Monchhichi's new home.

Last night, after spending a long time in the bookstore after a long stressful day and skipping my regular jogging routine every Tuesday, I realized how badly I want to hear Takuya’s laugh at the end of the day. Well, I know he’s just there with his unlimited stowies. J

Since everyday story-telling (no matter how simple the stories are) makes a long-distance relationship work, I received an email this morning from him with a very cute photo of Monchhichi in his new apartment that have made my day instantly. Monchhichi has a new home!

Monchhichi in the house!...new house!

I want to “gigil” with Monchhichi and put her in my pocket! I want! But I'm hoping that Takuya will not leave her "walking" in the streets of LA because she might be lost.

I’m seriously obsessed now with her cuteness and I will definitely look for one in the Philippines. Here’s the Monchhichi tale from Wikipedia:

"You look like Monchhichi!" -Takuya

Monchhichi (モンチッチ Monchitchi^?) is a line of Japanese stuffed toy monkeys from theSekiguchi Corporation. They are licensed by Mattel in the United States. Two television series were produced based on the characters, the Japanese anime series Monchhichi Twins (ふたごのモンチッチ Futago no Monchhichi^?) in 1980, and the American cartoon series Monchhichis in 1983.

Exportation of the doll line started in 1975, toward West Germany and Australia. The following years would see the Monchhichi line marketed in all of Western Europe. The original name was changed to "Chicaboo" in the United Kingdom, to "Mon Cicci" in Italy and to "Kiki" in France.

The Monchhichi doll line reached the North American shores in 1979. Mattel bought the license for both the toy line. As recently as January 2010, Monchhichis are still available in the United States from retailers such as Target. The American cartoon seriesMonchhichis was produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1983 and aired on ABC.

               The Monchhichi tale in our lives started in the mirror that my good friend, Camille, gave me when she left our company. He said I look like Monchhichi so he calls me that. He found this little fella somewhere in China. He said he was in hurry but he suddenly stopped when he saw it (maybe he had flashbacks of my goofy face. Haha.) and gave it to me as a gift when we visited Hong Kong before he went to the far away land. Haha. But she's with him now, I asked her to take care of him while he's away. This is my only memory of the very kawaii fella...

Sketch by Takuya

              It’s Holy Week this week, a very indispensable week for Catholics but I hope to bump with Monchhichi on my way back home for a quite long vacation…

Let's talk about Marketing in Jakarta.

I couldn’t help it.

I’m addicted to checking out advertisements and market behavior wherever I go. I concede that the market segment that I mostly observe is very small and I tend to generalize sometimes, but this is based on my unbiased and tried-my-best-to-be-objective observation. Haha.

Couchsurfers from Jakarta loves Blackberry!

I went to Jakarta last March to have a glimpse of Indonesia. When I arrived, in the airport, I’ve seen a huge blackberry advertisement. I started to wonder if it’s a trend in Jakarta. I’ve walked, had coffee, ate, went to internet shops, wandered again and again, and everywhere I went in the streets of Jakarta, Indonesians were using Blackberry.

We celebrated Earth Hour and had dinner with the Couch Surfing-Jakarta. In a group of 8, 6 have Blackberry as their mobile phones. Interesting! I therefore conclude that Jakarta is invaded by Blackberry. Bow. Haha.

I wonder why and how it became a trend. Is it because it’s cheaper to have BBS? Is it because of the appearance? Packaging?

Well, definitely, if everyone’s using the same service, it will definitely be cheaper.

But I’m more curious to know how advertisements will be effective to the Indonesian Market. Is my assumption true that “Gratis” is a trend in Indonesia's advertising industry? Well, I just concluded this since most of the billboards and posters that I’ve seen mentioned about their “gratis” or freebies!

at the train station.

What do you think? 

at the airport.

Reasons why you would want to tap the Japanese market in RP.

With all the panic in what’s happening in Japan nowadays, efforts of penetrating the Japanese market in different industries are now being withdrawn.   

