World of Red Bull

"The only limit, is the one you set yourself."

My favorites from 2011

It seems to me that 2011 was a poor year in terms of movies production. I mean, there are no really any "Inception" or "The King's Speech" kind of movies.. One that you really say "Now there's an Oscar movie!"
During this last year I saw a couple of movies and have selected two that I strongly suggest you to watch.

Warrior

Directly entering Imdb's top 250, this is a great movie telling the story of two brothers whose lives come together once they are both forced to start fighting again. Being separated for many years, they now have to face each other in the arena while at the same time try to solve their own family issues.
Pay attention to the father's (Nick Nolte) performance, which has already worth him a couple of awards.

Drive

Official selection for the Cannes Festival and winner of the best director category, this movie is one of my favorites so far, a long with "Warrior". The movie starts Ryan Gosling as the main actor (and what a performance!), a Hollywood stunt performer who during the night works as a wheelman.
An excellent directing, a calm soundtrack which perfectly contrasts with the crime scenes, and an "Oscar performance" by Ryan Gosling makes this one a must-see.

Yes, sometimes TV spots (still) work!

In a world where TV spots and radio advertisements are losing its impact versus new media channels, here's an example of a commercial that goes against this trend. This time by the giant Coca-Cola, with a 1 and a half TV spot launched in Christmas, in Portugal.

The marketing mix is something easily understood on paper but difficult to put in practice if you don't know your brand and your consumers properly. And even when you do know them well, the right balance is hard to determine. Currently more and more companies and leaving classic media channels such as television and switching to, for example, social media vehicles to promote their products and services. By doing this firms keep up with their consumers' trends as they communicate to (and with) their consumers while they are facebooking or simply writing posts on blogs.

However, a good TV spot still makes an impact. And what is a good TV commercial? For me a good TV commercial is evaluated by 1) the consumer's understanding of the message presented and 2) how much they like it, which ultimately leads to a word-of-mouth snowball effect. This ad clearly transmits the "happiness" core value of Coca-Cola, while at the same time is so good that made people talk about it. It became viral, with hundreds of people posting it online. So even the ones that didn't catch it on TV, they saw it anyways online.

So for all the companies re-thinking their marketing strategies, here's an advice: most of the marketing tools you can use are worth going for, as long as you make sure you are doing it right.

Alta Definição - Entrevista a Zé Pedro

Mais uma grande entrevista conduzida por Daniel Oliveira, desta vez ao guitarrista dos Xutos e Pontapés - Zé Pedro. O eterno músico português fala, sem preconceitos, de cenas marcantes da sua vida pessoal e de como saiu por cima em relação às adversidades com que se deparou, principalmente nos últimos anos.

O tema das drogas e do alcool abrange grande pate da entrevista, e é bastante interessante observar a perspectiva de vida de uma pessoa que, durante grande parte da sua vida, viveu nos limites.

Uma última nota para a já habitual banda sonora do programa, com músicas excelentemente selecionadas e adequadas aos diferentes momentos da entrevista.

Aqui fica o link! http://sic.sapo.pt/programas/altadefinicao/article777008.ece

3 British Movies Worth Watching

I have been watching a couple of British movies lately, so if you want an escape for the typical American movie, here you have 3 nice films definitely worth seeing.

1. "This is England"

This is England is a look back at the early eighties of British working-class life through the eyes of a young boy and his gang, while dealing with outside influences such as racism and xenophobia, mass employment and the fall out of Falkland's War.

Tremendous picture and an emotive soundtrack. Among many other awards, winner in the BAFTA Awards (2008) and in the British Independent Film Awards (2006), both for Best Film category. A must-see movie.

2. "Layer Cake"

One of those kind of movies that many things happen in a very short time period. Actually, a movie from the same producers of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, this time more from a crime perspective, mainly in the drug scene. The title Layer Cake refers to the layers of levels anyone in business goes through in rising to the top. What is revealed in the modern underworld where the rules have changed. There are no "codes", or "families" and respect lasts as long as a line...

All in all, a good script and the talent of Daniel Graig make this one an enjoyable film, with some pretty funny moments in between.

3. "Dead Man's Shoes"

My favorite among the three. The story revolves around the character of Richard (Paddy Considine), a paratrooper returning to his small home town in England's Peak District. After having discovered what a couple of bullies did to his mentally disabled brother, he starts his revenge. In the opening line of the film, Richard narrates "God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that." 

