According to the AMA – Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. This has contained a wide range of content as a section over the years including
Super Bowl advertising
Spanx
Content marketing
Fake product reviews on Amazon
Fear of finding out
Genesis the Korean luxury car brand
Guo chao – Chinese national pride
Harmony Korine’s creative work for 7-Eleven
Advertising legend Bill Bernbach
Japanese consumer insights
Chinese New Year adverts from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore
Doughnutism
Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
Influencer promotions
A media diary
Luxe streetwear
Consumerology by marketing behaviour expert Phil Graves
Payola
Dettol’s back to work advertising campaign
Eat Your Greens edited by Wiemer Snijders
Dove #washtocare advertising campaign
The fallacy of generations such as gen-z
Cultural marketing with Stüssy
How Brands Grow Part 2 by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp
Facebook’s misleading ad metrics
The role of salience in advertising
SAS – What is truly Scandinavian? advertising campaign
Brand winter
Treasure hunt as defined by NPD is the process of consumers bargain hunting
Lovemarks
How Louis Vuitton has re-engineered its business to handle the modern luxury consumer’s needs and tastes
Braun 100 Years Virgil – collaboration with Virgil Abloh – you would be more worries about the fingerprints rather than playing anything on the Wandanlage. Virgil Abloh has done collaborations with a range of brands from Rimowa to Mercedes-Benz. More design related posts here.
Global networks 2030
While we have been concerned with the glacial rollout of 5G wireless networks, the Center of Strategic and International Studies have been thinking in more depth about future technologies through the lens of geopolitics. It is well worth having this video on in the background one lunch time.
It was interesting that the main sponsors of this report were Japanese corporates and participation by the Japanese government. Japan has deployed OpenRAN solutions for 5G, which explains why this has featured in the interviews. There is a report that accompanies this video, available here. The Japanese government is looking to set standards beyond 5G and is building a coalition of the willing around this.
New York latin sound
David Lynch of Talking Heads fame is worthwhile following online for is amazing musical curation skills such as this playlist of 1970s era latin sounds coming out of New York. You can see the clear link to disco. It is no coincidence that one of the biggest disco labels Salsoul records was named after salsa and soul music.
Motion Capture and realistic digital influencers
CodeMiko talks about her use of motion capture technology to create a surprisingly lifelike digital character. Miko worked in Hollywood on animation motion capture before COVID-19. Skip to 8h15 to get to the most interesting stuff here.
Neuroscience and brand experiences
UK Advertising have put together some great talks. This one about rebuilding brand connections through experiences and neuroscience.
Mordor
Amazing drone footage that I expect was shot in Iceland. The footage of a volcano reminded me of JRR Tolkein’s description of Mordor and Mount Doom in the Lord Of The Rings.
Bravecto
Something that colleagues have been working on, has now hit the US airwaves. Bravecto fluralaner for Merck Animal Health (US). Shooting during COVID-19 adds all kinds of challenges.
Adult male virginity soars | Boing Boing – There are far more merciless forces in play, not least dating and hookup success being forced onto the same algorithmic curve as everything else on social media; the increasingly hypnotic impulse to live lives online; and the generally hopeless economic circumstances of young people who are getting very little out of life, but haven’t yet decided to burn it all down – interesting disparity between men and women in the data. I think the reasons behind adult male virginity soaring are multi-causal. I can see how adult male virginity trends will be be endlessly kicked around by a football to suit one viewpoint or another
China
How much will China grow as an export market? | Hinrich Foundation – Policy makers are currently in a conundrum over how best to engage economically with China. Underlying much of the debate is the assumption that China is a huge and rapidly growing market. While that has historically been true, the falling import intensity of China’s economic growth suggests a more limited market than foreign exporters assume
A number of Hong Kong oligarchs brought up in mainland China, initially made their money on smuggling materials into China. This was back when the country was closed off. This included luxury goods, oil, truck tyres, machine parts or antibiotics. For instance, casino magnate Stanley Ho made his first fortune during world war II and the aftermath smuggling luxury goods from Macau into China. So it didn’t surprise me to see Fujianese Chinese connections involved in smuggling crude oil into North Korea.
