Owenskie's Blog

Why are small businesses obsessing over brand management far too much when they can focus on a million other things like improving their services, or making their products better? I’m not talking about the inherent brand identity but rather the ones created in the drawing boards of the marketing offices. They want to control how consumers think, and we can tell. Although there have is a long list brainwashing wonders in the history of advertising to present, they are mostly those with big budgets to spend and a lifetime’s worth of patience. Small businesses though work on a tight cash flow of a few thousand dollars a month. They need immediate returns on their investment and marketing materials that can get places, are cheap to print, and work fast, even instantly. Color business card printing double as flyers, brochures, calendars, anything to get their message stick. It’s not that big companies simply can afford to spend on branding it’s that it is crucial to their survival. They need to earn the money to keep their big shots on the pay roll. They don’t need a million one-time-sale, they need millions of avid customers and regular consumers. Back room businesses on the other hand simply need cheap advertising you can hand out with a sales pitch. Winning one customer now, is considered a success. Getting that one customer to tell a friend is and get a subsequent purchase is heaven sent, and getting two regular customers is a bonanza. Learn to act accordingly. Large companies are backed by large corporations who spend other people’s investment. Their one big ideal can be matched with one big capital. As a sole proprietor, you use your own money as capital and have everything to lose. You will be answerable to any debts your business incurs. This should make you far more careful than large companies. Slow but sure is the way to go. Keep your day job and allocate a small capital while keeping some money for your personal use. Start with a small production: sell it to your friends, neighbors, and anyone you can get a hold of. From the profit you were able to generate, have a handful of marketing materials printed you can mail to certain people, or put up a website even. The most important thing though is keep your day job until you have established customer loyalty and are sure your business is sustainable.

If you are getting tired of reading those long novels about mystery & suspense, romance, and even spine-tingling horror, then maybe you may need to have a bit of variety. Reading books is like the art of eating. You cant always have the same thing over and over again. Grab something peculiar. Grab something a little bit out of your comfort zone. Grab a little of something that you havent explored in a long time. Many childrens books have risen in popularity. Thanks to JK Rowling and her Harry Potter series, other children-based novels have gained their fair share of recognition like CS Lewis Narnia and EB Whites Charlottes Web. The latter books I have mentioned have been in circulation for years and only recently have they been given attention by todays readers – both young and old. Turning them into movies is one way of popularizing these novels. In so doing, the wider the market grew for such books and childrens stories. The whole enterprise enjoyed a great boom, with toys and other fanciful items like posters, stickers, action figures, coloring books, and postcards with cheap postcard printing. Anyway, what I am pointing at is that there are a lot of gems that you can find in childrens stories. No matter how elementary these stories may seem – that is their true nature – their simplicity. No cheesy plots. No complicated mind games. And no pretenses. Take your imagination for a ride. Open up to worlds youve probably long forgotten. And yes, forget about Snow White or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Its about time you grow up and start reading really good childrens books and not some just lame fairy tale about princes and princesses. Do you really want your children to grow up waiting for a knight in shining armor to rescue them when they can do the rescuing themselves? Let them watch Shrek 3 and theyll enjoy themselves better. Anyway, if you want some good stories to read to your children, here are some books that I take delight in. Some of them have already been turned into movies, but nevertheless, the books are more exciting. Let your kids exercise their imagination through books. Do not feed them with television. (Although, you still have the option of letting them watch it after you finish the book. Just dont let them think that what they imagined is wrong compared to the television adaptation.) 1. James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Glass Elevator all by Roald Dahl 2. Jellybeans by Sylvia Van Ommen 3. The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein 4. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 5. Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus 6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

