Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Ty Ogunkoya is One Fine Dude
Nigerian model Ty Ogunkoya (Full name: Akintayo) is on the cover of Fab Magazine's Celebration Issue. Ty is one of my favourite models and not just because he is a Loyola Person (by virtue of his sister). He's relatively young but is already making a huge impact in the fashion world and has worked for some major labels like GAP and Armani thanks to his hard work and stunning Yoruba looks.
I will be taking marriage requests for him as his sister Funmi is my friend and a fellow Loyola Person.
See the rest of his photo spread in Fab on One Nigerian Boy's blog.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Marketing on the Internet: Much More Honest
I just came back from a wild goose chase. I got a flyer in the mail from a car dealership instructing me to scratch off the shaded circle on the flyer and if the number revealed matched the number on the flyer then I would win a car, $20,000, or an iPad.
Usually, I don't even give these sorts of things a first glance. It's all junk mail and I just leave it in my mailbox until it's full and then I empty the unwanted mail into the trash. This time I was bored, or my inner Okoro was in oversabi mode and against my better judgement I scratched the shiny circle.
Imagine my excitement when it turned out that the number I got from scratching did indeed match the number on the flyer. Could I have won something? I was super excited and suddenly actually going to see if I won a prize sounded like a good idea.
Let's just say that of all the foolish things I have done in my life, this ranks up there with the worst of them. First of all, the flyer said that I had to claim the prize in person at the car dealership. Second, the dealership was a good hour and a half away by bus and train. Third, I don't even know how to drive! But this didn't deter me because the flyer also said that it was the last day of the promotion so I just had to be there because the curiosity about what I had won was eating me alive. (And besides, what if I had won an iPad?)
Long story short, I made the ninety minute trip to this car dealership in the middle of nowhere (seriously, at one point I was worried about standing on the roadside to catch the bus back lest a serial killer jump out and grab me from the woods behind the road) on a horribly packed bus full of sweaty people. I distracted myself during the bus ride by daydreaming about how I would get to the dealership and present my winning flyer and go home with a shiny new iPad, but to my dismay when I got to the dealership, the ENTIRE BUS disembarked and marched towards the door holding THE SAME FLYER that I had stashed in my purse.
At this point I was suspicious and depressed but I went in anyway and a man in a long fur-lined coat like you only see in olden-days American movies herded us all towards a small billboard that had been set up by the front desk. On it was each prize that the flyer advertised and the number underneath it required to win the prize. It turned out that there was a second secret number on the flyer and the scratch-off number that they claimed was the winning number was the same on every single flyer. Worst of all, there were only three prizes out of the whole forty-something thousand flyers they had distributed. ONE car (which I didn't care about because I don't know how to drive), ONE cash prize (which I also didn't care about because nobody thinks they're going to win the cash in these things), and ONE iPad (the greed for which had motivated me to come out to this godforsaken dealership in the first place). All other flyers would get a NY lottery scratch off ticket.
How bloody unfair!!!!
The whole thing was one big deception, and needless to say, I was pissed! Of course, I was just handed a lottery ticket and then they tried to sell me a car. Pity they didn't realise the futility of it. I have never driven a day in my life (oh wait, there was this one time in Texas when I turned on my friend's car and managed to reverse it three feet at about 5 miles an hour. Maybe that counts). I have a bicycle for the warm summer months but my primary mode of transport is a Leggedes Benz.
Perhaps those with more experience will laugh at me for believing a car dealership in the first place. By their reputations they're all snake oil sales men and sleazier than grime but in spite of having been in America for four years now, this was my first experience with them so maybe I'm not entirely to blame for having a little faith. That being said, I'm a Business student and I actually learned this in marketing class so I should be ashamed of myself for falling for this nonsense - It's called the Bait and Switch - where you promise one thing to reel the customer in and then deliver something completely different (and usually lower than their expectations) once you have them in your clutches.
It wasn't all bad though because I realised something really interesting. Up till now, marketing techniques that have been applied in the real world have been all about dishonesty. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on tricking the consumer into buying something by selling them a particular belief about the said item that is partly or completely untrue. I was told to scratch off a number to win a prize which is what I did, but then they told me that my scratching off the number in the first place was pointless as it had NOTHING to do with winning the prize. If that's not trickery, I don't know what is.
