Ged Carroll

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  • You Are Here by Phillips & Milner

    This is a book review of You Are Here which provides a critique on the current political media landscape from a predominantly US perspective. I decided to read the book given that it was endorsed by online media researcher and author danah boyd. danah is most famous for her long time researching the online lives of young people. I first came across her when she worked briefly at Yahoo! Research.

    Navigating polarised speech, conspiracy theories and media landscape

    You Are Here is written by two American academics: Whitney Phillips and Ryan M Milner. In the book they try to make sense of the current media landscape and what they consider to be the likely causes.

    You are here

    Ecology as metaphor

    You Are Here uses the metaphor of ecology to discuss a polluted landscape poisoning society. This has two effects:

    • It taps into the deep concerns of their readers who have a lot of anxiety around areas like climate change
    • It encourages system thinking in people who are otherwise not system thinkers

    The downside is that it might convey the kind of desperation and hopelessness that we see around climate change also affect the media landscape creating a kind of dark ennui among the readers.

    Conspiracy theories

    Phillips and Milner focus on conspiracy theories going back the satanist concerns of the 1980s and 1990s. While conspiracy theories are important and memetic in nature, there is a risk that focusing on them misses a wider truth. Why do people feel the way they do? Brexit research showed us that a good deal of concern was about the rate of change and being economically left behind. The role of class and the isolation of working class voices and issues in political discourse and the media left the door open for conspiracy theories.

    Strengths and weaknesses

    You Are Here does a good job at summarising much of the current media theory thinking about how platforms alter our collective perceptions.

    You Are Here describes itself as a field guide. A field guide is a book designed to help readers identify things or phenomena rather than offering solutions per se. The reality is that for most readers, their exposure to the content discussed in the book through the proverbial rear view mirror of coverage on MSNBC News, The New York Times or The Atlantic or conversations with friends and family members who live outside the major cities. There is an assumption that the interested reader is unaware of the current media landscape. In this respect the book is likely to raise anxiety, entrench beliefs and focus the reader on regulation as the sole solution to the current media landscape. I don’t think that this will necessarily move things forward. It will reinforce progressive readers own biases. I recognise and identify with Phillips and Milner’s world view, which is similar to my own – but I have some self awareness of my own viewpoint in a sea of opinions.

    Platforms

    A decade ago I worked with Amy Gershkoff. Amy had previously been involved in the media planning and analytics for the campaign to re-elect President Obama. At the time, the narrative being communicated was that media and social media platforms through the judicious use of data and optimising for algorithms offered the opportunity to help Obama to be re-elected.

    The reality of these things are somewhat different. Programmatic media is often correctly targeting half the time. But when it gets it right, it can be creepy.

    Amy took this story to large corporates in Hong Kong and China, which was where I was working at the time. The irony of ‘the power of modern political campaigning online’ being used as an example of omni-channel marketing for Chinese companies wasn’t lost on me. Phillips and Milner’s stance misses this wider picture.

    The Obama campaign built on pioneering work that has been done by the like of Joe Trippi for Howard Dean when he ran for consideration as the future Democrat presidential candidate eight years earlier.

    The point is that there is a case to be made paraphrasing Goldie Lookin’ Chain ‘Platforms doesn’t poison democracy, people do.’

    Conclusion

    You Are Here tries to articulate a route for individuals to navigate the media environment, rather than building a groundswell to try and change it for the better. I can’t help but feel that there’s an opportunity having been lost and the polarisation will continue.

  • Food film trilogy + more stuff

    Food film trilogy

    PES are a stop motion animation house, whom I was introduced to by Guy, one of the creative directors that I work with. Film food trilogy is one set of films that they did a number of years ago, over a seven year period.

    The film food trilogy starts with Western Spaghetti

    The second film Fresh Guacamole was short listed for an Oscar nomination.

    The final one in the food film trilogy is Submarine Sandwich.

