Detri-viral Marketing: When Web 2.0 works against a brand - How Not To Market in Asia III

Inspi (red), or just ti (red)? I recently saw an entire campaign for a local marketing agency that takes this concept directly and uses the word admi (red) instead of inspi (red) to invoke the name of the company, which happens to be the last three letters of the word and a primary colour that is not blue or yellow. You do the math - and that will lead you to the following equation - did the company come up with this copy/graphic idea themselves, or take it from the more than famous campaign you see here? Go figure. The "Product Red" charity campaign has run globally for nearly a decade as an effort to brand red products with a certain percentage of the proceeds going to help eliminate Aids in Africa. Microsoft, The Gap, Starbucks, Apple iPod and the band U2 have participated and it has probably occupied more public service media space than any other campaign in the world over the last decade. But maybe not in Vietnam. So does that make it fair game for ripping? Or just a last little portion of a diminishing market for stealing stuff and not getting made, almost immediately? I'm betting on the latter.


Recently my friend, Hugh MacLeod, put up a post on his blog, Gapingvoid.com, that fit in perfectly with a concept I've been working on of late, the concept of "Detri-viral Marketing". Detri-viral marketing is what happens when the collectivity and social nature of Web 2.0 go against a brand or service to send a negative message about what the parent company is doing. It is, essentially, when brands get busted - maybe for stealing an idea, or telling a lie, or just being generally duplicitous in their messages or their message sending. Two-faced as it would be. But one person never makes it happen. A lot of people make it happen. It's a snowball effect. The concept of viral marketing has been well documented over the last decade or so but the concept of detri-viral marketing hasn't really been defined, because probably, in real life, companies would just like this shit to go away. McDonald's has certainly dealt with a ton of it, in Europe primarily, in a consumer effort to illuminate the contents of their food - the "Supersize This" effect, if you will - and McDonald's has been a client of mine - a damn good one I must say - so I must tell you that a lot of the flack they have received is complete and total bunk. If you weren't a fat, stoopid, slovenly, couch potato, looser, you'd know better than to eat what they serve more than a few times week. But hey, these days, even those bums have a computer... so look out brands. These people have a lot of extra fucking time on their hands. They're like the people who don't like smoking - they don't have the time, commitment or gonads to join a real protest group, so they just find errant time in their day to accost smokers on city street corners and be asses because it makes them feel as if they stand for something. (I smoke too.)

But that's not the kind of detri-viral marketing I want to look at today.

Today, I want to look at people who feel they can get something good done, or right some wrong, or change the world just a tiny little bit by joining something and adding their voice to an effort in the hopes that the whole movement will somehow add up to be greater than the sum of its parts. But let's stick to advertising today. That's enough world changing to get done in just one blog post.

Rewind to 2003. Wieden and Kennedy, the advertising agency in London had just returned from the Cannes Film Festival with the Palm d'Or for the best television commercial of the year for Honda. The spot, called "Cog" was rumoured to have been the most expensive TVC ever made and reputedly took over 600 takes to get right - and in it's own right is an absolute technical and conceptual masterpiece. I was showing it to everyone I could in 2003 because I thought it was just such a great goddamn idea. See it below.



And then, the shit hit the fan. Two Swiss artists immediately protested the idea that they had sold their artistic concept for commercial purpose but at the same time complained that Honda had "appropriated" the idea from their artwork.

To understand the world appropriated from the world of artistic criticism let's just be a bit more blunt. It means stolen. Ripped-off. Filched. Pilfered. Nicked. Hi-jacked and just pretty much the idea that the artist, or commercial artist in this case, used another piece of work to base yet another execution on a core concept that they in fact, did not conceive. Thievery. Robbery. An illegal act. But by the rule of law? Well that's going to depend on a whole lot of judges. Watch just the first few seconds of the Swiss artist's work, below and you tell me how you would rule:



Tony Davidson, creative director at Wieden & Kennedy, said the film carried various cultural references. He told Creative Review: "Advertising references culture and always has done. Part of our job is to be aware of what is going on in society. There is a difference between copying and being inspired by." Mr. Davidson has just recently been made a partner in the agency, based in Portland, Oregon USA and most well known for their Nike work for well more than 20 years. One could do a whole lot worse in the business than working at Wieden and Kennedy and this guy was just made partner. Go figure.

