Be Authentic

A quick article I found interesting on AdWeek talks about how to keep relevant in a changing industry in Advertising and Marketing. I think this can be applied to any industry too. The industry is changing due to changing consumer behaviours, the ongoing dependency and relevancy of the digital landscape/economy, and sifting through data to make some sense of it.

Summarizing the article, there are 4 traits that a media executive (or marketer) should have:

  1. Have curiosity – The insatiable curiosity to drive oneself to question, find, and challenge the status quo. The capacity to learn, adapt, and apply helps one to continuously strive for innovation and success.
  2. Inclusiveness – the ability to win others and inspire others by building a culture that is built on empowerment, inclusivity, and fun so that everyone can build together, work together, and achieve innovation that pushes the boundaries of technology, business, and design. If you fail, then take that as a challenge to do better. Fail again and again because failure and success go hand-in-hand. If someone says no, then try not to take it personally. It’s just the idea that they don’t understand it fully or is not needed at the current time. Revise it and revise it again so that when it comes in time to pitch the idea or strategy, you’ll be able to address the no’s.
  3. Be multi-faceted – Like a swiss army knife, you should be adaptable to many situations. Being T-shaped with a broad range of knowledge adds to your speciality, which coupled with leadership skills, make you desired for success and growth in your company. This will influence others and create a culture of success. Understanding the subject matter, and then making a strategy from collecting all the data points helps you see the problem both at a macro and micro perspectives. You can uncover insights and make cost-efficient recommendations that help client’s business grow for the future.
  4. Honest and true partnerships – Being honest and truthful can hurt sometimes, but the intention is to improve the overall well-being of oneself, or business whether that’s the product, strategy, or sales. One would want to conduct business with a person who is looking for the best intentions of the other and in business, this conduct of true partnerships helps develop the best strategies to implement. When one truly immerses themselves into the business for the client, then they get a deeper understanding of their business and become the expert.

Link to article from AdWeek HERE:

Fact or Rubbish? Getting Your Facts Right.

The concept of reality itself for Donald Trump is quite misleading. Now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, it’s weird to see how his misleading lies has got him to where he is. The Last Week with John Oliver analyzes Trump’s relation with the truth. Funny and frightening, it’s the reality that he is the commander in chief. Oliver breaks it down and segments into 4 questions:

  1. How did we get a pathological liar in the White House?
  2. Where are his lies coming from?
  3. How do people believe him?
  4. What can we possibly to about it?

The GDP quote below 0 is funny because we all know from economics class that it’s impossible to be at zero. Trump’s testament in building a wall on the south to divide the Mexicans from illegal immigration raises questions of inclusion and instability for further key issues for the world economy.

What’s even funnier (or scarier) is that he gets his information sources from Briethbart and from InfoWars apart from a number of hours of TV watched. Briethbart and Infowars are very opinionated talkers who have headlines that would make you turn heads and make you question their skepticsms (or truths). Trump passes on statements that is not fact-checked. He could in fact just be a tyrant where people listen and will take his word even though it isn’t right. A lack of evidence that is disregarded is denying the truth. It isn’t just a belief as his PR adminstration comments as because faith and fact, when diluted, will end with people getting hurt. Does America want to get their news directly from their leader only? If that happens, then is the country any democratic than other neighbouring countries (I’m thinking North Korea).

As a recommendation to oneself when getting newsfeeds either from social media, media outlets, or from the Internet, one should verify and double-check if the link/source is legitamate before passing it on. Is the new source sketchy? Can you get your source from other sources? Is it the source you know and recognize? Are primary resources linked and does the story match the primary resources? If the blog or site is continually wrong on the truth and have lots of biases that are not fact-checked, then leave the site, or stop trusting in it. One should chase the knowledge and be sure that questions are asked so that the truths are valid, especially when it can affect lives.

P.S. John Oliver, you are awesome. Keep up the fantastic work!

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver video below:

 

BMW with Neil Blomkamp

If you don’t know Neil Blomkamp, then you should go watch some of his movies that he’s directed – District 9, Elysium, Chappie – for some references. He’s a fantastic Sci-Fi movie director.

Blomkamp joins up with BMW to deliver this ad, which doesn’t seem to be like one. It’s called The Escape with Clive Owen in it. The premise of the story is that he’s the driver delivering a highly classified package (reminds you of Jason Statham’s Transporter). This classified package is a genetically cloned human. It has Dakota Fanning and Jon Bernthal playing as the human clone and mercenary that sits with Owen in the BMW to escape the lab. It then gets heated up with bullets being exchanged and car chase scenes all while highlighting the beauty of the BMW car as a supplemental object planted into the scenes. The BMW takes the backseat of advertising where the story takes precedence. I thought it was a fun short film to watch with all the action woven into it.