Archive for May, 2009
Interesting news from China, where it has emerged that Kaixin001, the wildly popular social networking site that burst onto the scene last year, is suing rival Kaixin.
For those who haven’t been following the endless twists and turns of China’s burgeoning social network scene, this is the sort of story that could only happen on the mainland. Kaixin001 emerged last year on the back of a number of popular applications (Parking Wars and Friends for Sale being its major draws). Not content to see a newcomer hogging the limelight, Oak Pacific, which owns Xiaonei, one of China’s biggest Facebook clones, launched a rival site called, simply, Kaixin, with remarkably similar applications and an almost identical appearance.
What’s interesting is that this time round the game of copy-the-leader has ended up in court. The case promises to be an interesting test of how far China’s intellectual property rules have come and what sort of legal protection media owners can expect in the ‘Wild West’ of China’s internet.
Tags: Kaixin, Kaixon001, social networking
Posted in Media | 1 Comment »
Found this on the internet and thought it best to share - some swine flu ads from an outbreak in the US in the 70s. There’s some great scaremongering in there, as well some great 70s racial stereotyping - note the black basketball player declaring he’s “too fast” for flu to catch him.
Simple question though - why aren’t we being offered the ’swine flu shot’ this time round?
Tags: Swine flu
Posted in Advertising | No Comments »
In the latest issue of Media we take a look at holding company performance, and in particular the results posted by Publicis and Interpublic that showed Asia performing far worse on an organic basis than the global average.
Since then some new information has found its way to us. First up, WPP, which generally does not split out Asia from other emerging markets. In its earnings call (http://tinyurl.com/o5u7eg), WPP’s CFO reveals that APAC revenues are down around four per cent, with the hardest-hit markets being the likes of Japan, Singapore and Korea. China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia are all still growing.
While four per cent decline is hardly something to cheer about, it is notable that WPP’s APAC performance is less worse than its global performance (down around six per cent on a like-for-like basis). That is different to Publicis and IPG.
Then there is some extra information on Publicis. In its quarterly report Publicis reveals its performance in different emerging markets. China and India, both held to be motors of growth in this region, are both in the negative. Publicis’ organic revenues are down 1.6 per cent in China (possibly a post-Olympics comedown?) and down 7.5 per cent in India.
There’s also some interesting number-crunching regarding the size of their holdings. Emerging markets make up 21.1 per cent of Publicis’ revenue. China is 15 per cent of that and India four per cent. By my rough calculations that gives Publicis Q1 China revenues of US$46 million and India revenues of US$12.4 million.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Early contender for most baffling media placement of the year. While leafing through the Sunday Post (the Sabbath version of Hong Kong’s SCMP), I came across an interesting piece on the blood diamond industry in Zimbabwe in the Post magazine supplement. An extract from a forthcoming book, the three-page, hard-hitting piece detailed the harsh conditions, violence, political intrigue and get-rich-quick nastiness that surrounds this business.
Who was advertising around it? None other than several major diamond firms, including De Beers.
Was the goal to promote legitimate diamonds (buy our stuff and save African lives)? Or had they simply been sold a piece about the diamond industry? If the latter, I’d love to have seen the marketers’ faces when the paper arrived on Sunday.
Posted in Advertising, Media | No Comments »
