The Foreign Nature of Foreign Marketing
Case in point… The first advertisement that stood out to me in Italy was a HUGE ad for shopping mall outlet stores (keeping in mind that the entire ad was in English – which is a completely different topic altogether) it was on a drop cloth, suspended in the beautiful San Marco Square in Venice. It was brought to my attention due to my mother's complaints that the gigantic poster was taking away from the beauty of the square. She asked why anyone, in their right mind, would drape an enormous ad over the front of such a beautiful and historic building… I then noticed, as we looked closer, it appeared they were doing some restoration work on the building, so the facade was already covered. But this brings be to my point… the advertisers took this opportunity to use the already covered space and pay, what I can only assume would have been an exorbitant amount of money, to place their “English targeted” ad in the most touristy spot in Venice. Good show indeed – but interesting tactics – no room for your regular billboards there. With all that being said, I actually found myself almost ignoring the ad due to its size alone. And due to the fact that the square is so beautiful, my eyes were hardly drawn to the gaudy draping down at the end.
One effort that did catch my eye, however, was a picture hanging in one of the restaurants. It was a splendid example of a company using the surroundings to impart their message, in an entertaining and intriguing way – instead of an 'in your face' large draping that covers up half a building side. The black and white photograph showed San Marco Square (known for its many pigeons) with the large words Coca Cola, somehow shaped on the ground in the middle of the square. It was only when I looked closer, that the words were in fact spelled out by, none other than, the pigeons themselves! Coca Cola, cleverly, must have spread out bird feed so precisely, to entice these birds to do their flash mob style bidding. Now, that is resourceful advertising. No wonder Coke is the only American made soft drink I saw when in Italy…
Stay tuned for more observations from abroad…
Ciro Lavadenz, Thank You
Ciro is probably the most generous and accommodating man that I've had the pleasure of meeting. He possesses an intricate working knowledge of logistics, finance, and international business. Without his guidance, my experience here would have certainly been a different one.
Ciro, I thank you, sir on behalf of all of us that had the pleasure of making your acquaintance. I will take back the many lessons learned here (business and otherwise) and incorporate them into all that I do. In me, you have a friend for life, and should you ever find yourself in Jacksonville, I will ensure that you will have a phenomenal time.
Calling All Entrepreneurs
The thing that anyone from the US would notice immediately, is that because the servers are not heavily reliant upon tips, customer service at any location, is severely lacking. If someone could open a restaurant here, and simply pay the servers based on a tip system, customer service would be remarkably upgraded. As it stands, sitting down and eating anywhere here will take about 2 and a half hours because in Argentina, they typically converse during and after the meal. Due to this, restaurants fill up quickly and lines form outside the door. Last night, my group of 4 waited 90 minutes to sit down and eat and then spent an additional 90 minutes to 2 hours completing the dinner process.
At the ripe age of 29, I had the fortune to have a younger core group of friends while in Argentina. This means that I got to experience the dance clubs here. The lines are extensive and you may get the impression you're in South Beach. Once inside, you pay a small cover. The atmosphere reminded me of a very crowded house party. The bar has limited offerings, although, you can purchase entire bottles of your favorite libation much, much cheaper than you ever could in the states. There were probably 8,000 people in the place we went last night and it was so crowded you couldn't really have a good time. You had to hold your ground and make your body rigid to prevent interlopers from invading your dance space. At best, you could hope to slowly sway left to right, but expect to get bumped into from 10 different directions instead. If fire codes were to be enforced like in the states, it would be a much more enjoyable experience. There's also a rather inefficient manner in which one orders a drink at the club. You have to muscle your way to the cash register and order and pay. If you don't hold your ground, people will cut in front of you the whole night. After you pay, you receive a ticket that you give to the person who makes your drink on the ultra-crowded other side of the bar. Needless to say, if an alternate dance club format were adopted, you could make a killing.
I can see that I've already gone on long enough for now. Stay tuned for more fun and exciting tales of business opportunities in this South American wonderland.
A List of Fun Facts About Argentina Based on Empirics
I have not seen a single stray cat. There is, however, a large population of stray dogs who are so street savvy that they will wait for the crosswalk sign to change and walk within the boundaries of the crosswalk.
Services are cheaper here! A full massage cost the equivalent of 22 American dollars.
