Category: health | 衛生保健 | 보건 의료

I have a relatively small amount of health related posts on this blog at the moment. But it’s becoming an area that’s impossible to ignore. Health and wellness is becoming central to mainstream culture.

Anxiety and loneliness have sparked what is considered by many to be a mental health epidemic and a corresponding reduction in societal resilience.

High income countries were spending as much as 14 percent of government spending on health before the COVID pandemic. The number is likely to be even higher now.

According to an article in medical journal The Lancet, poor mental health cost the global economy approximately 2.5 trillion US dollars per year and this was expected to rise to 6 trillion by 2030.

It’s an area that can’t be ignored, because of the financial burden and size of market that the sector represents.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic a UN report said the following:

Psychological distress in populations is widespread. Many people are distressed due to the immediate health impacts of the virus and the consequences of physical isolation. Many are afraid of infection, dying, and losing family members. Individuals have been physically distanced from loved ones and peers. Millions of people are facing economic turmoil having lost or being at risk of losing their income and livelihoods.

The report went on to recommend solutions such as:

  • Crafting communications to be not only effective but sensitive to their impact on the mental state of the populous
  • Community events looking at cementing social cohesion
  • Extending tele-medicine to include tele-counselling for frontline health-care workers and people at home with depression and anxiety.

I started to look at trends in March 2020 and there was a singularity developing around innovation and technology in the area, together with some interesting cossumer behaviour trends. Young adults made up a sizeable chunk of telemedicine non-users and as resistors to public health initiatives. Their much vaunted ‘online literacy’ saw them fall for the same tropes and older audiences considered more gullible like pensioners and retirees in Facebook groups

  • April 2024 newsletter – no. 9

    April 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my April 2024 newsletter which marks my 9th issue. We managed to make it through the winter and the clocks moved forward allowing for lighter evenings in the northern hemisphere.

    Strategic outcomes

    The number nine is full of symbolism in a good way. In Chinese culture it sounds similar to long-lasting. It was strongly associated with the mystical and powerful nature of the Chinese dragon. From the number of dragon types and children to the number of scales on the dragon – which were multiples of 9. You have nine channels in traditional Chinese medicine. In Norse mythology there are nine worlds and Odin the all-father hangs on the tree of life for 9 days to gain knowledge of the runes.

    Social media-related cognitive dissonance

    A couple of conversations with people, spurred me to write this next piece.

    I know it’s obvious and common sense, but it needs to be said occasionally. This time last year, I was on a Zurich work trip, providing support to a teammate running a workshop for a client who viewed the agency as the least worst option. We did good work and built temporary rapport, we got insight about the wider client-side politics at play. It was the classic example of the complexities involved in agency life and Lord knows we already have enough internal politics in our own shops to deal with.

    The photo I shared on Instagram at the time gave no clue to what was happening, serving as a reminder to consider the curated nature of social feeds when scrolling through.

    April work trip to Zürich

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here

    Things I’ve written.

    • Fads versus real trends
    • A quick guide to jargon used in pharma marketing.
    • What my answers to Campaign’s a-list questions would look like.
    • Boutique e-tailers and why the multi-brand luxury retail sector has gone from boom to bust.
    • Very Ralph and other things – Ralph Lauren’s world building abilities and how others from a cancer patient or overseas migrant workers have bent the world to their needs, or made a new one.

    Books that I have read.

    • There are a few books that I revisit and the March 1974 JWT London planning guide is one of them. In many respects it feels fresh and more articulate than more modern tomes.
    • Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism by Angela Zhang sounds exceptionally dry to the uninitiated. But if like me, you’ve worked on brands like Qualcomm, Huawei or GSK you realise how much of an impact China’s regulatory environment can have on your client’s success. Zhang breaks down the history of China’s antitrust regulatory environment, how it works within China’s power structures and how it differs from the US model. What becomes apparent is that Chinese power isn’t monolithic and that China is weaponising antitrust legislation for strategic and policy goals rather than consumer benefit. It is important for everything from technology to the millions of COVID deaths that happened in China due to a lack of effective vaccines. Zhang’s book won awards when it first came out in 2021, and is still valuable now given the relatively static US-China policy views. Given the recent changes in Hong Kong where she lives, we may not see as frank a book of its quality come out of Hong Kong academia again on this subject matter.
    • Van Horne and Riley’s Left of Bang was recommended by a friend who recently left military service. It codified and gave me a lexicon for describing observations of focus group dynamics and observation-based shopper marketing. Probably of bigger value to people more interested in the analytical side of behavioural science is the bibliography – which is extensive.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Sustaining a sustainable brand

    Kantar do a good webinar series called On Brand with Kantar. I got to watch one of them: Why consumers ignore brands’ sustainability efforts. Consumers are reticent to trust in brand’s sustainable efforts. Kantar’s recommendation is to stay the course and continue to demonstrate real sustainability. Kantar’s work complemented System 1’s Greenprint US-orientated sustainable advertising report. There is a UK-specific version as well with half a dozen ideas for marketers published in partnership with ITV.

    Media platform trends

    GWI released their 2024 Global Media trends report. GWI takes a survey based approach to understand consumer media behaviour.

    • Broadcast TV still commands the greatest share of total TV time, despite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and a plethora of other streaming platforms from Criterion to Disney+.
    • Survival/horror players are most excited about gaming luxury collabs, whether or not luxury brands are equally excited about survival or horror gamers is a bigger question.
    • Games console ownership has halved in the past ten years. This surprised me given how many of my friends have a Switch or PlayStation 5. It probably explains why Microsoft is focusing on being a publisher rather than on platforms as well.

