Enriqueta Ulloa - Bolivian superstar delivers awesome performance

While in La Paz, Bolivia last November, we were invited to a concert by Enriqueta Ulloa. We had never heard of her, as her fame hasn't traveled north. We quickly learned, that she is a superstar: whenever we mentioned having been to this concert, Bolivians were so excited and started talking about her music, inspired by the traditional sounds and songs of the regions of Bolivia, as truly important and an important ambassador for Bolivian culture - and they were amazed that we even knew to go.

Two posters in contrast. She's so famous her image is all the
advertising needed.

That night she was celebrating 35 years on stage with back-to-back concerts! I've never seen a crowd so into every moment of a performance. Handkerchiefs twirling, clapping in the right rhythms and singing every song. The energy was incredibly joyous, the connection between artist and audience immediate, the love mutual. We were quickly swept up in this awesome vibe. This evening left me with one of the most powerful performing arts experiences I've had.

The performance included several numbers featuring traditional dance, some highlighting the band and others featuring the singer and of course costume changes and a selection of photos and videos from her long career (with the most awkward production set up but it just didn't matter - these were iconic images to many in the audience). As for the crowd: there were old people and children, there were powerful people and regular folks, there were men and women, there were city people and country people, those descended from Spanish blood and indigenous people - and there was one shared, joyous, Bolivian experience. An amazing moment in a country that feels so much in transition.

We were almost shocked at the cost of tickets: 30 Bolivianos each ($4.50) for 2nd row seats! By North American standards that's incredible - less so by Bolivian standards but still a relatively easy ticket to buy.

Scene before the doors opened.
The house was sold out and the
excitement obvious. 

The Municipal Theatre in La Paz dates to 1845; old,
beautiful, great vibe.

Here are a couple of Youtube videos for diversion and enjoyment.

Do you pay someone so you can buy from them?

Click to enlarge view.

I just bought some tickets to a Melissa Etheridge concert. It should be great - we are excited about seeing here live again.

Because the online ticket seller adds fees like a "convenience fee" - basically a charge for the privilege of buying the tickets - I went to the box office in person.

For me all the "convenience" of buying online disappears when it adds $20 to the ticket price. And that's not all. If I were to buy them online I'd have to choose the delivery method: If I want to be sure to get them delivered, it's another $14.

Sure, I can pick them up at the venue or I can get them by regular mail (i.e. no guaranteed delivery) without additional  charge.  But here the "convenience" of buying online falls apart: I still need to leave my house and walk into a physical venue. Today, there should be a free option to download and print the e-ticket, just like with airlines, and some other ticket sellers.

My actual purchase cost me $197.00. Buying it online would have cost $231.00
(Well, arguably only $217 if I pick them up in person; so I went to buy them and pick them up in person at the same time and leave $20 - or $34 depending how you look at it - in my pocket for another performance.)

Nonetheless, this made me ponder other industries where the customer has to first pay for the pleasure of buying something.  I've come up with:

• Credit cards - even though everyone has a "no fees" option these days, cards with fees are also still very common. 
• CostCo membership - the annual membership fee gives customers access to amazingly low prices on all kinds of goods. 
• Investing in mutual funds. The transaction fees are usually well hidden - OK, there's a total lack of transparency. And there is a thing called MERs and they do cost you, also quite hidden from view. 

Consumers pushed the credit card industry to include no-fee-cards in their portfolios. Given that many credit cards continue to charge around 20% interest on any balance, you'd think that's plenty to profit from.

CostCo on the other hand appears to have found a working formula where the value proposition works really well. The fee represents a fair exchange, and might well keep CostCo in business. The whole business model is fascinating and it has made CostCo one of the largest retailers in the world.

As for mutual fund transaction fees, front-loads, no-loads and MERs - my feeling is transparency should be a given in all financial transactions - and I am amazed this has not been assured as yet.

Where else do you pay in order to make a purchase? And what's the experience like? Does it alienate or bring you closer to the company?

What are they thinking at BlackBerry?

Just last week I used the Canadian edition of the BlackBerry website. It gave me all the information I needed quickly and efficiently in a pleasing, professional interface and I was happy.

This evening I went to the site and saw this as the homepage: a rather static screen trying hard - and failing  in my books - at a lifestyle branding for BlackBerry.

Today BlackBerry is the leader in the smartphone market, but it's obvious that the Android platform and iPhone are growing faster than BlackBerry. To protect their position and keep growing they have to do something.

But static and boring web interface? All I get to do is go left to right or right to left and click on user types like "The Shy Girl" or "The Power Couple" to see what BlackBerry device they should be using.

Apparently if you are The Shy Girl you use the BlackBerry Pearl. I wonder how all the BlackBerry Pearl users out there feel about that. "Hey, you have a BB Pearl, you must be the shy girl who texts a lot." I mean how does that help someone gain status in their social circle? I was looking at getting the BlackBerry Torch, except now I am told that I am apparently broadcasting that I am part of The Power Couple! The truly powerful usually have little need to broadcast such things, they simply are and they act, so where does that leave me?