    Doraemon and Toyota collaboration for advertisement

    The premise in these Toyota films is that it is 30 years later and the human characters have grown up, but have still stayed in the respective relative status to each other. The giant is still a bully for instance and Nobita is still a dweeb.

    https://youtu.be/OfnUNmjHzoQ

    Big Data China: AI – Surveillance symbiosis

    Interesting discussion on the use of big data and machine learning in China. The programmable world with Chinese authoritarian characteristics. Some interesting insights in this stream. The event covers:

    how China‘s large-scale investments in surveillance technology is both enhancing the state‘s capacity to repress dissent and providing commercial advantage to Chinese AI companies operating in the facial recognition and surveillance space.

    CSIS

    It is worthwhile looking at the materials that the CSIS is doing in association with Stanford University on Big Data China.

    How LVMH took over Asia

    Asianometry looks how Louis Vuitton grew so big in Asia. Japan and Hong Kong took over luxury sales increased in the 1970s due to a massive increase in disposable income. Its interesting that much of it was driven initially by Japanese department stores in the 1960s and Ferragamo was one of the first western luxury brands that they stocked. Louis Vuitton opened their first store in Japan in the Ginza district in the 1970s, they had somehow managed to leap the chasm that stymied other rivals who were traditional medium-sized enterprises like Louis Vuitton at the time. Well worth a look at this video.

  • Alibaba + more things

    Alibaba lost ambition

    Two interesting things have come out today on Alibaba: Alibaba moves closer to home with Hong Kong dual-primary listing | Financial Times – this is interesting because it implies that Alibaba either couldn’t remain in the US stock exchange with the new Chinese tiered data enterprise ruling: China plans three-tier data strategy to avoid US delistings | Financial Times or punishment of Jack Ma continues.

    jack ma

    Which means the only listings are likely to be old industry listings of state owned firms that foreign investors wouldn’t want to deal with anyway. The second one was: Alibaba scales back global expansion plan to rival Amazon | Financial Times – Alibaba.com’s US operation has failed to meet its initial targets, forcing the Chinese company to readjust its growth plans, according to three people familiar with the operations. The project has also been hit by dozens of staff departures from its New York office. The troubles at its US business-to-business arm come as Alibaba steps up its international push as its domestic operations continue to get hit by Beijing’s tech crackdown, slowing economy and rising competition. However, Alibaba.com has struggled to retain US sellers since its launch, in part down to the difficulty of competing with the prices of global merchants. “US manufacturers aren’t as competitive, the cost of everything is a lot higher including labour. The team do not have enough support internally, so they can’t get enough suppliers and sellers on board,” one current employee said – you could read this as the US is uncompetitive, or Alibaba only manages to sell on cost rather than value (quality, flexibility, after sales service don’t matter).

    Business

    Leicester garment factories still exploiting staff, study finds | Financial Times – not terribly surprising in Brexit Britain.

    Aviation sector will be disrupted for years, Qatar Airways boss says | Financial Times – “Covid has damaged the supply chain of the industry . . . I think that it will last for a couple of years — it is not going to go away tomorrow,” Akbar Al Baker told the Financial Times in an interview. Labour shortages in Europe, delays in aircraft deliveries from manufacturers and a lack of spare parts had all affected Qatar Airways, he added. – and this is without the problems that airports have faced in baggage handling etc. If aircraft deliveries were really an issue, why did Qatar pick a fight with Airbus?

    Economics

    Pakistan is in big trouble – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion – what happens when China stops writing cheques?

    Finance

    Henan protests highlight concerns over China’s rural banking sector | Financial Times – is this China’s equivalent of the 1990s Savings and Loans scandal that bedevilled the US?

    Hong Kong

    HSBC’s past may not help its future | Financial Times – There is no place in the new Hong Kong for a pre-eminent bank which is not institutionally subject to the Chinese government. As China turns inwards, it makes sense for the ruling party to want its own financiers in command of a smaller standalone lender that will be well-capitalised, regionally-focused and prepared to serve national objectives, not global shareholders. The installation of a Communist party committee at HSBC’s Chinese investment banking subsidiary, reported by the FT, is a prelude of what is to come: a slow, patient strategy of small steps designed to make inevitable a break-up already determined on high in Beijing. That is why Ping An has fired the first shot in the final battle over the colonial legacy of Hong Kong — a place China has always called “a problem left over from history”. – the smart play would be to cut the PRC and Hong Kong business off from the rest of the network. While China is the growth engine, it relies on the rest of the network for this profitable wealth management business. Secondly, what will happen with Standard Chartered?

