Dentsu on Sustainable Marketing by Brand Equity 2010, Volume 2.

Special thanks to Brand Equity for featuring our point of view in their publication on Sustainable Marketing. If you want to read about it, get this month's issue, out now at most newstands and bookstores.

God-sent budget guide: The Lonely Planet MAGAZINE ;)

What? Another travel magazine? Yeah, that's just what we need - photos and stories done up by professionals who get paid twice the amount for covering an article that spans a few pages, enticing commoners like us to quit our jobs and vie for theirs instead. Uh, somehow.

I love love love flipping through these pages of faraway lands, common and uncommon, bearing exciting prospects to what my next trip could possibly be. Mind the auxiliary verb, could. Because I'm not them, I don't get paid twice the amount to do what they do. Sigh.

And then I found, hidden in the most unjustifiable manner on the display table... Lonely Planet Magazine Asia in MPH. Lonely Planet must be the household word for 'budget travel' and undeniably most well-suited for the Malaysian market, fitting our ingrained cultural concept of C&G which basically means anything and everything that is 'Cheap & Good' must be good.

Unfortunately, the guidebooks were getting more and more expensive each time, although I do understand the amount of research that's been put into it is as tremendous as a feat up Mount Everest. Not to mention, the books are getting thicker and thicker, and definitely no friends with frail shoulders like mine which are already withstanding the torturous minimum 20kg as best they could. So you must understand why this magazine seems like a divine gift to travellers like me.

My favourite bits:

1) User-generated content, offline style. Reminds me that collaboration is a trend, digital only makes it easier but no one carved anything on stone and commanded that it has to remain on a digital platform. Better-than-Flickr photo gems of everyday travellers are printed as 'postcards' accompanied by their side of the story which only reinforces the belief that beauty is anywhere and everywhere, captured only by those who are keen in her.

2) Great short trip guides that you can cut out, fold and pocket in less than 2 minutes! Every 2 months, they will feature different guides, again based on readers' recommendation ;)

3) A new perspective of inspiring stories produced by great pairs of writer and photographer about hidden and over-toured places alike. Additional to these stories, very practical 'actions' can be taken by readers who at the spur of the moment decide to do the unimaginable (until that particular moment that is) to hop on the next flight out and start living the fiction (triple stars!)

4) Upcoming events at least two months in advance, so that you can plan ahead. Remember all those 'same-month events' recommended by yesterday's magazines? I bet they were meant to target at the jet-setting rich who have a disgusting amount of excessive dough. Forgetting only one thing. That the rich is probably rich for a reason - busy business schedule and stringent time management. Which means those calendars serve nothing more than the editorial team's arrogant display of know-where.

5) 'Lucky draw' of the month to win an awesome dream trip to somewhere. Anywhere!

6) And the best part is? All these at only RM15 :) To be more precise, RM7.50 a month. RM3.75 if shared with a friend.

So now they've got their website, their guidebooks, language books, travelogues, application (OVI for Nokia) and now magazines. Content duplication? Cannibalization? I think not. The Lonely Planet brand is one of my most admired brands when it comes to matching content to the specific target. It's really about providing the right content in the right format in the right amount for the right person at the right price. I believe this has everything got to do with the people behind the business because they aren't only avid travellers themselves, but lovers of sights, sounds and cultures. All in a shoestring budget with a treat or two thrown in sometimes as motivation to conquer the next monsterous peak or another obscure great plane. They are doing this for themselves and in turn, benefit others who are inspired to follow their foot path.

My only question is... what took them so long :) Well, better late than never.

Magazine: Wired.

Read this about Werewolf (the new mindf*ck game according to the magazine. But really, think Mafia ;). I think it's super funny how Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) puts it:

"I was sure of only three things," Wales remembers. "One, I was not a werewolf. Two, one of these bastards was an amazing liar. And three, the other guy was a total moron. I just couldn't figure out which was which."

***

Notice how everyone on the surface is the same? During interviews especially, the risk is high. It's either he's an amazing liar or a total moron. How on earth do you figure if he's the true villager? Or if he's the werewolf?

Publishing: Sh!t stirrer magazine.

Honestly, I'd rather see more provocative magazine covers like that. Straight to the point, crystal clear positioning.

Publishing: Future of magazines.