But did they do wrong? Trust me, if the access of Web 2.0 had been present in 2003 they would have taken a complete shit bath for this one. It's pretty much impossible to have watched the Swiss artist's film and not have figured, at least, that the guys who did the Honda spot saw the film. But where's the evidence? And what was the crime?

Did I have sex with that woman? Prove it, baby.

I of course, am not a lawyer, but I've seen my share on TV and I can tell you that the legal clarifications on this kind of thing are indeed fuzzy, and fuzzier from country to country - but I have worked in this business for nearly 30 years and am well schooled in copyright law. Here's basically, how it works: You can copyright what is considered "copy" - that's where the legal terminology comes from - meaning words. And you can copyright imagery - a picture, a film sequence, a visual representation of a concept that is unique. But you can not copyright an "idea", ie: "We should put air into rubber tubes and then put the tubes into rubber casings to make tyres which can then be put on bikes, cars, tractors, etc.". It's possible you could "patent" that idea, but that's a different legal concept entirely. The are also ideas that have become part of what is called the "public domain", meaning that the copyright or patent status has run out and the idea now belongs to the people as a whole - like Aspirin. Anybody can make Aspirin now. Or the Bible. Anybody can print and alter any version of the Bible they want. Or DaVinci. Now we have to watch wretched films about a code he never wrote. Oh, dear, revisionist history. Wouldn't we all love one of his ancestors to have some right to stop production of this dreck? Or is our desire to retain our suspension of disbelief greater than our desire for the truth? And when somebody can tell me what the fucking truth is, then I will die a happy man. But that's gotta wait.

Today' finale is much less dramatic than that.

Welcome Dr. Thanh. The good doctor, for lack of an idea that accurately emphasized his advertising concept, decided that the Chinese had already done that for him and commissioned a few local artisians to just flat-assed copy a new commercial for him - all he had to do, was change the logo - and Voi la! Vietnamese don't watch Chinese TV - they'll never know! Watch the two following commercials in tandem together. Pay special attention to the almost frame by frame replication of the production in addition to wardrobe and modeling/action choices. Honestly, this is corporately embarrassing.

Somebody oughta have their Marketing MBA revolked! Aren't we dealing in enough global shennanigans to have this still happening? Can I find a class in business ethics in Vietnam?

And I'm not introducing this to anyone. This thing had 1000 YouTube hits when I got it and it's well over 4000 today. Detri-viral marketing in action - a lot of people, aside from me, don't like it - and a few crafty editors created it - way inside the production I suppose.

The real Maguffin here (An Alfred Hitchcock term that refers to the element that draws viewers and characters into a drama) is when you go to the parent company's website and they wax on and on about their dedication to "intellectual ownership" - that means the ownership of an idea.

They're very proud of the intellectual capital they own in Vietnam, Singapore and Australia and act like they might be willing to spend the resources to sue anyone who might infringe upon that. But they have no compunction whatsoever about just copying artistic stuff from a Chinese manufacturer that I was told they felt was, "Best practice knowledge in the category". Rubbish. Geez. The problem, as I see it here, is not legal. It's ethical. And I can tell you that no creative person worth his/her salt would dare do this low-ball stuff. Why? Because if you ever want to engender a career in the business the last thing you want is to be accused of is copying another person's idea. Or much worse, copying a shitty idea - and that's what's happened here.

I've been having a discussion recently with a company who wants to mount a business idea based on a "model from San Francisco". What the hell does "Model" mean. It means a business plan. But these people seem to have missed the idea that you can't take models from just about anywhere you can find them and have them work in Vietnam without adding value and uniqueness particular to the reapplication. Will pine cones grow pine trees in Saigon just because they work well in Canada?

Artists, MBAs and others. Twitter didn't steal Twitter from anybody. Microsoft probably did steal the Graphical User Interface (GUI) from Apple, but that's history and we're finally seeing the comeuppance. If you want to have a big business success, try having a big idea. Simple? I don't think so. The world is full of small ideas and small thinkers of those ideas. But the world is well fewer with true visionaries who are well paid, well slept and well shagged. Keep that in mind. Detri-viral marketing is now a concept and I didn't invent it, I just coined the term. The world invented it. So let's get to work boys and girls. Let's create something honestly good today.