    Japanese online media spend

    Dentsu published a report looking into 2023 Advertising Expenditures in Japan. A couple of interesting outtakes.

    • They focused exclusivity on internet advertising, which gives you a good idea on where they want the balance of media spend to go, rather than necessarily the right tool for the right job. Yes digital is very important, BUT, we live in a world were we are wrapped by and consume layers of digital and analogue media.

    We can see from GWI data that this viewpoint is likely to be still excessively myopic in terms of media due to offline – online media linkages. This is likely to be even more so in Japan that still has a more robust traditional media industry.

    There_s_so_much_crossover_across_media_channels
    • Internet advertising reached a new high, despite being a couple of years after the Olympic games were hosted in Tokyo. (Media spend when a country hosts the olympics tends to be skewed that year upwards).

    One thing I would flag is that this report is based on surveying people across the Japanese advertising industry and built on their responses. So there maybe some biases built into that process. Overall it’s a fascinating read.

    Social media engagement benchmarks

    RivalIQ published their 2024 Social Media Industry Engagement bench report, download it to get the full details. Three things that struck me straight away:

    • Macro-level decline across platforms on engagement rate, which matches the trends that Manson and Whatley outlined ten years ago in their Facebook Zero paper for Ogilvy Social.
    • If brands didn’t need enough reason already to reduce exposure to Twitter, the falling engagement rates on the platform add additional reasons. Overall video seemed to underperform on engagement compared to photos.
    • One thing leaped out to me in the industry verticals data, if you are looking to reach student age adults, why not consider collaborating with higher education institution social media accounts rather than influencers?

    Shocking health outcomes

    The Hidden Cost of Ageism | A Barrier to Innovation & Growth | Future Work – sparked a lot of discussion with its implications on workplace practices, particularly within the advertising sector. What was less discussed but more important was the implications of ageism related biases on healthcare treatment.

    Under-treatment or Over-treatment: Older adults may receive less aggressive treatment options or are overtreated because of age-related biases, rather than based on individual health needs and preferences.

    Dismissal of Concerns: Healthcare providers might dismiss older patients’ health issues as inevitable parts of ageing, potentially overlooking treatable conditions.

    Age-Based Prioritisation: In some cases, age influences the allocation of healthcare resources, with younger individuals being prioritised over older ones, assuming they have more “life worth living.”

    The Hidden Cost of Ageism | Future Work

    MSNBC News in the US did a report on what it called a ‘Post-Roe underground’ echoing the underground railroads to free slaves in the Southern states and the Vietnam war era draft dodgers who escaped north to Canada. This time it is to help women access abortion pills or procedures in other states or Mexico.

    MSNBC

    My friend Parrus hosted a talk on World Health Day, more on that here, the key takeaway for me was not trying to replicate developed market solutions in developing markets. Instead think about how it could be reinvented. Thinking that could be extended beyond health care to consumer goods, telecoms and technology sectors as well.

    Luxury market shake-up

    Business of Fashion covered a US court case where two women brought a lawsuit against Hermès, alleging purchase of its sought-after Birkin bag is dependent on purchase of other products and is an “illegal tying arrangement” that violated US antitrust law.

    5D3_1690

    Hermès is more vulnerable than other brands because it owns its retail stores. The case, if successful could have implications far beyond the luxury bag-maker. For instance, how Ford selected prospective owners for its GT-40 sports cars, or most Ferrari limited edition for that matter.

    While we’re on the subject of luxury, LVMH are rerunning their INSIDE LVMH certificate which is invaluable for anyone who might work on a luxury brand now or in the future. More here.

    Morizo

    Toyota are on a tear at the moment. They correctly guessed that electric cars were too expensive at the moment and focused hybrids as a stepping stone to electric and hydrogen fuel cell production. They have also successfully use the passion for driving in their products and their marketing. The Toyota GR Yaris was a result of Chairman Akio Toyoda instructing engineers to make something sporty enough to win the World Rally Championship and affordable.

    He also outed himself as a speed demon who went under the nom de plume of Morizo.

    Quebec

    For many English speakers one of the most dissonant experiences is being confronted by a language you can’t speak. It’s part of the reason why ireland managed to become the European base of companies like Alphabet and and Intel. So I was very impressed by this campaign by the Quebec government to attract visitors and inbound investment.

    Things I have watched. 

    I watched Mr Inbetween series one in March and managed to work through series two and three this month. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough as a series. They just keep building on each other.

    Over Easter, I revisited some old VHS tapes my parents still had and rediscovered the Christopher Walken science fiction horror film “Communion.” It epitomizes its era, with alien abduction narratives emerging during the Cold War and permeating popular culture from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to “The X-Files,” tapering off after 9/11. “Communion” demonstrates how effective editing and minimal special effects can heighten tension and emotion. Despite the film’s incredulous premise, Walken delivers a fantastic performance.

    Modesty Blaise” is from a time when comic book adaptations were uncommon in cinemas. This 1966 adaptation of the 1960s comic strip shares stylistic similarities with “Barbarella” and stars a young Terence Stamp. I received a tape copy from a friend who was attending art college at the time. The depiction of the computer as a character with emotional reactions in the film feels contemporary, echoing the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and ChatGPT, despite being portrayed as a mainframe. It is interesting to contrast it with Spike Jonze’s movie Her made 50 years later.

    Useful tools.

    A lot of the tools this month have been inspired by my trusty Mac slowly dying and needing to get my new machine up and running before my old machine gave out.

