Tag: Coca-Cola

Vietnam got juice

Coconut, sugar cane and other tropical blend to your liking.

http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Business/2011/12/99081/

POM(agrenade) has made a blast as new entry into the American juice shelves.

Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me got around to make a movie about brands.

His VIP sponsor: POM juice.

Branding is both mystical and magical.

It helps institutions and companies thrive and survive the downturn.

When in doubt, keep the cards closer to your chest: TIDE, Coca Cola, British Council.

Honda has suffered some unexplainable scooter explosion lately in Vietnam.

Its nearest competitor, Yamaha, finally gets a leg-up.

(in the US, it’s Hyundai who rules in the wake of Fukushima and Bangkok disaster).

In fact, brand tends to jockey for its nearest one: Vietnam might move up to number 1 rice exporter which has been held by Thai Land.

The Republican presidential candidates know this very well: it’s the poll that takes one up and another poll drags him/her down.

(Two different actresses are jockeying for the role of portraying Sarah Palin; art is more competitive than life).

Vietnam itself can use some brand improvement.

Young and educated work force? Check.

Untapped or not-yet-saturated consumer market? Check.

Strong motivation to leap-frog into software and service? Check.

Second Happiest Country on Earth (Costa Rica being no Uno)? Check.

But then we got traffic congestion in those very same growing centers that are the lures first hand.

Vietnam got lucky by being cautious during the 1997 Asian crisis, and 2007 with the housing-bubble crisis. As my nephew would say, “the poor got their own way of enjoying life”.

First Lady Obama would have a hard time with her childhood obesity campaign here (might have to give KFC’s some head start first). A Wisconsin lawmaker made a remark (then a retract) about her derriere – as a way of saying, what made you qualify to preach. Nobody said anything about Nancy Reagan when she was into “Say No to Drug”, but herself said “Yes to Astrology”.

OK, Vietnam got juice. Vietnam got lucky. Vietnam got work to do to improve its brand (and image). It also has to campaign internally so its sons and daughters will want to come back and work here. All those ambitious, talented folks have fled overseas, a crisis in brain-drain.

Nobody is into patriotism (except when watching a soccer match. Even in the fox hole, one dies for his comrades, not country).

Policy makers will have to help people connect the dots: English-academic success-overseas advanced degree-upward mobility-wealth–recognition among peers – influence which then reinforces life long learning  which leads to a fulfilling life.

Those dots are often not connected or only to a certain point, then leveled off (collectively, it’s called middle-income trap) short-changing the dream.

Both camps (quick money-making trade such as manicure in the US and slow-burned academia pursuit in Liberal Arts) often found themselves at odd with each other. So while Vietnam got juice, Vietnamese run out of them.

When world attention returns to Vietnam, after having focused elsewhere over the past few years, will it find a people who got juice? Or just a place? I hope they will find a country with more smiles and smarts.

Something to learn

IT workshops and seminars are happening on a weekly basis here in Saigon.

Monsoon season is almost over. Except for some cigarette vendors, the Sheraton  downtown could trick you into thinking you were somewhere else, like San Francisco.  Lunch was ready for a group of  CSO‘s and Software testers, uniformed attendants mingled with pony-tailed guests.

Something in the way he moves (my friend, that is).

This was his second time organizing software testing conference.

Forever curious, always testing, probing, “jazzing” his way in hope of “bumping” into the unexpected.

How do you debug something you have never used?

Put it through imaginary scenarios.

Use the parameters and practices.

Niche on top of niche.

That’s how one thrives in a “me-too” market (for instance, India now considers to open its retail market to MNC’s). Another “me-too” market with logo, look and label.

India will be the most populous country on Earth in the next century.

Watch out, retailers.

Follow the money.

Something to learn.

The IT talent pool there are unquestionably top-rated.

The question is, who is going to be number 2?

When India itself looks to outsource some lower-value activities so its engineers could focus on McKinsey‘s level, where would it place its chips?

