Signal has become a popular messaging clients among my contacts for privacy orientated messaging. I’ve shared this guide a number of times, so I thought I would share it here. More on Signal messaging here. I use Signal on my phone and my desktop computer, both of which are an integrated experience.
Innovation
FISCAL YEAR 2020 a great report by the UD Department of Defence – a U.S. business climate that has favored short-term shareholder earnings (versus long- term capital investment), deindustrialization, and an abstract, radical vision of “free trade,” without fair trade enforcement, have severely damaged America’s ability to arm itself today and in the future. Our national responses – off-shoring and out-sourcing – have been inadequate and ultimately self-defeating – punchy, but I don’t see much attention being paid to it (PDF)
Quad’ nations sign up for meta think-tank to advance ‘Techno-Democratic Statecraft’ • The Register – Universities and think tanks from Australia, the USA, Japan, and India have come together in a new group that together hopes to advance discussions on the intersection of information technology, regional security, and internet freedom. Dubbed the “Quad Tech Network”, the group is managed by the National Security College at The Australian National University, an organisation backed by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
China Blocks Clubhouse App After Brief Flowering of Debate – The New York Times – At times, the conversation went off the rails, as when one man who identified as Taiwanese chimed in to curse out mainland Chinese people, before quickly signing off. But for the most part, users said that the app’s use of moderators and real-time voice sharing promoted a civility and intimacy lacking on other popular social media platforms like Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo. – interesting given its reputation for racism and sexism
PRWeek poll: A third of PR businesses predict Brexit revenue hit | PR Week – “First, whereas previously the UK would always be the gateway for new entrants to the European market, we’re now seeing Germany emerge on par as the primary entry point. Historically, Germany would almost always be the secondary priority after the UK, then followed by France, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. “Second, we’ve seen clients proactively ask to have multinational teams lead their account in Europe, as opposed to the traditional approach of having a UK-led European approach. In our mind, this is because the UK no longer has the same authority to lead. “This is one of the softer impacts of Brexit in terms of the UK’s perceived influence and leadership in the region.” Mark Pinsent, managing director of The Hoffman Agency Europe, has also noticed a trend for UK-based clients to “explicitly tell us that they’re keen to be positioned as European companies rather than UK”. “That can be tricky if they’re headquartered in the UK [or] don’t have a significant presence on mainland Europe,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see whether, over time, the UK becomes less of a priority market for international businesses looking to market in Europe… certainly for UK-founded start-ups, I could see it accelerating their need to have EU-based businesses.” – the psychology of the UK’s diminished image is fascinating
New Balance wins $3.9m in damages from China logo copycats | Financial Times – The two defendants, Fujian-based footwear maker New Barlun and its distributor Shanghai Shiyi Trade, have expanded quickly in China’s smaller cities and sold knock off shoes at below half the price of New Balance. – Damages are still pretty low, only 2.5m pounds or so
Digital golden bull at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur & Chinese new year
The golden bull in question is on the digital screens of Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Pavilion is an upscale shopping area and the animation was designed to tie into the year of the ox in the Chinese lunar calendar.
The golden bull is supposed to be auspicious and is seen to break through the coronavirus that affected 2020.
https://youtu.be/llFkwcAlFSk
Pavilion Kuala Lumpur
The golden bull execution is very similar to an installation done by a Chinese property developer that I found earlier this year. Both rely on corner screens and on understanding the viewing angle of pedestrian footfall streaming past the animation.
Following on from my post collating adverts celebrating Chinese new year last week, Radii China had some additional suggestions that came out after I had written my original post. Let’s hope that 2021 lives up to the auspicious promise of the golden bull.
Design & culture
The Royal Shakespeare Company is looking at using a virtual set for a performance based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. RSC’s Dream will be performed live from March 12 – 20, 2021. It shows how the arts are looking to adapt to a COVID world and experimenting with cutting edge technology.
RSC – Dream trailer
My friend Arun has released a COVID inspired track available for purchase from Underbelly Music on Bandcamp. Check out the accompanying video here.
Coffee Hype x Underbelly
This weekend I will be watching the latest Adam Curtis documentary series – BBC iPlayer – Cant Get You Out of My Head it’s the only thing that I bother watching on the BBC now.
