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In one of our earliest journals we took Samsung to task for putting us to sleep with their dreadful Olympics commercials when we were depending upon the U.S. Basketball team to do that job, thank you very much.

VOLUME
THIRTEEN
WEDNESDAY
NOVEMBER 17
2004

Right after our scathing dis, their head of global marketing was headed home and their global advertising account was in review.

I would love for us to take credit for that, but it would be a little like some kid who threw a snowball into the East River taking credit for the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Samsung management deserves all the credit for those two decisions. Bravo, dudes.

I saw your post on Adrants Forums about copywriters. Are you a writer or an art director?-Gil M. Tempe

It depends on the job opening. -HW

I hate my job!, I hate my job!I hate my job!I hate my job!I hate my job!I hate my job!I hate my job!-Debbie W.DC,

Don't confuse me with anybody who gives a rat's ass.-HW

But after talking all that smack, it was only right that we sic the pit bulls at "DoubleThink" on Samsung's newly enlightened buttski's.

We think it's high time they stopped farting around and get down to what Global Branding is all about. Spending a shitload of cash on getting famous overnight.

So while all the agencies charged with pitching the account are busy trying to show Samsung's great leaps forward, we went right to the source. We pulled this little gem from their website.

"Our goal for 2004 is to sustain our number one market share in CDMA handsets, to expand high value-added areas such as GSM based PDAs, Mobile Intelligent Terminals (MITs) and satellite receivers, and to secure future competitiveness through innovations in process improvement and operations management. The long-term goal is to achieve global overall market share of 25 percent with $25 billion in sales by 2010."

Global overall market share of 25 percent! Are these boys on crack? We had to dig deeper after that. Fuck the future. Let Foote Cone & Belding, J. Walter Thompson (with Red Cell), Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners and Leo Burnett (with Saatchi & Saatchi) try to out "Matrix" each other. "Doublethink" decided to go the other way.

Despite the bullshit Harvard Business Review has been spouting, Samsung is a Korean Business. Here's the Cliff Notes on South Korea.

The Republic of Korea was established after WWII in 1948. The Korean language is classified as a member of the Ural-Altaic family (other members of this family include the Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian languages.) Korea boasts one of the youngest written languages on the planet. In 1443, King Sejong The Great, the 4th ruler of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), set up a special committee of scholars to create a new writing system specifically suited to the Korean language.

Author, Kim Jong-rae, points out that the thinking of nomadic people like one of the Korean's predecessors the Mongols, is not spatially oriented but time and speed-oriented. He cites the way dogs are kept around a home. Rather than leashing the animal, as in a settled society, Mongolians would take a short piece of rope and tie up one of the legs, restricting the dog's speed and timing. Genetically, 80 percent of Koreans have nomadic genes.

Many scholars claim that the age of nomads has returned in the 21st century. In the era of the Internet, spatially oriented thinking has been outdone by the nomadic thinking of web and cell phone users an open society such as the digital era. Continuing along this path we discovered that the Samsung Economic Research Institute proposed "Digital Khan" as a keyword for the rebound of the Korean economy. The Samsung Economic Research Institute goes on to propose that Koreans can dominate cyberspace as Genghis Khan did with physical space. "We can become the Genghis Khan of the digital world," the institute claimed. "In order to achieve this goal, we should create an open society that looks outward instead of inward and pursues the future instead of the past."

The SAMSUNG Economic Research Institute is the largest private economic research institute in Korea. It contributes to the national socioeconomic development through consulting on policy, management, and economic forecasting. 114 really smart Korean dudes and dudettes can't be that far off, we figure. Except for one thing. One thing they got exactly backwards. Not, "pursue the future instead of the past." But, pursue the future through the past.

Remember, "We can become the Genghis Khan of the digital world," Now remember, "getting famous overnight."

"DoubleThink" thinks that Samsung should get famous overnight. by becoming the "Gengkis Khan of the Digital World." In 1831, General Carl von Clausewitz wrote that "business is war." Therefore, the "DoubleThink" Strategy for Samsung's Global Marketing Campaign is both simple and straightforward :

What is best in life is to crush Samsung's competitors, to chase them before our superior products, to rob them of their market share, to build to Samsung's income statement from their former revenues, and to laugh at the lament of their grieving shareholders.

In the spirit of the Mongol Hoards who, under Genghis Khan captured more ground than Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler combined, we are making another barbaric recommendation to Samsung.

Spend all $400 million of your global dollars in outdoor. Yes OUTDOOR! The Digital Nomads you are trying to reach ARE NOT WATCHING NETWORK TV. If they are buying your 80" PDP Flat TV, they have it hooked into an HDTV system and they are watching DVD's and HBO/HD through one of the HD satellite nets like DirecTV. Go back on the clutter of network TV next year. This year give them larger than life images of Samsung Conquering The World of Time and Space." To review the kind of impact we're talking about, click here.

This just in. Samsung has selected WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson (with Red Cell) for their $400 million account. Congrats.