The soundtrack is amazingly executed. It suits every single occasion of the movie, and often puts you through some deep thoughts. One of those movies that after it finishes you wait for the music to end while you think about what you just saw.

Chromebook - Beginning of an Era?

Cloud computing is, according to many, the most probable future direction that technology will follow. For those who never heard of it, it basically allows you to store all your data online, in a cloud, instead of storing it in your computer's hard disk. Dropbox is a good example of such an application. Also Apple already came out with an application that will allow you to store all your music in your online cloud, where you can afterwards access it from any of your apple devices.

One of the leaders in this technology is Google, which has been investing significant resources in aligning its future products with cloud computing. Most recently, Google has just announced the launch of the Chromebook, a small laptop equipped with Google Chrome and where there's no longer a hard disk available; only through internet access you are able to reach your personal data, in a platform linking your files with your email Google account, YouTube, Facebook, etc. In terms of manufacturers, both Acer and Samsung worked together with Google to develop the new device, which you can see below.

Now this is a big breakthrough innovation... And as a consequence, it brings several risks with it! Although the technology itself does not involve any major change compared to what already exists (netbooks, ipads,etc), the product involves a high degree of change in terms of the consumer behavior. More precisely, the challenge is concerned with changing people's routines and habits, and not just adding some extra feature to the product. And even after people understand the actual benefits of the technology (in this case, the advantage of being able to store everything online, making things easier, safer and more practical), they have to start using it. Which means stop using regular laptops together with their hard disk, and get used to placing everything online and access it there.

At the end of the day, those who manage to convince people in changing their behaviors and buying the product shall succeed, regardless of the whether the technology is very good or not. And this is where marketing plays a key role in launching the product into the market. So lets wait and see how Google "shows" their new toy to the market, and if they are able to take the best out of their marketing tools to successfully convince consumers. So far, they did a good work with their website ( http://www.google.com/chromebook/), with a clear value proposition touching on some essential points. Lets take a look...

Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. So you get a faster, simpler and more secure experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers.

In two sentences tells people what it is and why they should use it - more practical, faster, and better that "ordinary" computers. Additionally, it makes it look easier: "where you already spend most of your computing time".

Nice job so far Google, but the hard part is still to come.

Convince consumers in changing their routines and become the leader of a new technology era. Fail to do it and join the high failure rates pool where many others eventually end up falling in.

Exceeding Customer Expectations - A Hangover Hard to Recover

Marketing is a powerful weapon used by companies to create certain expectations on consumers, who create themselves a perception of a product/service after having been exposed to such things as advertisements or promotions. And which company is the final winner in the marketing race? The one promising everything and giving few, or the one keeping promise and meeting consumer's expectations? Obviously, despite less sales on the beginning, the long-run shall see the second succeed. And this is what many fail to understand: Exceeding your customer's expectations with promises you aren't able to deliver is surely one of the biggest mistakes you can do as a manager.

Here's a recent example... Two weeks ago I went to see the movie "The Hangover - Part 2". Given the success of the first movie, I was expecting a lot from its sequel and actually couldn't wait for the day to come. So I took a look on the trailer to have an idea of what the movie might look like... The scenes showed were extremely funny and the trailer promised a great movie, probably better than the first!

A couple of days later, I finally went to see the movie. Upon my arrival, I found the place covered with posters and lots of references to the film! Uau... an epic sequel was expecting me! Well, at least that's what I thought... After the movie ended I was extremely disappointed, basically because more than half of the funny parts I had already seen on the trailer! Me and obviously many others.

It's OK if your consumers have existing expectations upon your products or services due to previous use. But what it's NOT OK is when you elevate those expectations to a point where you cannot deliver them. What happens then is a feeling of dissatisfaction much worse than if you hadn't placed those expectations on their minds in the first place. And that was exactly what happened with this movie. I was expecting an entertaining and good film, but after watching the trailer, having seen all the ads displayed in the area and all the buzz created around it, my expectations grew even more! In the end, as the product failed to deliver me what I (and, again, many others...) was expecting, I was more dissatisfied than ever with the outcome.

Let us look now to the company side... What are the consequences of such actions? On the first few weeks will certainly provide high sales and maybe a couple of nice reviews. But eventually the end result will be a more negative evaluation of the movie, along with a decrease in customer loyalty and, most probably, a decrease in future purchases.

So manage this trade-off carefully. Take a look of what you have to offer and market it in the best possible way. But do not exaggerate, or you may never fully recover from that hangover.