you rate as least unbiased: A, B, C or D?
- C.
- Which radio station would you..........: A, B, C or D?
- None.
A couple of times I asked the interviewer to repeat the answers as she obviously had way too many questions on her list. Soon I got tired.
- How much are there left? I think we've run out of time...
- There are just two final questions.
Of course, there were more than two questions to be answered.:) Anyway, the girl did a good job. When the interview was over, my mobile showed 7 minutes and 20 seconds as the duration of the call. I was pleased with myself (didn't turn the interviewer away) and her (did her job quite well).
BUT! I was also grinning - the questionnaire lacked one key (opening?) question: WHAT RADIO STATION DO YOU LISTEN TO MOST? Because it's neither radio station A (that obviously commissioned the survey), B, C or D.
Because it's a niche radio station, Jazz FM.
24 January 2008
Nothing unique
Lithuanians tend to be overly patriotic and sincerely believe that the country has a lot of unique features. Unique sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, unique amber, unique passion for singing (Eurovision?) or basketball. To be honest, nothing is unique, not even the national scandals.
You may remember my earlier post on the competition to choose a logo for the country and the scandal surrounding it. Well, the competition has been finally cancelled and it might be relaunched some time soon. In this respect, I even started to believe that the situation was of no precedent and unique. I was wrong.
In 2012, London will host the Olympic Games, which is a big deal. This entails an influx of visitors and their cash to the city, not to mention newly-built infrastructure. Last June the logo for the 2012 London Olympics was unveiled and caused a whole lot of public debate, criticism, and even online petitions.
Six months later, in January this year I still read an article in the FT about the logo and the opposition against it. It's interesting how an emblem can cause so much reaction, comments and discussions.
The rationale behind choosing the graffiti-style logo for the 2012 London Olympics (pictured below) is the ambition to engage the multi-cultural young audience in Britain. "...to create a Games for everyone, where everyone is invited to take part", as the official 2012 London Olympics website says.
The style and colours of the logo are a matter of taste. But I especially liked the commotion around the logo and how, for example, the media accept the new product. A quote from the same FT article:
Martin Lambie-Nairn, chairman of the Lambie-Nairn firm, which has rebranded UK broadcasters Channel 4 and the BBC, thinks the Olympic launch was always likely to be controversial, particularly to a UK media critical of the rising cost of the games. “Launching brand identities to journalists is always very dangerous,” he says. “You show something for three minutes, and people go, ‘Is that it?’ The only thing the media is really interested in is the cost.”
If you are interested to read more about the 2012 London Olympics logo, here's an interesting column by Tyler Brûlé, editor-in-chief of Monocle.
You may remember my earlier post on the competition to choose a logo for the country and the scandal surrounding it. Well, the competition has been finally cancelled and it might be relaunched some time soon. In this respect, I even started to believe that the situation was of no precedent and unique. I was wrong.
In 2012, London will host the Olympic Games, which is a big deal. This entails an influx of visitors and their cash to the city, not to mention newly-built infrastructure. Last June the logo for the 2012 London Olympics was unveiled and caused a whole lot of public debate, criticism, and even online petitions.
Six months later, in January this year I still read an article in the FT about the logo and the opposition against it. It's interesting how an emblem can cause so much reaction, comments and discussions.
The rationale behind choosing the graffiti-style logo for the 2012 London Olympics (pictured below) is the ambition to engage the multi-cultural young audience in Britain. "...to create a Games for everyone, where everyone is invited to take part", as the official 2012 London Olympics website says.
The style and colours of the logo are a matter of taste. But I especially liked the commotion around the logo and how, for example, the media accept the new product. A quote from the same FT article:
Martin Lambie-Nairn, chairman of the Lambie-Nairn firm, which has rebranded UK broadcasters Channel 4 and the BBC, thinks the Olympic launch was always likely to be controversial, particularly to a UK media critical of the rising cost of the games. “Launching brand identities to journalists is always very dangerous,” he says. “You show something for three minutes, and people go, ‘Is that it?’ The only thing the media is really interested in is the cost.”
If you are interested to read more about the 2012 London Olympics logo, here's an interesting column by Tyler Brûlé, editor-in-chief of Monocle.
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