This is the same technique applied in magazines and on television, and especially on foods that claim to be low in fat or low in sugar. While the packaging proclaims in bold letters the ultra low number of calories contained in the product, in the fine print somewhere completely illegible it says that the bottle or can contains five servings of the food. What then is the point of packaging five servings as though they were ONE serving and slapping the caloric content of only one serving on the label? It's so misleading and dishonest, it's unbelievable.
I've also noticed that this is a HUGE feature in American advertising but not so much in Nigerian advertising. Overall, Nigerian television ads are much more honest and present a more realistic view of the advertised product than do American ads, perhaps because Nigerians do not depend so much on television for their buying decisions as do Americans, and perhaps because a lot of products that Nigerians purchase regularly (especially foods) are naturally and independently sold by small, local producers rather than mass produced and mass marketed by large corporations as is the case with American products.
That being said, I think the Internet has changed advertising in that it's more honest online. Of course there are loads of deceptive ads and links (side eye to those stupid ads that always proclaim that studies have discovered a miracle pill that makes you lose 500 pounds in 2 days - I'm not talking about those), but products and services on the Internet are forced to be honest about their uses and limitations because there's always the threat of instant backlash whereas on television the most you can do is hiss at your TV. If a service provider on the Internet makes a false claim, within minutes people are complaining about it on Twitter or their blog and the company has to start planning damage control. Rather than face the ire of disgruntled web users, businesses are just learning to be more honest with their marketing instead of trying to nickel and dime people with false or misleading claims. Sites like Yelp let consumers trade stories about products, services, and companies, and bad news travels fast via word of mouth on the web and can seriously hurt sales.
The end result is that marketing on the Internet is much more honest and will continue to become so... not necessarily because businesses want to be but because they have no choice. The alternative - Online Retribution - is just too dangerous to risk. What do you think?
Usually, I don't even give these sorts of things a first glance. It's all junk mail and I just leave it in my mailbox until it's full and then I empty the unwanted mail into the trash. This time I was bored, or my inner Okoro was in oversabi mode and against my better judgement I scratched the shiny circle.
Imagine my excitement when it turned out that the number I got from scratching did indeed match the number on the flyer. Could I have won something? I was super excited and suddenly actually going to see if I won a prize sounded like a good idea.
Let's just say that of all the foolish things I have done in my life, this ranks up there with the worst of them. First of all, the flyer said that I had to claim the prize in person at the car dealership. Second, the dealership was a good hour and a half away by bus and train. Third, I don't even know how to drive! But this didn't deter me because the flyer also said that it was the last day of the promotion so I just had to be there because the curiosity about what I had won was eating me alive. (And besides, what if I had won an iPad?)
Long story short, I made the ninety minute trip to this car dealership in the middle of nowhere (seriously, at one point I was worried about standing on the roadside to catch the bus back lest a serial killer jump out and grab me from the woods behind the road) on a horribly packed bus full of sweaty people. I distracted myself during the bus ride by daydreaming about how I would get to the dealership and present my winning flyer and go home with a shiny new iPad, but to my dismay when I got to the dealership, the ENTIRE BUS disembarked and marched towards the door holding THE SAME FLYER that I had stashed in my purse.
At this point I was suspicious and depressed but I went in anyway and a man in a long fur-lined coat like you only see in olden-days American movies herded us all towards a small billboard that had been set up by the front desk. On it was each prize that the flyer advertised and the number underneath it required to win the prize. It turned out that there was a second secret number on the flyer and the scratch-off number that they claimed was the winning number was the same on every single flyer. Worst of all, there were only three prizes out of the whole forty-something thousand flyers they had distributed. ONE car (which I didn't care about because I don't know how to drive), ONE cash prize (which I also didn't care about because nobody thinks they're going to win the cash in these things), and ONE iPad (the greed for which had motivated me to come out to this godforsaken dealership in the first place). All other flyers would get a NY lottery scratch off ticket.
How bloody unfair!!!!
The whole thing was one big deception, and needless to say, I was pissed! Of course, I was just handed a lottery ticket and then they tried to sell me a car. Pity they didn't realise the futility of it. I have never driven a day in my life (oh wait, there was this one time in Texas when I turned on my friend's car and managed to reverse it three feet at about 5 miles an hour. Maybe that counts). I have a bicycle for the warm summer months but my primary mode of transport is a Leggedes Benz.