The online version of a magazine with the 'flip' function - why it doesn't work? It will work for awhile because it's 'different'. Different from the way content is consumed in traditional portal formats which are deemed 'tired'. However, I have some reservation utilizing this format for online magazines. If the magazine is 80% visually driven then perhaps it'll become more user friendly. But if it was as per traditional magazines, then the pull and click to drag function, zooming in and out will simply prove to be more of a chore than being functional eventually.

Simply because it's not optimized by the current hardware that we have. For travellers who are always mobile, they may not even have a mouse. How would this fare if our screen was small and we're dependant on the mouse pad? How would this fare if you zoom in to read the text but have to keep scrolling from side to side to read the entire paragraph? How does these 'movements' compromise readability and disrupt the entire visual experience? These 'barriers' accumulate and soon after, we just lose the audience.

But compare to this:

The tables turn when we utilize touch screen tablets which allow swift movements like how we would with a real magazine, as featured here by Mag+. Now, here's a different discussion. Till we're supported by efficient hardware such as these, let's just stick to the easy-to-read, easy-to-navigate portals yea? I didn't say anything about needing to look boring, did I?

Media: The fickled Malaysian women ('s weekly).

In my usual scour for news on what ticks Malaysians and what tickles them, I picked up this month's Women's Weekly. Though not a magazine of my usual choice and definitely not my cup of reading tea, I discovered something strange in this issue which is quite... amusing.

On the cover of the magazine, the blurb runs "How to stop the other woman stealing your man!", brings you to the full article on page 129 about Tess Stimson who published a book called 'Beat the bitch' based on a true story from personal experience. Obviously Tess had been the bitch and upon tasting her own medicine, she decided to save womenkind from self destruction by publishing a book.

So, I get it. The fairer sex, being all girl and womenhood power obviously see the need to raise the red flag to protect one another from future heart breaks, caused... not by her man (okay, maybe partially), but (mostly) by the bitch.

Flip couple of pages later on 142, you will discover a 10-page spread on 10 married men with a headline that ran across the page saying "Who's the hunkiest hubby of all?" - The search is back for The Weekly's hunkiest hubby. Vote for your favourite finalist now and win! (emphasis and raised eyebrow mine). Hmm. Do you see the obvious irony? Or is it just... me?

So, I get a different message now. Girls just want to have fun, so voting for someone else's husband is just plain innocent, good clean fun which of course will never lead to you or anyone as a matter of fact being the bitch (refer to Tess' advocation). Oh, of course not! Don't be silly...

It wasn't a specific article that caught me by surprise. It's the entire magazine and how the content was planned and structured that caught my undivided attention. It is quite contradicting, no?

No wonder women are said to be from Venus. Actually, wherever she's from, she definitely isn't from the same planet of testosterones. First she said yes which means no which means yes which means no... These mixed messages, you see, are difficult for a Martian to decipher.

What a nice nostalgic surprise.

Sometime back when I had more time (still have the passion though), I had the opportunity to contribute to some mags on my many (but not enough) travels. Shared by a dear friend:

I didn't even know they made it to the web. The articles made me smile. Maybe I should quit my job and get an intership with Conde Nast.

Let me know if you need travel articles too, I'll be happy to ;)

Man sometimes makes me sick.

Today was another one of those days. I clock in to work before ten, sit at my desk, wait for Windows to boot, go through all the social media sites I'm wired on and proceed to update my mood and empty my mind.

While waiting for the team to gather for our weekly work-in-progress meeting, I picked up GQ, August issue and thought I should finish the last remaining article of the magazine. Hi, my name is --- and I have an obsessive compulsive behavior. I read magazines from cover to cover. Yes, even the advertisements. What I didn't know was the intensity of what I'm about to read, doesn't just upset my stomach but my soul.

The title in all its simplicity was called 'Never Forget' written by Michael Paterniti (who had the golden privilege of going cross-country with Einsteins' brain in a tub once, which we will divulge another day, another time). What do you think of an article with such unassuming title would be about? And then *pow*, it hits you. Your eyes, brain, mind are drawn into the deep recesses of Paterniti's thoughts that the inner person in you twists and turns in disgusted objection to any further reading. Yet, the mystery of one of mankind's most unspeakable atrocities magnetizes your curiosity. It is no other than the Khmer Rouge regime.

