Time flies.

Who could believe another Easter came and went since my last post here? Like I said earlier, good thing this isn't an actual blog with expectations of daily posting or anything resembling that. I have no words of wisdom to impart here today, other than to observe that yours truly is having a very good year, mucho better than the previous one. A respectable amount of advertising work, lots of music being made, and a feeling of one's oars being in the water. In a larger sense, Barbados' hosting of the World Cup Cricket finals has come and gone with no real disasters except for the closing ceremony in the dark and a little confusion as to whether the match was done or not. At least a lot of new people were exposed to the island, even if they didn't buy as many t-shirts or meals as some might have hoped. My personal theory is that the unrealistic expectations for World Cup were fueled by the Barbadian passion for the game. Nothing wrong with a little enthusiasm once in a while, although it can make you spend an imprudent amount of money. The new Kensington Oval looks impressive from the road, though. Like a big jet waiting to take off.

Happy Easter

Wherein we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus by eating large amounts of food, among other pursuits.We single expats try not to dwell on these family holidays too much. Yesterday I celebrated Good Friday by going for a Good Walk in the morning down to the port and back, around 2 hours worth of walking. Along the way I encountered the mummified roadside remains of a dog that had been hit by a car...it was barely visible because its total decomposition left it looking like a flower that had been pressed in a book, kind of a one-dimensional object.We don't deal well with animals killed on the highways here...in some cases they make it off the road before expiring to become fossilized, in some cases they are covered with lime (quicklime?) by the road crews, and, too often, they are simply driven over hundreds and thousands of times until they no longer create a thump and are simply a black or brown stain on the road with a few clumps of fur. Walking allows one to think about these things while also oxygenating one's blood. Never mind, Ian the new Sanitation Spokesman is wishing us a "happy holiday season" while giving us more information than we ever wanted about Easter garbage collection, so we shall try to do that while not thinking about how we dispose of garbage or animals who have collided with our relentless car culture.

March already?

Ok, the idea of using this portion of the site as a kind of blog is perhaps not a good idea. Mainly because a blog demands daily input in order to maintain its usefulness. Instead, lets think of these random neural firings as Occasional Observations. There, that takes the pressure off. Whew! I feel better already. See you in August.

September begins

We have a new commercial on the air here. It appears to be one of those Trinidad-concept, Venezuelan-produced production numbers with a fairly lavish and colourful set. It begins by showing various black&white headshots with the VO saying "it doesn't matter whether you're young or old, male or female, etc. etc."...before bursting into a colourful song and dance as the jingle says, and I am not making this up:"Itchy bottoms, itchy itchy bottoms..." before we see the pack shot and hear the pitch: "Zentel....eliminates worms quickly and effectively." (words to that effect)

For perhaps the first time in his life, Market Ninja is lost for words.

The middle of August, 2005

Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it? MN promises to update this site more frequently, if you're still checking in. (editor's note: obviously a big lie.) Having wiped his hard drive and reinstalled programs, this is his first successful foray into Dreamweaver MX.

We are inspired to cross this hurdle in order to share some thoughts on what must be the most reprehensible hour in local television. (Yes, MN only gets the lone local channel, a sure recipe for madness.) You see, it has been decided that Barbados can benefit from the orgiastic celebration of human greed that is "The Apprentice", wherein various yuppies claw and scratch their way to the top to be anointed as a Head Gofer by Donald Trump, combover champion of the century. Yours truly watches it with sound turned off, just to witness the cartoon-like framing of the situations as The Donald glowers at his simpering minions. It is the ugliest embodiment of American culture ever perpetrated here, encouraging and rewarding the very worst of win-at-any-cost greed and consumerism.

But the best, my friends is yet to come. I'm talking about the commercial break, where, in the space of a second, we are taken from the gold-plated excess of Trump Tower in Manhattan to.....a pig pen.

You see, a local supermarket (slogan: "proper pork"!) has decided that the best way to whet our appetites for pork chops, pig tails, and the like is to craft (haha) a TV spot focusing on hogs walking around in an excrement-filled pen, using almost-clever rewind/repeat shots to imply that the pigs are dancing. This is done to accompany what must be the most insipid jingle ever. (lyric: "proper, proper, proper, proper pork.....) That was most of the lyric by the way and not a sample, just repeat it for 30 seconds.

A pigpen. To promote a supermarket.

The owner has also done a priceless calendar with photos of him in the pen patting the pigs on the head prior to their slaughter. Makes you want to run right down there and buy some groceries.

In any case, to return to the point about "The Apprentice", the split-second shift from Manhattan to merde is truly breathtaking.

Yet somehow appropriate.

March 8th, 2005

I knew when I saw Digicel billboards nearly every 1/2 mile in St. Lucia that there was some serious cellphone marketing taking place in the Caribbean, and it's certainly made its mark on Barbados as the Cellphone Wars have escalated.

Every mother's son (and daughter) now spends his/her day with a cellphone permanently adhered to his/her head, no doubt providing a running commentary on their lives to someone on the other end. Just imagine how much is spent worldwide every day on the Mindless Monitoring of the Mundane: "I went to the store already, on my way to the bank now....I think I'll have some pasta for dinner because I had chicken last night....I'm on the bus/off the bus/at the bus stand/out of luck because I missed the bus, etc. etc. etc.

Do those phone signals go out into space and travel indefinitely like TV broadcasts do? I sincerely hope not, because I'd hate to think what an alien reciever would have to say about a civilization intelligent enough to create such amazing technology and yet silly enough to use it in such a trivial way. Yes, it's a tremendous marketing success, but has it really improved our lives? Or has it just turned everyone into the proverbial guy using the airline's seat-back Airphone years ago, for the sole purpose of saying:

"Hey, it's me.....guess where I'm calling from!"

February 15th, 2005

The Market Ninja has been on the planet long enough to know that the advertising and marketing arena has changed a lot in recent years...most notably because marketing is so pervasive, one's prospects are shell-shocked by thousands of messages every day. It makes it very difficult to penetrate through the clutter.

An excellent book called "Purple Cow", loaned to me by a client, talks about that very issue. His premise, put simply, is that you can drive through the countryside and see a thousand cows without thinking anything of it, but if you see a purple cow you will not only remember it, but tell others about it. By making your business or product a "purple cow", i.e., memorable and unique, you're able to insert yourself into the public consciousness without spending 12 million dollars in a TV campaign.

One of the best examples of "viral marketing", where your consumer does the heavy lifting for you, can be found in Microsoft's Hotmail promotion. (Trust Bill Gates to find a way to save money.) In providing the Hotmail service to consumers, the always-clever Microsoft added a tag at the bottom of every hotmail message: "click here to set up your own Hotmail account." In other words, pass it on.

Viral marketing rocks, but it requires serious study in order to come up with one's own Purple Cow.