Tag: CocaCola

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.

Coke, enduring and endearing

The verdict is in. Marketing folks all know by now that top of the list reigns COKE.

My first wage (selling Vietnamese worthless currency in Subic Bay on my way to the US a few days after the war had ended) was spent on Coke, from a vending machine. I remembered til this day the taste, slightly burning but thirst-satisfying.

A few days before that, when we first landed on the Bay, a priest and a nun, one with a sandwich, the other with a coke, welcomed us to safety.

No wonder the brand sticks.

It was there, welcoming survivors.

(The priest by the way stood not on the beach, but by the water, waiting).

I am aware of controversies surrounding water plants in India to supply for Coca Cola plants.

But as a brand, it has so far stood the test of time.

Heinz pickles and ketchup should have come close. Hershey chocolate also. (in time of uncertainty as we are currently in, consumers cling to brand steady)

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/07/top_brands/source/1.htm

But beverages like Coke is hard to beat.

It engages all your senses: taste, touch, smell, visual and even auditory (as you pop open the can, you hear that sizzling sound).

Branding is emotional, even primal.

Anybody can put sugar and water together in a can, and slap a logo on it.

But somehow, one strand at a time, Coke manages to stand tall. It made a mistake with New Coke. But then, out of crisis, we got Coke Classic.

Coke doesn’t stray and respond hastily to tyranny of the moment.

It is rooted in Atlanta, home also to CNN and CDC.

Between those two, no virus can escape undetected and unannounced.

Google is working frantically on Google ME. It will be a personal branding engine. Can you imagine near 7 billion people trying to get online, and get in line  for their 15-minute of digital fame. We will need millions of server farms to accommodate these digital passports.

Personal branding will be to the next generation what reputation and trust were to our village elders.

Except, in this global village, the branding bar is set really high, thanks to COKE. Eagles’ latest CD tried to imitate Coke wavy graphic.

And I can’t remember the time without a can of Diet Coke next to me. That was before the mobile phone took over that sacred spot. Speaking of which, Apple however “hot” couldn’t even make the top 10 list . Something can’t be “coked up” overnight.