    Time Machine

    Apple’s native backup software, Time Machine, serves as a personal sysadmin for home users. Regular backups are essential. If a crucial document disappears while you’re working on it, Time Machine, coupled with a Time Machine-enabled hard drive, allows you to retrieve earlier versions of the document, potentially saving your sanity in critical moments.

    Microsoft Office

    I prefer the one-off payment model over Office 365 services. I use Apple’s Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps instead of Outlook. While Office is available for just £100, which is reasonable considering its features, I still prefer Keynote over PowerPoint for creating presentations.

    Superlist

    Many of you may recall Wunderlist, which Microsoft acquired, but much of its original charm was lost in the transition to Microsoft To Do. Superlist is a reboot of Wunderlist by the original team, this time without Microsoft’s involvement. It’s available on iOS, macOS, and the web, catering to both individual and team task management needs.

    https://youtu.be/2MzzbRhYlSA?si=04eBXH-MqKLpX2bN

    ESET Home Security Essential

    I used to rely on Kaspersky, and while I generally like their products, I have concerns about the potential influence of the Russian government. Therefore, I switched providers. ESET has a strong reputation and offers better Mac support than F-Secure. I can recommend their ESET HOME Security Essential package.

    Amazon Basics laptop sleeve

    I use a various bags depending on my destination and activities. Over the years, I’ve found that Amazon Basics brand laptop sleeves work well for my machines. They’re often among the cheapest options available and tend to outlast the computers they protect. 

    Laptop camera cover

    Cover on Mark Zuckerberg laptop camera! You must have to follow this:-

    The photo of Mark Zuckerberg’s laptop with tape covering the camera raised awareness about privacy. Webcam privacy covers, such as a sliver of plastic that slides across, are ideal as they allow your laptop to close fully. A pro tip is to use a red LED torch to clearly locate your camera when applying the stick-on cover.

    Protective case and keyboard cover

    I’m a big fan of clip-on polycarbonate shells to protect my laptop, as they provide a better surface for the stickers that personalize my machine over time. You don’t necessarily need a big-name case. The one I have came with a keyboard cover that works well. Anything that prevented Red Bull, coffee, or croissant flakes from getting under my keys is worth doing.

    Screen protector film

    The screen protector film provides great protection and is easy to apply and clean, even for beginners like me. I’ll update you if my opinion changes.

    The sales pitch.

    I have enjoyed working on projects for PRECISIONeffect and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my April 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the bank holiday.

    Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!

    Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

  • Pharma jargon

    I started my career off working on technology clients who were bad for having their own language but pharma jargon takes things to a new level of complexity. I thought I would write a bluffers guide to make other peoples lives easier.

    Berts Drugstore
    samswitzer

    Here’s some of the examples of pharma jargon that came to mind that aren’t immediately apparent to marketers coming in from other disciplines.

    Adherence – takes treatment as directed.

    AE – Adverse event. When you get a reaction from a medicine that is negative. It could be soreness from an injection, or an upset stomach right the way through to death. Pharma companies have time bounded compliance issues related to AEs. This was one of the reasons why they had been slow to use social media in the past.

    Behaviour change – a lot of pharma marketing hinges on

    CME – continual medical education – used interchangeably with CPD – continual professional development. Online modules or events that allow HCPs to keep up to date with the latest developments. Useful from a marketing point-of-view to reduce barriers to prescribe through upskilling, or reframing the way a condition is used to favour one product over another.

    Co-insurance – the amount the patient has to pay on private healthcare.

    Co-pay – see co-insurance.

    CRO – contract research organisation – a company that helps move a drug to commercialisation a new drug or device from its conception to legal marketing approval. It would be analogous in a lot of other industries to IT outsourcing in terms of its role in a business value chain.

    CVA – see eDetail

    DTC – direct to consumer. With certain product categories there has been a trend to prescribe via telemedicine consultation with a qualified HCP and then the product can be sent direct to the patient.

    eDetail – an interactive presentation usually delivered using a tablet that sales reps use to discuss their client’s product (or increasingly product with a digital service attached) with healthcare professions

    EMA – European Union’s regulatory body, see FDA.

    EOB – explanation of benefits – the positive effects a given pharma product has for the patient. This will be expressed not only in biological terms but also impact on quality of life or improvements in standard of care enjoyed.

    Ethical pharma – branded as opposed to generic prescription products.

    FDA – Food and Drug Administration – the body that certifies whether a product is allowed to be used in the US.

    Formulary – a list of pharma products that are approved for prescribing from a finance perspective.

    GP – general practitioner – family doctor.

    Generic – a pharmaceutical product this is no longer protected by patent rights. It can be manufactured by any company. Patents protecting pharma product intellectual property rights surrounding a product run out after 14 years in the UK, but can vary in other markets.

    HCP – usually a prescriber or a gatekeeper. This can be a hospital specialist of some sort, a prescribing nurse or a prescribing pharmacist. The gatekeeper category might be wider such as specialist nurses, surgery nurses, hospital pharmacists – the rationale for reaching these people is to reduce the friction in using a product once it has been prescribed. A less common gatekeeper role is about referring a patient to a prescriber – particularly where the treatment can only be prescribed by a specialist.

    Ideopathic – as in ideopathic X disease means that the medical profession don’t know the cause.

    iVA – see eDetail

    KOL – key opinion leader. Can be someone who has specialist expertise, is a prolific researcher often cited in medical journals, someone who has an active profile speaking at professional events or on social media. They may be an academic, doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist depending on the market sector, country and product.

    MHRA – Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – a UK regulatory body that is equivalent to the EU’s EMA and the FDA in the US.