Worries that it’s not a good timing to introduce or reintroduce their products and services to that very niche but rich market are in everyone’s discussion. But it’s different with Japanese, for them, Time is really gold. There’s no point of holding back, business is business. This explains why despite of what happened and what’s happening in Japan this month, Japanese arrivals in RP increased by more or less 1,000 and why the World Bank said that they expect the economic impact of the disaster on the East Asian region to be fairly short-lived.

Marketing and advertising with Japanese is quite different. They’re more into details and so much into maps (I was surprised how objective they are!). Here are some descriptions of the Japanese Market:

o   High Barrier entry due to language (English language capability is very limited)

o   Closed society with high potential but not yet fully tapped

o   Prefers and trust Japanese source more than English source

o   Conservative and do not take action unless familiar with the company  or recommended by a Japanese

o   Strong tendency to gather and want information as much as possible before taking action.

And the description of the Japanese Travel Cycle:

Meanwhile, it’s good news that visitors arrival in RP grew by 18% in the first 2 months of 2011.

The total number of inbound visitors for January and February 2011 reached 668,625 for 17.88% growth compared to the arrivals for the same period in 2010.  This feat may be attributed to the growing confidence of the international market on the Aquino Administration.

In the first two months, Korea maintained its position as the biggest and top source market with 165,868 arrivals, with a share of 24.81% to the total visitor traffic, and growth rate of 35.22% vis-à-vis the previous year.

This market is followed by the USA with 17.05% share for 114,022 arrivals, Japan with 9.83% share for 65,755 arrivals, China with 5.77% share for 38,590 arrivals and Taiwan with 4.26% share for 28,461 arrivals.  Combined arrivals from these top source markets constituted 61.72% of the total inbound traffic.

India, Russia, Australia, and Canada were the fastest growing markets during the period with 74%, 36%, 22%, and 21% increase in visitor arrivals compared to 2010.

European markets, on the other hand, accounted for 11.08% of the total visitor traffic for 74,073 with the United Kingdom posting 8.48% growth and Germany recording 4.67% increase in arrivals.   The Scandinavian markets showed double digit growth while arrivals from France modestly increased by 4.67%.

The ASEAN market expanded by 13.70% for 49,634 arrivals with Malaysia and Singapore registering 20% and 16% growth rates, respectively.  The ASEAN market accounted for 7.42% of the total visitor arrivals during the first two months of 2011.

There are 17, 757 registered Japanese residents and expats in the Philippines according to Japan Embassy and there’s a growing number of Japanese tourists, who would not want to be known to the hard-to-penetrate-rich-market?

I think I know how to break my ice.

Yesterday, I realized that I've been in my current job for a year already and I think my career goals improved a lot, clearer this time.

I have genuine interest in people ever since and that’s the only thing that didn’t change as time goes by.

I grew up believing that I want to end up being a Broadcast Journalist. That was my one and only dream because I want to talk with people, but when I was very near to the realization of that dream,  I felt that I didn’t belong in that industry. True, maybe I gave up too soon, but I know I want something more…

Communications and Media-related posts are everywhere! My college professor told me before that I should be very aggressive because there are many careers to venture in the industry of Communications but after joining some well-known companies in the industry, I know that I have to trim down the scope of choices and focus.

The field of Marketing, Sales and Advertising excites me. 

Look around you, media influences everything and I always crave to be part of "that" influencing body that can eventually transform lives, especially for the youth and their image of themselves.

Considering my experiences and interests, and after learning that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projected the average estimated growth of jobs to enter the field of Advertising/ PR/ Marketing is around 68, 000 until 2016, my eagerness to pursue a Master’s Degree in Marketing and Advertising intensified. Keen competition is expected that’s why I want to learn more about Global Marketing.

The BLS reports that advertising and promotions managers saw mean annual earnings of $91,100 in 2007. That same year, marketing managers earned $113,400 and public relations managers earned $97,170. All three occupations saw mean annual earnings over six figures in New York and New Jersey. (http://www.collegegrad.com)

Going back to school excites me.

I’ve been out of school for almost 4 years and just like how other people give so much emphasis in the consequence of being 25, I have a guilty feeling that I should take the learning to a higher level.

After all, I’m feeling quite old these days because of the routine. To stay fresh and young, I know learning new things is a must.