I haven’t driven a BMW in well over 20 years, so Doug DeMuro’ update on the BMW brand was fascinating.
BMW Twitter account
The BMW brand issue hadn’t been on my radar until Doug DeMuro talked about it. A number of things seem to be happening with BMW.
The company’s customer base is predominantly gen-x and baby boomers; because their cars are expensive. For decade these people have been told that the BMW brand represents the ultimate driving machine.
An important part of the visual BMW brand: the design language that it is implementing on is problematic. In particular the ugly ‘beaver teeth grill. This is ironic given that an electric car doesn’t need a grill for its engine.
It didn’t help things that from a certain angle the rear of the BMW iX has a resemblance to the Nissan Juke.
Nissan Juke 1.6 Advance 2017 by RLGNZLZ
It has at least an internal perception that it has lost its BMW brand mojo as there is a slow steady move away from the internal combustion engine.
If you look at other YouTube automotive channels, BMW seems to be having reliability issues with its current cars and the repairs are expensive to do. Back in the early 1970s the BMW brand was tarnished with negative perceptions about the cars being rust buckets and the company managed to lick that. The current engineering problems sound more complex.
All of this makes the BMW brand sound more difficult to fix than being on the socials and being up to date with their yoofspeak.
Canada concerned as Hong Kong starts to force dual citizens to choose status – The Globe and Mail – individuals who declare themselves Canadian could now lose their residency rights to live in Hong Kong.“It’s the beginning of the end for people in Hong Kong with Canadian status,” said Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland. The policy on dual citizenship stems from a 1980 law in mainland China that was then applied to Hong Kong when the United Kingdom handed over the city to Beijing in 1997. “The law was on the books for years but it wasn’t always enforced,” Mr. Kurland said. – interesting move
The Longer Telegram: Toward a new American China strategy – Atlantic Council – single most important challenge facing the United States and the democratic world in the twenty-first century is the rise of an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping. China has long had an integrated, operational strategy for dealing with the United States. The United States has so far had no such strategy with regard to China. This is a dereliction of national responsibility – interesting read. Right on with its diagnostics, but off base with its proposed solution. The west thought that Xi was a moderate when he came into power. He has extended his loyalists in every aspect of the party. The Jiang Zemin faction of the party, which would be an alternative aren’t liberal; they used the army to put down student protests in 1989.
Commission chief tells charities not to be ‘captured’ for politics | Charities | The Guardian – Charities that support politically or culturally contentious causes should expect their charitable status to come under regulatory scrutiny even if they are acting within the law, according to the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission. The Tory peer Tina Stowell, who is stepping down after three years in the post, warned charities against being “captured” by unnamed people who wish to push a partial view of the world and use charity platforms to wage war on “political enemies”. – this is going to be interesting
Looking downstream – Tortoise – as a long time netizen I am less certain that regulating platforms for content will work and worry about the precedent it would set for authoritarian regimes. Should OTT platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime carry news? Here my first question is how do you define news? Should they do real time news reporting, probably not even if they could. Should they do current affairs analysis – they already do if you look at the kind of documentaries that they have. I think that there should be real questions about those documentaries in terms of quality and bias? While we’re on about documentary making, surely the BBC could be doing more work with Adam Curtis or Bellingcat and have those people training the documentary film makers of tomorrow
Liu Yifei Announced as Face of Louis Vuitton China | Radii China – LVMH betting on woke western liberals not being their customer base and choosing polarising star. It also shows how far Fan Bingbing’s star has fallen since her tax troubles. Crystal Liu was the protagonist in the car crash live action version of Mulan. She’s also not as beautiful as Fan Bingbing
How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century – DER SPIEGEL – Despite its long list of crises in recent years – including the most recent vaccine snafu – the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms. This has made the bloc a 21st century model. – I agree with the direction of this article, even if some of the examples could be debated
Silicon Valley’s iron grip on venture capital is slipping — Quartz – the shift to smaller tech hubs that’s been going on for years is set to move even faster, according to Stanford. “The pandemic has thrust the VC ecosystem into new territory where Zoom meetings and alternative deal sourcing methods reign supreme,” he wrote in an analyst note. “This shift has, at least somewhat, leveled the playing field for investor attention…Over Zoom, it doesn’t matter if the company is in the same building, city, state, or country.” – no credit given for the dissipation technology start-ups to places like Singapore and Shenzhen. For instance, social darling Clubhouse is based on Chinese voice technology. But there’s also a bigger issue about the decline in hard innovation which is easier to do in a tight cluster. Since its no longer happening, the cluster makes less sense. More on innovation here.