    MLR – medical, legal and regulatory. Equivalent of legal and compliance in other industries such as financial services.

    MOA – mode of action. How a pharmaceutical product works (if known).

    MOD – mode of disease. What a condition does to the body, what cells it attacks or biochemical processes it interferes with.

    MSL – medical science liaison. A non-promotional specialist expert in a pharma company. The equivalent in the enterprise technology space would be a pre-sales engineering role.

    NDA – new drug application. Pharma companies like this because it extends the protected life for a drug. A classic example would be semaglutide. Initially it was marketed to treat people with diabetes. But during those trials it was found to correlate with weight loss. It then became a weight loss and management focused product as well. Each application has a patent protected time period.

    OTC – over the counter. In the UK examples would be Gaviscon or Panadol for upset stomachs and pain respectively. Both are available without a prescription.

    PAAB – Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board – an American body that would be similar to the ABPI in the UK. It looks specifically at advertising practices.

    Patent cliff – intellectual property rights on drugs are protected for a period of time (which varies by market). Generally it’s between 8 – 14 years. Once this period is over, the drug can be made by anybody. When a company has a series of drugs falling out of this protected period, the company is considered to have ‘fallen’ off a patent cliff if it doesn’t have new drugs to replace the old versions.

    PAG – patient advocacy group. They advise patients, help fund research, advocate for patient standard of care.

    Patient – person with a medical condition. The end consumer of a pharma product.

    Patient advocate – a patient advocate plays multiple roles. They act as the voice of the patient with pharma companies providing insight into the patient experience. This is important in order to drive a more patient-centric approach. They may appear in the media as a spokesperson and may testify in front of regulators and legislators.

    Patient-centric – a move in marketing over the past two decades from pharma companies just thinking about getting the HCP to prescribe, to thinking about the end consumer experience. Probably one of the first things they could do is stopping using patient and try people with X instead.

    PCP – primary care provider. A family doctor or GP.

    PI – prescribing information, although I have heard product information used. What dose is a product given? How often? Any adverse effects that can happen? Any groups of patients who can’t have the medicine? Any medicines or foods that the products can’t be used in combination with – like antibiotics and alcohol?

    Primary care – family doctor, general practitioner or community clinic.

    Rx – prescription (which drives pharma sales).

    Submitted charges – American healthcare system speak for amount billed.

    Tx – treatment

    Vx – vaccination

  • AI two-step

    The phrase AI two-step is something I first heard from my friend Antony Mayfield. He used it to talk about how companies were adopting the latest developments in AI for business processes. And then reduce headcount to reflect the newly AI derived tasks instead.

    The AI two-step isn’t necessarily a new concept, companies like Pegasystems were using rules-based systems to take away the drudgery of back office work in banking and fund management for decades.

    Further back, companies like Experian, through their access to CCS’ CardPac software provided a service for credit card issuers in the UK using rules-based credit scoring and applications approval. This ran on time-shared mainframe computing resources, which also provided Experian with a good source of ongoing credit worthiness data. All of which reduced the back office work and employees needed by the credit card company. MBNA used to make a virtue out of having every decision reviewed by real live credit analyst, who could overwrite a scoring decision if they saw a compelling reason to do so. (CCS became part of First Data and eventually part of Fiserv).

    HAL 9000

    As these services were being rolled out, there was a corresponding cut in jobs.

    Examples

    Here are just a few examples of businesses adopting AI, some of which are prime examples of the AI two-step.

    IBM

    While IBM may no longer trumpeting its Watson AI service as loudly as it used to, AI methods are dispensing with the need to replace staff who leave the technology company.

    Pfizer’s Charlie

    One might think in the UK that Pfizer should have thought a bit more carefully about the name Charlie, but the aspiration behind the platform is interesting. Charlie was noted to be helping with content creation, fact checking and legal reviews. Research by Bain & Company have found that it isn’t just Pfizer in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector that are taking this approach. Some 40 percent of executives who were surveyed said that uses of generative AI were factored into their 2024 budgets.

    Bain indicated uses across a wide range of business functions within pharma:

    • IT programming code review
    • Competitive intelligence
    • Research and biomedical literature review
    • Marketing copy
    • Augmenting the selling process as a sales co-pilot and contact centre automation

    Publicis

    French listed marketing combine Publicis made a high profile adoption of machine learning and AI-based services back in 2017 under the moniker Marcel. Back then Marcel was being used for workflow type tasks and organisation of data. This year Publicis rebranded its approach to the less playful CoreAI, so far it has cut the use of freelance staff – which are usually essential for project delivery in ad agencies, rather than the usual AI two-step of lay-offs.

    UPS

    UPS adoption of AI techniques in everything from workflow to customer service allowed the logistics company to make the largest lay-offs in its 116-year history.

    Clear analogues to the AI two-step?

    Various commentators compare the AI two-step happening to the dot com boom of the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. The comparison with the dot com boom is easy at first. You have businesses that have phenomenal share price growth, widespread interest and experimentation. Business sectors from advertising to Hollywood are concerned about massive disruption.

    The examples I would think about would be factory automation and business process re-engineering. In factor automation, over decades companies used machines to negate the need for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. A friend of mine worked in Huddersfield in a textile mill. He was one of just a couple of people who worked a shift. None of them were weavers, they were engineers and an IT admin who maintained the lines of machines turning out high-end suiting fabric that was mostly sold to Japanese clothing manufacturers. This came very close to being a ‘lights out production line‘ where the product is handmade by robots as they used to say in the old Fiat car advertisements.

    Weavers and machine operators were replaced by a lot fewer, but more expensive roles.