There is a large Italian influence in Argentina and for those spanish speakers out there, all “ll's” make a “sh” sound, so “calle” would sound like “cah-shay”.
Everywhere you go, you can find pizza, lots of it. We went to an alleged Mexican restaurant called Club Tijuana that also served pizza. Their trademark dish here is milanesa which is similar to country fried steak/chicken with your choice of sauces, and then the locals also dollop cheese fries on top. Scrumptious, but very indulgent.
Everybody walks everywhere.
The most expensive private university education costs the equivalent of 7000 dollars per annum.
If you make 25000 dollars/year, you're considered quite well-off.
When ordering water here, you must specify with or without “gas” (carbonation) and people drink it a lot and it tastes like club soda.
There is a traditional drink here called “mate” (pronounced mah-tay), and you add what looks like coarse herbs resembling cedar pulp to a hollow gourd and you sort of mash it and apply hot water and you drink it through a “bombilla” which is a metallic spoon/straw. This is an oft consumed beverage and you are meant to bond and converse while drinking it.
There are many breaks throughout the working day in Argentina. Businesses open at the usual time, but smaller shops take a break mid-day for several hours, as well as tea time which is in the evening, and those stores will not re-open until 9 pm or so which is when most people go out to eat, but not many Americans do for fear of eating and then going to bed soon after.
Much like my experience in Japan, clubs, or boliches, are open from about 2 am – 6 or 7 in the morning. I went one time and it left me very exhausted.
The Price of Freedom (part 2 of 2)
We as Americans spend more money than any other nation, hands down, when it comes to national defense.In fiscal year 2008, the United States spent 941.4 billion dollars on national defense (Takahashi, 2008). As someone who served in our nation’s military and used NALCOMIS (Naval Aviation Logistics Command Managed Information System) on a daily basis for four years, let me assure you that your tax dollars spent on defense are not being spent responsibly. Aircraft squadrons would routinely have M9 status, which meant that they were out of money. This usually happened a month before the new fiscal year in October. You see, a squadron is allocated a budget, and if you’re a savvy commanding officer, you will use your budget in its entirety. If you fail to do so, your budget is forever reduced to the amount you used that year and the remaining amount is reclaimed by the government to reallocate. Therefore, you have CO’s squandering money at every turn; buying personnel new flight jackets, washing jets more frequently, extra fuel for training maneuvers, new computers. While I’m on the subject of new computers, did I mention that the military gets new Dell computers every two years? After mentioning all that, I cannot fail to mention the largest, glaring money pit that the military has, and I’m sad to say, it’s labor costs. You see, there’s a great deal of job security for people who work in the military, you can make mistakes and screw up your whole career, and you don’t get fired, you get reprimanded. The US military is a great place for young, unskilled people to learn a trade and better themselves, and some do, but some don’t. For every hard working, dedicated, patriotic, service member, you have a dozen people in there, just playing on the computer, avoiding work, collecting a paycheck. If you’re well-connected and easy to get along with, you can even get promoted following that model.
I know there is some shock value to what I said. America’s military and its personnel has often been an off-limits, taboo thing to discuss. Rest assured, steps are being taken to further the training in economic responsibility throughout the military. A great deal of money has been spent to ensure that programs like Lean Logic, Six Sigma, and Airspeed are incorporated into training. However, that’s also the problem. You can’t afford to send every service member to a class; usually the mandatory number is 10 percent of a given command. I was one of those people that were sent to these classes (because I reflected well upon the command). Instead of sending them all to class, material is printed off of the computer and disseminated. Everyone gathers in their chairs and spends one hour reading aloud to one another, pretending to be interested in the material. It’s one of the great fallacies that America’s military receives some kind of world-class training because I’ve been in multiple commands and it’s all handled in this fashion. Again, this is a prime example of wasted labor and wasted time. People don’t understand that in the military, it’s very similar to a regular 9 to 5 job. It’s a very good living. I wish I still got paid so well. For an 18 year old with no discernible skill set, it’s a fantastic opportunity to make 18,000 to 42,000 dollars per year depending on whether or not you qualify for BAH. What does one have to do to make such an impressive leap in pay? Simply get married or have a child, and a lot of them do just that. It’s a flaw in the system and it’s often exploited.