For more in the "How Not To Market In Asia" series, click below:

I) The Importance of Time, Money, Quality and Knowing How Much of Each You Need to Succeed

II) What's Wrong With the Vietnam Advertising Association?

For more on time bandit idea & business concept filching, para-normal plagiarism, and all out spooky behaviour, check below:

New York Magazine Steals AsiaLife cover from the future!
Dr. Thanh robbed by Chinese Time Bandits!
SDM:Saigon Digital Marketing victim of para-normal plagiarism!
Bono and international do-gooders caught (Red)handed in idea heist!
Saigon Brand Provocateur steals idea from himself!

For more on digital marketing and social networking see:

Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago

The Browser Wars

Okay everyone, for all of you Giggly over the launch of yet another "amazing" Googly product, here are the stats on the usage of the new "Chrome" browser in comparison with other popular browsers in use today as recorded on my blog here in Vietnam. For the record my users come primarily from the United States with Vietnam a close second and Canada, Korea and the UK after that. And remember, you can always click on an image to make it larger should you really want to read the fine print.

	139	27.80%	MSIE	7.0
	110	22.00%	Firefox	3.0.1
	93	18.60%	MSIE	6.0
	81	16.20%	Firefox	2.0.0
	31	6.20%	Safari	1.2
	26	5.20%	Chrome	0.2
	7	1.40%	Opera	9.51
	5	1.00%	Firefox	3.0
	3	0.60%	Mozilla	5.0
	2	0.40%	Opera	9.52
	1	0.20%	Firefox	1.5.0
	1	0.20%	Opera	9.27
	1	0.20%	Firefox	3.0.2

As you can see, Microsoft Explorer 7.0 is still the winner, even on my blog with 27.8% usage. Firefox follows with 22% and then good (bad) old Explorer 6.0 with 18.6%. Apple Safari logs in with a respectable 6.2% and finally Chrome with 5.2%.

Now being an Apple man myself, I'm still partial to Camino, a Mozilla browser for the Mac and that is what is showing up here as "Mozilla" with a lowly .6% but in my comparison usage of Chrome this last week, I relate it closely to Opera in look and function but above all else in operating Google apps. My mail and blog load furiously fast in Chrome and over time I'll get used to the clumsy "thumbnail view" at opening. I've also had a chance to work on a Windows Vista system the last few weeks with MS Explorer and all I can say about that experience is that you don't need it. Microsoft needs more than Hugh MacLeod's Blue Monster or a Jerry Seinfeld commercial to pull its own head out of its ass.

And Chrome? It was only good for 70s furniture, lamps and car bumpers previously. No telling where this version will go.

