Collection of Humorous Print Ads

People and their stuff.

  

MoscOw, Rebranded

Moscow has been around for hundreds of years and I doubt anyone has ever perceived it as a non-serious, emoticon type of city. Luckily for Moscow, those days are over. The new formula is all about the :) and o_O, perfect for those who love texting (myself included, of course).

As a personal initiative architect Nicholas Pereslegina and designer Alexander Pershikova have launched their very own brand for the city of Moscow without any government involvement (or maybe even approval). And this is not just some proposal on a Behance page, this is a full-on brand with merchandise and souvenirs already hitting the streets of Moscow. The concept of the new logo is Surprise + Smile = Wow.

Moscow WOW is a project ded­i­cated to ‘re-​​branding’ Moscow city and mak­ing it ‘one of the most attrac­tive cities in the world for busi­ness or a living’.

45°C — Modern Slaves of Dubai

«Higher, greater, more luxurious. If it was after Sheik Muhammad bin Rashid al Maktoum — and it is — Dubai will become the world metropolis of architectural wonders and records. This is only possible to achieve with the sweat of a gigantic labour army from abroad. Hundredthousands of these foreign workers labour on the constructionsites for very low vages, live pent-up in tiny barracks and seperate from their families for many years.»
This is a photographic documentary, made by photographer Florian Büttner, is about the everyday-life of the men with the unity-coloured overalls. The men outside the lap of luxury, who exist in the shadows of the skyscrapers.
«They have been the cheapest on the market and the ones most driven to abandon their rights to make a living. Circumstances made them to what they are in my eyes. Modern slaves. Not taken by force like in the old days, but forced by their lives in the arms of the highest bidder for human resources. From roughly 1 million people living in Dubai, around 800.000 are or were foreign workers. This is a new dimension in the history of foreign labours and shows one aspect of globalisation.»
Click images to view in full size!

The workers are waiting for the bus to bring them back to the camp after a hard day of work in the heat of Dubai.

This man waters the imported palm trees in front of Burj Dubai construction site. Every day, all year long.

Sheik Zayed Road, the main traffic vein through new Dubai, is beeing expandet to 10 lanes.

Habil comes from Pakistan, he doesnt know yet how long he will stay. He dreams of buying a house and a car, once he gets back home.

There is not much space for individuality.

The nearly finished Palm Jumeirah in 2007.

Where there is over 50.000 Dollar-millionaires among 200.000 locals, the average income of a construction worker is 180 Dollars a month.

Which they built for years, will be closed for them as soon as the workers are done.

The Burj Dubai in 2007. 3 Years later, it becomes the highest building in the World, with over 800 Meters.

On they day off, thousands of workers stream towards the Dubai Creek and to the Old Dubai to shop, call home and transfer money.

The rising of Dubai Downtown in 2007.

The bus that brings the men back to their camp. Outside of Dubai at the edge of the Desert.

Dubai is dominated by red and white.

If one building is done, the next one is allready started.

Most of the men I talked to feel alien in this city. They call Dubai the city without soul.

Advertising worlds at Downtown. The rulers know how to stage themselves.

End of workday at Dubai Marina.

G.S. Rajans thoughts are often back home. In the last 12 years he only got to see his family 5 times. Though their exinstance depends on Rajans work.

The bus that was ment to pick them up an hour ago is stuck in traffic, like every day.

Burj Dubai at night, driving on Sheik Zayed Road.

These Pakistani men sit down for a dinner after a day on construction site. They share one small apartment with 12 people.

The city is covered in big advertising banners, which look like pure ironie next to the workers lifes.

Assaia comes from Afghanistan and works as a mechanic in a truck repair-shop. The Container in the background is his home he shares with 6 men.

The sight of Dubais skyline from the Emirates Highway.

Twelve Ways to Create Barriers to Competitors

The only real way to grow sales and profits is to create innovative offerings with some "must haves" that define new categories or subcategories for which competitors are not relevant. The goal is not only to find and successfully introduce such offerings but to create barriers that inhibit or prevent competitors from entering and becoming serious customer options.

The firms that have enjoyed years or even decades of life with no or weak competitors have created such barriers. Here are some twelve routes to real barriers the last six of which involve the brand. I would be interested in examples of others.

• Proprietary technology. Diamond's (formerly P&G's) Pringles, Prius' Hybrid Synergy Drive, and Dreyer's Slow Churned Ice Cream all have technologies not easily copied.
• Ongoing innovation. Becoming a moving target as Apple did by following the iPod with products like the nano, shuffle, and iTouch, and Gillette did with razors from the Trac II to the Fusion ProGlide. Chrysler went for 18 years without a serious competitor in the minivan category it created in part with innovations like sliding driver side doors, swivel seats and removable back seats.
• Scale. IKEA, Starbucks, eBay, and Apple's iPod all have scale economies often based on first moverstatus that provide ongoing competitive advantages.
• Investment. A high investment protected brands like CNN, ESPN, and Kirin's Ichiban for many years.
• Execution. Zappos.com with its Wow! experience, its culture celebrating weirdness, and its 24/7 call center that will even find an open pizza shop presents a high bar.
• Brand networks. Supporting networks such as the Apple App suppliers and the Pampers' links to organizations involved in raising babies and keeping them healthy can be hard to duplicate.
• Customer involvement. Some brands can organize a community around the brand as Harley-Davidson has done with their Trip Planner and General Mills has done with the Betty Crocker Kitchen. Others can associate with a common interest such breast cancer research (Avon), creativity (Sharpie), or outdoor hiking (Columbia).
• Self-expressive benefits. Functional benefits are often quickly copied; it is much harder to copy self-expressive benefit such as those offered by Prius. A driver of a Focus may or may not be driving ahybrid but there is no such doubt about a Prius driver
• Brand equity. Muji, Zipcar, PowerBar, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car all have strong brands with visibility, associations, and a sense of authenticity.
• Brand loyalty. If a brand can capture the customers most likely to value the "must haves" and can keep them involved and happy, competitors will be faced with less appealing segments on which to build a business.
• Branded differentiators. A branded feature, service, program, or ingredient that will define a "must have" such as the EarthGrains Eco-Grain, Aquos' quad pixel, Weston's Heavenly Bed, Oral B's Action Cup, or Amazon's OneClick can be owned by the firm.
• Exemplar status. If the brand represents the category such as Fiber One, iPhone, Whole Foods Market, Geek Squad, or Jeep then other brands will have a difficult time getting considered.

These barriers can inhibit competitors from getting traction, becoming visible, and being perceived as authentic or credibility. As a result, they may be weak players for a long time. Even better, they may be discouraged from entering in the first place. To paraphrase Bruce Henderson, the founder of BCG, "the essence of strategy is to convince competitors not to invest in areas of strategic importance to you." It really is a different way to look at strategy. Don't try to beat competition but, rather, make them irrelevant and discourage them from even competing.

David Aaker is the Vice-Chairman of Prophet and the author of Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant and the davidaaker.com blog on branding.