    Business process re-engineering was driven by enterprises implementing enterprise software to drive efficiencies and automate workflows. This was a lucrative time for consultancies who were brought in to shape a company’s workforce and processes to fit a software company’s pre-defined template for that industry. This was usually based on average industry standards. Software giant SAP have been building and refining these templates for the best part of 50 years, each industry template draws on individual units that might cover a business function like HR, finance or asset management.

    A bit of software customisation was needed to fit a given business, and it might have to interface with third party products to handle market complexities such as different tax regimes.

    The consultancy teams also laid-off employees that didn’t fit the framework. That’s what business process re-engineering actually meant.

    Automation was responsible for putting up to 47% of American jobs at risk. However other research indicates that new forms of skilled or professional jobs are being created. One of the big problems with this data is that they are speculative models. More positive takes from businesses fuelling automation like McKinsey and Company versus more critical predictions from government think tanks and academics.

    Factory automation and business process engineering are both similar to the use of AI in business, in that they are primarily helping mature businesses maintain their position and drive efficiency. The dot com boom on the other hand was much more disruptive and spawning more upstart businesses – some of which were very successful and leaving mature businesses struggling to cope. From financial services to media – pre-internet businesses are still struggling to cope with the innovation and disruption that begat the dot com boom.

    Optimists versus pessimists

    The optimists highlight a number of nuances that they think mediates the impact of automation and machine learning over time.

    Tasks over jobs.

    It’s tasks rather than whole jobs are being lost. Yet if you look at the data that Scott Galloway shared in his newsletter and the speedy ‘these job losses aren’t down to AI denials’ this optimistic assumption is pure fiction. The jobs being lost are the second part of the AI two-step.

    Creative destruction.

    Jobs are being created too and it’s often about ‘skill shifts’ rather than ‘job shifts’. While there are redundancies being made, there is a requirement (at the moment) for people skilled in writing ‘prompts’ to get the most out of the AI models created.

    Overconfidence.

    Overconfidence in technology and what it can do. An extension of this is a belief in the perfectibility of technology. A classic example of this is Air Canada’s recently aborted use of an AI-powered customer service chatbot. The airline quietly pulled its chatbot offline after being found legally liable for bad advice given by the customer service bot to a customer.

    Moffatt booked airfares and retrospectively submitted an application for a refund to the reduced bereavement fare after travelling. Air Canada denied the request. Moffatt challenged that decision, saying he was owed the refund because he had relied on the information provided to him by the chatbot on Air Canada’s website. Air Canada admitted that the information provided by the chatbot was “misleading”, but it contested Moffatt’s right to a refund, highlighting that he had been provided with the correct information via the link the chatbot shared in its message.

    The Civil Resolution Tribunal considered whether Air Canda was liable for negligent misrepresentation, which arises under Canadian law when a seller does not exercise reasonable care to ensure its representations are accurate and not misleading. Moffatt was required to show that Air Canada owed him a duty of care, that its representation was untrue, inaccurate or misleading, that Air Canada made the representation negligently, that he reasonably relied on it, and that that reliance resulted in damages. The court held that Moffatt met those requirements.

    The Civil Resolution Tribunal noted that Air Canada had argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants or representatives, including a chatbot, but had not explained the basis for that suggestion. The Civil Resolution Tribunal rejected as a “remarkable submission” Air Canada’s suggestion that the chatbot was a separate legal entity that was responsible for its own actions.

    Air Canada chatbot case highlights AI liability risks by Meghan Higgins, Pinsent Masons

    Demographic change.

    Demographics – the idea that aging countries from the west to China, Japan and Korea have skills deficits due to population decline. Automation is one of the coping mechanisms alongside globalisation and migration that have been suggested solutions. The Chinese are also looking at building factories in countries like Ethiopia, who have a young and growing population. Automation makes sense where migration would adversely affect social cohesion and the cost of globalisation would be more expensive than automation technologies. Workers in the global south are dependent on being cheaper than machines, rather like the American legend of John Henry versus the steam engine.

    Companies like Automata have been looking to help businesses automate repetitive low skilled work, such as sandwich making in food service factories or low volume manufacturing tasks.

    John Henry Statue

    The state of automation in different roles is running along at different rates of progress. While John Deere have managed to make the most of arable farmland through the use of telematics and GPS guidance of tractors, automating farming for tasks like harvesting is proving more difficult. This is exasperated in the UK at least by the challenge of getting sustained venture capital for hardware. Technology automation in other sectors such as construction and healthcare continues to move at a slow pace.

    In an area like consumer electronics we have seen benefits and declines in automation. Benefits in the way a company like Apple can manage a sophisticated global supply chain workflow via automated software. Apple has also pioneered the use of robotics in dismantling its more modern smartphones when they are brought in to be recycled.

    The declining area has been one of design choice. Prior to the smartphone and broadband internet, companies like Panasonic designed circuit boards that were less dense with components. The reason for this was to facilitate automated board manufacture through the use of ‘pick and place’.

    Nokia used similar techniques for its cellphones and smartphones until the business was disrupted. Apple iPhones needed much more manual assembly because of the tightly packed components in their phones. Young women were valued for their small hands and manual dexterity leading to concerns about worker conditions.

    More work to be done.

    Creation of new jobs seems to be a matter of faith. IT in businesses drove an increased amount of management, the move online drove a need for webmasters, web designers and online marketers. There is an assumption that over time AI will have a similar effect, beyond people who can write prompts.