    Ideas

    Reviving Progress in the UK – there is an issue with the capital injection required by the plans outlined. Would anyone trust the UK government that they would be able to execute in a competent manner on the ideas? I think that the UK is suffering from a crisis of competence as much as anything else.

    Japan

    Majority of younger Japanese people in survey respect less than 30 percent of their old coworkers | SoraNews24 – crumbling social contract of salary men and the iron rice bowl

    Legal

    Sextortion: a Costly Hell for Celebs, CEOs, Sports Stars

    Luxury

    Cultural appropriation vs appreciation: Can luxury brands in China tell the difference? | Campaign Asia – a mix of things going on here. Poor executions of ‘Chinese-ness’ by western brands historically (I’m looking at you Burberry) and nationalism which has made consumers much more confident and intolerant – rather than cultural appropriation a la ‘African American hair’ style concerns.

    Marketing

    Best of the Week: Sorrell is a unicorn no longer; and Facebook pulled the rug on news again – good analysis of why S4 puzzled some of us industry veterans who had worked at Sorrell-era WPP of miserly pay rises, terrible IT equipment due to penny pinching and constantly lengthening periods between pay reviews

    Media

    Associated Press Aims to Drop the Term “Assault Rifle” from StylebookThe Firearm Blog – really interesting change towards more neutral language while the progressive media obsesses about the new SIG-Sauer MCX Spear which is similar in terms of lethal effect to the longer range rifles field during the first part of the cold war. These cold war era designs have been modernised and are available to gun owners across most of the US. The MCX Spear relies on a newer, harder to get ammunition. This ammunition is also harder to fill at home than existing formats like the earlier NATO 5.56mm and 7.62mmm rounds. Older weapons like the Heckler & Koch G3 are a bit heavier but offer a similar performance, yet you wouldn’t get this information from the progressive media. Regardless of your opinion on gun control, the facts matter.

    “I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE” | Campaign Monitor – Ad Contrarian on privacy and ad platforms

    Retailing

    Maybe We Don’t Need Groceries in 15 Minutes After All – The New York Times

    Shein shed $30b in value since April, private bids show – not that surprising given how disposable has declined

    Security

    CNN Exclusive: FBI investigation determined Chinese-made Huawei equipment could disrupt US nuclear arsenal communications – CNNPolitics

    Software

    Revealed: Documents Show How Roblox Planned to Bend to Chinese Censorship

    Taiwan

    Taiwan’s ‘time machine’ house recreates, preserves memories of Hong Kong — Radio Free Asia – this is a really interesting project by Hong Kong expats, for Hong Kong expats based in Taiwan. The idea of collective memory and nostalgia also came through this piece here: Mementos of a vanished Hong Kong pile up at vintage second-hand store amid emigration wave – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP 

    Technology

    Beijing detains high-flying Tsinghua semiconductor boss, report says | Financial Times – Zhao Weiguo, the former head of an expansive Chinese conglomerate with state backing and deep investments in the global technology sector, has been placed under investigation by officials in Beijing, according to local media. The 54-year-old, who led cash-strapped chipmaking giant Tsinghua Unigroup for a decade, has been out of contact after being taken from his home by authorities in mid-July, reported Caixin, a Chinese business publication.

    Telecoms

    Eutelsat to bid for OneWeb – eeNews Europe and interesting direct state involvement in the combined business UK and France to get board seats in planned Eutelsat and OneWeb tie-up | Financial Times 

  • Decoded by Phil Barden

    Decoded was originally written in 2013. I read this version. I know that there is a new edition being published in September 2022. Barden had been a marketer working at T-Mobile (now EE, BT’s mobile phone network), Diageo and Unilever.

    Decoded by Phil Barden

    His background and a foreword written by British marketing grandee Rory Sutherland give an indication of the book’s quality.

    Once more with emotion

    Barden’s background has skewed towards CRM, online marketing and consumer marketing. I disagree with Barden in one important way. Barden doesn’t think that emotion has any benefit in marketing. I agree with Barden to a point, beyond nostalgia, I won’t have an emotional connection with the brand of margarine spread that I buy. The nostalgia is largely out of control of the brand.

