city (and t-shirts) as canvas

nice one! i found a brand using streets as vehicle and art as message in dubai: samsung with canvas:collective

in collaboration with local artist mohammed saeed harib, using t-shirts as the canvas and the product as the creative tool, selected artists from the region are showing their works, with the proceeds of the sales going to a local charity – social bandage.

the roadshow is taking place at the waterfront in the dubai mall from january 31 to february 2. the road show at jbr is taking place till february 16. the stand is a landmark to find other local artist using streets!

http://www.samsungcanvas.com/t-shirt.php

some pics from jbr stand:

Corporate Image

No, no, no! Once and again, no! Corporate image is not a logotype. It will never be, because corporate image isn’t visual. Moreover, it isn’t even sensory.
This issue causes trouble because seeing an icon or a visual sign as an identity, would lead us to think people as passive subjects and businesses as almighty transmitters.
By all of the above, I don’t mean to oend graphic designers, advertisers or marketing executives; in fact, my former profession was in advertising. I actually believe that all of them oer powerful tools in strategic contexts.
Corporate image is a mental structure, created for stakeholders and made by common experiences between businesses and people.
This simple idea leads us to consider brands as a construction of people’s minds; once more, leaving behind the arrogance of the message would lead us to focus on the relationship between businesses and people.
Following this chain of thought, we try to communicate values and interact beyond commercial activities. The next step, for example should be incorporating networking, CRM or internal communication, in addition to typical marketing tools.
In conclusion, conceiving image as being built by stakeholders and focusing on relationships, is a way of differentiating our products from competence, selling better or saving communication resources. Certainly, it is hard work for enterprises because it requires transparency and great consistency in values. All this is definitively worth it.

Changing Concepts: Forgetting “Self”, Remembering “You”

Changing Concepts: Forgetting “Self”, Remembering “You”.
In the early 90´s in Argentina, at the beginning of corporative communication, David Ratto a glamorous advertiser stated:
_ “Give me a Millon Dollars and I will make people eat shit…”
Twenty years later things haven´t changed so much on businessman’s mind. Greed is not just a detail, it is a particular conception of communication. Unlimited, superpowerful. In this throughline, everything can be imposed on a passive audience.
New technological and cultural capacities in communication are turning the table on business relationships. First, because people can process more and more information each time, second because businesses are more exposed. Power in mass-comm is an audience property again.
We are living in a changing era when the reality is being multiplied. Expectation and opinion are more diverse than ever. Subjectivities are exploding, we must surrender to all of them! Now, importance is in reception, no more in the emission. It´s time to pay attention to reception. It´s time to twist focus. We must leave the omnipotent message and start focus in a multiplicity of interpretations.
In business, if we want to think communication like as a strategic element, we should listen first those things that stakeholders wants and what they will values. We must evolve from monologue to a dialogue, from consumer to individuals. Priority is shifting from the “self” to “you employee”, “you neighbour”, “you client”, “you friend”; Only then, communication will twist from seduction to trust.
Juan M. Oliva (Published in Punto a Punto Mag. October 25th, 2005 )

dark side dubai

dubai: pop +2.000.000 habitants, more than U$ 30.000 pi/c. almost everyone is an immigrant, 85% expats [of course, I’m an immigrant as well].  physicians, engineers, architects, construction workers, maids, nannies, real estate agents, and at the bottom of moral scale: pr and advertising guys. one more time, all immigrants in a gulf’s pearl.

this city is like a bubble of luxury, design, desire, fancy brands… everybody wants this shine, the malls, the khalifa. Everybody wants to appear in the photo. this city is as real as tokio’s godzilla.

but what happens when the lights goes off? another kind of monster pops up, some ‘dark dubai’ appears out of the blue. It is not seen at first sight, but it’s there… flesh and bone dubai. It’s the real basement of everything; economics, services, work hand… this beast misses his family in manila, or smells like curry dreaming to be salman khan as a boy in a random calcuta neighborhood.

If this hidden dubai exists, it’s the basement of desire too. not everything is ferraris, luis vuiton or prada.  of course, as pr or advertisers we want to work in an exclusive word, but we have to understand that desire about brands Is built from bases, and trace a path to other ones less positioned… like a highway to fame.

I’d like to think this society as a sociological experiment about mixing cultures, people, and dreams. we can find it only diving on the “mud”, walking the fancy malls and deira’s souqs at the same time; exploring for those new concepts, for hidden ideas.

at the moment it’s a good challenge: first, to dig onto all the different cultures and learn about them. later, use this to locate dubai as a leader in cultural industry. finally, it’s an opportunity to build an agreement, a request to shape this unfinished amalgam.

guerrilla in suit

we are our relationships, they define us. i mean, if we conceive us like bio-social-psico beings, we have no other way than interact with others to know “what’s going on out there.”

one more time, we are our relationships. and we are living in an era when interactions are more and richest than ever in human history. ergo, our personalities are being updated even fastest than our capacity to assimilate them. each time, we can do more, we can see more, we can be others…

these schizophrenic interaction highways are pushing us into a chaotic scenario: changing is a constant fact. and marketing communications are not away from this reality: psychographics variables are defeating demographic, old time customer are cheating our traditional brands with new ones, habits are surrendering to a prosumer revolution which can twist everything. old marketing and advertising manifestos need a review. it’s time to learn new rules, to create new paradigms. we have to take risks to face new customers who don’t follow the flow; they want to ride the waves!

to achieve the goal in this new scenario, old tactics are not enough; we must explore new ways. so, we have to do more than just find new spots in the mind, on traditional media, on social media, on public spaces.  we have to be smallest and lightest to be in touch with this new prosumer anytime. we should think like a “guerrilla”: fight in a different battle every day.

and how this is affecting middle east? creativity everywhere, international awards, multinational advertising agencies afraid about smallest ones, a (hot) woman being a voice of a whisky brand… that is just an example about the change we are facing, a radical concept swift. and it will not stop for a while! it’s a fascinating scenario, opened to interact and changing from individuals. can passion overtake reason? it’s the only way to live this spring…

face the change bravely, let’s make guerrilla in suit!