October 2006 Archives

There's a VO5 shampoo commercial that's been catching my eye lately on tv. It advertises the product by showing two Chinese students in a very communist looking China that "break the mold" by using VO5's hair gel product and then ditching school together hand in hand. The commercial caught my attention because I thought it was a strange concept in the first place and wondered who thought of it and why. I also wondered who they were targeting.

In my opinion the commercial is full of stereotypes and imparts a negative view on the Chinese. This commercial would never make it in China. People would laugh at this and think "do westerners really think this is how we are?" You won't find any trouble seeing Chinese people with styled hair and wearing the latest fashions in China. And I highly doubt kids in school look that way and march up and down the halls like soldiers.

If this commercial is targeting the general market in the U.S., how would people relate to this? Well, if the intent was to grab people's attention, it certainly did for me, but if it is meant to entice people to the product then it failed miserably because whereas I had a neutral point of view before towards the brand, it is now rather negative.

Am I overreacting? What do you all think about this commercial?

I just read about a great deal in the New York Times about Futurephone - a phone service that provides free international calling to most countries in the world with no contracts, fees or registration and doesn't require you to dial from your computer. All you have to do is dial a gateway number and then dial the number you want to reach. And you can use your home or cell phone. Sounds too good to be true? According to the website, it is their way of marketing their company and future services. The free calling will be available until 2010.

It seems like a terrific promotion that I had to post about it. I have yet to try it out, but according to David Pogue it works!

Now if they can only get those MetroNaps Pods for our office at work then I'll be all set. I really think these are a good idea, especially after lunch when you feel you need that extra jolt of energy to power you through the day. Coffee doesn't work for me, which is why I don't drink it, but a powernap would really help.

Napping at the office

Now that I've been back home for a couple weeks, I feel like I'm back to my usual routine. It was nice to be gone for two weeks and just have fun. But it was a bit tough coming back to everything. For one, I had to cook and clean for myself which I got really used to not doing when we stayed at hotels and went out to eat everyday. Plus I can't say my cooking is anywhere nearly as good as the food we had in China. Although not all of our meals were good, we did have good meals in every city we visited.

I can't believe how much we did during the two weeks we were in China. It would be impossible to share everything in this entry so I'll just share my favorites in each city. In Hong Kong it would be discovering the hidden parks within the chaotic city and finding a little peace and rest for our weary feet. I will never tire of the views from Victoria's Peak even though it was my third time being there and the view from the 55th floor of the IFC was also amazing as well. In Shanghai I enjoyed the Yu Gardens very much, the bakery and the xiao long bao, but Xintiandi most of all. The limestone peaks in Guilin were my favorite, but beware of the people. And in Macau I enjoyed the architecture, food and most of all the Portuguese custard tarts.

Perhaps one of the most exciting moments during our trip in Shanghai was seeing Zhang Ziyi very briefly. Honestly I don't really like her work, but there's something about seeing a celebrity. I've captured some video of the event below.

Waiting for Zhang Ziyi's Arrival - Part 1

I had to split up the video because of size limits. The rest of this video and others are posted on my Eyespot video page.

Speaking of celebrities, I was this close to seeing Jon Bon Jovi last week in Nashville where I was at for a conference. He was staying in the same hotel as our group and it seemed like everyone saw him except me. I'm not a huge fan of his either, but again there's something about seeing a celebrity. It seemed like I would just miss him by a second. He wasn't too happy with our group and very much wanted to be left alone unfortunately. Oh the stress of being a celebrity!