Marketing

Advertising in the Bangkok Post, Cambodia Daily, Thanhnien Weekly, or Vientiane Times?

Marianne Gadeberg

Last week, I was researching newspaper advertising cost and options in Southeast Asia for a client. We wanted to print an ad in an English-language newspaper in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

It proved surprisingly difficult to figure out who to get in touch with and where to find details on cost, artwork, and deadlines, so I thought I’d share what I found. (Note that I am not affiliated with any of the publications below).

In Thailand, the Bangkok Post, which was established in 1946, is the largest English-language newspaper with its 72,000 copies a day. I received a written profile from the paper’s advertising department, which reveals interesting facts. For example that 72% of the paper’s readers are male and that 21% of the readers are Europeans. While in correspondence with the Bangkok Post, I didn’t receive a rate sheet, but they are, not surprisingly since they have a much greater reach, more expensive than the other regional papers I contacted. Ms. Apisada Mahattanan, account executive, would be able to put together a quote for you. You can contact her at apisadam @ bangkokpost.co.th.

There are no less than two big English-language newspapers in Cambodia: The Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post. The Post advertises their rates online, while the Daily were quick to send me their rate sheet. Note that the Phnom Penh Post offers a discount on job ads and education and training announcements. You can contact Mr. Meng Dy, business manager at the Cambodia Daily, at dy @ cambodiadaily.com or Jesse Gage, business development manager at the Phnom Penh Post, at jesse.gage @ phnompenhpost.com.

In Vietnam, the ThanhNien paper seems to be at least one of the biggest papers in the country. Note that the Daily is in Vietnamese, while the Weekly, which is published every Friday, is in English. Their rate sheet is quite instructive (with prices naturally in Vietnamese dong), but you can also contact Tram Thi Bach Loan in the advertising department at bachloantrang @ gmail.com for more information.

Lastly, there’s the Vientiane Times in Laos, which offers very affordable advertising. A quarter page ad, in black and white, is 350,000 kip – approximately US$44. I picked up a rate sheet, which offers more details as well as contact information.

And the thing we were advertising? An open call for a Research Fellowship Program announced by the Mekong Program on Water, Environment, and Resilience and the Challenge Program on Water and Food.

Show, don’t tell

Marianne Gadeberg

One of the universal principles of storytelling is to show, rather than tell, your listeners what it is you have to say. It seems counter-intuitive that in storytelling you’re not supposed to “tell”, but rather “show” your listeners. However, one of the main strengths of a good story is its ability to transport your listeners to a new setting, mood, or mindset: to show them what it is really like.

I came across the ad below on Adfreak.com last week, and, as they note, it’s a good example of this principle applied in marketing. The ad takes us through a regular day of a regular person: Jeff. Jeff is, however, also a blind person. Rather than telling us that “it is more difficult for a blind person to navigate traffic than it is for person with perfect vision,” this ad shows us what it is like for Jeff to commute to work. The story — because it’s told from Jeff’s perspective – puts us into his shoes and allows us to experience his reality for ourselves.

The key of showing, rather than telling, also lies with the details: the “sound shadows”, the explanations of how to know when to cross the street, how it gets so much harder to hear traffic in rain are the details that make Jeff’s reality real – to us.

This is also why it resonates when Jeff says “I think television is part of society, right? It’s where we get our information from. It’s where we get our entertainment from. And being able to access that medium on par with everybody else in society is fantastic.” We fully sympathize with his endorsement of the products that the ad is promoting: full-text spoken-word versions of articles and voiced descriptions of action happening on TV.

This aspect of storytelling — to allow your listeners to experience for themselves, rather than just to tell them what it’s like – is naturally one of the reasons why storytelling is such a persuasive tool. What you are able to experience for yourself, even when it’s just through a story, is more real and believable than anything you’re told.

Cool Tees and Totes

Marianne Gadeberg

I spent a couple of weekends in Bangkok recently, and my time there was a welcome reminder of the pleasures of big city life. A trip to an actual blues bar, several trips to, perhaps, Bangkok’s biggest bookstore, and a visit to the Chatuchak Weekend Market were among the highlights.

At Bangkok’s weekend market you’ll find a slew of young, up-and-coming designers, who produce cool and original stuff. How Many T-Shirt stood out to me: she designs mainly t-shirts and bags and has a non-Asian, almost Scandinavian style. (I noticed no less than three other Danes browsing in her little stall during the time I was there).

 

 

Beyond her great designs, I also admire her simple (and, I am sure, low-cost) marketing. A URL is printed both on the tags in all items and on the front of the little bag I received my purchase in. The URL redirects to her Facebook page, which features lots of photos of her products.

 

 

While the page is mostly in Thai, I get the sense that she succeeds in using Facebook in the way that most big corporations wish they could figure out: she establishes a personal connection with her customers. Her Facebook fans are her friends.

Perhaps the reason is that she runs a start-up, and most of her customers are her actual friends. Or perhaps it’s because she names her photo albums things like “Friends and Tees”. Either way, I find myself happy to be her friend-fan, and I’ll definitely visit her again the next time I find myself in Bangkok.

Why We Respond to Stories

Marianne Gadeberg

Do you know the feeling of “but that’s what I’ve been saying all along, why did it take you guys so long to get it”?

I bet Jeremy Hsu, who wrote an article for the Scientific American on “Why We Love a Good Yarn” in 2008, feels that way. Judging from recent business book titles – such as Tell to Win and The Dragonfly Effect – my google alerts on “storytelling”, and Twitter’s #storytelling hash tag, you could almost get the impression that the power of storytelling is a brand-new, recently discovered miracle. Though really, it has been around for a while.