These past few days, Ive done nothing but read on and on about marketing and the next big thing. Yeah, I did pick up a few things, but after a few days, you find out that everything is rehashed, recycled, and repackaged. There maybe more than just a handful that have me at the edge of my seat listening, and then at midsentence, I catch on to a glaring mistake and realize Ive been had by a cult like rhetoric. I am sucked in to the idea that markets are becoming so defragmented, diverse, and increasingly intelligent. That as a consumer, I have an angry voice I can use to shout out and shake my cage. Mass marketing, mass production, mass media are all archaic. Offset printers should be thrown to flames and digital printing press with the capacity to print-one-to-one advertising is the fad. Everyone is all of a sudden talking about premium products, niche markets, and target marketing. Small business built on innovation will outlive the giants. All the intellectual talk and big words had me going a little, but a quick trip to the grocery changed my mind. With all the brands and choices for a single product in a single shelf in a large grocery store, its unlikely that Ill even pick my brain about it. Its not like Id bother looking up every product on the internet to be sure that each fits exactly to my taste. One time, I was walking through the groceries cold storage section and found some crabsticks for Japanese food, as well as Salmon for Sashimi. There were so many choices it was mind boggling. I thought Japanese food was specific enough. I ended up not buying anything. Its not that I dont like having a choice its that too much choices limits my choice. Its hard to have to second guess every purchase. I guess what mass marketing does is simply give you the reassurance that somewhere out there, people are buying the same product. It may not be the best item brand in the entire shelf, but its good enough. You buy it and you forget about it. If it tastes funny, you try to remember not to buy it again and move on to the next most familiar brand on the shelf. Maybe I dont get it, or perhaps, I am one of those ignorant consumers sold out and brainwashed by mass media. Well, so what if I am? I have more important decisions to use my brain power on.

This is the contemporary age where the question, What is art? blurs the distinction between classical paintings and graffitis found on street corners, where another mans trash becomes another man’s treasure, and where originality comes from being the first in doing certain things. Soon enough, all that there will be left is who does what first on the moon. Judging what is what has become harder. The foundations have been shaken by postmodernism. What is good, what is original, have become quite harder to specify. These among other things are some of the concerns of artists, creative directors, copywriters, and graphic designers into working out fresh and innovative ideas for the market. How exactly do you push the envelope in the land where everything has supposedly been said and done? Underground or guerilla marketing activities has been present and aggressive in the past years where the medium is not limited by television, internet and print ads. It doesnt matter too if you are advertising in a high-priced location or using discount poster printing for you materials. Creativity comes in the form of challenging the restrictions of space, ignoring the archaic rules, and making use of the same-old materials in a new fashion. Who says you cant in the first place? The medium, as much as the environment, has become more fused or integrated into the landscape. Let us bring the unfamiliar to their backyards, streets, and so on. Where bus stops used to be ordinary bus stops have now become a myriad of posters and signs. Where billboards have been transformed from two-dimensional to three-dimensional media. Just take a look around. Transforming billboards as huge as buildings arent really anything new. But making Godzilla appear more real is just for starters. Someone must have finally had the guts to say, Why not put real objects unto billboards and get that Wow factor. Lets put real cars and add more optical illusions to make everything convincing. They must have also said, Screw the rectangle billboards. They are so square. Why not rip the billboards and get a new, striking shape and effect. Creativity comes not just from asking, What else is there left to do? to Why not?! Bend everything to your will. Push the envelope and see how and what new forms you can accomplish in the cut-throat world of advertising. You didnt think Van Gogh and Matisse would be where they are now if they didn’t ask Why not?!

The word ‘pin-up girl’ doesn’t sound too good to hear. Probably in the old glam of Hollywood, it presents a different story. In those days, you have beautiful models that would soon make it big in the showbiz industry. And while their “indecency” is a far cry from what you would see in today’s smut magazines, nothing would make you think twice that indeed, that era has its own glamour and style. In the City of Angels, it makes you wonder while it was possible to market the calendars, who dared print them? Where they now and what are are they printing? Who was the Larry Flynt of that era? With all the Los Angeles printing services company providers in the market; I wonder what has replaced our pin-up and calendar girls? There were the likes of Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, Mae West, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Doris Day, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly, Mamie Van Doren, and of course, the one and only bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. All of these women have made it big and in one time or another, have been our pin-up girls. There were these curvaceous women that would put Barbie to shame. They were all foxy ladies, no matter what roles and costumes you put them in. Our poster girls ranged from barn girls, rodeo girls, nurses, secretaries, high-powered bosses, meek students, exotic, foreign females, single mothers and of course, the adult women like Mrs. Robinson. Nowadays, while the figures of our pin up girls changed, the rules of the games haven’t changed much. Being a pin-up girl can be two things at the same time - two kinds of pictures that illustrate women in a far distance from another. It can be a woman posing scantily clad in order to reach stardom or a star that wraps herself in a sexy, new package. The style of pin-ups girls have become more than a distinct art form, but a formula you can use to get into Hollywood like some cheesy plot movie. Pop-culture have had its way of not just mass-producing things but have continuously made it seemingly immortal. And so, as we ask such questions, we need to ask what has truly changed? What has not changed a single thing? If you want to answer the former, you need a better look into the bygone era. To answer the latter, well – pin-ups girls will always be pin-up girls it seems.