Perhaps those with more experience will laugh at me for believing a car dealership in the first place. By their reputations they're all snake oil sales men and sleazier than grime but in spite of having been in America for four years now, this was my first experience with them so maybe I'm not entirely to blame for having a little faith. That being said, I'm a Business student and I actually learned this in marketing class so I should be ashamed of myself for falling for this nonsense - It's called the Bait and Switch - where you promise one thing to reel the customer in and then deliver something completely different (and usually lower than their expectations) once you have them in your clutches.
It wasn't all bad though because I realised something really interesting. Up till now, marketing techniques that have been applied in the real world have been all about dishonesty. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on tricking the consumer into buying something by selling them a particular belief about the said item that is partly or completely untrue. I was told to scratch off a number to win a prize which is what I did, but then they told me that my scratching off the number in the first place was pointless as it had NOTHING to do with winning the prize. If that's not trickery, I don't know what is.
This is the same technique applied in magazines and on television, and especially on foods that claim to be low in fat or low in sugar. While the packaging proclaims in bold letters the ultra low number of calories contained in the product, in the fine print somewhere completely illegible it says that the bottle or can contains five servings of the food. What then is the point of packaging five servings as though they were ONE serving and slapping the caloric content of only one serving on the label? It's so misleading and dishonest, it's unbelievable.
I've also noticed that this is a HUGE feature in American advertising but not so much in Nigerian advertising. Overall, Nigerian television ads are much more honest and present a more realistic view of the advertised product than do American ads, perhaps because Nigerians do not depend so much on television for their buying decisions as do Americans, and perhaps because a lot of products that Nigerians purchase regularly (especially foods) are naturally and independently sold by small, local producers rather than mass produced and mass marketed by large corporations as is the case with American products.
That being said, I think the Internet has changed advertising in that it's more honest online. Of course there are loads of deceptive ads and links (side eye to those stupid ads that always proclaim that studies have discovered a miracle pill that makes you lose 500 pounds in 2 days - I'm not talking about those), but products and services on the Internet are forced to be honest about their uses and limitations because there's always the threat of instant backlash whereas on television the most you can do is hiss at your TV. If a service provider on the Internet makes a false claim, within minutes people are complaining about it on Twitter or their blog and the company has to start planning damage control. Rather than face the ire of disgruntled web users, businesses are just learning to be more honest with their marketing instead of trying to nickel and dime people with false or misleading claims. Sites like Yelp let consumers trade stories about products, services, and companies, and bad news travels fast via word of mouth on the web and can seriously hurt sales.
The end result is that marketing on the Internet is much more honest and will continue to become so... not necessarily because businesses want to be but because they have no choice. The alternative - Online Retribution - is just too dangerous to risk. What do you think?
Monday, February 14, 2011
A Fun Class Experiment!
Today is Valentine's Day ....... *crickets chirping*
Moving on... I have some news! This semester I'm taking a really amazing class on social media and one of the assignments/projects that we're supposed to be working on in class is starting and maintaining a blog. Since I already have a blog, my professor said that I didn't need to open a new one (thank goodness because I have way too much stuff to do) so over the next couple of weeks we might be getting some interesting new visitors (a.k.a. some of my social media classmates) who might come poking around our corner of the Internet in order to look at my blog.
We also have to do a bunch of posts related to class so I'm going to be exploring a number of topics that I don't usually discuss on this blog but that nonetheless interest me, so less agonising and more social media! I'm really excited about this because I've been wanting to do posts about the Nigerian social media scene, especially since Blogville is such a huge part of it and essentially what started it, and we've produced so many amazing people that are doing awesome things in social media like OoNwoye who founded the digital business card system OnePage, and is now working on his second startup Lotaar or Chinedu Ottih (a Loyola Person) who founded Identified. (which by the way you should all join ASAP!)
A few changes:
Because my classmates now significantly increase the number of non-Nigerians who read this blog, I'm going to add another page to the blog which will be a glossary of Nigerian terms that I frequently use on this blog and what they mean.
I'm also probably going to be referencing a lot more since some posts will count for class.
That aside I'm pretty much going to be blogging as always. Oh, but my posts will be more regular because I have to turn in a posting schedule for class.
