This art installation by the French designer Pierre David, takes a leaf out of Pantone books of yore. Now this is multiculturalism in full flow, in your face, and over the rest of your body too. It reminds me of what we like to do when clients visit. We give them a line drawing of a multicultural scene and a box of Multicultural Crayola. What's that you ask? Click here to find out.






Skin Pantone book image from http://www.cuartoderecha.com/, copyright: Pierre David
Via the NotCot.org site.

Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

You've got to love Google because they've got the guts, the balls and the brand to do this sort of thing. When a brand is big, it's big-hearted and big-thinking. The occasion here is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi - October 2nd.

A soupçon of visual punning.
A dash of good timing.
A gentle invitation to break your fast at Amer.
A cracker of an ad for the Ramadan season from DDB Egypt via Ads of the World.


Advertising Agency: DDB, Egypt
Creative Director / Art Director: Wael A. Azzam
Copywriter: Mohammad Salah
Published: August 2009


Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.
In other words, as long as you attribute ownership of these articles or posts to me you are free to use them and re-use them.
Go ahead. Spread the love and the knowledge.

Smart, hip and desi, Masala Chai is a steaming cup filled with desi design wit. Check it out. Posts range from an intro to the stellar fold-your-own paper dolls of Mira Malhotra (shown here) to the Madhubani-folk-art-inspired paintings of Arti Sandhu. Respect.

A common sobriquet that describes Chinese Canadians with a job in Hong Kong and a home and family in Canada.

The term finds its provenance in the post-1997 phenomenon that saw many Chinese Canadian families set up homes in Canada while the main breadwinners returned to Hong Kong to earn their living.

Then, as now, it was often easier to find employment in one's country of departure (and certainly more lucrative), than to find an accepting and open-minded employer in Canada who was willing to accept your credentials and experience as valid, and willing to pay you equitably, on the basis of those qualifications.

At the same time the communist government in Beijing deployed several measures to reassure Hong Kong Chinese that it was business as usual in Hong Kong. Though no such promises were made in the area of political freedom, the fact that Hong Kong continued to prosper after the hand-over encouraged many Chinese immigrants to return.

Nonetheless, in a classic demonstration of circumspection so prevalent in Asian culture, they maintained their status as permanent residents or Canadian citizens. They also maintained their homes in Canada and, typically, sent their children to Canadian schools and universities, while they shuttled back and forth (hence the term astronaut - for the amount of time spent suspended above the earth).

It is estimated that 2/3rds of all male immigrants from Hong Kong live outside Canada according to a 2007 Vancouver Sun article quoting a study by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia.

And oh, the real Chinese astronauts - the guys who do the spacewalk - they're called taikonauts.


Image via NY Times, copyright: European Pressphoto Agency


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Indian English is being a bhelpuri language. It is being sweet and hot and tangy.

In a most excellent piece first published in 1987 in the New York Times, Steven Weisman (who was being the Times' New Delhi bureau chief), takes a big, big bite of this most zabardast dish. Please to try it by clicking on post title, and I am promising you will be coming back for more.

Shown above: the first ads in Indian English ever written in Canada. I was writing these while being employed at Vickers and Benson for Asian Television Network and Bell ExpressVu. The ads were attracting a readership of their own - and the kind publications were offering to carry a second round just like that only, for free! All gods are great I am saying!


Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

The debate on Chinese script carries on in the pages of the NY Times. Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, professor of Chinese literary studies, Eugene Wang, professor of Asian art, Hsuan Meng, writer at World Journal Weekly and Norman Matloff, computer scientist all weigh in with their opinions and considerations. The score? All the experts prefer the ability of traditional script to capture nuances and subtleties but 3 out of 4 say that there is room for both. Read and enjoy the original article by clicking on the title of this post.

This bold, humanistic spot from Argentina goes where few North American banks dare to go.
Viva tolerance!


Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

As a long-time poet and poetry promoter, I thought I'd use April - being National Poetry Month - to throw the powerful magic of poetry into the rattle-bag that is Bheja Bazaar. Besides, poetry and social commentary have always made excellent bedfellows. Here's an excerpt from the provocative Do Not Embrace Your Mind’s New Negro Friend by William Meredith. Click on the title to read the entire poem at at www.poetryfoundation.org.

“Do Not Embrace Your Mind’s New Negro Friend”

BY WILLIAM MEREDITH

Do not embrace your mind’s new negro friend
Or embarrass the blackballed jew with memberships:
There must be years of atonement first, and even then
You may still be the blundering raconteur
With the wrong story, and they may still be free.
...

Copyright © 1997 by William Meredith.
From www.poetryfoundation.org

Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A tip of the turban (literally) to fellow ad man, occasional employee and international Sikh Dalbir Singh. His Sikh Park cartoon series reminds us why this successful, industrious community is so much fun to hang with. They know how to laugh. At others and themselves. Vah, vah, vah. Keep it coming Sardarji!


Sikh Park, copyright Dalbir Singh. Via sikhpark.com


Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

India just celebrated the incredible, colourful, uninhibited festival of Holi. Enjoy the The Boston Globe's photo essay on the festivities from its spectacular Big Picture website. And in the words of one billion revelers, "Holi Hai!"

Let go and let yourself have some fun.
Click here to see the photo feature.


Image: Makks2010 via weblink to from Wikimedia Commobes

Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A beautifully executed series of peace posters featuring all 12 animals from the Japanese/Chinese zodiac.
Shown here, the Ox -it is the Year of the Ox after all. Enjoy. You can find the entire series here.


Image by Graflex Directions, via notcot.com

Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Lord Leverhulme rather famously said "Half of my advertising budget is wasted. I just don't know which half."
And with that somewhat tautological statement, he set off a craze for measurement and ROI that has, to this day, not found a resolution.

Frankly, as a creative director and business owner I think it's a waste trying to identify the waste.

I would focus my energies and investment in trying to identify the other half, the half that works. Truth be told, even that will always be an imprecise science. In advertising and marketing, we are still wallowing in the quagmire of empirical limitation and search for validation in numerical or statistical evidence.

The human mind (and human behaviour) continues to be a source of astonishment to those who pursue a deeper understanding of it in a lifetime of study - anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists. Our synapses and dendrites contain more information than a year's worth of tracking studies, focus groups and quantitative research.

None of them can truly account for or predict that undefinable moment when a creative act changes or defines a brand, its position in the market and its true value to its consumers. Think different (to borrow a phrase from a brand that did - and still does).



Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Portrait of Lord Leverhulme by Augustus John, via link to Liverpool Museums website

Strategy = I think.
Tactics = I do.

Strategy = Analysis, planning, ideation.
Tactics = Mechanisms, activities, deployment.

Strategy - tactics = Einstein's brain in a jar.
Tactics - strategy = Einstein without a brain at all.

Strategy + tactics = e = mc(squared)


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Over on LinkedIn, a fellow member posted this question, and the answer I sent in might be pertinent to followers of this blog.

His question on Multicultural Agencies:
Does anyone have any experience working with (as a client) full service multicultural advertising agencies? What was your over-all experience? What were they good at? What were they not so good at? Any thoughts about how the over-all experience of engaging a multicultural agency could have been better?

My answer:
I am a principal/Creative Director at a very successful multicultural agency in Canada - one that is also a mainstream agency. Naturally I approach your questions with a somewhat different lens.

The development of multicultural work is fraught with difficulties.

I find too many multicultural agencies don't dive deep enough into the traditional rigour of good advertising and marketing practice to create insight-based work that is persuasive, engaging and relevant. The result, often, is work that is only one level above mere translation - with just a glimmer or two of culture sensitivity to justify its existence.

At the same time I can't exactly blame the agencies - clients too often want one-off ads - a token nod at the need to have something running in the multicultural market so that they are not conspicuous by their absence.

Operationally, clients frequently assign junior marketing staff to handle multicultural marketing functions independently without the guidance and steadying experience of senior marketers. Imagine how frustrating this can be.