Listen Up Newbees. I read the following while bottom feeding on craigslist and I thought it appropriate to share with some of our younger readers who are just getting started in this vainglorious business. The author is Lou Coranado and we thank him for his wisdom and concern.

AN OPEN LETTER TO A FRUSTRATED CREATIVE

"Beware of starving to death from encouragement" - Old Hollywood Saying

Dear creative victim, I recently read a marketing book where I encountered a poignant phrase that sums up the challenge you face in trying to find work in today's tough job climate. "Stupid Competition."

According to the author, stupid competition is found in industries where the costs of entering the business is low for newcomers. Spoiled clients become trained to expect something for nothing by desperate competitors who bid themselves (and each other) into poverty. Sound familiar?

Before going any further, let me remind you, dear creative victim, that fairness does not apply in the real world of business.

You don't get paid what you think you're worth. You get paid what your creative efforts are worth to your client's bottom line. Pretty work is great but unless your clients can see dollar bills following your great ideas, well, there was once a tree that fell in a forest and no one heard it . . .

But I can hear your cursing now. People are too cheap. Creativity isn't respected. True. But maybe it's the company you're keeping. More likely, you're spending too much time on Internet job listing boards.

Consider- You're a hotshot writer/graphic artist/web designer/ photographer who has submitted an impressive resume and dazzling creative samples to dozens of employers who've posted creative job listings on sites like Craigslist. Maybe you've sent hundreds. And never a single response back. Why?

Or maybe you did get ONE call; some foreign-accent guy with a small startup company was willing to pay you $6 an hour part time- on call- as needed- temporarily. Until his regular creative gal comes back from maternity leave. Of course, you said HELL NO! ( after seriously considering his offer for a couple days.)

Your frustration boils over: don't these skin flints know what creativity is worth? Would they dare work for the same basement wages they are offering? Why are there so many ignorant cheapskates posting job openings on sites like Craigslist? And worst of all, why are there so many starving creatives willing to consider wages below that of a typical burger flipper? Why?

I feel for you, creative victim. It's time to light a match in your darkness. I've worked for several companies and individuals who have advertised job openings on Craigslist. I know the employer end of this funnel. I've seen the inside of the black hole and it works like this:

A company or person advertising a media-related job that offers $12 an hour on Craigslist can expect to receive around a hundred emails/resumes within the first eight hours of posting. I've seen this happen several times. And don't even ask about a job that lists a starting pay at $15 an hour (still a crappy rate for creative skills).

Maybe it's the no-frills amateur interface of the Craigslist site or maybe it's the fact that visitors are usually alone when they surf the web, but I can't figure out why so many creative providers imagine that Craigslist's job board is a secret known only to a few people? The HUGE traffic on Craigslist ranks it as one of the top 50 English language websites on the planet (In fact, Craigslist has more traffic than the New York Times website and the Alta Vista search engine portal!) Hundreds of creative people are looking at the same job listing at the same moment as you (yes, even at 2.a.m. In the morning when you think you're there alone!) .

I live near Hollywood, and believe me, looking for a job on Craigslist is not much different than trying to audition to be an actor- the odds stink unless your skill set matches EXACTLY what the ad calls for. There's too much competition on this site. Is it any wonder a lot of the companies and individuals advertising in Craigslist's job section are as cheap as the Entertainment Industry status quo?

Keep in mind that the real problem with Craigslist is that the jobs listed there come to you for free. Demand for cool jobs that are free and easy to find far outweighs the supply. Also keep in mind how top-paying companies usually prefer to pay a job-placement agency to deal with personnel and hiring. Any firm using a free job posting service like Craigslist is a company that has more time than money.

But you don't have to play by the rules of this game. You're free to do your own networking, or advertising, or (gulp!) sales calls to prospective employers. Plenty of good books and articles exist out there (some of them free) to point you toward a more effective job-seeking strategy.

One of the basic rules of marketing is that most people are willing to sell a product or service for less than it's worth- as long as they don't have to put in the hard work involved in selling. If you want a gig that rewards your creativity, you'll have to be creative on your own behalf; be willing to put a little hard work or money or both in promoting yourself. You'll be among a precious few.

Always remember that every day there are hundreds of people somewhere who will pay you what you're worth, as long as you are truly worth what you dare to charge. And don't let the bottom-feeders on the internet get you down, lest you become one yourself. God Bless.

If there are any other's of you out there in that vast advertising wasteland who wish to pass on something worthwhile to the guppies, feel free to send it in. I'll post it as a public service

Old Business . We have had a number of people sending us their ideas for this product and that product and asking us to send them to this company or that company. We've had folks asking us to put links to their portfolio on our site. We've had people asking us to put job listings on our site. And we have had advertising inquiries by the score.

I think this is the perfect time to answer all three categories of inquiry with the same response. Hell no. But, thank you for your interest.

To the lady who keeps writing me from the Interpublic agency I won't mention. No. I'm holding out for an offer from WPP Group.

To the person who sent me the "interesting" photographs. Thank you, but I'm married.

I think that about does it.

Stay Tuned.

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