“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs

Click here for the complete text of Steve Jobs’ commencement address delivered to the graduating class of Stanford University last June 12, 2005.

Despite the “phenomenal” PR impact of CKE Restaurant’s Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger™ campaign, actual sales figures released this month didn’t impress. Carl’s Jr. posted a 1.7% gain in same-store sales for the four weeks ended June 20, while its sister chain Hardee’s posted a 0.7% gain.
Read the rest of this entry »

I suddenly woke up this morning and could distinctly recall a ringing sound, the type you hear when there’s an explosive blast nearby. I had been shot point blank in my dream. I died. Surreal.
Read the rest of this entry »

I checked my logs recently and saw quite a number of hits from users searching for the keywords below. I’ve never seen so many keyword variations for a single topic. People definitely want more information about the Arroyo audio tape scandal.
Read the rest of this entry »

Almost anyone who’s familiar with the Emerald Avenue-Julia Vargas pedestrian overpass will tell you that it’s a prime candidate for the Most Unusable Design award, if the Philippine construction industry ever held such a contest. I used to shuttle back and forth between Orient Square (along Emerald) and Antel Global (along Julia Vargas) daily. I can tell you the trip’s longer without any obvious improvements on the traffic condition below.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a quick lesson for Filipino marketers wanting to copy the Paris Hilton-powered success of Carl’s Jr. though I think they’ll be hardpressed to so bodly package sensuality and burgers to the Filipino masses, not with the Church oligarchy breathing down their necks. But sex, este sensuality still sells. Any marketer will tell you that. So how does one pull it off?
Read the rest of this entry »

Still waiting for that Adsense check? Consider the Adsense alternatives out there. They may help you earn enough moolah for that iPod dream of yours come Christmas.
Read the rest of this entry »

Blogging for business is such a buzzword abroad these days. You’ve got the executive crowd playing pundit on almost every technorati topic available while enjoying the additional personal press coverage and branding benefits for their respective organizations.

The perverse truth is, blogging for blog’s sake has become un-sexy. Don’t get me wrong, I love the raw appeal and the democratic exchange of ideas, but today, most of the business blog content out there is (dare I say) just clutter. Real meat is hard to come by.
Read the rest of this entry »

If the thought of Paris Hilton romancing a burger and a Bentley is too much to take in one sitting, consider this equally effective alternative.

Spoof ads aside, it does seem that the original Spicy Paris campaign’s a marketing success:

According to competitive intelligence service Hitwise, searches for the term “paris hilton” grew 102 percent and queries for “carls jr” grew an astounding 802 percent between the weeks ending May 21, 2005 and May 28, 2005. Comparatively, brand searches for Burger King - in the midst of its co-promotion of Star Wars: Sith Sense - increased just 52 percent during the same time period.

I wonder if the marketers over at Carl’s Jr. Philippines have plans of making a copycat ad for the Filipino market. Two words: Angel Locsin. Now that’s hot.

From I4U: the SCPH-70000 CW console ships from Play-Asia and Lik-Sang for $219.00.