One thing to be cautious of, is agencies that pretend to be more than they are. Hispanic agencies who swear that they can manage Asian American markets without an issue - or vice versa. Chinese market agencies who say they can handle South Asian markets - or vice versa. There are some that do, but these are few and far apart.

I would say to you that you should expect the same things from your multicultural agency as from your mainstream agency. Work of the highest strategic and creative quality for your market. People you can enjoy working with and can trust to deliver.

I would challenge you to provide the same things to your multicultural agency as you do your mainstream agency. Great, disciplined marketing briefs, the involvement and interest of senior marketing management, and the same respect for the process you give mainstream work.


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

If you are celebrating the Lunar New Year, here's a simple wish from all of us at Barrett and Welsh: may the the Year of the Ox reward all your hard work with abundance and prosperity.




Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A common sobriquet that describes Chinese Canadians with a job in Hong Kong and a home and family in Canada.

The term finds its provenance in the post-1997 phenomenon that saw many Chinese Canadian families set up homes in Canada while the main breadwinners returned to Hong Kong to earn their living.

Then, as now, it was often easier to find employment in one's country of departure (and certainly more lucrative), than to find an accepting and open-minded employer in Canada who was willing to accept your credentials and experience as valid, and willing to pay you equitably, on the basis of those qualifications.

At the same time the communist government in Beijing deployed several measures to reassure Hong Kong Chinese that it was business as usual in Hong Kong. Though no such promises were made in the area of political freedom, the fact that Hong Kong continued to prosper after the hand-over encouraged many Chinese immigrants to return.

Nonetheless, in a classic demonstration of circumspection so prevalent in Asian culture, they maintained their status as permanent residents or Canadian citizens. They also maintained their homes in Canada and, typically and sent their children to Canadian schools and universities, while they shuttled back and forth (hence the term astronaut - for the amount of time spent suspended above the earth).

It is estimated that 2/3rds of all male immigrants from Hong Kong live outside Canada according to a 2007 Vancouver Sun article quoting a study by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia.

And oh, the real Chinese astronauts - the guys who do the spacewalk - they're called taikonauts.


Image via NY Times, copyright: European Pressphoto Agency


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

Asian American is a catch-all phrase that covers Americans whose origins are East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), South Asian (mostly Indian, and to a lesser extent Pakistani and Bangladeshi), South-East Asian (Vietnamese and Philipino, and to a lesser extent Thai, Malaysians, Indonesian, Cambodian and Laotian). The idealized definition, would simply be all Americans of Asian origin.

However (and rather interestingly), West Asians (Turkish, Persian and Arabic-speaking peoples), are not typically included in this group, in popular usage. (Perhaps it's not that catch-all in the end?)

The phrase Asian American enjoys preferred use by the US multicultural marketing industry, which tends to use it to separate and simplify the two main multicultural markets thus: Hispanic and Asian American. In Canada, where the Hispanic market is still relatively small, and where familiarity with the disparities between the various Asian ethnicities is high, there is no such grouping; the closest would be the term visible minority.

Some famous Asian Americans (ethnic origin in parentheses) are: Governor Bobby Jindal (Indian), Yahoo founder Jerry Yang (Chinese), NBC news anchor Connie Chung (Chinese), Dr. Deepak Chopra (Indian).

Deepak Chopra image, via nndb.com
Jerry Yang image, via businessweek.com

Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

After writing some 10,000 words in this blog, I thought I'd like to see how one of my favourite web services handles the content. Wordle, as some of you may know generates these elegant dense tag clouds of any content input by you. I input 9999 words - I think the limit is 10,000. This is what I got. Some observations: though I think I've covered the South Asian and Chinese communities equally, Wordle has split South and Asian, so the resulting cloud shows a bias towards Chinese coverage, which isn't the reality of course. (Hmm, lies, damned lies and tag clouds?!)

http://www.wordle.net/
Images of Wordles are licensed


Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.