    Limiting factors

    Technology

    While GPT based models have surprised both in terms of what they can do and fail to do, there is a belief amongst experts that:

    Data sets will only get you so far. There is no clear path to a new technique, or what older techniques would need to be combined with GPT-based systems. Of the data sets out there, a significant minority could be filled with ‘poison’ data like nightshade.

    That there isn’t enough data to train models in a lot of cases and synthetic data is often used instead. Others believe that this will corrupt and stunt future AI models rather than help them.

    Resources

    AI systems like crypto mining consume a lot of energy and require a lot of water for cooling which is already straining data centres and infrastructure. All of which will impact corporates ESG profile and larger investor relations health. You could have an amazing AI model, but if you have as bad an ESG rating as Exxon you willl struggle to raise funds.

    More information

    Corporate Ozempic | No mercy / no malice

    No, Robots Aren’t Destroying Half of All Jobs | London School of Economics (LSE)

    Antony Mayfield – Antonym newsletter

    AI feedback loop will spell death for future generative models | TechSpot 

    Mixtral 8x7B: Quality, Performance & Price Analysis | Artificial Analysis 

    AI-poisoning tool Nightshade now available for artists to use | VentureBeat 

    AI sucks at telling jokes — but it’s great at analyzing them | The Next Web 

    At WEF in Davos, Sam Altman and Will.i.am differ on AI | Quartz 

  • Complaint resolution + more things

    Complaint resolution

    My mind cast back to one of the first modules I studied at college. There was a lecture on the role of complaint resolution as part of customer services. The idea was that effective complaint resolution engendered trust in a customer service function and was more likely to increase brand loyalty and recommendation to other people. In reality Ehrensberg-Bass Institute have explored this area in more depth and found that customer penetration is more important than customer loyalty.

    Approaching Logan Airport
    US National Archives: Approaching Logan Airport. 05/1973 by Michael Manheim

    I suspect that the benefit in complaint resolution is more around a premium brand positioning rather than the business benefits of loyalty. This is an interesting frame to consider AirHelp’s global airline ranking. Unlike SkyTrax that focuses on experience, AirHelp weighs its ranking heavily on complaint resolution.

    British Airways came 82nd out of 83 airlines assessed, which won’t be a surprise to anyone who has flown with them over the past four years.

    Many airlines that would have a high SkyTrax service ranking, didn’t perform as well on complaint resolution.

    So there wasn’t a clear correlation between experience resolving lots of customer complaints or a highly evolved service offering.

    Beauty

    Asia’s beauty triangle and why L’Oréal wants to harness it to ‘uncover the future’ | Cosmectics Design Asia – focus on the ‘beauty triangle of China, Japan and Korea for innovation

    Consumer behaviour

    The Strength of Weak Ties by Mark S. Granovetter – written back in 1973 and still just as valid.

    Energy

    Emerging car brands scrutinised by Bloomberg and Grant Thornton | Manufacturer“Chinese brands are dominating the scene with good products, big screens, and impressive interfaces.” However, the challenge arises when considering pricing, as Chinese EVs like the XPeng’s G9 SUV was 72,000 euros competing against the likes of BMW and Mercedes. So they’re going to find it very, difficult and it’s going to come down to price.” Dean pointed out MG’s success in the UK market was achieved by hitting exactly the right sweet spot in terms of pricing. The MG ZS, the second-best-selling battery electric vehicle in the UK, is priced at an average of £31,000, making it compelling in terms of competitive pricing especially in a country where consumers are not fiercely loyal to specific brands. – interesting reading. The way for Chinese vendors to win would be to have Chinese incentivised lease financing, particularly in a time of higher interest rates a la Huawei in the telecoms markets.

    Honda will cease production of its first EV e car after dismal sales | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

    Ethics

    Bee Respect: Guerlain – interesting full-featured sustainability policy

    Staff rebel at consultancy behind VW review of Xinjiang rights abuse | FT – Volkswagen using sketchy data practices, haven’t we heard this somewhere before?

    Finance

    China Turns the Tables on Wall Street – WSJ – I am not surprised, just wait until they see how Chinese overseas debt is handled let alone 3rd world sovereign debt

    FMCG

    China overtakes US as branded coffee shop capital of the world | Starbucks | The Guardian

    Health

    American men are dying younger. – by Richard V Reeves – I just don’t think this can be addressed in the current climate of othering and privilege. It would be like trying to hold a meaningful discussion on immigration a few decades ago.

    How Taiwan’s disease detectives are keeping tabs on China | Telegraph Online

    Hong Kong

    Xi in Nanning; Shanghai and Beijing real estate tweaks; More Hong Kong bounties; Sim Love | Sinocism – the Hong Kong puts bounty on the head of US citizen who has criticised the Hong Kong government in the US. They are all ethic Chinese. So China and the Hong Kong government think that ethnic Chinese wherever they are should be loyal to their respective administrations – in essence their face is their passport. Not even Israel does something similar with the the world’s Jewish community, or Ireland with our diaspora.

    Innovation

    Quantum Breakthrough: Caltech Scientists Unveil New Way To Erase Quantum Computer ErrorsResearchers from Caltech have developed a quantum eraser to correct “erasure” errors in quantum computing systems. This technique, which involves manipulating alkaline-earth neutral atoms in laser light “tweezers,” allows for the detection and correction of errors through fluorescence. The innovation leads to a tenfold improvement in entanglement rates in Rydberg neutral atom systems, representing a crucial step forward in making quantum computers more reliable and scalable.

