BRANDING is everything in this modern time and age. you can take an awfully hopeless item, throw in high-pressured marketing tactics and a brilliant advertising campaign, and you can have a massive revenue-bringing product.

just look at Paris Hilton. her whining can be passed off as singing (if the Stars Are Blind, then my Ears Are Deaf from all the ngyeh ngyeh ngyeh-ing noise she makes as a voice). her BO can be marketed as a celebrity fragrance. and her sleazy sex video? a 'provocative' but 'innovative' publicity stunt. i mean, she has like zero talent, non-existent good looks and not much to boast about in the mammary department either. just plenty of money, blonde hair, skanky clothes and a very shrewd business mind. the Paris Hilton brand is one of the greatest blonde-marketing strategies ever. in the future, all little cheena ah lian primary school kids will have ambitions like 'wHeN I gRoW uPz, I's WanNa BeS a SkAnK LiKe PaRiz HiLtOnz LoLz!!'.

and perhaps put in a local context: the RAFFLES brand.
the Raffles Hotel. Raffles Hospital. Raffles Medical Group. Raffles City Shopping Centre. Raffles Town Club. Raffles Junior College. Raffles Girls. i mean, i even had a major crush on a certain very rich Raffles boy (rosette wine, open-air jacuzzis and a double-storied apartment right in the city centre). ever since its introduction, the Raffles brand has gained a reputation for being the best. and given that Raffles (other than being a name of somebody famous in the Singaporean history textbooks) generally are associated with charity tickets and prizes and the drawing of lots, i think they've come a really long way in building up a good reputation.

so you see, the materialistic world of marketing products revolves around one simple thing, BRANDING.
and it's a pity that branding is definitely not a strong point here in Brunei. i mean, don't get me wrong. Brunei is a truly beautiful country. i like the super-friendly people here. they are very much simple-minded people with few pleasures in life. piracy is the norm. basic utilities are inexpensive. everybody has a car. petrol is dirt cheap. wireless internet with power points for your laptops are commonplace. you can wander the streets at night without fear of being raped, harrassed or mugged. relatively good food can be found everywhere. generally, it's a good place to bring up your kids without exposing them to a majority of the evils in this big bad world.

it's just insulting that people buy products without knowing the brand. ok lah, they know the brand, but they go ahead and buy the pirated product anyways. PLAGARISED BRANDING, that's what it's called! the locals buy products which are blatant copies of the original. take for example, everyone's favourite brand of wafer biscuits from Switzerland - Loacker. they make great snacks for picnics, a walk in the park, or maybe even after sex. it's my mom's standard gift (after butter cookies) whenever she visits anyone in the hospital. maybe it's the ang pow red packaging that's soothing on the patient' eyes. i dunno. but look at the local plagarised version:



it's $1.80, it screams 'i'm an ah pek' and worse of all, it's just so cheapo. i just dislike the double K's in the plagarised brand. gives me visuals of a 40 year old man sitting at the hawker centre drinking tiger beer and lamenting the current state of the getai scene in singapore. but still, i'm a sucker for quality and price, so i bought it all the same. i needed to at least sample the product before i passed judgement. and to nobody's surprise, they sucked. they were as dry as pregnancy at 40 years of age. they were stingy on the cream filling. it's cliche, but it's like eating cardboard boxes found after a getai performance.

it's bad enough if you copy other people's work. but it's worse if you blindly copy the work and make a fool out of yourself. like my teacher used to tell the lazy students during my primary school days

'if you wnat to copy, at least put some brains into doing it!



it's pretty lewd yet incredibly witty at the same time. if i owned a shop selling 'alternate lifestyle products', this would definitely be sold under the 'hygiene' section. come to think of it, this makes a great christmas gift. and some of you reading this will actually be receiving this for christmas. no more kissing under the mistletoe this coming december. do something special to me instead!



this one i found at a shop selling toiletries. and the only reason why i'm putting this pic up is because i thought it to be rather witty for a brand of diapers. 'shee shee' is a childhood word that kids use to indicate that they want to pee. i still use it for no apparent reason other than to irritate the hell out of my colleagues.

you know, i think it's silly little errors like that that make branding and marketing such a wonderful world to explore. in fact, it's stupid grammer mistakes like these that make Brunei such a wonderful country worth staying for. but alas, i'll be coming back to Singapore on the 25th of this month. and it's coming back for good. the good news would be that i'm coming back. the bad news (or is it still good?)? you owe me something this coming december. and we're not talking mistletoe.

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