The Stevie Wonder Post - Nothing much happened in Vietnam today II

This one's being written as the Stevie Wonder post – because it's being written "blind", quite possibly without me being able to see the final result. I'll include a picture of Mr. Wonder in his honor, and if you're reading this live, you'll hear a few of his songs, later in the podcast. r It's cool and breezy in Saigon today and that is very, very unusual in this hot and rainy season. Last night I actually felt the need for a long-sleeved shirt, almost unheard of in this country. r And so why am I writing blind you ask? Well, that's an awfully damned good question. A few days ago, Saturday precisely, I noticed that I was unable to see my blog on the net. Now mind you, this is pretty strange in that I am still able to post and publish – but when it comes to seeing it live, I'm in the dark. A little trouble-shootizing with the master, EC, in the States and it seems to be down to a server issue. EC is a techno-geek who works in the business of Search Engine Optimization (SOE) and knows his way around a computer extremely well. I'm no slouch myself, but I'm not a pro like EC. I'm just a guy with too much to say and too much time to say it. But on to WTF is going on... r And that's hard to say, so I've hit the skids in an effort to narrow down the options. I've had plenty of trouble with Google based applications here and know well the long delays I can sometimes endure as Google maybe has not kissed as much government butt as can be necessary. r The following quote from Wayne Greene on Mark Robinson's blog may or may not be true on different days at different locations: "Blogger is blocked by some of the postal authorities where ISP’s originate in Vietnam. At many locations, it is not possible to access Joe’s blog or “Vietnamese God”. Yahoo 360 on the other hand is free from those restrictions." r And this plays into the whole MicroHoo saga in Yahoo's dominance in Asia. Yahoo has just been here longer and has endeared itself to the region, in Joint Venture Partnerships, government compliance and customer relations. Google is still a newcomer and "B" player, generally. If Microsoft wants to be a Google-killer, Yahoo is their best shot in Asia. And so the not so difficult question becomes raised, "To what extent does government censorship become an issue in terms of Vietnamese blogs?" And my answer to that particular question is yet unresolved. r I've gone for days with certain parts of the web not working at all; to suddenly have them pop-up and be just fine. Sometimes a re-boot or a cookie-cleaning will resolve an issue. After the tsunami out in the Pacific off Taiwan last year, where a number of undersea cables were broken, things were shit for a month...and then just fine. Vietnam has a particular problem in that "salvage" fisherman routinely troll the waters for expensive undersea cables, drag em up, cut em' and then sell miles of fiber-optic for scrap. Why do I think that the people who buy it as scrap just sell it right back to the ISPs and then they lay it right back down in the same place. Personally, I thinks Aliens do it. Discovery Channel could make a show out of it - like they do about the lobster boats off the coast of Maine! r"See, we're pretty smart", says Captain Nguyen Van Hook, "We know how to pirate more than just DVDs!" r And the story moves on. I have a few notes out to others with blogs here in Vietnam and hope to hear back just some techno-mumbo-jumbo reasons - but I can't see their blogs either. So far, it seems that Blogger and WordPress are the issues. Yahoo360 works ok and WindowsLive seems to work – that's EC's blog you'll see – but my buddy on Blogger here cannot be raised and my own stuff remains dead – at least to me. r And for the designer in me, it's just a darn shame – not being able to see all the little tricks and quirks I try to program in just makes me feel...well...unfulfilled. Stay tuned. r A few little things popped up for me this week – While watching the National Geographic channel, in a story of Dinka Tribesman in Africa who heard cattle for a living, was the following quote - "You can't cook money and eat it. You could starve to death with money in your pocket." I just love that, mostly because it's so fucking true. r And now, here's a note about my Dad – because I know he'll never read it. r A few months ago I received a note from my father's wife saying that they didn't like to read things on a blog, but preferred I just email them things. I responded with a note that included a link to receive automatic email copies of the blog each week. "Just click it and say, OK", I added. And the link just sits. They don't want to do that. ––– In a way it's just a microcosm of my relationship with my dad, which I must say...is minimal. Dad's just not a writer, or a talker, or much of a communicator with me at all. And I find that sad – or I should say, it makes me sad. Somewhere in early adoption it does seem that my mother earmarked me for herself, and knowing the kind of person she was, can see how she could so closely dominate the situation to have left little or no room for my father. Oh, we tried baseball, I asked him to teach me to ski (something he could do) and he was present at my Boy Scout camp-outs, but to say that we ever enjoyed much of a father/son relationship would be a stretch. I'm an artist, writer, theatre, actor, speaker, musician kind of guy and he's an engineer, an electrical one – but I suspect things go much deeper than that. So deep that I may never really communicate with him at all. r Back in 2002, when Mom had passed away, I was able to stay with Dad for a few months. I mowed his lawn, trimmed his trees - so much so that he asked me to stop cutting trees - and cooked for him everyday. I made myself as useful as possible and tried to do things that would make his life a bit easier. And I tried, somewhat in vain, to talk with him. In my mind, I thought this would have been a good time in both of our lives to at least begin a conversation. But alas, that was not to be. Within a few months he had found a woman with whom he shared interests and they would be married a year later. Her husband had passed away in the same month as my mom. And with that, Dad's void was filled. He had found a woman who would take the same position as my mother had had and be a partition between the two of us. And that partition remains to this day. Most of the mail I get is written by her and he maintains his enigma status in the Father & Son Department – by some strange design, that I will probably never understand. r Now I've got technology in the way, or the Vietnamese government. I just checked again and nothing on Blogger will come up. If anybody in Vietnam reads this or gets an email or feed subscription, please contact me, and let me know from where you got connected. I'll continue my research and see if we can get to the bottom of the Stevie Wonder in Vietnam story. r Cheers. r Okay, usually the way this works is that I say "Cheers" when I'm signing off, but late breaking news keeps coming in on this Blogger deal. Here's a note from a guy here in town who's a web wizard and a true local guru. r "Ya, I can see blogger.com and blogspot.com. Yours has a Stevie Wonder post up top. Remember that the admin and actual blog are at different domains. I'm using the FPT ISP. If your ISP is blocking blogspot.com (possibly in preparation for the Buddha's birthday celebrations here), you can try going to blogspot.com via VPNTunnel, http://www.vpntunnel.net/, or another "anonymous proxy server" (in case your ISP is blocking that, too, just Google that phrase in quotes). If you can get to blogspot.com via proxy, then your ISP is blocking blogspot.com." r And so you can probably see how things can get a little confusing around here – as if the language barrier were not enough. And so I asked my friend, who will be regarded here as "Deep Throat", what anybody would have against Buddha and this was his response: r Buddhist groups here are basically divided in two, those authorized and those banned. The banned ones, the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, are complaining abroad that they're being blocked from the UN's 2008 Vesak (Buddha's Birthday) events and having some of their temples hijacked by gov't for staged events. If you can't see shite via VPNTunnel, try other proxies. Also ask your hotel's sys-admin if they're been required to block some sights. Sometimes the cops impose blocks at the retail Internet level. r Just another Monday in Vietnam. Who says nothing ever happens around here? r Cheers, for real this time!