Malaysia seems to “get” this as shown in its laser-focused software parks and tight coordination between academia and corporate entities.

Thailand has realized that more could turn out to be less.

Back to Korea, back to Singapore and Taiwan.

Expensive? Yes.

Quality? Also a Yes.

You get what you  pay for.

Something can’t be manufactured overnight like curiosity, creativity and connectivity.

I read somewhere that the British Intelligence Service made a job offer for who ever could hack into its  system.

Again, why not use the talent that is out there.

In our digital age, anywhere-anytime connectivity opens up tons of opportunities for both the good and the bad.

Never a boring moment.

7 Billion  people in motion.

Key board got tapped.

Cursors blinking and moving, one word at a time.

Thoughts are formed and sentences completed.

New age, new idea.

Something to learn, to test and to share.

Facebook promised to “blow us out of the water” when it unveils the new Facebook. I hope someone inside Facebook did a study on the New Coke.

It’s a historic brand mismanagement.

But then, because of New Coke, we now got Classic Coke.

Coca Cola still rules. Something to learn from. And that is, brand endures even when challenged. When it comes to people, it’s character and not charisma. No wonder companies like SouthWest Airlines just kept growing , methodically and efficiently year after year (per Collins). It would not be far-fetched to say the 10,000 hours that are required for an individual to acquire a new skill set, is also applied to companies as well. Something to learn and learn well, time after time, day in and out to develop second nature.

two-step back

A laid-off Coca Cola delivery man gave a bank teller a note, demanding one dollar so he could go to jail and get healthcare.

A Florida retiree robbed a bank to pay his mortgage.

New York sex workers told investigative reporters they went on-call to pay back college tuition.

Something is not right with our time: those who are entitled don’t get entitlement, and those who aren’t do. Government grew in size, while big businesses shrunk or off-shorred. One could wait for ever in voice-mail jail hearing occasional “someone will be right with you” (yesterday’s prospect is today’s customer, hence, a lower priority).

What happened to Moore’s law (speed of processing double every 18 months)?

We can’t see the forest for the tree because we did not step back far enough.

Years of instant noodle, fast food drive-in, personalized search and pizza on delivery have lulled our sense and slow down our reaction.

Wind came from the Southwest, but we keep looking into our GPS (which might fail us).

First, the elephant (IBM) can’t walk. Then, it’s voted most innovative company, on the same Dean list with Apple, which had been rejected by investors just a decade ago.

Nokia and Motorola fell behind while RIM couldn’t keept its field advantage.  Google, who got tired of Search and Social, also got into phone, glasses and unmanned vehicles

We now need the Audacity of Austerity, not of Hope.

And please, don’t blame technology for London burning .

(It’s like blaming the Rodney King riot in LA on black and white video footage ).

This blog is my first from a children’s library. I am surrounded by school children playing games. Will they grow up learning how to connect the dots in this vast data-driven world?

Will they be able to step back to see the bubbles coming their ways?

Or many will fall through the cracks, with  few options such as bank robbery and escort service.

These are rhetorical questions which seek solutions to inflationary measures not inspirational messages. We all can see for ourselves, which is the tree, and which is a forest. We have stepped back at least two-steps in the last four years. Now it’s decision makers’ turn to see the forest for themselves.

Buddha was purported to do just that, with his first walk among the commoners. It’s called reality check. It’s called enlightenment.

Heterogeneous country, homogeneous thought

Google CEO blurted out what we all know (that tech moves at 3 times faster than other business sectors, who in turn, are 3X than the government). We are analog-built e.g. eating,  buying and thinking habits, while techies thought processing power is on a different plane e.g. Cold-War B53 bomb in TX is finally being disassembled and junked.

A Swedish public health expert gave a TEDx talk some years ago. He put up some slides which span 200 years just to show how entrenched we are in yesterday’s thinking (e.g. that women in emerging nations have a lot of children while the opposite is now true). In short, formative years continue to cloud our lenses (or our teachers’ who got their data from post- War textbooks). Another stat: more deaths from suicide in the US (mostly men in their mid-50’s) than from automobile accidents. Or more Christian in China, than the membership of the Communist Party.