While I may have to let up on the storytelling-obsessed posts soon, I think it’s worth spending a few minutes on Hsu’s article. He, unlike most others, dives a little deeper into why it is that we all respond so positively to stories.

He argues that storytelling is a universal human trait that has always served as a way to practice, form, and strengthen social relationships between people. We, as human beings, have learned how to interact with each other, how to show empathy and interpret emotions, through stories. In fact, Hsu says, scientists are beginning to agree that

“Stories have such a powerful and universal appeal that the neurological roots of both telling tales and enjoying them are probably tied to crucial parts of our social cognition.”

However, Hsu doesn’t get much further into the details of these cognitive aspects of storytelling. If you want to continue to explore the subject I recommend turning to Austrian-born Monika Fludernik, who is a professor of English literature and culture at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Germany. Her research is academic (and perhaps only for nerds). In 1996, she wrote Towards a Natural Narratology wherein she precisely approaches narratology, storytelling, as cognition. She reasons that stories are meaningful because listeners will connect the stories they hear to life experiences:

“Unlike the traditional models of narratology, narrativity […] is here constituted by what I call experientiality, namely the quasi-mimetic evocation of ‘real life experience’.” (Fludernik, 1996).

In essence, Fludernik supports the view that Hsu is highlighting: Storytelling is tightly connected to human cognition and the way in which we think about the world.

The practically applicable conclusion from Hsu’s writing is, of course, this:

“[S]tories have a unique power to persuade and motivate, because they appeal to our emotions and capacity for empathy.”

It is no coincidence that marketers, advertisers, managers, and so many others have success with using storytelling in their communication – even if they are just beginning to discover this. It will continue to be true that we as people are preconditioned to respond to storytelling, to feel persuaded, motivated, and to change.

Chatroulette Love Song: Viral Video — uR doin it Rite

Marianne Gadeberg

Rune Iversen is a Danish guy who recently wrote a thesis on viral videos. After submitting his work, he decided to test if he could produce a successful viral video himself, using the principles he outlined in his thesis. He started working with a friend, Jeppe Vejs, and together they wrote the Chatroulette Love Song.

Indeed they were successful in producing a viral video. In just these past two days, the video was viewed almost 800,000 times on Youtube.

In an interview, Rune says that it took two and half months of preparations before shooting the video. It’s filmed in just one shot, and the set-up is completely genuine: The girl randomly came up on Chatroulette, and off they went.

The secret to making a successful viral video? “Make something that gives people a story that they feel. Make people happy, make sure your content is good,” Rune says.

It’s great to see people use the power of story in such a successful way. I’m pretty sure that marketers around the world will be going bananas for these guys’ talent.

Talk on Storytelling and Marketing in Vientiane

Marianne Gadeberg

On Tuesday, the 1st of March, the second incarnation of the “Laos Business Meetings” will be taking place. I’ll be giving a presentation on how to use storytelling in marketing.

While most businesses or NGOs in Vientiane likely do not have a marketing budget similar to (or, really, anywhere near) that of Nike or HP, there’s nothing that holds them from using the same techniques that these giants are applying. Consequently, ripping the benefits of successful marketing. It takes little more than a slightly different way of thinking to apply storytelling techniques in your sales materials, presentations, or newsletters, and the power of story will allow you to better connect with your audience and to have a long-lasting impact on them.

If you’d like to learn more, please join us on Tuesday. I hope to leave enough of an impact on my audience that everyone will be able to go home and apply the storytelling techniques right away.

The meeting is at Khop Chai Deu (near the fountain). It will start at 6.30pm and is open to everyone.

Hope to see you there!

Seven Deadly Sins of Business Storytelling

Marianne Gadeberg

OpenForum just posted another excerpt from Aaker and Smith’s The Dragonfly Effect.

They highlight, and rightly so, that while business storytelling often has a different purpose than a story told at a dinner party (or a story in Hollywood movie, or in a children’s book, or in a ballet, or…) the same storytelling principles apply in a business context.

The key is, really, that if you can crack the code and understand how these principles work, you’ll have a very effective marketing tool.

The seven sins (I slightly omitted OpenForum’s version):

  1. Telling a story chronologically: There needs to be more of a tension in a good story, rather than “first this happened, then this, then this, then this…”.
  2. Only telling: Show your audience and make the story come alive to your audience.
  3. Jargon: Refrain from using words only you understand.
  4. Pulse-free stories: Personalize the story, and tell stories about people.
  5. Fabrication: Don’t make something up; you’ll lose credibility.
  6. Bulletproof: Include conflict and vulnerability in your story, and you’ll gain authenticity.
  7. Proprietary: Don’t put ownership on corporate stories. Let them live and get shared.

I especially appreciate Aaker and Smith’s encouragement to follow the example of Apple, Nike, and Ebay and create corporate story banks, where stories that support the organization’s work can be stored and shared.

While Apple, Nike and Ebay may be frontrunners in the field, I personally just spent the better part of a year gathering and sharing personal stories for a social enterprise that works in Cambodia and Laos. Some of these stories can be seen on the DDD blog, for example here and here.

Big, commercial corporations can of course have good stories to tell, but in my experience the potential for good stories rise significantly when dealing with an impact generating organization. Sharing the personal stories of beneficiaries is a great way to connect to donors, funders and partners, and they leave a long-lasting impression.