Ged Carroll

Month: December 2017

  • Autonomous car technology + other news

    Autonomous car technology

    Baidu accuses former staffer of stealing autonomous car technology | FT – interesting case. Presumably it must involve autonomous car technology that falls outside the scope of the Apollo open source software project. Baidu started Apollo as an open source initative on autonomous car technology. Who would the staffer be giving this autonomous car technology to and isn’t there a risk that the Chinese government would get involved against the staffer? Autonomous car technology relies on a series of strategic priority technologies that the Chinese government cares about. In particular automation, machine learning and sensors. 

    Business

    Iced tea maker soars 500% after pivot to blockchains | FT – yep things are as messed up as this looks

    CryptoCurrency Screener – Yahoo Finance – it gives you an idea how mainstream cryptocurrency speculation has become

    Culture

    Bill Brewster Recalls His NYC Stint Living (and Record Collecting) in the ’90s – via our Jed

    Design

    Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User Experience – Bloomberg – my big concern would be around UX and design

    Amazon Puzzles Over the Perfect Fit—in Boxes – WSJ – with e-commerce do you need the packaging to market the product on the shelf anymore? (paywall)

    Cathay Pacific reuses uniforms to create sustainable red envelopes for Chinese New Year | The Drum – I really like this idea, although it might jar with job and pay cuts at Cathay Pacific

    Ethics

    Apple, CALEA and Law Enforcement – Lawfare  – Apple is consistently making choices to protect users privacy and security. In the face of the kinds of attacks we’ve been seeing, from the “hack in a box” that Chinese criminals were selling to the sophisticated hacking Jupiter’s VPN, the better security is on phones and in communications, the better off we all are. So while Nick is right on the current vulnerability in iMessage, he has it wrong on both on Apple’s legal obligations under CALEA and how easy it would be for the company to accommodate law enforcement’s demands.

    Marketing

    Inexperience is hurting digital content: DeVries global CEO | PR | Campaign Asia – PR agency line of ‘engagement’ with everything – which shows a lack of understanding around effective marketing communications a la Byron Sharp and the Ehrenburg-Bass Institute work. Interesting what they are doing in China, but needs more nuance

    Volkswagen ad to interrupt other brand advertising – interesting brand dynamics

    How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories | The Outline – this looks far more corrosive for the PR industry than Bell Pottinger

    Media

    Twitter Users Like Long Tweets More Than Short Ones | Buzzfeed – impressive if true

    Retailing

    China’s Guangzhou Tengshi secures further funding to expand automated convenience stores | South China Morning Post – interesting store concept that turns the retail space into a giant vending machine

    brandchannel: Unboxing Boxed: 5 Questions With CMO Jackson Jeyanayagam  – good to see this write-up with fellow WE veteran Jackson

    Security

    Germany accuses China of using LinkedIn to recruit informants-Sino-US – not terribly surprising

    California fires: Navigation apps like Waze sent commuters into flames, drivers say | USA Today – this will damage Waze in California.

    Technology

    Qualcomm’s Anti-Competitive Conduct Could Be Exacerbated By Mergers | Disruptive Competition Project – interesting analysis

    Alexa skills top 25,000 in the U.S. as new launches slow | TechCrunch – I guess its a limitation around the ‘type’ of knowledge taught. There are all kinds of restrictions over IP – so no movie dialogue quotes or sports results for instance unless you are ESPN or a film studio

    3D printed Wi-Fi – still getting my head around this (PDF) via our Matt

  • Hidden information design

    I’ve stared at UK mainline railway station departure boards at many times over the years, yet there is hidden information design that I just caught on to. I am usually fixated on the platform number and whether it will leave on time. So it was only this week that I picked up on the hidden information design of this little train ideogram as a footnote at the bottom of each destination on London Euston station’s display. I have been staring at this screen on and off for two decades as I travelled to see families or clients.

    Once you realise that the ideogram is there, it’s a revelation as it gives you a lot of pertinent information at a glance.  Just look at the picture I took of it below

    Untitled

    Ideogram as hidden information design on train departure board.

    The diagram flips, this was the dominant image.  It shows:

    • How many carriages are on the train
    • How full of reserved passengers each carriage is ( in this picture carriages A, B, E and J are very full).
    • Which coaches are first class (in this picture the first class coaches are indicated to be K,J,H & G)
    • A cup periodically flashed over coach C to show that was where the shop / takeaway cafe was onboard the train. (It is very rare for UK trains to have proper dining cars on board now. Instead you buy a sandwich and a coffee from a kiosk on board that you can eat at your seat).
    • That the quiet zone had to be indicated in text because they had pushed the limits of the constrained screen space for the ideogram

    It would be interesting to see if this data was available in API form for apps or web service usage and what could be done with it. More related content here. 