Or  thanks to rural broadband, the creative class in the US can finally afford housing and pursuit their passion, let’s say in software programming, in 2nd-tier cities like Seattle, Austin (as opposed to New York and San Francisco).

One more thing. Back in the days when America found it hard to accept a President who was Catholic

and the only “Muslim” brother who left his last name blank (X). The Big Three in Detroit, Big Three in Broadcasting, and a healthy middle class, with Union wages. Now, things get splintered of, with MNC’s paying zero domestic tax (GE), and CDO peddlers paying no COD (it’s still a mystery that Madoff was the only fall guy – whose rehearsed bio was …”I was an underdog when I started in brokerage, so I got to have my revenge at ‘them'” ” we contemplated suicide but it’s our son that followed it through). The same tax codes hasn’t been 21st-century compliant enough to catch clever white-collar looters.

Meanwhile, across the pond, it will take another three decades for China’s branding to rise (The Chinese Dream) just as it has taken them 3 decades to ramp up manufacturing and exports. Reverse engineering will be followed by reverse branding. Their state machinery will be hard at work to take apart every element that make Cola and IBM global brands.

(try to top Steve Jobs, the marketer who still got marketed in his death: simple and elegant cover featuring his signature stare).

First wave will be tourists. Second wave, engineering students . Third wave, marketing catalysts, Huawei and Haier, try to pry open the US-EU domestic markets (foreign in their perspective). At today’s speed, even Toyota with its continuous improvement still can’t compete with revived brands like VW.  It seems that John Le Carre is not the only one whose career and mindset are stuck in Cold War era. Cuba still has 1950’s automobiles crowding the streets. At least, we must admit they don’t make things like that any more. Should have kept jobs in Indiana, and not India.

Things were moving quite rapidly at the bottom line, and slow at topline.

Machine of the year

We put a five-dollar bill in, and got a quarter back. Green. Go. No toll booth collector.

Just a machine. Just like you would find at laundromat, or car wash.

Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Its video rental machines don’t seem to catch up with Red Box and Netflix. Netflix doesn’t seem to catch up with Hulu. Hulu won’t catch up with Google TV.

Soon we will need to vote, not for Man of the Year as TIME has, but for Machine of the Year.

This machine has to pass the most stringent of tests i.e. most conveniently placed (such as ATM machines in the casino), take dollar bills on user’s first trial, and always spit out mint coins.

I prefer to vote for machine that says “Thank You”.

After all, I have a choice to walk away, and not to give it any business.

Besides, there are competing machines nearby.

To enter the “labor” workforce, machines should pay FICA.

In case you haven’t noticed, we can go through a day without interacting with human

(see my other blog on Machine and Me) just as someone’ s comment that one can walk through Little Saigon in Westminster, CA for a full day without a word in English.

I have nothing against the machine. Only when it refuses to take my crumbled dollar bills.

Machines at the Home Depot are more advanced. Wal-Mart’s also.

I don’t know about the ones at airport from which one can buy Tampon, I pod and perfume.

Coca Cola is beta-ing a coke mixing machine, from which you can select your coke flavor.

Hence, it seeks to turn consumers into chemists.

Ice cream making machines at rest areas championed this trend a while ago.

When America gets on the road, it will have to live with coffee machine, ice cream machine, coke machine, toll collecting machine, gas station cash machine, microwave oven, fridge, TV, desktop, stereo, A/C, heater, hot-water dispenser, dishwasher etc.. That is why I propose TIME magazine to start changing its annual issue, from Man of the Year, to Machine of the Year. Vote for one which learns how to say Thanks.  Air stewardess don’t even bother to perform “human function” i.e. expressing gratitude to customers who foot the bills. It’s the Captain and pre-scripted Thanks which we hear nowadays.

Have you ever seen the Rain (bow)

Despite a lot of sunshine, in California, when it rains it pours.

