Have you used metaphors for your marketing efforts? What were the outcomes of your attempts?
An integral part of your everyday life, Analogies and Metaphors are popular storytelling methods which simplify complex ideas and imbue them with meaning. They help to make your advertisements, articles, and brand stories come alive.
Crystal Jade Golden Palace in The Paragon (courtesy of Crystal Jade)
In the restaurant-eat-restaurant world of F&B, few local brands have stood up as clearly as Crystal Jade, one of the market leaders in Singapore.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary last year with a refreshing of its identity that involved extensive refurbishments at its restaurants, Crystal Jade enjoyed a turnover of S$240 million in 2010.
Lucy wouldn’t have discovered Narnia if she didn’t open that wardrobe (courtesy of WikiNarnia)
As humans gripped by our lizard brain (aka the amygdala), our automatic reflex is to freeze in our tracks when encountering any of the following:
1) A potentially great product or service which does not have any known markets
Can you compete with the above brands on scale, distribution and price? (image source)
In the world of consumer businesses, there are probably three main ways to differentiate yourself from the hoi polloi.
These form the basis of virtually all forms of competition in marketing.
What secrets does mega-retailer Walmart hold? Is low-price retailing always good for the customer or does it exert other insidious impacts on one’s lifestyles?
The answer to those questions and more are answered in the bestselling book “The Wal-Mart Effect” authored by award winning editor of Fast Company Charles Fishman. Leaving no stone unturned, Fishman’s highly readable volume dived deeply into the massive impact exerted by Walmart, and paints a sobering and sordid picture of its true influence.
The beautifully designed Palace of the Elephants Theatre at Phuket FantaSea
Claimed to be the “Ultimate Nighttime Cultural Theme Park”, Phuket FantaSea is Thailand’s first cultural theme park located close to Kamala Beach on Phuket island. Focusing on a motley mix of “Myth, Mystery and Magic”, Phuket FantaSea blends Thailand’s exotic heritage with a carnivalesque Mardi Gras like feel that is more Vegas than Vegas itself.
Occupying a sprawling 140 acres (or approximately 57 hectares), it features the “Fantasy of a Kingdom” show in the 3,000 seat “Palace of the Elephants” theatre, a huge cavernous 4,000 seat restaurant (Golden Kinnaree Buffet Resataurant), a Tiger Jungle Adventure, the Similan Entertainment Centre featuring carnival games, and a Carnival Village offering lots of specialty retail outlets.
Source of image
Believe it or not, quitting isn’t necessarily the mark of a loser. There is a time and place for giving up. Just as there is a time and place for digging your heels in, gritting your teeth, and staying on.
Does that mean then that Napoleon Hill’s saying “a quitter never wins and a winner never quits” is moot?
Every now and then, you pick up a book which offer such a compelling new idea that you simply cannot put down. The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing by Lisa Gansky is one such title.
In an increasingly crowded, economically uncertain, and environmentally damaged world, people are becoming increasingly wary about the financial and personal burden of buying and owning stuff.
Courtesy of MarvinTM
2011 has certainly been an impactful year, both literally and metaphorically.
On the international front, environmental disasters like the devastating Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Plant Fallout has horrified many around the world. The flailing economies of Western nations continues, perpetuated by the EuroZone Debt Crisis while a flicker of hope arises with rising job growth in the US. Major political upheavals have also taken place, with the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and other Mid-East regimes, Myanmar’s longstanding opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi getting back into politics, and election of former Thai Premier Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra as the kingdom’s first female prime minister.
As I was reading my copy of the daily newspaper yesterday (yes, my family and I are still traditional newspaper readers), a colourful brochure with coupons popped out. As I glanced through its content, I couldn’t help noticing this promotional message which appeared to be a wee bit ironic in my view:
For a start, using a glossy, printed coupon and distributing it on a large scale hardly counts as being environmentally friendly. Free canvas or drawstring bag giveaways are also so common that many of us have more “recyclable” bags than we’ll ever use in our lifetimes. This begs the question of whether these are truly as resource friendly as they claim or just another premium item.