    Luxury

    LVMH takes VivaTech 2023 visitors on a journey in its Dream Box and LVMH Court – LVMH

    Suntory to double prices for premium whiskies in April | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

    South Korea’s Coupang to acquire online luxury retailer Farfetch | FT

    Marketing

    The best of the Jay Chiat Awards: Campaigns that broke habits and reframed perceptions | WARC

    Panadol chief marketer: How healthcare is ‘hotting up’, consolidating agency partners and why purpose can go ‘too far | Campaign Asia – rational for not spreading agency spend ‘too thin’ which explains holding company partnerships

    Media

    What the Epic vs Google case means for content | Ian Betteridge – well worth reading

    Online

    Meta forced to apologise to Qatari billionaire over crypto scams | FT

    TikTok car confessionals are the new YouTube bedroom vlogs | TechCrunch – a combination of factors going on here. Here’s my top hypotheses:

    • It is supposed to look ‘off-the-cuff’. I guess the keyword in that sentence is supposed.
    • It feels less structured and less staged than the YouTube bedroom trope.
    • Its a half-way house between being confident enough to film in public and filming in your bedroom.
    • Many cars have smartphone stands, or have owners who have installed them.
    • Cars offer some benefits in terms of acoustics. This would be particularly important if the content creator lives in a multiple occupancy household.

    WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg asked people to blog as a way of celebrating his 40th birthday.

    Retailing

    Brands are blaming Temu & Shein for poor business performance | Modern Retail – you probably have a problem with marketing and communicating value if this is the case.

    Technology

    What leading Apple-in-the-enterprise execs expect in ’24 | Computerworld

    GV Co-Leads Funding Round for Photonic Computing Startup Lightmatter – Bloomberg

    Web of no web

    How Meta’s New Face Camera Heralds a New Age of Surveillance – The New York Times

    Wireless

    6G: network operators want profitable returns on 5G first | FT

  • Padel + more things

    Padel

    The racket sport padel seems to have got the zeitgeist, if not the player numbers yet. We haven’t really seen a surge in sports fads since the 1980s. During that time skateboarding rose from a peak in the late 1970s, to a more stable underground sport that we have today. The closure of a squash racquet factory in Cambridge, saw the sport globalise manufacture and playing. In a few short years rackets went from gut strings and ash wood frames to synthetic strings and carbon fibre composite rackets. It was as much a symbol of the striving business man as the Filofax or the golf bag. Interest was attracted by a large amount of courts and racket technology that greatly improved the game.

    Squash had its origins in the late 19th century and took the best part of a century to reach its acme in the cultural zeitgeist. Skateboarding started in the late 1940s and took a mere 30 years to breakout. Padel falls somewhere between the two. Padel was invented in 1969. But it took COVID-19 to drive its popularity in Europe and North America.

    There is a new world professional competition circuit for 2024. And it has attracted the interest of court developers looking to cater to what they believe is latent consumer demand.

    Finally, you can get three padel courts in the space for one tennis court. More on the padel gold rush from the FT.

    The challenge is if padel is just a fad, or has it longevity? Skateboarding is popular, but many councils didn’t see the benefit of supporting skate parks built in the 1970s around the country. Squash still has its fans but doesn’t have the same popularity that it enjoyed in the 1980s.

    How to play padel

    More on the basics of how to play padel here.

    Business

    British American Tobacco writes down $31.5 billion as it shifts its business away from cigarettes

    China

    “He Always Talks About the West”-Former University President Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison in China and Who’s Afraid of Chizuko Ueno? The Party’s Ongoing Counteroffensive against Feminism in the Xi Era don’t inspire investor confidence in China

    China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge – POLITICO – the narrative feels wrong around this article, even though the purge is on

    Bloomberg New Economy: China’s Economic Heft Sinks for First Time Since 1994 – Bloomberg

    Consumer behaviour

    Firewater | No Mercy / No Malice – on young people and risk

    What’s it like being a Disney adult? – The Face – this is much more common in Hong Kong, but then people had annual passes to go there. I found it interesting that The Face othered it as a sub-culture

    Vittles Reviews: There Is Always Another ProvinceProvince-chasing isn’t just a Western phenomenon; China is still so vast that when the barbecued food of Xinjiang, one of China’s border provinces, showed up in a former sausage shop on Walworth Road at Lao Dao, it didn’t need to open to the general public for months, choosing only to take bookings via Chinese social media. The paradox is that the success of regional Chinese restaurants has created a Western audience which wants more, but that same success has allowed these restaurants to bypass those customers altogether

    Culture

    Television: one of the most audacious pranks in history was hidden in a hit TV show for years.Watch enough episodes of Melrose Place and you’ll notice other very odd props and set design all over the show. A pool float in the shape of a sperm about to fertilize an egg. A golf trophy that appears to have testicles. Furniture designed to look like an endangered spotted owl. It turns out all of these objects, and more than 100 others, were designed by an artist collective called the GALA Committee. For three years, as the denizens of the Melrose Place apartment complex loved, lost, and betrayed one another, the GALA Committee smuggled subversive leftist art onto the set, experimenting with the relationship between art, artist, and spectator. The collective hid its work in plain sight and operated in secrecy. Outside of a select few insiders, no one—including Aaron Spelling, Melrose’s legendary executive producer—knew what it was doing. The project was called In the Name of the Place. It ended in 1997. Or, perhaps, since the episodes are streamable, it never ended

    Design

    Sony Access Controller Review: A Beautiful Addition for All Gamers | WIRED

    Is the flat design trend finally over? | by Chan Karunaratne | Dec, 2023 | UX Collective

    Economics

    China’s accelerating rise in consumer defaults | FT – inspite of the social credit scores and lack of opportunity to declare personal bankruptcy

    China challenge is too much for Republican market fundamentalism | FT

    Energy

    Audi to build all-electric rugged 4×4 to rival Defender and G-Class | CAR Magazine – differentiating from the SUV field. Interesting that the Land Cruiser and Ineos doesn’t make the comparison list, yet the G-Wagen does.