I am a fan of the Absolut Vodka. But it seems that as much as I like their vodka, I think I like their campaigns better. And yes, I am talking about their signature print advertisements that appear on print in different magazines. Whenever I’d see a new and a different print ad or poster design, sometimes I’d be blown away. But over all, what makes the Absolut Vodka campaign totally recognizable is that it has consistently been that way. It is simple and never tries to hard to pull off a new stunt. It is as it is – a print ad showcasing the inimitable vodka bottle. Aside from transforming the bottles to promote a new flavor, the only way the image will change is when it tries to illustrate the main message. To demonstrate the former and the latter, remember the Absolut Vodka bottle wrapped in orange skin to promote their flavored vodka? Respectively, there’s this ad called Absolut Yoga wherein the bottle was turned upside down, standing on its neck rather than the wide circular bottom. Many have already spoofed the Absolut vodka campaign, with all the different posters being design and all that. Look into one that says Absolut impotence and you’d know what I am talking about. Truth be told, there are many of those who have already analyzed this campaign. And then there are also those who try to discredit the Absolut Vodka ads. Call it pop culture, but that is the strength of the vodka campaign and it is not going to stop. Call it whatever you want. Each ad may not always turn out exactly to be a work of genius, but hey, no one is about to topple the crown off the Absolut’s head. Now, if you’re into collecting these print ads, well, it really isn’t easy. Why? There are hundreds upon hundreds of ads and frankly, if you just want a yearbook of sorts of their print ads, just buy the book. Yes, there is a book that compiles the print ads made by Absolut Vodka. I tried compiling them as much as I can, but my friends are getting tired of me asking them to tear out that print ad carefully. It also takes some money just to buy a magazine where I have spotted the newest ad. And more or less, it is hard to keep track which ones I have and which ones I haven’t. Sometimes, the fascination can even get out of hand. Huge poster prints on display in windows or in bars just make me want to steal them like a juvenile. If I had my way with wholesale poster printing, I’d print limited edition posters and give them out to Absolut enthusiasts. I wish.

I first made and designed my own business card back in high school. And I made not just one design but several. Now you might say, Who would want a business card from a nobody, high school student? Simple. My friends. I have a number to give out so I might as well do it in style, I thought. So I conjured up my own business cards back in 1996 or so. Yes, I had no knowledge of other design programs back then and still Corel Draw was a bit new and troublesome for me. Anyhow, all I needed back then was MS Word and clip art images. I also only had the Paintbrush tool where I would make my own designs. I would later copy and paste these designs and lay them out in a blank Word document for printing. I was off to a good start with MS Word. I felt I could print anything. So there, I have had sheets of my own business cards. Back then of course, my print outs werent exactly those of a professional 4 color business card printing company. They were actually a far cry, so there. But it really did give me a sense of freedom – as to who I could be, which facet of me should I reveal on my cards and so on. I kept playing on with different designs and I felt I could be anybody. The possibilities were absolutely liberating. Its realizing big fantasies on such small 2 x 3 spaces. Isnt that weird?! There were stars, unicorns, rainbows and bears on one business card. On another, there were paintings of famous artists. On others, there were just these collections of crazy fonts. I printed pastel colors, dark colors, neutral ones, greys and so on. I even bought all kinds of paper I could get my hands on. Simple bond papers are no good, except of course for text prints. I printed on board stock, on colored paper, on neon paper, paper with metallic finish, pearlized colors, paper with all sorts of texture, and so on. I think I even printed sticker business cards. Consequently, I learned my ABCs on printing from such experience no matter how limited it may seem. I knew better what to expect when printing on colored paper, on highly-textured paper or paper with uneven surface, and on paper with a smooth feel versus ones with a rough feel among others.. Nowadays, with the complexity of design software programs and with the confusing resolution, of dpis and ppis, and file formats, I sometimes wonder Do we get to toy around with printing and design anymore? I guess I better buy my Dummy guides soon.