What are they thinking at BlackBerry? What's the insight at work here?
Have they heard of video and all the really cool things they could do by integrating video into their site - or better yet, why not just keep it clean and professional until you have a great lifestyle brand idea that you can make work online? So many ways to advance a lifestyle brand, so much to learn!

NB: We just saw anther number 1, Nokia, do something about the threats to their leadership position: announcing a strategic partnership with Microsoft, for better or worse. Hope they will open up that platform widely so they can garner the creativity and imaginations of apps developers everywhere.

Logo evolutions

I enjoyed this brief, visual survey of global brand logos. It's fun to see both what has changed radically and what has merely evolved, sometimes subtly, over the decades. The biggest changes in logo design in these examples are driven by shifts in the business or in its context. In that sense branding cuts both ways: brand designs do lead and they do follow trends.

Corporate brands are much more than the corporate name, even as wordmarks remain crucial for many brands and are likely more important the more local a business is. In any case, you will see several logos in that list that have become powerful enough to omit their company names entirely. Few do so because the image is the name, as is the case for Apple or Shell. With others you might wonder about the thinking or the research that led that decision.

Anti-marketing? Real estate issues in Bolivia

To North-American eyes this was a thoroughly surprising message:

"Esta casa NO está en vente" (This house is not for sale.)

Anti-marketing? Why write that on a building?

Turns out the anti-message is rooted in changes taking place in Bolivia under the government of Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, even though the majority of Bolivians are indigenous. 

Speaking with some of the property-owning locals we learned that it has become increasingly difficult to maintain ownership of anything other than the house they live in. It appears it has become relatively easy for squatters to gain title to unoccupied properties. One person we spoke with, told us they were paying someone to live in a second house they own, in order to protect their ownership. Yes, you read that right. They are paying someone so when they want to use the house in another way in the future they are able to because it is still theirs. 

This also explains some of the other unusual notes scrawled in large letters in properties that weren't in use, such as land without buildings. That message was usually something like "This property belongs to [insert name] and it is not for sale. [phone number]"

This was a good reminder to never assume that our own economic, social or cultural context is some kind of gold standard for how things "should" be and what we expect of others.

This restaurant logo works

Many restaurants take a less than stellar approach to branding. From so-so logos to hard to understand web sites using way too much Flash to the super cool interior design overpowering what the kitchen actually delivers.

This restaurant does a great job putting it all together. Ceviche is a dish - raw fish to be clear - that comes in many forms and is very popular in various South American cuisines. Hot peppers are a feature of many ceviche dishes. The Peruvian version is particularly famous in part because the Japanese-Peruvian fusion cuisine has been making an international name for itself.

The logo expresses this core offer without any ambiguity and the typography and application are both fun and slightly out of the ordinary.

This restaurant is one of many we have seen that offer awesome Japanese-Peruvian dishes. The commonalities between the two styles of cooking centre on raw fish and the many artful and save ways to prepare it. I never had sushi that was as delicious as this. The service was great, the night was lovely and we sat outside 'til late.

Causa peruana sampler

Warm and cold rolls. Delicious fusion.

A Concept Restaurant

Palermo district in Buenos Aires.

When recessions or economic downturns hit, restaurant owners can turn to creative solutions to survive in such a tough-at-the-best-of-times industry. (You might remember some of this appearing in North America, too.)

I thought this pitch on the sandwich board that otherwise might tell me what the specials of the day are was well done:

"We give you food, drink and good service ...  You pay what you want, without pressure and prejudice... enjoy yourself."

The restaurant looked like a very fine choice for a great dinner out. It also looked like this was no longer a gimmick to keep people coming but an actual business model a la 2011.

Municipal signage encouraging line ups

Buenos Aires

Here's a subtle example of social marketing I noticed at bus stops in Buenos Aires.

Translation: "Build an orderly line without disrupting the pedestrian traffic."

This notice has obviously been around for a while given the shape it's in.

I did experience some pretty odd lining up though: We took the local bus from the international airport in Buenos Aires to downtown. (OK, that wasn't well researched in that it took over 2.5 hours but it did only cost $2 each. Anyways.) As people waited for the bus at the airport they did form a line: a straight line heading half way across the street impeding car traffic potentially.

Communicating on mountain sides

What are those symbols on the side of this mountain? How do they get there? Who puts them there? And why?
We took both of these pictures in Ollantaytambo which is part of the Sacred Valley in Peru.

The Inka's designers and architects modified mountains
to pay tribute to their gods. Ollantaytambo is a settlement
of the Inka's elite from the mid 1500s. Find the
 face in the middle left section of this image. Probably
represents an important god. (The dominant feature in
the middle are storehouses for the harvest)

Signage cut into mountains was a
common sight in Peru. This one
we spotted in the Sacred Valley. They
are usually political in nature and may
 promote political ideas.