    However, both the IPA and WARC have shown that communications that provokes an emotional reaction can build long term awareness over time. Think about the adverts that get stuck in your memory, versus rational adverts. Emotional adverts make you feel something, even if they don’t change your opinion of the product they can build memory structures with enough exposure.

    The challenge as Barden points out, being able to do this consistently. The example that Barden cites is Cadbury’s inability to match the quality of its ‘Gorilla’ advert.

    Getting beyond emotion

    Beyond a difference of opinion on the effect of emotion in communications, I thought that the content in Decoded was very good. The book felt to me as if it was aimed at British junior inhouse brand marketers at the likes of Unilever and Diageo where Barden aimed his stripes. The book is full of British examples, this might limit its success in the US. The examples are already old enough that they might not resonate with marketers who recently left college; but they would leave US readers clueless. While British marketers are often exposed to US authors at the start of their careers like David Aaker and Philip Kotler; the same isn’t true for their American peers of British marketing thinkers.

    I also see it valuable for marketing undergraduate students, with its real world examples. He also does these summary pages at the end of each chapter that reminded me of ‘Dummies Guides‘ format books.

    Decoded covers behavioural science principles and is valuable for the quality of reading list that it provides the reader to delve into after they have read the book.

    Barden dives into the kind of concepts that brand marketers would come across in shopper marketing and ad testing from the likes of Kantar. He provides a sound basis on which marketers can rely to understand, if not, critique their agency’s efforts.

    Beside emotion, my biggest concern is that marketers might think that Decoded is the final step on their education journey, rather than the first step. It provides a useful primer that the engaged marketer can then delve into. Unfortunately for us all, there are a lot of surface player who would declare mission accomplished at this point.

    If like me, you wanted a follow on read from Decoded, my recommendation would be Phil Graves Consumerology, which I reviewed here. Graves’ work nicely fits in with the discussion Barden had on shopper marketing from an expert in the field.

    You can find out more about Decoded here.

  • Guyana + more stuff

    Chinese business corruption in Guyana

    For a while Vice News was the hotness in news reporting, now they seem to have got their mojo back with a report on Chinese business people taking advantage of corruption at the highest level in Guyana. British Hong Konger Isobel Yeung did an amazing report on how Chinese business, especially state owned enterprises, had supercharged corruption in Guyana.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    Korean car manufacturer has been following the path taken by the likes of Toyota to expand from being a manufacturer of value, but low margin cars. This involved making a luxury division – Genesis is a clear Lexus analogue but with Korean characteristics. N is their version of what used to be Toyota’s TRD or Gazoo Racing as it is now.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    The N Vision 74 shows a reignition of Hyundai’s interest in hydrogen fuel cells for passenger cars, Hyundai had paused hydrogen fuel cell development for passenger cars in 2021. Presumably the higher energy density of fuel cells together with the skyrocketing price of lithium and cobalt has caused to them to resurrect the programme? The design is a homage to Italdesign’s Hyundai Pony Coupe concept from 1974. The same year Italdesign had also designed the first Volkswagen Scirocco and the Alfa Romeo GTV. Many commentators have compared it to the later DeLorean DMC 12. The DMC 12 was also designed by Italdesign in 1981.

    Hyundai N Vision 74

    There is a good deal of 1970s and 1980s track car vibes in there as well including a louvred back window and muscular arches. The wheels seem to use vintage Speedline influenced guards that would funnel air into the brake discs but keep rocks, sand and snow ingress to a minimum.

    Japanese itchiness

    Japanese skincare brand Muhi is a line of products that deal with itchy or irritated skin from the likes of allergies or insect bites. They have launched a campaign that deals with the subject of crotch itch including an e-sports tournament and a branded series of anime. The e-sport tournament is a clever way of getting attention for the series of crotch related games that they have on the Muhi website.

    Perun

    Perun has done some of the better analysis for armchair warriors following the Ukraine war. The analysis is thoughtful and doesn’t have an inherent bias. He had used to run a mediocre gaming channel, but analysis seems to be his strength.