For more in the "Nothing much happened" series, check below:

VIII People Are Just Dieing To Get Out of Here
VII The Hair Job
VI Happy New Year! Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
V The Vietnam sNews
IV At The Center of Miss Universe
III My Walk in the Park Today
II The Stevie Wonder Post
I Ear Cleaning

MicroHoo or NewsHoo?

$50 Billion Price Tag Puts Pressure on Microsoft to Up Its Bid for Portal

By Abbey Klaassen
Published: February 14, 2008

"NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Want to talk about massive display share? Forget Yahoo and Microsoft -- it's Yahoo and News Corp. that could shake up that world."

The story above from Advertising Age magazine points squarely to the fact that News Corporation's advantage here would be the ability to offer advertisers package deals that would cover print, television and internet placements – something Microsoft just can't offer – business growth. If the deal sells it won't be the extra 5 billion or so in the offer price that does it but the possibilities of advertisers dollars and the ability to access content from News Corps stable of media enterprises over time. Here in Asia the combination of Murdoch's Star TV, newspapers and Yahoo would be more than powerful.

Le Feel Internationale

Recently, Hugh MacLeod, in his blog, Gapingvoid.com, mused that in the quiver of the necessary business tools of Financial, Intellectual, Technical and Cultural properties, that the only possible shortcoming in Microsoft's arsenal was the latter. Oh, we all know there's a million Bangalorean geeks slaving away at code for good ole MacroStiff but is that really cultural? Or just low cost outsourcing? Cultural assimilation and growth require absorption of new ideas, divergent histories and traditions – a true crashing and synergism of disparate advantages towards the greater benefit of the whole. (very Confucian...or nuclear?)

Following is an excerpt from Wild Wild East – One American executive's view of a foreign culture as pitched to an employee a few years ago:

"The attorney was a whole other story. A primpish North-side Chicago gal she had all the charm of a sorority girl on spring break. I honestly don’t recall her name but her pitch was nothing short of glowing – glowing in the manor of stinking shit about things she didn’t know fuck all about. Oh, the international life as she recounted it. Sunsets on the Champs-Élysées. Wines at quaint corner cafes and an exotic circle of European friends pervaded her life in Paris with her husband, also an attorney with an international law firm. I can still smell the champagne soaked carpet of her description as it was being rolled up after the American Chamber of Commerce Ball on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. I had been to Paris in 1990 and while much more of a backpacker than an executive at the time, certainly knew a few of the finer moments of that great city. I had stayed in the shadows of Tour Eiffel and busied my trip with cooking school, trips to the Louvre, Musée Rodin and Musée d'Orsay. My father used to say that I had “champagne taste” on a “beer budget” but my budget had come a long way from college and I had the wife to prove it.

“Have you ever been to Korea?”, I asked the attorney.

“Hong Kong?”, “Anywhere in Asia at all?”

Her “no’s” were just sheepish in an unknowledgeable sort of way.

“Honey”, I recall thinking, “Seoul, Korea ain’t no fucking Parée!”

