Cool Christmas Campaign

The most irritating part of social media and the internet these past few days are the increase of unwelcome advertising forcing themselves through the various platforms. In Instagram (IG) for instance there's a significant increase of ads being placed in between your feed. The worst part in IG, a huge percentage if it are spam. It's either misleading ads or downright repetitive and spam advertising. They are poorly laid out and instantly looks like a bad product. In YouTube, since the content creators don't consider ads in between what they produce, ads are placed in the middle without considering the flow of the materials and several ads are placed before and after the videos.

I did find a good ad and advocacy by an online payment product which came on just right. The content creator probably had a hand on how they would execute it but the concept was subtly pushed. It was a good 'pay it forward' campaign where they simply tried to give Christmas giveaways, in these examples food to not so random strangers but within the context of the content they produce, or in the case of Ramon Bautista he played it in a good way.

Merry Christmas and I hope the people who received the gifts really did pay it forward. Maybe I should to...

Unexpected Little Things

An 86 year old man looked for a VHS (it's an analog video player for those who don't know, click here for more). Luckily he was able to purchase one in perfect working order and he was able to watch all his old videos from his younger days. We now take it for granted that we can easily take a picture or a video of everyday happenings. Back in the day cameras and recording equipment was just a hassle to carry around everyday. Pictures took several days to see and video recording equipment cumbersome and quite expensive. These days everyone has both at can see pictures and videos as soon as it is taken. Imagine this 86 year old being able to view and relive his cherished memories as fresh as the day it was taken.

These days it seems that life is recorded while it is lived. People take out their phones and record concerts, parties and life changing moments as it happens. Some say this culture of recording these events suck out the enjoyment of the moment. I believe it's best to pick and choose what moments you want to live through and experience and what moments you choose to record in your phones.

Here's a picture of the 86 year olds letter to the seller thanking that person for helping him relive all those moment through an old machine that he kept.

 Note: photo taken from the historyphotographed Instagram account.

Doing ordinary things extra ordinarily well....

Delivering mail may not be the high profile job everybody wants but if you put love and passion in what you are doing you can impact peoples lives and be part of it. Here' a nice story of a retiring mailman in the USA who gave all of himself to his job of delivering the mail by also looking after the people in his mail run. It seems he did all the small stuff by getting to know the people in the community and eventually became part of each family he delivered the mail to.

Feel Good Stories

Restore your faith in humanity with this story where one of the owners of a donut shop had an aneurysm and had to be hospitalized. As a married couple who ran the business they couldn't stop their business operations. The community stepped up and bought all their inventory so the owners could take care of themselves.



The video below is when it first happened

Vanity, it's my Favorite Sin

The beauty and cosmetics is a multi-billion dollar industry. Vanity is definitely a profitable sin to take advantage of. With social media and the internet it probably one industry which provided a lot of opportunities to a lot of people. It can be argued that it supported to influencer culture. Just by making videos on how to put on make up and how to look beautiful people were given a platform to be internet celebrities. A great marketing campaign can blast a me too product into profitability. A good endorser can also make a difference. Simply look at Anne Curtis and Vice Ganda who recently launched their own beauty product line. Based on this video though consumers should be wary of the product they purchase. Some of the products simply try to take the hard earned money of consumers where a much cheaper alternative can be purchased.

While the video focuses on anti-aging products I feel it's also true with other cosmetic products.



This is why vanity....

 

Another Harvard Dropout?

Clickbait, I hate it the video below was a good story about Coupang which is potentially the Amazon equivalent of Amazon. After watching the video I learned the Bom Kim stopped his graduate studies in order to pursue his business. The title of the video made me assume that he was an undergraduate who became successful and had a similar story as Zuckerberg and Gates. Dropout sometimes means a person failed college as well.

It was a good story though which may be typical of graduate students who has started businesses and was made to choose between furthering their education or continuing the entrepreneurial journey. The first iteration of the business was a Groupon copycat which is probably a story in every country that had ambitious young entrepreneurs at the time. Locally there was a lot of people who tried. Some are still in business but I think a lot have closed shop since. This Coupang story follows the startup model where your initial idea doesn't end up as the final product. It is now an ecommerce platform larger than what probably Bom Kim ever imagined.

Viral Content: Children with Down Syndrome Pose as their Favorite Characters

A photographer took pictures of children with down syndrome in costume as their favorite cartoon character. Looking at the smiles of the children they seemed to having such an enjoyable time doing this. I initially saw this on a story by the Today show.