If there's anything in particular you'd like to see me cover, let me know.
Please make our visitors feel welcome and be nice. ^_^
xoxo
Sugabelly
Moving on... I have some news! This semester I'm taking a really amazing class on social media and one of the assignments/projects that we're supposed to be working on in class is starting and maintaining a blog. Since I already have a blog, my professor said that I didn't need to open a new one (thank goodness because I have way too much stuff to do) so over the next couple of weeks we might be getting some interesting new visitors (a.k.a. some of my social media classmates) who might come poking around our corner of the Internet in order to look at my blog.
We also have to do a bunch of posts related to class so I'm going to be exploring a number of topics that I don't usually discuss on this blog but that nonetheless interest me, so less agonising and more social media! I'm really excited about this because I've been wanting to do posts about the Nigerian social media scene, especially since Blogville is such a huge part of it and essentially what started it, and we've produced so many amazing people that are doing awesome things in social media like OoNwoye who founded the digital business card system OnePage, and is now working on his second startup Lotaar or Chinedu Ottih (a Loyola Person) who founded Identified. (which by the way you should all join ASAP!)
A few changes:
Because my classmates now significantly increase the number of non-Nigerians who read this blog, I'm going to add another page to the blog which will be a glossary of Nigerian terms that I frequently use on this blog and what they mean.
I'm also probably going to be referencing a lot more since some posts will count for class.
That aside I'm pretty much going to be blogging as always. Oh, but my posts will be more regular because I have to turn in a posting schedule for class.
If there's anything in particular you'd like to see me cover, let me know.
Please make our visitors feel welcome and be nice. ^_^
xoxo
Sugabelly
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Stylish and Versatile and Commissions! Yay! ^_^
A while ago I received the Stylish and Versatile Blogger Award from a number of bloggers: Prism of an Immigrant, NaijaLines, and a number of other people that I have not forgotten.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Erm so it appears that for the meme I have to say seven things about myself (that I suppose you previously did not know) and then nominate some more bloggers.
Okay, here goes:
1. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! I don't know what to write without revealing my deepest, darkest secrets that I haven't already revealed! =(
Okay, seriously now. Here goes:
1. I hate sleeping because I feel like something interesting might be happening while I'm asleep.
2. I hate people who sleep in the day time. People who like siestas, naps, etc. I HATE THEM!!!
3. I'm horribly afraid of drawing hands. I often alter drawings so that I won't have to draw the hands. If you look at a lot of my drawings, you won't see any hands. I only draw them when I absolutely have to. Curiously enough I can draw hands perfectly well, I'm just afraid of drawing them.
4. If my hands are full, I carry everything on my head. I always carry the laundry on my head to the laundry room because I find it awkward carrying it in my hands. Needless to say this is a source of endless fascination for the other people that live in my dorm.
5. My favourite foods are Digestive, Shortbread, Malt, Smirnoff Ice (in pineapple), Beans and Gari, and Jimmanu. (Boiled white yam and palm oil). .... yes, I know. I am also highly partial to sticky Japanese rice, Gyoza (Japanese fried pork dumplings ) and Yaki Udon (thick Japanese noodles). I cannot live without Asakusa Rusks (this is entirely Japanese Boy's fault).
6. When I eat Beans and Gari, I mix the Gari with water, sugar, milk, and kuli-kuli or groundnuts (or chin-chin for that matter), and then I pour the beans into it. It looks disgusting but it tastes like heaven.
7. When something really great happens, a little voice in my head yells in glee: VICTOLEEE!!!
Bloggers that I nominate for being stylish and versatile are: (and don't take it personally if I don't nominate you - I can only type so much on an empty stomach)
Eccentric Yoruba
LV-II
Mellowyel
Sugarking
Pwetty Bambi
Bob-Ij
Mamuje
Sting
Nice Anon
LG
Naija Foodie
2cute4u
SolomonSydelle
Overwhelmed Naija Babe
Waffarian (who I think stopped blogging =(
and everyone who reads or comments on this post.
Erm... I will do the linkage later. Too lazy right now.
Oooh!! And so a bunch of people were asking me about commissions so I'm going to add a commissions page to the blog with a price list ^_^ (inner Okoro jumps for joy!)
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