Yet, photographer did not fail to snap a picture of a rainbow

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Calif-Storms/ss/events/us/101409califstorms#photoViewer=/100120/480/448ac9a2ced64a438dd5ecb4c958e984

Payback for all the dry months, the fire, and the smog.

The State got enough on its plate: budget concern, gay marriage repeal, and now this.

Best of wishes to the newly appointed LA City Business Czar, whose job is to create jobs.

We need common sense, courage and commitment to get ourselves over the hurdles.

Collectively, we have let ourselves go unchecked. Now, it’s payback time before we can see Rainbow.

Some contractors even owed $5 Billion in US  back taxes.

That’s a lot of schooling for little ones.

I stand corrected in earlier blog. Former President Clinton was here (Palm Beach) last night at a fund-raising dinner.

So he wasn’t around this morning to experience first hand the Haiti aftershock. Supplies are now slowly but surely delivered to those who needed them most. Mr Clinton even praised Coca Cola for bringing in water bottles.  Good corporate citizenry. I got a Coke and a sandwich when first landed in Subic Bay.

Last month, Warren Buffett even held up a bottle while sitting next to Bill Gates at Columbia Business School. One needs to believe in one’s product, its usefulness and lasting impact.

Pepsi is not giving up just yet. It wants to develop genuine healthy and nutritious products to beat Coke on this front. Bring it on. After giving NGOs some head start, for-profit companies slowly return to Haiti.

I felt privileged today when shopping for a nail clipper. I was able to get it at a store. Wonder if it’s that easy in Haiti.

But then, Rainbow is free for all, from the Malibu stars to the Santa Monica homeless. All I want to do, is have some fun, until the sun comes up, from Santa Monica boulevard.

 

Smart brand

Given everything that has been going on, recent news that Ford turned the corner on North American market was quite remarkable.

Ford, as American as Coca Cola and apple pie, has done a number of things right:

– it cross-pollinated ideas and markets (Smart in US vs Fiesta in Europe)

– it stuck out while competitors rightfully took the easy way out of bankruptcy (early on, it was the first auto manufacturer to pay high wages for its assembly workers)

– it believed in the intrinsic value of its brand and the resilient consumer market (not without government incentives).

That’s said. Three cheers for Ford, because it’s been a tough fight (Michigan unemployment is at 15%).

The tougher it built its F-series trucks, the longer it takes for people to return to the showroom.

Inadvertently, it creates its own self-victimizing cycle (especially if its customers are not into the latest and greatest).

No more planned obsolescence. Not in this globally connected environment, where a Tata is sold for less than $3000.

Or a Hyundai carries a 100,000 miles warranty.

Yet, somehow, the flag is still flown high at Ford, if not in Detroit, than else where around the world, where people can’t wait to own a Ford (symbol of American prowess). Perhaps the best way to experience this is when you are an expat,

living in China or Vietnam, and can’t wait to get inside of an A/C building, or be driven in a Ford when it’s pouring out.

These days, Made- in- the- USA is hard to find, but Made-in-somewhere-else  quite ubiquitous.

I still remember the feel, popping up sound, and sizzling taste of my Coca Cola in Subic Bay (my first sales reward). There has not been anything quite like it. (Chicago has been known to copy CocaCola font for its CD). Incidentally, CNBC will broadcast a series of report on Coca Cola the brand.

Perhaps the eye-catching sight of Ford’s Smart will slowly erase the negative imprints of those rolled-over Explorers ( its tires controversy).

Last week I believe once again in the power of brand: its consistency which  assures consumers in uncertain time. Forward enough so we don’t feel left behind, yet (emotionally) connected so we can find our anchor. When faced with an array of choices,  one tends to cling onto “the security blanket”: the nearest rock in the stream, an immediately recognized face at Chamber mixers. In social connection, trust is our personal brand. No wonder Ford chose a Ford’s descendant to be its spoke person, to show continuity which began with the Model T. It’s been a smart move that paid off.