Our latest experiment is building a business in a new market. And here’s our new office at Hotel Yangon, complete with wifi, table, chairs and our team. Our first work is now in the market and making the competition nervous – our clients’ competition, that is.
If you have a project you’d like to discuss, please contact Charlie.blower@blaklabs.com.mm Ruth.goh@blaklabs.com.mm
Or if you prefer to connect in the local language, please connect with
From time to time, in your ordinary exercise of the delights of the online world, you may find yourself accosted by clods. These oafish louts crave your time and attention, but in point of fact, life is short and you have better things to do.
For you, I have created this helpful numbered list of standard responses to online stupidity. When accosted, send the twit here to read the specific numbered response(s) relevant to them. Saves you time; alerts them they’re a jerk, and this is all the response they rate.
Use and enjoy.
I don’t care what you think.
I didn’t ask you.
No doubt you thought that was terribly clever.
You’ve attempted logic. Not all attempts succeed.
One should not have that many errors in that few characters.
Either your educators have failed you, or you have failed them.
I see you’ve invited me to an argument. I decline.
Pictured left to right: Alicia Tan, Fin Guo, Steven Koswara
Starting 2015 on a strong note, our little shop beefs up its creative-focused model with three new hires. Here’s an extract from the press release:
“Joining Blak Labs are Steve Koswara (Designer), Fin Guo (Art Director) and Alicia Tan (Copy).
Steven recently graduated from NAFA and his design excellence is already making an impact for clients such as Gardens by the Bay.
Fin joins from a local independent agency and has already delivered on several key accounts.
Alicia, an Ogilvy Fellow, joins us from Geometry Global. A self-published author whose work has been showcased in Japan, Alicia has quickly demonstrated her capabilities on new business pitches and existing clients.
“Finding new talent is never easy. So it is a pleasure to welcome Steven, Fin and Alicia. We’ve been through a long process of candidate screening, using our proprietary Blak Labs interview technique and each fits with our desire to provide clients with an exceptional degree of Creative Care,” said Charlie Blower, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blak Labs.”
And guess what? Living in this world that operates at the speed of e, one publication picked this up and published it less than an hour after we sent out the news. Congrats to @cbasia for being first with the news. And thank you!
Blak Labs Singapore bolsters creative team with three new hires in design, art and copy http://t.co/EyMMZLrBLm
I get a ton of emails every day, most which I just delete after a cursory glance. But newsletters from the chaps at Bluewire Media always get read. The reason? I often learn something new. Plus they believe in the power of sharing and the “thank you economy”. They freely share their own social media planning tools and templates, which I find useful and they also do a bunch of podcasts, webinars and monthly giveaways. Which are also filled with good usable stuff. My advice? Check them out!
Yesterday Bluewire Media turned 10. So congrats to Adam (@Franklin_Adam) and Toby (@Toby_Jenkins) on achieving that milestone, from an independent agency owner here in Singapore! Your reach extends way beyond the shores of Oz, and your monthly competition does too!
Which is why I’d like to say thanks to Adam and Toby for letting me win their December competition.
The prize? Their top 25 marketing books, including their own publication.
Here’s my reading list for the next few months
The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott
Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
Trust Agents by Chris Brogan
Platform by Michael Hyatt
Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk
The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi
Youtility by Jay Baer
Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman
The New Experts by Robert Bloom
Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina
Reality Marketing Revolution by Mike Lieberman and Eric Keiles
Spin Sucks by Gini Dietrich
What’s the Future of Business by Brian Solis
Power Stories by Valerie Khoo
Unknown to Expert by Catriona Pollard
Love At First Site by Jon Hollenberg
microDOMINATION by Trevor Young
Become a Key Person of Influence by Daniel Priestley
The 7-Day Startup by Dan Norris
Engagement from Scratch by Danny Iny
And of course their own book…
25. Web Marketing That Works by Adam Franklin and Toby Jenkins
I’ve no idea how much this competition set them back in terms of book purchases etc. But I do know that Adam and Toby have created something of real value with Bluewire News. If you’re interested to learn from a couple of chaps who’ve done it for themselves, then you can sign up for the newsletter here. I hope you enjoy their content as much as I do.
And here’s a couple of little flipagram thingies I made over lunch using nothing but an iPhone, a pair of scissors and some sticky back plastic.
We have and one of them happens to be about celebrating our successes.
To start 2015, we’re celebrating on a couple of fronts.
The first: a new project we’re working on in a new market. Can’t say where just yet. But all will be revealed once the work is out. It’s a big step for Blak Labs and we’re really looking forward to the launch. And seeing how the market reacts. But judging by the client’s response to our rough edits for two spots shot between Christmas and New Year, we think the work will work.
Her words exactly? “I’m very happy, thank you very much!”
The second: well, you can see it for yourself. A little bit of PR in the Business Times publication “Chairman 2015”.
We’ve received numerous comments and likes for this little piece. And while features a pic of me, it’s all down to the hard work of my partners, team and clients as well.
To paraphrase our client – “We’re happy, thank you very much!”
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.
I’ve written previous posts on ‘turning stories into ads’, The Guardian, BBC’s Panorama and GQ.
I wrote them because it struck me that although the brands were very different, what they wanted was exactly the same; An appropriate look to hold an idea about any subject under the sun.
Take The Guardian, the ads I worked on ranged from the trial of mass murderer Fred West to the fact that footballer Jurgen Klinsmann couldn’t stay upright if their was another footballer within a circumference of ten feet.
It now seems to be the way media does media.
You rarely see media owners talking about what they stand for, like The Economist, now it’s more likely to be ‘we have this bit of content on Tuesday’.
When chatting to Dave Trott recently, it occurred to me that they could probably all be traced back to GGT’s LWT poster campaign. I don’t know if it was the first, but it’s…
Early days but exciting times. Watch this space…!
Blak Labs blog 
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