My Kiwi friend who is flying down to Singapore after a long absence of 9 years wrote me a really short email, “What’s this with “Your Singapore”? It can NEVER be mine! How could it be? “. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has a different opinion on that obviously. It has built a multimillion-dollar marketing [...]

It would not be a surprise to find this ad in some progressive European country. Or in the USA. Or any where else, in fact, except in (surprise! surprise!) – Singapore. When the ad was first launched, the hapless Burger King agency in the USA, Crispin Porter & Bogusky was credited with the dubious honour [...]

That’s the opinion of Al Ries. If you don’t know the man, he is the one who along with Jack Trout coined the term “positioning” and authored the famous book, “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind”. Al Ries was in Singapore recently to attend the Global Brand Forum and he answered an interesting question from [...]

When you introduce yourself for the first time to someone you just met in a networking session, how will you sell yourself? Think, and go through your self-introduction speech in your head before reading on. There’s a reason for this suggestion. The conversation probably goes like this: John: Hi, I’m John Smith. Harry: Hi, John, [...]

Many people do not realise that the power of a brand extends beyond the obvious. I have worked with many small and medium enterprises who believe, wrongly, of course; that “brand” means Coca Cola or Apple. They somehow fail to see themselves as being “branded”. But all companies, big or small, are branded. Even in [...]

I was having tea with a friend who intended to start a business within the next few months. The conversation led to a long discussion of whether one should build the entire company and product around a pre-set branding or should branding evolve over time. It’s almost like a chicken and egg discussion but it [...]

Whatever you do about your personal branding, just don’t be a “Paris Hilton”. She might be in the news all the time but none of them are in a very favorable light. Most of us savor snickering at gossips now and then, and we enjoy seeing people put on the spot and laughing at them, [...]

When I first visited Japan, I was in awe at the respect and the lavishness with which they treated their goods, even when I ordered just 3 tiny sweets filled with red bean paste. They were first placed in a transparent tray, which was then lowered into a exquisitely green coloured corrugated box with printed [...]