New York Times YouTube channel
The New York Times Visual Investigations team used a mixture of old school investigative journalism and open source intelligence techniques championed by Bellingcat to blow open the story.
A Brief History of Semiconductors: How The US Cut Costs and Lost the Leading Edge | by Employ America | Mar, 2021 | Medium – As the industry matured and the competitive environment changed, the policy framework shifted as well. Since the 1970s, industrial policy has been incrementally replaced by a capital-light “science policy” strategy, while mammoth “champion firms” and asset-light innovators have replaced a robust ecosystem of small and large production-focused firms. While this strategy was initially successful, it has created a fragile system. Today, the industry is constrained on one side by fragile supply chains narrowly tailored to the needs of a few firms with enormous investment moats, and on the other side by the many asset-light design firms who are unable to generate or capture process improvements – this going into reversal is going to offer a bonanza for semiconductor manufacturing equipment vendors
Hong Kong Cantopop singer Eason Chan cuts ties with Adidas after brands reject forced labour – probably one of the odder celebrity backlashes against western companies not wanting to use forced labour in its supply chains. Chan is a Cantopop singer, he has low to no exposure to the mainland. His fan base is in Hong Kong and amongst the Hong Kong diaspora. On balance, give the age profile most of his fans will be ‘yellow’ in terms of their viewpoint. He is doing himself no favours by putting his head over the parapet. His fan base will shrink because of his hyper ‘blue’ alignment. I wonder what brought about his performative outrage. It carried more weight than Hong Kong politician promising not to wear another Burberry scarf until the brand backtracked on using Uighur picked cotton.
Luxury Brands Are Moving Into Online Stealth Mode. But How Can They Measure Success? – At the beginning of this year, Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta signed off its social media accounts not with a bang, but with silence. The move, which was followed by the removal of its content on its Weibo account, was praised by many and marked a decided shift in the wider luxury market between brands that choose to be more inclusive in mindset, and those that are taking a more exclusive approach with their customers – I was surprised when many luxury brands went on to social media in the first place. On the flipside it makes complete sense for premium streetwear brands like Moncler.
H&M boycott in China intensifies over Xinjiang supply issue | Marketing | Campaign Asia – The statement surfaced on social media yesterday and sparked an online storm of opinions. Comments on Weibo included “get out of Chinese market”, “the company’s clothes sucks, and I will no longer buy”, and “I heard that you are boycotting Chinese cotton, then I will boycott your products”. Chinese actor Huang Xuan has also terminated his relationship with the brand, according to reports. On his Weibo account, he posted a statement that said he was “firmly opposed to any attempt to discredit the country”. Those calling for a boycott claim that international sanctions against China are unjustified and based on “biased reports in foreign media and from international human rights campaigners”. – its a day with a ‘y’ in it, which means that China will be waging war by other means. The most recent high profile example would be the way Lotte was run out of China. The sooner the west start boycotting the Chinese market and supply chain the better. More at the FT – H&M and Nike face China backlash over Xinjiang stance | Financial Times
Technology
Molson-Coors Discloses Cybersecurity Incident that Affected Production in 8-K Filing | Data Privacy + Cybersecurity Insider – Molson Coors Beverage Company (the “Company”) announced that it experienced a systems outage that was caused by a cybersecurity incident. The Company has engaged leading forensic information technology firms and legal counsel to assist the Company’s investigation into the incident and the Company is working around the clock to get its systems back up as quickly as possible.
I wrote a blog post back in February 2014 that highlighted 40 blogs that inspired me, revisiting this post I decided to write about 2021 blogs that inspire me. But first how did the original list hold up in 2021?
Original list in 2021
Name / Category
Description
Analysis
Wall Street Journal Corporate Intelligence blog
No longer exists, the link defaults to the Wall Street Journal front page.
Edge Perspectives with John Hagel
– No longer exists
Monocle Monocolumn
Monocle has kept the archive online, but the Monocolumn is no longer updated. It has been abandoned in favour of the Monocle Minute
The Asia Society have a blog which alternates between amazing photography from the region and analysis pieces with an academic / think tank type feel. It is still maintained
Still sporadically posted to by Robert Kelly a Korean-based professor of international relations, it has some interesting posts analyzing the complex relationships across APAC. In 2017, became better known when his children gatecrashed a television interview he was doing via Skype with the BBC
Bytes of China
No longer available
China Real Time
The blog has disappeared and now diverts to the WSJ’s Asian news section.