Postcards have a 3% success rate, while others claim they have 2%. It may be a small number, but when you consider the long term brand image they create, and the aggregate sales they influence, it can be a bigger number. The first time I received a promotional postcard, I felt like a VIP. It was sent from a dermatological clinic during my 13th birthday with a special discount offer for one of their services. My mom used took me to there my skin problems. And although the clinic had some popularity, it was still a small clinic then. Fast forward to a decade later, (I outgrew my skin problems) the clinic has expanded to several other franchises. It is known to have treated many celebrities and is the premiere dermatologist. It’s hard to tell if her success can be attributed to the postcards printing or her personalized service, but I know it made me feel special and mature. Although even with the postcard, I didn’t go back to the clinic though because I had a bad experience with the pricking part of the facial. But my guess says it was the cornerstone of her success. Their service isn’t particularly good. I remember the doctor simply asked me less then ten questions, looked at my face and gave me a prescription, talked a little with my mom, and then turned me over to another woman. I found out later on that my brother has the same prescription. I hear postcards are a great marketing material. When used to advertise to a referred client, it can give you as much as 25% response rate. From one business blog, I read about a small business that tripled their sales using postcards for their marketing campaign. They placed a folded postcard on a gold envelope. In it was a simple message that thanked the customer for their patronage, and is giving them a gift check, and they specified what they can buy from the amount stated from the gift check. Of course, it’s dubious whether the 300% sales increase will last more than a month or is only for the duration of the promo. 3% average after all is a far cry from 300%, but of course, even for a one time deal, it is a stunning result nonetheless. It makes me wonder though, will postcards have the same results once we get saturated with all that advertisements?

Printing presses and publishing houses must be making truck loads of money printing shelves and shelves of business books that make starting your own business sound easy. They may contain well meaning ideas and valuable advice but to give the impression that almost anyone can be their own bosses is a potentially dangerous idea. We may have heard countless success stories of how every other business started as a small enterprise, but there are also countless other failures that fail to make the headline or even a blog review. They say that every business that survives the first year, there are nine other failures. (Or is that another one of those urban legends?) The biggest capital you need in starting up your own small business is guts more than money. For one thing, when you have enough guts and savvy, you can talk other people (i.e. venture capitalists) to invest in your business. You can use other people’s money to prop up your business. Guts on the other hand is something you have to put up on your own. Get rich fast schemes may be tempting, especially for those who have money to burn and little experience, but they never really do you any good. They bait you in, you gain some money, they reel you in further and before you know it, all your dreams are gone and you’re bankrupt. What you should pursue is a business you are interested in and knowledgeable about, but for those who lack experience, the best way to go about your plans is slowly but surely. 1. Keep your capital small. Even when you can afford it. You can easily recover over a short period of time, and reinvest the profits from this capital to grow your business. Even when you fail, the small investment means there is a short fall. 2. Learn from as much mistakes as you can. When you can’t succeed, the next best thing is to make as much mistakes as possible and learn from them. As long as you keep the stakes low and affordable, you can afford to detach yourself from the business and make experimentations. You can use what you learn to re-launch the business at a latter time. 3. Adjust. When you start small, you can easily adapt your business to the trends you see or to a sudden shift in target audience or message. You are micromanaging your business and you see the mistakes as they happen, and you see opportunities as they come. Work with what you have and innovate solutions on the spot. There is no easy way to get rich, even if some people seem to pull it off with luck. Nevertheless, knowing just how you can start small to successfully make it big one day is the secure way to go and get ahead in life.

I wonder why people celebrate New Year when most of us know that time is an enemy that robs us of both our youth and beauty. It may be a vain remark but even those who care little about their looks have a different way of looking at and talking about time. Time steal us the beauty of our memories. While we try to hold on and grasp all the wonderful memories with us, memories can be like sand sifting through our hands. And time makes the gaps between our fingers further apart. Every New Year, I see to it that I spend some time alone to get all sentimental and remember the events of the past year. It always makes me feel like a dog chewing on a dry bone. Yes, I can remember dates, names, and places, but I lose touch of what it felt like to be there at that moment. Time can rob you even of those rare moments that make life worth living. You know they existed. You just forget how it feels. It feels like a piece of postcard that leaves you longing to be in other places. If we could only truly preserve memories in postcard printing, diary writing or even drawing, we would have been able to feel all the recorded emotions on earth. And yes, time and again, I thought I could preserve these memories by writing them down in my diary with as much detail as possible. But I guess it really is a futile thing, trying to compress the complexity of life in an infinitesimal two dimensional objects like diaries and even blogs. Maybe New Years are for optimists who see their glass half-full. Perhaps, it is for those people who let themselves be robbed of a past so long as they have the present and the future. I guess it’s a good philosophy to live by, to live in the present and to hope for the future. What will this year bring me? The year of the rat, according to the Chinese horoscope is the time for activity and renewal. It sounds like a wonderful thing, activity and renewal, but it also sounds ominous. It feels like getting trapped in a rat race with no possible escape or future, but that is another story entirely. Err, maybe I should just spend my whole New Year trying to lighten up a little.