In Peru we encountered a variety of symbols cut into the mountain sides. These were often visible from miles away and usually served political purposes: they promoted a political party or candidates for mayor or parliament, for instance.

This form of 'communicating' reaches back a long time in Peru. For instance, even though the Inca Empire lacked a written language, it did not lack in scientific and communicative prowess. It designed its Sacred Valley outside of Cuzco, Peru to mirror religious aspects of the Milky Way as they perceived it. 

Election advertising in Argentina

I saw this poster wall in Buenos Aires, Argentina in January. The current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, followed her husband into the presidential role when he could not run again due to the country's constitutional limit. He would have been eligible to run again after being out of office for one term (in contrast to the US system, for instance), had he not died in the fall of 2010.

Here the competitive positioning the opposition has chosen is "Thinking always about you" and the candidate's signature. Now, granted I do not keep up much with daily political life in Argentina. But I am intrigued by the implication of this competitive positioning. It is a thoroughly positive line with thoroughly negative implications, thus, possibly portraying a real choice without the personal attacks designed to confuse and obfuscate that have become the mainstay of US and Canadian electioneering.

As an aside, love the light blue tie on white shirt - so easy to wear the Argentine flag and show a bit  of patriotism. 

Pensando en vos siempre. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Palermo district.

Election advertising in Peru

Just as the Canadian parliament was getting back to work this week, the ruling Conservative Party released election ads for a day that were derided as a personal attack on the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and debunked as inaccurate - not to say lies -  on top of that. Of course, there is no election on in Canada  but that hasn't held the governing party back from running ads year round that literally "brand" the competition as "American" and "just visiting". In case you can see the irony in that.

This house is in a remote place called Janca Pampa that

 we visited in October 2010. Alcalde = mayor. 

In any case, it reminded me of something slightly more quaint on the election advertising front:
I was intrigued with a particular form of advertising used widely across Peru and other Latin American countries. People let politicians or political parties paint part of their house in white and then add their political message - for a fee.

Painted houses as we know them in Canada, for instance, are rare in the Peruvian countryside, where most houses are still built using adobe construction. The political messages are usually very simple: mark your "x" in my box. They are also highly visual. In fact, political parties in Peru use highly visual references in their party logos as you can see on that page of regional parties in Ancash province of Peru.

These messages often stay intact for years. How exactly the payment schemes work I don't know, for instance, do they use traffic studies to determine payment, are there per annum flat fees, where does the money come from to pay the local people?

Nonetheless, I hope you'll enjoy this selection of Peruvian election ads. Note: when there was a key message beyond "vote for me" it usually was about "change", "regional power" and "clean hands in government". Pretty simple and tells you a few things about what some of the concerns of the people might be.

Nueva Era is also a regional party.
Here it promotes a
Mayoral candidate

Vote for the team with "clean hands"
ie not corrupt.

Moviemento Independiente  Regional Puro Ancash

Mayoral race marketing. The crossing
out refers to what people are asked to do:
Vote for me!

Global brand in local market

Palermo district, Buenos Aires

Can you see it?

Yes, it's on the municipal street sign. Click on the photo and enlarge it. There it is! Ah, that's ubiquitous advertising.

Claro and Nokia. Claro is a telecomm company, while Nokia continues to be the number 1 mobile phone maker in the world.

Does your city use street signs for corporate brand awareness? This was everywhere in BA.

By the way Claro's tagline is "Es simple. Es claro." Which is a fun play on words. ("Simple" doesn't mean exactly the same as "simple" in English, but is used more in the sense of "plain, simple-minded", even though here I think "simple" does translate well, while "claro" stands for "OK" or "yes" as well as "clear" or "clearly") Not sure what it does for brand equity that "claro" is one of the words we heard most often when people wanted to express agreement with something - That's got to be good for this rather large Telecom operating in various countries in South America.

Nokia uses its "Connecting People" tagline in Argentina in English as it does around the world. I guess "pueblo conectando" - or the German translation of "Menschen verbinden" didn't pass muster with the global brand guardians.

Santa Claus in La Paz

There are many fun parts to travelling. One relevant in this space is how being in a different place changes how we see ads like the one below.

While visiting La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, this past November we came across this Coca-Cola ad using the famous Santa Claus and the wonderful line, "Together we make magic reality."

There are so many interesting layers to this photo:

• A Coca-Cola ad featuring Santa on a snowy, starry night backdrop the Southern hemisphere in November (that's spring heading for summer)
• Santa as spokesperson for Coca-Cola (who else does pull this off?)
• That jolly big man drinking his Coca-Cola
• The Santa image, it is said, has been shaped significantly by Coca-Cola advertising going back to1931
• A Coca-Cola ad in Bolivia where Coca leaves are a large crop some destined for traditional uses and some for let's call it "export"and that doesn't even have anything to do with the Coca-Cola formula
• The statue in the foreground is of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Bolivia from colonial (Spanish) rule, August 6, 1825.