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  • HBN & other things from last week

    Human by Nature or HBN are a relatively new streetwear brand. This HBN football shirt caught my eye; a logo that skirts perilously close to the wrath of New Balance. And the HBN geometric pattern looks like a blown up version of the adidas ‘leaf design’ 1990-92 Manchester United away shirt, but at the same scale as the ‘vee’ motif on the 1991-1993 Arsenal away shirt.

    human by nature

    In order to get into the Christmas season I have been listening to this Amerigo Gazaway seasonal mixtape

    I also love listening to this seasonal mix that used to be played in the much missed Hideout boutique throughout the holiday season

    I can recommend Lo and Behold: Reveries Of A Connected World by Werner Herzog who gives an iconoclastic history of the internet and where it is taking us. It is currently available on Netflix.

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    I am currently working my way through a few different books, including Steve Coll’s forthcoming book Directorate S. Coll is a former journalist and academic. He is has written a number of non-fiction books on central Asia and companies such as Exxon. His research is exhaustive which is why my galley copy is a bit of a door stop. More later on my thoughts.

    Directorate S

  • 200 billion dollars & other news

    200 billion dollar markets

    Upgrade to 5G Costs 200 Billion Dollars a Year, May Not Be Worth It | Advertising Age – this will be interesting. 3G mobile networks were in a similar position at launch. I remember going to a Cap Gemini conference at the time, where research from European mobile operator c-suite opinions was presented. TL;DR no one knew how it was going to make money. Some like Three had ideas of making money on short form media like sports highlights.  Three didn’t manage to build a business selling football clips. None of the current ideas look worth $200 billion a year. Not even at the inflated values that we currently have, nothing close to 200 billion dollar markets. More related content here.

    Culture

    Outlaw Appeal: The Yakuza in Film and Print | Nippon – nice analysis of the Yakuza in popular culture

    Design

    Why Is There No Freighter Equivalent of the Airbus A380? – this is explains why Airbus made non-cargo optimised design decisions (like a cockpit on the lower flight deck so you can’t fit a cargo door in the nose). I would be very surprised if Airbus doesn’t make the same mistakes in the future. 

    Ethics

    Jaron Lanier interview on Silicon Valley culture, #MeToo backlash, AI, and the future – Business Insider

    FMCG

    Family Greatly | Kraft Brand – YouTube – classic planner driven creative targeting important family moments. Textbook FMCG advertising

    Japan

    No news, just snooze: Japan’s paper deliverers enjoy press holiday | World news | The Guardian – I love that Japan still values print

    Luxury

    Hiroshi Fujiwara Explains Why Fragment Sneakers Are So Hard to Get | GQ  – There’s many shoes out there. I want everyone to have it who wants to have it. But it’s hard because so many people buy them just to make money. And I don’t like that. And sometimes it’s good to work hard to get a sneaker, because otherwise you won’t buy it – Fujiwara-san on point as ever

    Security

    China unveils satellite network plan for round-the-clock lock on South China Sea | South China Morning Post

    Chinese woman offered refund after facial recognition allows colleague to unlock iPhone X | South China Morning Post – when you have a huge population like China even small odds become significant – I do have a nagging doubt about if the story is true though

    Technology

    Telling AI to not replicate itself is like telling teenagers to just not have sex | Quartz – runaway singularity?

    Wireless

    FT Opening Quote – Dixons Carphone profits fall 60% – UK consumer upgrade cycle stretched. More people going for SIM only deals and upgrades are pretty meh (paywall)

  • China marketing agency landscape

    China marketing agency changes

    Chinese poster

    Over the past two decades the China marketing agency landscape had got used to go-go growth, just by showing up. The Xi-era of China has seen the end of the go-go years in economic growth in China.  This economic maturation was one of the factors picked up on Arun Sudhaman’s analysis of Chinese marketing agency landscape changes, with a particular focus on PR services.

    Arun also noted dirvergence in fortune of domestic and multi-national firms.

    Here are some of my thoughts on China marketing agency landscape changes.

    Digital disruption affecting China marketing agency landscape

    Multi-national PR agencies often led with corporate communications and public affairs expertise. This meant that their businesses were led by leaders who paid lip-service to digital at best. My experience trying to sell digital internally was one of the most painful processes that I have ever done. It was one of almost insurmountable cultural differences: not Irish-Chinese, but analogue-digital.

