Can TBWA give Communism a good old capitalistic push?

The Propeller Group, a mutil-talented production house, approached us with just such a proposal.  Well, more of a challenge really…  Could we successfully rebrand the idea of communism?   After all, here was a brand name that has been around for the last 40 years.  

An interesting proposal in and of itself since a marketing agency is one of the most capitalistic services that could ever exist.  After all, what is more capitalistic than creating preference for one service or product over another?

And this was the challenge for the agency; revive an aging brand that was in need of a refresh. The process would be at the heart of TPG’s latest documentary film the premier at the 2011 Singapore Biennale, a showcase of contemporary art.

It was an incredible and exciting challenge for us.  I don’t think anyone was concerned with the subject matter, but more about the sheer intellectual challenge that was being proposed.  When we did our analysis of communications and previous marketing, we came face to face with decades of symbols and marketing that had generated fierce debate over the years.  On the plus side, talk about brand consistency, EVERYTHING was red and yellow.

But the more we looked into this, the more we came to love the brand.  After all, it’s such a wonderful idea, a utopian society where we looked out for the best interests of each other.  It’s a brand that fits so perfectly with where the modern marketing world is headed as well as evidenced by the proliferation of values advertising and CSR efforts. 

Was this about love?  About being good to your fellow man?  About making the world a better place?  They were all avenues we had fun exploring.  Hopefully the result did justice to the Propeller Group’s expectations of TBWA.  


To find out more about The Propeller Group, you can visit www.propeller-group.com or the Singapore Bienalle, visit www.singaporebiennale.org

I will never forget my 1st VSVCFF (Very Short Very Cheap Film Festival)

Everyone is cranking like crazy. It is unusual. The daily briefs are either sidelined or worked on with jet speed. Colleagues have turned into competitors. That is the Very Short Very Cheap Film Festival (VSVCFF) time. I came up with a few ideas. At TBWA it is ‘our’ idea even if you have no clue about what is going on. One imparts valuable know-how. Another helps with the props. Some give free advice. The other helps with the music. I am grateful to this one person who instructs me to do everything even though I haven’t asked for it. I get a phone call before the shooting day just to ask if I’m nervous, if I can handle all the anxiety, which is just awesome. I’ll forever remember my first VSVCFF.

My talents, director, film crews, dearest mates, please take a kiss for showing love, a huge thank-you for jumping for the 20th time just to make the coolest jumping shot. I love you for burning yourself under the summer sunshine just to get the right lighting. You know what, I almost cried in happiness when receiving your email everyday just to adjust minor little things to make our film perfect. And our efforts have paid off. Our regional and worldwide creative directors send their wishes. Our film is now part the agency’s credentials for initiatives. And I’ve received much encouragement from the ones who’ve seen it. Now, get ready for the next big idea and let’s get together again. Again, muah muah.


- Nhung Nguyen, copywriter


*The Very Short Very Cheap Film Festival (VSVCFF) is a global TBWA\ initiative for its valued client partners.

More training!

Fiona Clancy, Disruption "Black Belt"

I have been working in TBWA for nearly 3 years, but all I know about Disruption is 3 steps: Convention, Disruption and Vision; and some case study such as Apple or Absolute. When George told me that I would go with him for Disruption training, I kept wondering why me, he should bring creative instead. But after reading Disruption book, I realized that this book for planners. This teaches you how to come up distinctive strategy. My knowledge about Disruption was improved a lot such as disruption can be applied for anything, from business, product, to communication. Disruption is not just a breakthrough idea for creative execution.

And I got more and more surprises when training. There was a big group; people came from different countries like Japan, Singapore, Korea, and Dubai…  My first impression is they look very senior which was totally different with George told me <he just wanted to make me confident…>. Some of them are regional planners, that means they don’t base in any office, their role are rolled out from different offices in the network who need their help for pitching or Disruption Day. So you can imagine how much professional they are.

The training is not to teach you about Disruption; it teaches you how to organize Disruption Day!!!!!!!!  For whom don’t know what the day is: Disruption day is kinda of brainstorm where agency and client spend a whole day or even more to solve problem for brand/company. But the problem here is very big, it affects the vision, the way cooperate run business, it has to get involved from top management. Our instructor used to run disruption day with 75 people, from marketing, brand team to finance. It will take agency a month or even more to prepare the day. During the day, participants have to gone a lot of exercises to find out the answers for problem. In the training, we were given exercise and set up the plan for Disruption Day…  Again, I never ever heard any exercises before until the training... Okie blog time is over. Now I get back to work.

-Van Anh, account manager

Social Media. It's all fun and games until someone gets fired.

Social media channels are a great way to stay connected with your family, friends and colleagues. They’re also great at helping you find out about special store promotions, news on upcoming events and just about anything you’re into. And now they’re a great way to get yourself fired.

With Facebook, Twitter and personal blogs, it’s easy to post your everyday random thoughts whatever they may be. It’s self-expression at its finest. People can find out what you’re up to and what’s on your mind. It’s generally something you never need to think twice about. And why should you? They are your thoughts and no one else’s right? Not really.

It’s easy to forget the real meaning of www.  Just when you think only a few people are reading your thoughts, several hundreds may have seen it as well. Essentially, it’s gone public. In the past, we’ve read news reports and stories about people being fired for posting how horrible their jobs were. One woman even posted on Facebook how much of an ass her boss was. Stupid right? Of course, she was well within her rights to say whatever she wanted to her friends on FB, but she forgot that she had ‘friended’ her boss (a mistake she’ll probably never make again). She was fired on the spot with a posted reply from her boss.

