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.
Playoffs?! You Kidding Me? Playoffs?
This is a great day for College Football fans. We get our playoffs, and maybe now we can agree on who the best team in the nation is at the end of the year. As of now, we will have the 4-team playoff beginning in the 2014 season, and maybe down the road it can grow to 8 teams, or even 16. The only problem with this is that there needs to be at least a week off in between games, which can deter us from ever getting a larger tournament similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I think 4 is just fine, with 8 being perfect. In the 4-team playoff system, we can sometimes get a mid-major school in there to please everyone.
This change will bring in a ton of money to College Football, on top of pleasing the fans. Networks will bid on the rights to the game soon, which itself will bring in boatloads of money to College Football. For example, ESPN signed a deal with College Football in 2011 for a 4-year contract worth $500 million. That $500 million could be the new price of getting the game on your network for a year. And on top of that, ratings are expected to go up for these games which also brings about the questions of rates for ads during the games. Super Bowl ads have been around $3-4 million per 30 second spot recently, which isn't expected for the new College Football Playoffs, but the prices will be steep.
Although they have made the decision to hold a 4-team playoff, a lot of things still need to be ironed out. Such as, who will be a part of the selection committee. It seems to be headed for a change from what it was in the past for the National Championship game. That was part of the whole reason why we wanted a playoff, because a lot of the fans agreed that the former selection committee didn't do a good job of selecting the right teams. Last year for example, they chose Alabama and LSU. Not only did these two teams already play earlier in the year during the regular season, but they are also in the same conference, the SEC. Now, I know the SEC is a superior conference (and that's coming from someone who graduated from an ACC school), but we don't want to see a rematch from the regular season in the National Championship game, unless the first matchup was a great game. But it wasn't, a final score of 9-6 isn't that exciting. A matchup of their field goal kickers doesn't make for an interesting game. And because of this, the Nielson ratings for the game was 14.0, the third lowest ever for a BCS National Championship game. The new playoff system looks to change that, and will.
Foreign Ad Market
As I head to Italy – I will be on the lookout for all sorts of traditional and nontraditional media expressions and impressions alike. I'm looking forward to report on my findings, so as this initial set-up may seem short, the American market will get biweekly updates from me abroad as I observe, react and report on how those Europeans do it differently.
Stay tuned for an exciting adventure through the World of Advertising!
A World Without Internet
The internet has allowed us to do many things, talk to friends, share pictures, shop online, check out the score of the game last night, blog, email, and get pretty much any information on anything that you would possibly want. The internet is a beautiful thing, and life has changed drastically because of it. So, here are some internet facts that truly show how important the internet is and what life would be without it.
1. Since 2002, the number of internet users has quadrupled, an increase to 2.3 billion people worldwide.
2. The internet has allowed us to connect with virtually anyone, and has given us access to an infinite amount of information.
3. There are approximately 550 million websites, with 300 million sites added in 2011.
Imagine a world without the Internet
4. The cost of a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica is $1200
5. Paying for stamps instead of sending emails would cost the US $6.3 Trillion
6. The cost of online content is $0
7. Your favorite internet companies would have never existed: Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, Groupon, Google, Amazon, etc
Nobody would have an internet job
8. Facebook by itself created 450,000 US jobs
9. The internet creates 2.6 jobs for every job it makes obsolete
10. The spread of information would come to a screeching halt.
11. 65% of people get their news online
12. 1 minute of Twitter equals 100,000 tweets
13. In one month of Facebook, 30 billion pieces of content are shared
14. Revolutions would take longer: The fall of the Berlin wall took 4 months, it took one week for 90,000 Egyptians to organize a revolution and only 18 days of protest to overthrow 30 years of dictatorship
15. Collectively, we spend 35 billion hours on the internet every month
16. Every day we consume 3 times the amount of information that we did in the 60's