The funny thing is, I was there before. In Tuol Sleng. Not the infamous Killing Fields. Don't know if I can stomach that but yea, Tuol Sleng. And it's as close as it can get to imagining what it must have been like to live in such a torturous and demented, time-stopping (albeit abbreviated) era. So when Paterniti started painting the picture of 1975, it doesn't just bring back memories. It brought me back to a confounded state that took me a good couple of days to get out, after the visit. So many researches have been conducted and reconducted to find out why the Nazis could do what they did. Or more accurately, the people employed by the Nazis could do what they did to millions of others. It was simply befuddling. And in the case of the Khmer Rouge, it's probably hard to conduct the same kind of research because close to two millions were wiped out clean in a span of a few years. You need numbers to quantify these researches.

They've caught the Master of Torturer, Duch (pronounced as doik). A Cambodian ex-mathematician teacher who spent time in jungle hide-outs devising new and creative ways to 'torture'. What. On. Earth. Created. Such. A. Monster. During the height of the despicable regime, Duch was put in charged of prisoner camp S-21 where he lived out his twisted imaginations on live experiments. The physicality of it: Removing nails and dousing wounds in alcohol, slicing bellies and putting scorpions in to roam, feeding prisoners with human excrement, performing cannibalism, the vile list is endless. And not forgetting the emotional side of it all where words like 'colour', 'happy', 'laugh' were banned. Erased eternally from the vocabulary of the populace as they knew it. The human race should be devoid of happiness. They should be walking zombies dressed in black pyjamas where a smile would be fatal. And above all these, if you could bear all of these, your steely soul is only given a point zero four percent of survival chance. What would you do?

Now, standing on the trial stand, a much 'so-called' remorse Duch admitted to his hideous crimes and asked for pardon. His 'so-called' conversion to Christianity was his first step to remorseful repentance (if he was, why was he hiding in a jungle till he was 'accidentally' discovered by a journalist?). And he's 'so-called' living a life of such burden that the only relief is death. And that he's 'so-called' challenging you to put yourself in his shoes. If the lives of your family is threatened, what would you do? I have my answers to the above. I have my point of view on the Christianity bit but I leave the final judgement to God. Have I no pity for this person? (Has he no pity for the victims?) If my family is threatened... That's the tricky part. I have no honest answers to that. I can only say that should I choose to do what he had chose to do, I would readily accept the consequences that come with it. And that will be no pardon. No physical freedom back to the human society and certainly no emotional forgiveness that could ever free the soul once again. What would you do?

I am left helpless after reading the article. It's stuff like that, that really punches your daily routine and creates a hole that tells you that you're incapable of doing anything. I've thought about it that's why I wanted to share it. Sparks is all about possibility, hope, dreams and change. Yet, today after some hard digestion of these sobering facts (yet, once again), Sparks is dimmed and reduced to faint ember.

Highly recommended this month is GQ and their take on violence.

Knowledge Seekers - Autocar Asean.

We're always plowing for good reads so we'll be featuring what we like on the magazine rack and what we will pass, here. So that you spend your 10 bucks wisely or waste it on something else.

Title: Autocar Asean

Type of content: Glocal automotive news and launches, test drives and reviews of both freshly-baked and on-the-road models, expert viewpoint features of supercars and all-things-you-can't-afford and motorsports coverage.

Unique content: 7/10 - Well since most automotive magazines do cover test drives, this one is no less. But interestingly enough, they call it 'First Drives' instead. Which means it doesn't only cover newly launched models but also revisiting older ones which may not have gotten their due spotlight, or were somehow forgotten and got stashed away to make way for novelty.

Interesting content: 8/10 - Always an enjoyable read. A nice almost 50-50 mixture of local/regional news versus global content. The latter puts a lot of credibility into this Asian version, featuring one of the industry's finest driver and road tester, Steve Sutcliffe (hey, how many of yous actually got to test drive a new F1 model before? Or have raced with Button?). But the local point-of-view isn't any lesser than its global counterpart with veteran writers like Faisal Shah and Chips Yap holding the editorial reign. Very few automotive writers can bring out the emotive bits from mechanical bodies as well as them. You'd find yourself nodding in agreement when something they say strike a note with your own driving experience but then, you could never find the right words to describe that feeling. And now you read, you just go aha, so that was it.