So should someone be fired for expressing themselves through social media? Truth is, it’s human nature to ‘bitch’ about things that frustrate you. And since we spend so much time each day at work, it’s not difficult to find something frustrating at some point in time. There’s probably not a single person alive today that can say they’ve never had an off-colour comment about their job or someone they’ve worked with. Although chances are any ‘bitching’ was probably kept between a couple of friends, a bartender and few drinks - not 800 of your Facebook friends.

Or should a negative post serve as a conversation starter between the disgruntled and subject of aggression? For any company manager, reading a negative post online from an employee is surprising and probably very shocking (Because morale is so great at your company right?). But it raises an honest question. Are your employees truly happy? Does the company do a good enough job in providing an open environment that allows employees to discuss work issues and problems with personnel without fear of losing their jobs? Obviously for this to work it requires professionalism and maturity on both sides, not just the employer.

Imagine if every company in the world made it a goal to be great at this, we’d probably never see another negative posting about work again (Don’t hold your breath). But until that day comes, you might want to refrain from airing work issues online and try going straight to your boss. Or better yet, head straight for the bar.

The digital age in Vietnam is booming, but where are the advertisers?

Recently an interview was featured online (vovnews.vn) with the director general of Broadcast and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) of Vietnam (imagine the kind of dinner party conversations you could have with a title like that) speaking about internet freedom in the country. The interview covers his views (or perhaps a panel’s – okay, most likely a panel’s) on the progression of the internet usage in Vietnam. It’s a very brief and short interview that does sound like a carefully scripted press release.

The director reveals that the internet was introduced in Vietnam back in 1997 (This is only 6 years after the world wide web was introduced to the world by Tim Berners-Lee). So it’s actually been around for a lot longer than most people probably think. He goes on to say there are currently 27 million people in Vietnam, which is 31% of the population, now on the internet. That’s 10 million more internet users than the number of users in Australia. What’s even more amazing is that there are more Vietnamese internet users than the entire population of Australia.*

So where are the advertisers? The numbers seem to be pretty impressive. And to date, we haven’t seen any truly innovative campaigns from the major marketers that engage this large and growing online audience. Instead we generally see adaptations retro-fitted from other countries. Surely 31% of the country’s current online users deserve more than this.

According to the director general, ‘Vietnam is now leading the region in internet growth and is among the countries with the greatest internet development in the world.’ He also adds, ‘internet access is easily available to the people of Vietnam with hundreds of online newspapers, thousands of information portals and millions of personal blogs.’ That’s a lot of eyeballs, trackballs and mouses.

The golden cyber gateway to Vietnam is waiting and ready. Now clients just need to believe in it as much as the government does.

The original article is here.

*2010: Australia population - 21,262,641. Australia internet users - 17,033,826. By Internet World Stats via Nielsen

Supply and demand

One of the biggest complaints I hear about living in Vietnam is customer service. And at the same time, I often hear about the gentle nature of the population and a sense of being eager to please. So you can see how I struggle to reconcile the two.

Perhaps it's simply a symptom of the change that is happening here. We are coming from a time when services and goods had their pick of clientele. But as we swiftly move to a more commoditised marketplace, it is becoming apparent that to survive in this marketplace there will have to be a greater benefit than simply being in existence. It's been wonderful to see the bar raised across the board though as new stores pop up and even the street-side cafes start to update to actual store fronts. Maybe it has just been exposure and training. With more MNC's, returning Vietnamese, growing tourism, the rise in overseas travel, we are seeing exponential increases in opportunities for training and the rise to global standards.

Regardless of the cause, as Vietnam becomes a greater part of the global market, added value beyond just the product or service itself will become vital. There is simply too much supply and choice available for Vietnamese consumers for them to feel compelled to purchase anything less than exactly what they want.

What will be the response? Will we follow the trend of more values based marketing or more experiential marketing? No reason why you won't see both.

I'm king of the world... errrr... road!

Every year at the end of January or early February (depending upon the Lunar calendar), thousands of people living in Ho Chi Minh City flock to their hometowns and provinces to visit their families for 1-2 weeks to celebrate Tet. It's a wonderful time of festive gatherings, family dinners and fireworks. But alongside the card games and visiting with relatives there is something people secretly enjoy during Tet sometimes even more than the special rice cakes – uncrowded, empty streets.

When asked, a good number of locals in Saigon listed ‘no traffic’ as one of the wonderful benefits the Tet holidays brings. Surprising? Probably not, when you consider their daily commute consists of enough bumps, grinds and invasion of personal space that would make even Paris Hilton uncomfortable. The chance to enjoy unhurried travel through the city streets is a wonderful treat. Thousands and thousands of scooters gone for two weeks. Perfect.

You’re able to cruise down Dong Khoi Street and actually have a chance to check out the architecture and scenery around you. And ride the way Hells Angels do completely mask free so you can enjoy the cool breeze on your face, and maybe even chat with other bikers. Best of all, there’s no one around you forcing you to inch closer to the bike in front of you at a red light. Ultimately, your bike riding experience during Tet can be a liberating and an enjoyable one.

We’re already looking forward to next Tet, so we can practice our best Kate Winslet pose.

See you on the road.