A ‘best of ‘ website that looks at different technology categories
What surprised me about the 2012 list is how many blogs covering different aspects of China in terms of the technology scene, culture and online life have disappeared or stopped being updated. Despite the fact that now, more than ever, they are needed.
Major media outlets have walked back from building blogs based on interest areas or personalities ( like a traditional newspaper columnist).
By comparison, I have a compiled an exemplar list of inspirational 2021 blogs. I look at more but that would be ludicrously long to compile.
Asian Sentinel is edited by a couple of veteran Asia based journalists. The content comes from a number of experts in the region in specialisms such as finance, economics and policy.
English language blog that collates Hong Kong celebrity news from Cantonese language media. It is was important for me to keep an eye on this when working in Hong Kong. It is also a good way to track the slow death of the Hong Kong domestic media industry.
English language version of a Japanese news site that focuses on ‘fun, weird, and intriguing news from Asia, particularly Japan’. It has some great Japanese consumer insight content including retail experiences
The South China Morning Post historically was the paper of record for Hong Kong. It’s medium-to-long term usefulness looks in question with the National Security Act and the Chinese government pressure for Jack Ma to divest media ownership
Colossal in their own words – “an international platform for contemporary art and visual expression that explores a vast range of creative disciplines.”
George Tannenbaum is a 40 year creative veteran in the advertising industry. His blog is a mix of smart thinking and ranting about ageism and other isms in the ad industry (there’s a lot of them to rant about)
France Telecom has a blog about the bleeding edge of technology. Alongside the usual 5G flag waving you’d expect from a major mobile network operator there’s some thoughtful content
Despite the name, covers technology and does some interesting business analysis. I really like the way everything is delivered in succinct bullet points
FCA brings money laundering charges against NatWest | Financial Times – UK banks have a reputation for industrial scale money laundering; with the anti-laundering regulations only inconveniencing small players. That the NatWest my only surprise is that it wasn’t HSBC. Why HSBC rather than NatWest? HSBC have long had a reputation for money laundering. Secondly, HSBC’s handling of the Hong Kong protests, and then its strange pivot towards China despite its involvement in Huawei CFO case. Compare this to the NatWest that the UK government still partly owns due to the 2008 financial crisis
Jeff Bezos and Amazon: A complicated design legacy – A major part of design’s value proposition is the process. Designers identify problems to create solutions. Amazon, on the other hand, has often identified solutions before naming the problem. Sometimes that approach worked. But often, it didn’t. And it created an ecosystem with a surprising number of hidden costs. “Amazon will never be a design-led company. It’s evident in the quality of the products they ship. And although the design is still thriving there, I don’t believe it’s fundamental to the core DNA of the company,” says a former Amazon designer who worked closely with Bezos on several products. “Just because there’s ‘customer obsession’ doesn’t mean there’s an investment in quality and design rigor.”
Japan’s SBI plans Hong Kong pullout on concerns over security law | Financial Times – I was surprised Yoshitaka Kitao came out so unequivocally against the national security law with the statement that ‘without freedom, there is no financial business’ – most companies have pussyfooted around the issue, like they have done around Brexit. SBI are also reviewing their presence in London
StanChart tries to navigate moral minefield | Financial Times – really interesting read about he challenges that Standard Chartered is facing and how they are trying to manage them. It provides an unfavourable contrast for HSBC though both are a right mess
The UK is secretly testing a controversial web snooping tool | WIRED UK – police and internet companies across the UK have been quietly building and testing surveillance technology that could log and store the web browsing of every single person in the country. The tests, which are being run by two unnamed internet service providers, the Home Office and the National Crime Agency, are being conducted under controversial surveillance laws introduced at the end of 2016. If successful, data collection systems could be rolled out nationally, creating one of the most powerful and controversial surveillance tools used by any democratic nation