Content presentation: 7/10 - Local shots are quite standard without any 'wow' factor. Only the imported content comes with shots that make you wanna hop right into the magazine's track. Design and features are pretty standard, so it would be nice to kinda push the creativity a bit more. What can we say. It is practical.

Price: RM9.90 - Buy. If you have any testosterone in you, buy. You may not quite know all your nuts and bolts about your car but hey, at least it's the 101 that you need to minimally qualify yourself as a 'bloke' on that beer table. As for the auto-enthusiast. Buy. Keeps you wired with all the important bits in the industry without too much rubbish or too common content that is beginning to taste like stale bread. Every page is very much enjoyed.

We're not bashing. We just want things better.

Knowledge seekers - Gaya Travel Nusantara.

We're always plowing for good reads so we'll be featuring what we like on the magazine rack and what we will pass, here. So that you spend your 10 bucks wisely or waste it on something else.

Gaya Travel Nusantara is a travel magazine which also has a corresponding website. It's got a frequent collaboration with the tourism ministry, featuring their version of group travels called 'Kembara ZOOM!' (for those of you who don't know, ZOOM! is the promotional name for Malaysia's domestic tourism. Why ZOOM!? Without realizing it, the question mark after the exclamation is really quite apt here. Why!? Hmm. But that's a different debate altogether). Anyway, the magazine features main local tourism spots, interviews with tourism personnel, some information and knowledge on our local culture and heritage, some foreign travel attractions from our neighbours and recommendations of hotels. And this is our take:

Unique content: 6/10 - Features somethings which we never knew about our country. That could be partially due to our ignorance anyway.

Interesting content: 5/10 - Although we self-admit to be an ignorant bunch of doofus who don't know much about the heritage of 'Joget Pahang' but it doesn't mean that we're dying to find out either. But then again, I always think that content is a just another form of message. And every message has got an audience. It's just not what you say, but how you say it.

Content presentation: 4/10 - Horrendous but... Can close one eye... With great difficulty. One of the feature articles was hilarious. The entire two-page article was missing its 'i's. Although t wasn't d ff cult to read w thout the ' 's cause you can pretty much guess what the word s, but st ll, we've never seen such a publ cat on that challenges aud ence n such creat ve manner. Travel photos are key visuals in inspiring people to move, unfortunately, not so for Gaya Travel :/

Price: RM8.90 - Suggest you go buy a travel eye-mask from Watson instead.

We're not bashing. We just want things better.

The Economist.

Instead of reviewing books, I've been reviewing a fair share of magazines lately. Well, that's because that's what I've been reading of late. Well, it is certainly a quicker feat compared to digesting thousands of words in font size 7 and another hundreds of pages.

Anyway, I've been reading The Economist and it is certainly a news magazine serving the very intellectual and the very politically concerned. I bought a copy because I was researching on this 'Green' movement and they had a very comprehensive special report on future technologies. However, other than the special report, I had trouble concentrating on everything else. Maybe I wasn't the target audience (I was 'accidental'), still overall I found the magazine to be rather dry. I don't know, maybe this is a magazine read by the Bushes and the Howards and the what nots, it certainly isn't what I would consider a weekend read. Great for research but... I shall leave it as that.

So far the only one with a real sense of humour.

My source of inspiration.

The truth about travel. Absolutely love it.

How is Conde Nast Traveler relevant to the ad industry? Everything! To think out of the box, we must look for things outside the box, no? At least it tells me where I should go next to look for inspiration :)

A picture tells a thousand words. But one added with a few words tells a million.

My stumble upon a new journalistic docu-photography publication is honestly, most divinely, purely providential during my short transit in Dubai, a week ago. Sowar magazine is the new niche publication dedicated to satisfy those with an insatiable hunger for new photographic perspectives on the everyday and more often than not, the overlooked mundane life in Lebanon and Le Vant. I think we'd all do better by practise seeing things from different angles, you think?

This gave me an idea. What if someone produces a free mag which is totally user-generated? What if it takes everyone and anyone to contribute? What if everyone can be a contributing writer and/or photographer? What if flickr comes alive and takes the form of a free magazine? What if all you need is just an editor and a team of designers with a real eye for quotes and form? What if everyone can talk about everything they are passionate about? What if the magazine is called MINE? Because it does, in a sense, belong to everyone? Does anyone know if I'm unconsciously plagarizing this from somewhere? Any idea takers?