    To be fair many corporate and public affairs specialists in London are still trying to get to grip with what digital means. They know it’s important, but they don’t have a clue how it all comes together.

    That mean’t that they didn’t really get social media beyond being a publishing platform. Chinese KOL (key opinion leader) work whilst effective, is paid media. PR agencies generally don’t have the depth of tools and analytics to provide comprehensive planning and execution for KOL projects. It is hard to get management teams to invest adequately in tools and talent.

    Change in legal and regulatory environment

    Premier Xi has changed the landscape for public affairs practitioners. The government is less flexible, it feels that it no longer needs to be. China is on the ascendence in the face of western existential crises and America in rapid retreat from the world stage. Hence, new laws that discriminate against foreign technology companies as part of its wider approach to cyber sovereignty.  Public affairs still has a place in terms of research to provide understanding, but their foreign multinationals won’t like what the results will likely tell them.

    Digital media landscape

    Digital has hit the industry hard. It moved at an accelerated pace compared to other industries. Unlike the west were television isn’t in decline but has stopped growing, Chinese TV isn’t undergoing the golden age that we are seeing in the west. The government has made it less entertaining – which has only helped the acceleration of digital marketing channels in China. Government control of television content has meant less reality shows or remakes of Korean drama stories and more content extolling Chinese Communist Party values. Worthy content, but not particularly engaging.

    May online marketing

    Disintermediation and displacement

    In China, the major digital platform companies try and go direct to clients for social media advertising cutting out the media buying agencies. This gives media and digital agencies extra incentive to go and grab the paid engagements of key opinion leaders. These are often performance-related deals with directly attributable online sales or online-to-offline voucher redemption. Digital and media agencies are better equipped to handle influencer relations than their public relations peers. It is less about influence and more about performance.

    Changes in the client boardroom

    Multinational PR agencies also have problems with their established client base of international brands. Under Premier Xi we have seen a more confident China. This confidence is manifested in Chinese board rooms. The way strategy and goal-setting works in Chinese companies illuminates this difference:

    • Big board meeting where outrageous unrealistic targets are set by the Chairman
    • Planning department turns the ridiculous goals into plans
    • Management goes to arrange funding

    The business then goes to staff up and do whatever is needed. They will build massive conglomerates – what is known as building the eco-system – something that is frowned up in the West as being bad for shareholder value

    Chinese entrepreneurs care about market share more than profitability. And sometimes they fail spectacularly like LeEco or Evergrande, collapsing under the weight of their own debt.

    A lot of it reads like bubble-era corporate Japan. While it seems insane to outsiders, corporate China is much more closely knitted into the government than the keiretsus ever were. Corporate China may go pop in the future, but it won’t happen at the moment.

    Multinational clients struggling

    By comparison, multinationals are worried about activist shareholders and meeting their quarterly numbers can’t be as aggressive in comparison to their Chinese peers. This type of aggressive pursuit of growth would also be an anathema to the likes of WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and IPG who suffer from a similar risk of activist shareholder shenanigans as their multinational clients.

    Which is why Chinese brands have been blowing up across sectors. 91 percent of smartphones now sold in China are from domestic brands. Apple has somewhere around 7 per cent share. Foreign FMCG brands are being slaughtered, even Amazon has only a few percentage points of market share.

    Quite simply, multinational PR firms have generally bet on the wrong horse. China is the one market were American scale and capital actually diminishes in impact over time as the Chinese domestic market picks up. Multinationals in strategic business areas were always going to lose over time.

    Knowledge and business transfer

    Where Chinese brands have wanted to expand globally, they have taken on foreign PR agencies. Part of this process was knowledge transfer. If one looked at an organisation like Huawei, you can see how they have learned and built internal capability with Chinese characteristics in their corporate communications function over time. It would be a similar process in other companies.

    Even foreign luxury brands have struggled to be as agile as their Chinese customers. Between the crackdown on corruption and the rapid development of experienced luxury consumption – the only constant in the luxury market has been change. It is only a matter of time before China has its own answer to Michael Kors or Christian Dior. Western luxury brand problems will affect the agencies that work with them with massive fluctuation in marketing budgets.

    A second transfer of capability from foreign to domestic is the move of multinational agency talent into local agencies. You combine that Chinese entrepreneurship and foreign agencies look vulnerable. Clauses that have kept western agency staff in check from plundering clients and talent don’t hold up as well in China.

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