Bases for Trust in a Supply Chain – Lawfare – With a supply chain attack, there is a potentially long delay between the introduction of a vulnerability and its exploitation. In addition, infiltrating a supplier generally requires a well-resourced adversary and interaction with that supplier. So compared to the alternatives, preparations for a supply chain attack take longer and have a higher risk of discovery. The risks of discovery can be reduced, however, if inserted vulnerabilities resemble ordinary flaws and, thus, the malicious intent is disguised. The digital systems on which individuals and nations increasingly depend are large and complex, so today they are likely to be rife with vulnerabilities. Many of those vulnerabilities will be known, some unpatched, and others easily discovered by analysis. In short, such systems are easy to compromise.
Russian hack brings changes, uncertainty to US court system – new rules for filing sensitive documents are one of the clearest ways the hack has affected the court system. But the full impact remains unknown. Hackers probably gained access to the vast trove of confidential information hidden in sealed documents, including trade secrets, espionage targets, whistleblower reports and arrest warrants. It could take years to learn what information was obtained and what hackers are doing with it – you can’t hack paper
February 12, is CNY 2021 (Chinese new year 2021); based on the lunar calendar. It is the year of the ox, the second animal in the Chinese zodiac cycle. It is celebrated by people of Chinese heritage around the world.
Some of the best creative in Asia comes out of the new year campaigns. Here are some of this years.
China spring festival adverts
I find it hard to find many good CNY 2021 adverts this year. Two consistent top performers are adidas and Apple.
adidas has an advert that’s part of an app-driven multi-channel experience. Hence why the call to action at the end of the ad is the app. App driven e-commerce by the big sports leisure apparel brands. Nike has the ‘Nike’ app and SNKRS aimed at streetwear fans. Some of the more exclusive shoes are only available to purchase on SNKRS.
adidas seems to be taking a similar line in China. The clothing presented is sports fashion in nature. adidas is also clever in the way it taps into Chinese culture with this app.
adidas used gamification tactics to improve digital engagement and strengthen the brand salience with target segments, especially sports and street culture fans.
The campaign consumer insights were:
Going beyond the Chinese New Year tradition of sharing wishes for good luck and good fortune. The brand took this in an engaging direction by showing audiences how they could honour their blessings and make wishes come true through their actions. This is something that that many Chinese take for granted
Many Chinese move back from the big city to smaller towns, the visuals of the ad draw on visual elements and atmosphere of a small town Chinese new year.
https://youtu.be/HDyx2_MS8SE
Apple has released a ‘Shot on an iPhone’ Chinese new year themed advert this year. This follows on from similar mini-movies that it has done in previous years by partnering with well known film makers. This year Apple turned to Chinese film maker Lulu Wang to reinterpret an old Chinese folk tale with a modern twist. The folk tale is related to Chinese new year celebrations.
https://youtu.be/t-9YuIg7R1I
Lulu Wang for Apple Inc. – Nian
And there is a making of the film here
https://youtu.be/9pHO5hpgj7k
Apple Inc.
Chinese video platform Kuaishou decided to make a Chinese new year film. (Kuaishou is a direct competitor to Douyin – the China specific version of TikTok.) The story was based on the real stories shared by Kuaishou users. The worked with film maker Jia Zhangke who had worked with Apple two years earlier on their Chinese new year film.
For those that would be normally travelling home at this time of year, the film given added poignancy, given China’s restrictions on travel over the Chinese new year period to try and combat resurgent COVID-19 outbreaks.
A honourable mention to H&M which I haven’t been able to find in a format to share online.
Hong Kong CNY 2021 adverts
The CNY 2021 themed ads are symptomatic of a couple of things:
Masks have established themselves as strong consumer brands. This has manifested itself in both retail presence and advertising
Budgets have been constrained by two years of economic declines, which explains some of ads low production values
Chinese new year revolves around food and indulgence rather like Thanksgiving or Christmas in the west. On Kee Dry Seafood Co., Ltd sell abalone and other delicacies. Given that Hong Kong has been in a recession even before COVID-19 – discretionary spend is under pressure.
