Singaporeans prefer NUS to Harvard?

Just saw the news that NUS has scored a platinum award in University catergory (first time this has been measured) in the Reader's Digest Trusted Brand Awards 2007.

Many congratulations for this accolade for NUS, however, there are a few queries that remain unsolved in my mind:

1. Did Readers Digest only base the Survey on "7,000 responses to questionnaires and telephone interviews from across Asia." Is this a representative sample and is the spread of respondents distributed equally across the countries?
   
2. Where does the Straits Times deduce that Singaporeans prefer NUS to Harvard as put boldly in their headline?

The Reader Digest website seems a little unfinished to me, wonder if they will update more information (especially about the other countries) soon.

[via : NUS Press Release - NUS scores Platinum as a trusted brand ]
[Straits Times Article, 26th April - Forget Harvard, Singaporeans prefer NUS ]

Is there Value to be had from "Unofficial Distributors"?

Just read the news that somehow, pirates in China have managed to release bootleg version of the Spiderman 3 movie 2 weeks before the official debut date in the US. Given the fact that this came right after news that Windows only managed to sell 244 genuine copies of their latest Vista Operating System in China, it seems to give a solid indication that there is a large underground network,in China at least, of people who are to rapidly lay their hands on digital material, reproduce them in massive numbers and then re-sell them.

But a discussion of the ethics of this phenomenon is not the focus of this article. Instead, I think that there is a hidden value that can be tapped onto here. Looking at it from a highly positive light, it seems that there is an entire self-motivated system of distributors (of digital content) who seem to be able to re-produce digital content on massive scales and then push them out through their underground networks in record time.

This brings me to the case-study which concerns the relationship between Japanese Animation Studios and their fans (with absolutely no intention to compare them to be pirates but rather to broadly look upon them as "unofficial distributors") who actively help them to sub-title and then distribute their productions online (mostly through p2p networks). Once again barring the legality argument of the whole situation, one cannot help but see the value that these dedicated fans bring for others who want to watch the animations but are not able to because they are all in Japanese and typically only sub-titled in English. And for most part, the Japanese Studios do not seem to actively pursue the issue. Some reasons why this may be so are because (1) these fans who do not understand Japanese and English would not have purchased the original product anyway had not be subtitled, and (2) this correspondingly increased fan base actually helps to drive the sales of complementary products such as figurines and hobby kits. This effect is vaguely similar to the effect of popular cartoons in the 80s which drove to increase the sales of the toys based on them, but now imagine that all the producers have to do is to create the content in one language and an underground network of people value-add to this by translating that original work in all languages. (Could this be akin to open-source content which drives a secondary industry?)

The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of whether we view these "unofficial distributors" in a positive or negative light, it seems that they are here to stay and are undoubtedly an integral part of the current global business environment. So, what I'm putting forth is perhaps the controversial notion that instead of trying to clamp them down and then run business in a model that totally ignores their presence and impact globally, but to acknowledge them as an inevitable actor in the international business and think of business concepts and models where such forces are present.

Who knows, there may just be some symbiosis where these underground networks will be able to generate livelihood for their "employees" in the way they know best and at the same time, businesses gain an additional, massive distribution system for free?

[ A more detailed explanation of the fansubbing phenomenon can be found on Wikipedia]

The Legal Paradox of too much Marketing Success

In the world of branding, it is often that the ultimate goal that marketing wants to pull off is to turn their product brands into a ubiquitous household name. To some extent, a number of brands have managed to pull this off. Firms like Google, Photoshop and Xerox come to mind as they have been so well-known. These well known names have even become verbs with the meaning "to search online", "to manipulate digitally" and "to make copies". In fact, there is an online database filled with examples of such proprietary eponyms.

However, at the same time, the legal teams of these companies are freaking out as they see this as an improper usages of their trademarks. possibly detrimental to their brandname's integrity? They are beginning to set guidelines for the proper usage of their brand names, like Adobe is doing for their Photoshop product. A blog post regarding Google's trademark also appeared in the The Official Google Blog. From the legal perspective, the danger lies in that if the brand name becomes to generic and becomes accepted by people in such a manner, it would cause them to become generic names that are not owned by anyone. In order to avoid losing their multi-million dollar trademarks in this manner, companies have to show that they are actuvely trying to to stop their trademarks from gradually becoming generic and some possible avenues are to run advertisement campaigns to stregthen their brand names or to urge the public at large and sometimes writers specifically to make use of trademarks properly.

But, there is some doubt as to the effectiveness of such guidelines on external parties. Within these companies, it would be sensible and very possible for them set protective rules on how these elements of their corporate identity ( like logos and taglines) to present a coherent and consistent image of the company. A sensible first step which any company should take.

So, paradoxically, what is probably the greatest measure of marketing success for companies may in fact turn out to be a great legal problem for them.

[ Also : Digg - The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a Verb ]

Thoughts on Virginia Tech

As the news of the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech unfolded over the United States in the last couple of days, the public outpour of emotions and sentiments has been overwelming. Some mourn for this great lost, others question the effectiveness of the establishment's reaction and some have irresponsibly taken up this event as fodder for their own political agendas.

And yet, as people around the nation hold virgils and services for Virginia Tech, an simliar but much more massive support group is rallying online both through individual blogs and through social community sites like facebook, where a new group called "Today we are all Hokies" has been created and promptly amassed a large community of over 15,000 who come together to share information and support those in grief. The online medium has been used as a great support mechanism both for people from VT to pour out their emotions online as well as for others around the nation to read and gain more insights from the students and staff who are actually on the ground as a alternative to the repetative news updates from the mass media.

As the nation questions this incident in disbelief, colleges around the United States have been once again awakened to the possibility of such incidents occuring on their campuses and taken measures to prevent or mitigate the situation if it really did occur.

Being that the gunman was of Korean descent also sparked an outpour of reaction, partly due to his portrayal in the mass media. Some Asian-Americans are beginning to fear irrational retaliation due to this incident.

But in all the waves of heightened emotions and uncertainty, one thing is sure -- To all of the Virgina Tech family and those affected by this great tragedy, our hearts go out to all of you.