    China uranium grab poses threat to western energy supply, warns Yellow Cake | FT

    Ethics

    After $500m Zuckerberg donation, Harvard university gutted its disinfo team studying Facebook | Boing Boing

    AI’s carbon footprint is bigger than you think

    Are fashion’s buying practices really improving? | Vogue Business – buyers think that they are taking a long term more collaborative approach, supplier feedback reflects an unchanged reality

    Finance

    Blockchains are entering their “broadband era” | Visa – I was surprised by the amount of faith that Visa has in the future of Blockchain technology

    Against the odds, China’s push to internationalise its currency is making gains

    Gadgets

    Rode acquire Mackie | Sound On Sound – this is big for podcasters, but also for artists that record in their own studios. Mackie mixers have powered the home grown set-ups of artists like The Prodigy, The Crystal Method, Brian Eno, Daft Punk and Orbital.

    Health

    China e-cigarette titan behind ‘Elf Bar’ floods the US with illegal vapes | ReutersIn the United States, the firm simply ignored regulations on new products and capitalized on poor enforcement. It has flooded the U.S. market with flavored vapes that have been among the best-selling U.S. brands, including Elf Bar, EBDesign and Lost Mary. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, Zhang has complied with regulations requiring lower nicotine levels and government registration while building an unmatched distribution network — and driving a surge in youth vaping

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong migrants revel in Cantopop concerts, films from home as tears flow, emotions high in ‘collective healing’ at venues in Canada, UK | South China Morning Post

    Hong Kong’s first ‘patriots-only’ district council poll reflects political tale of two cities, as some eagerly rush to vote and others shy away | South China Morning PostHong Kong on election day splits into two camps, with one eager to vote out of civic duty and others giving polling stations wide berth over lack of political diversity. ‘I thought more people would come and vote because there has been more publicity,’ one elector says after discovering sleepy atmosphere at local polling station – the question is will Beijing take anything from this voter turn out? Does it signal suppressed but indignant separatists, or Hong Kongers who are more focused on prosperity and weekend Netflix? If they suspect the former then the security situation is likely to get more dire

    Ideas

    A simple theory of cancel culture – by Joseph Heath

    Innovation

    The first humanoid robot factory is about to open | Axios

    Japan

    “Hoarder Hygge” is the Anti-Zen – Matt Alt’s Pure Invention – this applies equally well to Hong Kong as well, presumably for similar reasons

    London

    Outernet now London’s most visited tourist attraction | The Times

    Luxury

    Inside Louis Vuitton’s Hong Kong spectacle | Vogue BusinessWhile Hong Kong is gradually recovering from the pandemic lockdowns, growth in Mainland China is slowing. According to HSBC estimates, luxury sales there are expected to grow 5 per cent in 2024, a sharp deceleration compared with 2023’s projected 18 per cent.

    New 2024 Porsche Macan EV: we reveal tech secrets of Stuttgart’s first electric SUV | CAR Magazine

    Marketing

    How One Campaign Changed Everything for Coca-Cola | AdWeek

    Stop focusing on ‘Gen Z’: we’re missing the true audience challenge – The Media Leader

    Behind the Pop Culture Roots of Pepsi’s Modern Retro Redesign – so Pepsi’s own advertising over 30 years had less impact than films from the 1980s and 1990s with younger consumers – that’s a damning indictment if ever I heard one

    Media

    Spotify Is Screwed | WIRED

    Disney global ads president: expect streaming consolidation – The Media Leader – and presumably they think Disney will be a winner?

    Meme

    When My Dog Died, I Turned to a Specific Image for Comfort. Many Do. | Slate – how the idea of the ‘rainbow bridge’ heaven analogue for dogs came about.

    Online

    Techrights — CNN Contributes to Demolition of the Open Web

    Quality

    You are never taught how to build quality software | Florian Bellmann | Be curious, explore and meditate.

    Retailing

    The EU is taking on fashion’s open secret: Destroying unsold goods | Vogue Business

    McDonald’s Launching Spinoff Restaurant Chain Called CosMc’s | Today – I’ll write more about Cosmc’s once I have collected my thoughts on it.

    Security

    Daring Fireball: 23andMe Confirms Hackers Stole Ancestry Data on 6.9 Million Users

    UK’s data regulator resists call to investigate China’s BGI over genomic concerns | Reuters

    Stealing AI models

    Software

    Warning from OpenAI leaders helped trigger Sam Altman’s ouster – The Washington Post

    Practical Ways To Increase Product Velocity | Stay SaaSy

    How it’s Made: Interacting with Gemini through multimodal prompting – Google for Developers

    Apple Makes a Quiet AI Move – On my Om

    Putting China’s Top LLMs to the Test – by Irene Zhang

    Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech | MIT Technology Review

    Documentary on the state of AI

    Technology

    GPU Cloud Economics Explained – The Hidden Truth

    Chipmaking Amid War in Israel – by Nicholas Welch – everything is political.

    ASML axes CTO role with new CEO | EE Times – given that the next stage technology path is rocky to say the least and innovation needs to be a key focus for ASML this made me nervous.

    Broadcom first to add AI to network switch chip | EE Times

    Wireless

    Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are staying connected to the world via donated eSIMs

    Report: 5G global mobile data traffic set to triple in six years | EE News Europe