Hell, she wouldn’t have understood it if I had said it in exactly that way so I tried my best to describe to her just how different from Paris it really was, but I knew all my counter-claims were falling on deaf ears. Her memory of Paris truly was truly blinding. She thought all international assignments were like Paris. I'm sure she'd love Bangalore.

And though this tale is over ten years old, I encountered the same just last week from a recruiter with a major global advertising group. She was recruiting for a Tokyo position but couldn't spell the Japanese partner's name correctly nor even confirm facts that are listed on the company's website (in English!)

At least when you see a McDonald's in another country, they will spell the name in the appropriate language and even represent the typography in the style of the culture. "Le Grand Mac!" , to quote Travolta from Pulp Fiction..

What are the chances that Microsoft can even bridge that chasm as it slips in word dominance? MicroDeux? I dunno, I think legal's gonna have some issues... I'll get back to you...

Into the GapingVoid!

Who knew years ago that the funny Scottish man who drew sardonic urban cartoons on business cards and grooved to Django Reinhardt would be a web 2.0 prophet today?

Hugh and I met in the fall of 1989 as the two newest employees of the Leo Burnett company in Chicago. Hugh had just graduated from the University of Texas and I was about ten years into a fairly successful advertising career. Our day of company orientation included hours of scintillating explanations of insurance plans, profit sharing plans and of course, an in-depth analysis of the ever important employee handbook. We didn't give a fuck about any of it and spent most of the day cutting up, asking inane questions and marveling at the sincerity with which our sophomoric behaviour was being responded to. The day culminated with a showing of Leo Burnett's now famous retirement speech, "When To Take My Name Off The Door". You can see it here:



And with that speech, we were actually inspired. Behind the mahogany veneered walls and shiny conference tables, here was something we could sink our teeth into. Common sense, uncommon honesty and heartfelt passion for the business of creating something. I've heard it said that in terms of people's respect for certain professions, that advertising people rate just above used car salesmen and somewhere below lawyers, but here was a man you could believe in. Too bad he was dead.

Hugh and I would work together for the next few years. At lunchtime we'd grab a sandwich and head for the Jazz Record Mart in The Loop, still the largest jazz record store in the world. The storefront was a small deceiving dusty affair with just a few rows of racks of old LPs and a tiny selection of CDs. But through the curtain on the back wall was a cavernous room with tens of thousands of records of all shapes and sizes. They even had LPs that were nearly a metre in diameter, commissioned by the US Army for use on Jeep-mounted turntables with overhead loudspeakers on the rollbar. These records were only grooved on one side with the theory being that nobody had time to turn a record over on the battlefield. The size was simply to insure the longest play possible.

Hugh was a huge jazz fan, his father having been one as well, and probably taught me more on the subject than anyone previously. But all along were the cartoons on the business cards. They were an integral part of Hugh. Sarcastic, sardonic, enlightening and decidedly un-PC in the ultra conservative environment of the Leo Burnett Company. Remember, this is the company that created the Jolly Green Giant, not the Blue Monster of www.Gapingvoid.com fame.

What the fuck were we doing there? Both of us were fairly well known for throwing shit in the company's face whenever given the chance and did so routinely, because that was actually our job. I am convinced to this day that companies in the precarious predicament that Leo Burnett was in, in the 1990s need to hire people who will come in and shake the tree.

From Wild Wild East:

"Burnett would struggle in the years after that, loosing client upon client, all for different reasons, but the message was clear: this was a company tied to the images of the Marlboro Man and the Keebler Elves struggling to come to grips with a vision and technology that was much more Mario and Pokemon."

I told people for years that my job was to be the exact opposite of everyone else at the agency, that by sheer force of individuality and a measured detachment I provided a service that they desperately needed – objectivity. But it's hard to maintain that kind of freedom once you become part of an organization because the organization won't let you. They hire you because your are different but then try to make you the same as they are. This is pure organizational psychology. There is little one can do about it – within the organization, that is.

Hugh and I continued to work at Burnett for the next few years. In the mid 90s I headed for Korea and Hugh moved to New York. After a year and a half in Korea, I started my own agency there and Hugh continued on the cartoons. in NYC. As fellow geeks I'm happy that technology has allowed us to keep in touch and stay creative.

For more on digital marketing and social networking see:

Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago