Is copying always a bad thing?

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Well, this past week, Apple was not flattered and Sammy was making big bucks imitating Apple without paying credit due (literally and figuratively).

Which got me to thinking. Is copying always a bad thing?

Advertising is the only industry I know of where the responsibility to not copy is perhaps the most heavy.  For 3 different reasons.

Reason #1 :  It's not cool to come up with something that's been done before.  You won't win awards with that.

Reason #2 :  If you copy, that means you're too lazy to come up with your own ideas. That kind of accusation hurts creative pride like no other.

Reason #3 : You will be found out.  If not by your peers, then by your clients or clients' customers or the world and that's embarrassing. Especially in this digital age.

But advertising is massive in its volume.  How on earth can any admen keep track of all the campaigns and ads that have run the world over?

Sammy blatantly and knowingly copied.  Judgement is passed.

But what about this scenario? What if you thought of something cool, for example a touch screen. And someone else thought the same thing.  And that someone launched first.

Question 1:  Do you then stop development because someone beat you to it?

Question 2 :  Are you obligated to stop or at best, forced to modify significantly?

And let's say by some sheer dumb twist of fate, you didn't know that someone else has done it and you went ahead to launch.

Question 3 :  Are you then at fault for honestly not knowing that someone else beat you to the crunch?

This is the kind of conundrum that admen face.

Honestly, I don't have an answer.

Loyalty in the Workplace

Read this article in the New York Times. It talks about how not many are staying loyal to their workplace. Seems aptly timed considering that it's the season of job-hopping here in Malaysia.

I always say that people leave their jobs because they are unhappy. Unhappy about the pay, unhappy about the workload, unhappy about the people...the list goes on. I mean, honestly, who in heck leaves their job, happy?

And I also always say that a job is an exercise in democracy. If you stayed with a job, it's coz' you "voted" for the company. That is, you're happy with the direction it's taking, you're happy with what it's doing, you're happy with what is in place.

But if you are leaving a job, it's coz' you "voted" against the company. You're unhappy with the pay, the powers that be, the people etc. etc. etc.

I see parallels of this with CRM. The very premise of CRM is to keep your existing customers happy. Happy so that they'll stay loyal with your brand. Happy so that they'll continue to buy your products or maybe buy even more of your products.

Memorability : Then & Now

Memories are the only thing we have to hold on to the past. It's our very own, in-built archive.

But are memories really truths? (Okay, you might ask, "Where in heck is she going with this? And what's that got to do business or marketing?").

Read the Editor's Note in the January issue of ADOI magazine today. In a nutshell, it's an ode to the past, a lamentation of glorious days gone by when ad legends did awesome work.

"Friends" - An Earned Currency

2010 was about social media.  2011 is going to be the same.


Any marketer worth his salt, would know that in the social media space, you need to make a lot of friends and that you wouldn't want to make a lot of people cheesed off.


But here's the rub.  The player knows that he needs to keep the many happy.  Meaning they're not gonna do something that'll make a lot of people upset.  But what about the few that got played in a bad way? The very few who can't really effect significant bad action towards the marketer? The popular philosophy adopted by those using social media for marketing is that "Ya can't make everyone happy".

A Matter of Trust

Picked up a book again after many weeks of being utterly enamoured with my new iPhone 4. The book this time is called Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

Have read up to page 20 so far and I like what I'm reading.

Interesting reading on a subject that we somehow already have an inkling of what it's about and completely rely on. Trust is so important in every thing that we do. But can trust lead you in a direction that you may not want to be on?