On Kee Dry Seafood Co., Ltd
What surprised me about this advert how much it looked as if it has been shot in a studio (look at the ‘retail product range’ shots around the 14 second mark to see what I mean. But any firm that is investing in its brand during a recession deserves the respect of marketers.
Sun Shun Fuk Food Co. Ltd are a competitor to On Kee and have managed to come up with a shorter 15 second spot, but with higher production values. 15 second ads are hard, trying to get creative to land the messages in the creative and still have time for the brand compulsory pack shot and strap line on the end. I think they’ve done a good job with this.
Sun Shun Fuk Food Co. Ltd
HealthMe Plus put together a sub-30 second spot for its seasonal children’s masks. If you had asked me if this would have happened 12 months ago, I’d have said absolutely not. The effect of major brands like Solvay and 3M to meet consumer demand has allowed local champion mask brands to spring up.
The music takes me back to hearing The Chieftains in China album as a child. And more recently, when I’ve visited or lived in Hong Kong, the local supermarket muzak during the run up to Chinese new year.
McDonald’s Hong Kong innovate a lot more than their UK counterparts. A case in point being their Chinese new year menu with special burgers and curly fries. The Chinese new year menu features a Hello Kitty tie-in on packaging (and likely a soft toy giveaway, if you collect enough tokens). The 15-second spot isn’t anything special unless you’re a diehard Hello Kitty fan.
McDonald’s Hong Kong
McDonald’s Hong Kong
McDonald’s Hong Kong
I particularly like the seasonal ‘red envelopes’ that celebrate the different aspects of the McDonald’s Chinese new year menu.
Malaysia Chinese new year adverts
Malaysia is impressive for the quality of the ads, particularly given the country’s economic performance before and during COVID-19.
The most impressive set of adverts for me so far have been done by Malaysian power company Tenaga Nasional Berhad. It is based on the same folk tale that Apple China adapted for their advert. There is a five minute film, a ten second and 30 second trailer to maximise impact. It feels like a mini Stephen Chow film.
TENAGA
Grab is similar to Uber, it does transport, food ordering and food delivery. Grab like Singapore’s Singtel builds on successful ads from last year. It mixes Chinese New Year with the tropes of a kung fu movie like the Grab book of Tai Chi. The production values on it are very high.
Grab Malaysia
Traditional Chinese medicine brand focuses on family in their engaging minute film.
Eu Yan Sang
Yakult is a six minute drama that is very now. A mother misses her daughter who is coming apart at the seams working in a challenging environment at a hospital. In the end they come together over food virtually.
Yakult – Miles apart, but close at heart
Mercedes-Benz went with telling a heart-warming story rather than trying to have a product hero. At 1 minute, the film seems extravagant compared to some of the ones I have been looking at this year. It plays on the mix of happiness and awkwardness that happens during family gatherings like Christmas or Thanksgiving in the west. The overlapping family banter is done really well and the code switching feels very natural.
Mercedes-Benz
Samsung Malaysia came out with Chinese New Year story for the COVID era, that is as much about relating with the audience as it is pushing product – although technology helps stave off the worst of a dystopian present.
Lego created an ad with local online personality Danny Ahboy as the protagonist. It was interesting that they focused on nostalgia and had an all-adult ensemble, apart from the flashback scenes.
https://youtu.be/Iqv_EKlWKaA
The Lego Group
Malaysian mobile phone carrier Celcom went with an uplifting message and artfully crafted b-roll, to show how Malaysians in the past faced adversity together with the bonds strengthened by Chinese new year festivities.
Celcom
It’s not necessarily the most memorable campaign, but it wins points for not putting the brand front and centre in the creative, and instead is a hymn to their stakeholders.
The biggest surprise for me was Coca-Cola who have down a relatively safe route with their Have a little celebration with big meanings together, but its a 15 second spot which creatively very restrictive. I found this especially surprising, given how long Coca-Cola stopped its media spend for in 2020. I would have thought that they would need to spend on brand salience at this time.
The Coca-Cola Company
Singapore CNY 2021 adverts
Singapore telecoms carrier Singtel has consistently done great Chinese new year themed adverts. This is a sequel to their CNY 2020 campaign. This year the hero product is 5G connectivity. It’s a mini cinematic production clocking in at 6 minutes. But it pays the audience back for their attention with drama, comedy and a heart warming ending.
Singtel
Mobile e-commerce platform Shopee came up with an ad to target shopping for CNY gift giving. It is the kind of ear worm song that is likely to stick with you from childhood, well into adult life and trigger nostalgia down the road. So a potentially great brand building vehicle.
Shopee Singapore
Uniqlo Singapore goes after COVID-19 head on, it treats this brand tribute to the spirit of Chinese new year as a look book. Check out the dancing Grandma. The staging of it makes clear that it’s an everyman tale. The story plays out in a well maintained HDB flat.
Fast Retailing
CNY 2021 advert conclusions
For CNY 2021, across all the countries that I looked at, there were signs that advertisers budgets seem to be hurting. I have looked at this for a few years and never seen as many spots done on just a 15-second execution before. Especially given the opportunity that Chinese new year gives to get consumer spend and built brand salience.
Imagine the John Lewis Christmas ad, or the Coca-Cola holidays are coming creative treatments as just 15 second spots?
The Coca-Cola Company
Storytelling becomes much harder. The planner has to craft a tighter brief and the creatives have to work harder to just get a good result, let alone a great result.
A friend of mine once said that there might be a correlation between the amount of presents featured in a John Lewis Christmas ad and the likely retail performance during the holiday. I think we can draw a similar heuristic between 15 second spots and likely business performance.
More information on past Chinese new year celebrations
MACAU DAILY TIMES 澳門每日時報 » Hong Kong | Thousands flee for UK, fearing China crackdown – What’s surprising is not the content of the article itself. There are plenty of pieces in the English language media around the world about the fear of a China crackdown due to the Hong Kong National Security Law driving Hong Kongers away. (The reality is less likely to be a China crackdown and more likely to be a progressive anaconda-type squeeze.) I am surprised to see this article in the usually tame Macau media. Which left me with the question why? My initial thoughts were that space constrained Macanese could take up some of the slack in Hong Kong as locals vacate? If so it would solve problems in the housing market and the need to build additional infrastructure in Macau.
Majority of B2B advertising is ‘ineffective’ | Marketing Week – Of the 1,600 B2B ads shown to a sample of 6 million people worldwide over the past four years, 75% scored one star or less on System1’s FaceTrace emotional measurement tool – so ineffective in brand building, but potentially effective in terms of performance marketing? We don’t know
Today’s jet fighter designers don’t get the point – Asia Times – the cockpit itself is “beautiful,” full of screens that allow you to bring up an incredible amount of information about the fighter with just a few finger swipes, and customize the data to tailor it for the particular mission. The F-35 is the first to use touch screen technology. Unlike switches, which take up permanent cockpit space, touch screens allow the same LCD screen space to be instantly repurposed, the report said. One minute, a display could be used to pull up data on an aircraft’s fuel reserves, and the next, it could help target an enemy position on a mountainside. That goes a long way toward simplifying the cockpit and not overwhelming a pilot with wall-to-wall physical switches, dials, and single-use displays, the report said. But the problem with touch screens, the pilot explains, is a lack of tactile feedback. Switches have a nice, satisfying click that instantaneously lets the user know they were successfully flipped, the report said. The anonymous pilot reports failing to get a result from a touch screen about 20% of the time – the need for haptics has never been clearer
China Raises Threat Level Over Rare Earths — Radio Free Asia – “Rare earth ore exports are limited in value, and the global demand for raw materials is relatively low,” said Liu Enqiao of Anbound Consulting. But Liu added that the decline “might be partly due to China’s tightening of regulations on strategic resources” under the country’s new export control law, which took effect on Dec. 1.
Artificial Intelligence Will Define Google’s Future. For Now, It’s a Management Challenge. – WSJ – most of Google’s problems related to AI are rooted in the company’s approach to managing staff, adding that science, and not ideology, should guide ethical debates. “Google is the coddler-in-chief,” he said. “Their employees are so coddled that they feel entitled to make more and more demands” regarding how the company approaches AI and related issues. – TL;DR – millennial and gen-z Googler snowflakes preventing the company from creating amoral shareholder value
