Tag Archives: Coca Cola

April 7, 2026 · 18:48

Skins

That was the thought that was invading my mind and for the biggest part it came from an app known as WinAmp. The current generation might not know what I am referring to, but their mommies and daddies know exactly what I mean.

You see, the world has forgotten the medium of long term marketing. And it saddens the brain. Creativity starts by shedding this to all the brains it can entice. And we seemingly have forgotten that. Consider that the TV goes on and the same settings are given to everyone. But there Is nothing stopping you from adding that to your TV or digital medium player. Have library that could be added to your TV or even PS5, a skin where we see the addition to your Netflix, Disney+ or Hulu app that gives it a little spice. A setting where the creative person turns the Netflix logo into a Cauldron and we see the books appear, where the books are movies and soundtracks. The Disney+ logo where the image of the Mandalorian comes alive and we see items that are movies, but refer to items seen in that series (never saw the Mandalorian) and the idea is not even merely  being scratched. You name it and it is likely to have a fanbase of millions. 

We can go into any venture from that and the brands themselves might shed ways into that setting. Whether it is Sony, Coca Cola, Steam Deck, Disney, Harry Potter or any other brand that speaks to the mind of others. 

Now consider that you are a brand bitch (like me) and you see your Sony environment, but when you also have your PS5, you might wonder why everything is so clearly cut and whilst the PS5 invites creativity, so does the Nintendo and I see a flaw here. They might have their own boundaries, but there is nothing stopping from a Switch (or PlayStation) to invade the borders of the TV and make over what people do there. As I see it, I would my Switch to take over the TV and set its boundaries there, so whilst we see Pikmins all over the screen of my TV, others might realise that some PikMins have familiar titles and as such, we might see games on that screen, games that we currently and almost forever have been playing. It might be the icon of a game box, the con of a hero (like Luigi) or the dreaded Bowser on his kart. All images we and others relate to the game we love to play. And on top we see the icons that relate to our needed setting like a D+ logo that gives us the Disney look and from there the iconic series that they have invade the screen. The better part is that the kids will relate to this instantly and it gives them an edge in creativity. The same could be said for the PS4/PS5, Netflix, or Hulu groups. Something got lost over the last 15 years and it saddens me, because for amount I thought it made sense and that I the sad part. We are so drawn to making achievements in games that we are forgetting the image to play. Someone once said that the more complex the end becomes the more enticing the image of play gets to be. And they were seemingly right. 

A setting is getting lost in the wiring and it should sadden us all. And the Australian Financial Review is giving us ‘Jamie Dimon is counting the straws that will break the market’s back’ which comes with “JPMorgan’s chief executive can see a long string of growing risks, from geopolitics to private credit. Will that be enough to burst the market’s optimism?” And he came to me last night in a dream handing me 4 billion for my IP (it was a lovely dream) but here he is right on his turf but it is also the setting of a larger play. He sees a “a long string of growing risks”, yet I see a string of losing strings of creativity that will hold us down, because those who turn away from creativity are lost forever to a sea of demands and the turmoil of loss and that deeply saddens me. Simply because if we become pawns of the populist voices, we are actually doomed to make mistake after mistake and we need to see now that there are more ways. This all adds up to President Trump saying (according to the Guardian) “Donald Trump said he was “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he again threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants”, but in this setting he defies his real fears, the first time is the use of ‘possible’ and the second setting was that he said it at all. He is really scared that he will be put in the Hague in the accusers box facing the consequence of his illegal war. I reckon he is counting on the world being to broke when America folds its finances and he would be wrong. There are dozens of people who are actually innocent and used the Black letter law to the extent they could and President Trump is the one who stopped the game from continuing. I reckon that the one place where President Trump might be save is as a new inmate of Lefortovo Prison or Lubyanka Prison. Anywhere else he is likely to be toast. So there is no easy escape to the Bahama’s or Monaco for him. Too many people there will blame him for their easy escape and they will hold him to account. And there isn’t enough ammunition to keep him safe in the United States. 

So that is where I am and the people who needs distractions are being withheld a simple setting where their creativity is fed, not their frustrations and rage. And my mind is grabbing back to the simple setting of Winamp controls or the theme settings that Microsoft opened in 1995. Who did not have a whole range of themes to brighten up their Windows experience? That is seemingly lost now in a sea of patches and Knowledge Base (KB) numbers. So who gave the world the outlets of creativity? Adobe?

So have a great day and consider where we might be when our need for creativity is fed in all sorts of ways. Time for dinner now.

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July 9, 2025 · 08:18

Age of BS (Bill Sightseer)

That is the setting I was confronted with last night. We have all seen the US downturn in tourism and there is a certain justice in souring your own milk. This is what we saw in the last two weeks and last night the Independent gives us (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-tourism-decline-trump-policies-b2782820.html) the repeating ‘US is the only country facing tourism decline as Trump policies to cost $29 billion in visitor revenue: study’ and for the most I was all about “seen this before” so I was about to leave it next to me, but then something happened. Travel and Tour World gave me (at https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/united-states-tourism-soars-to-new-heights-with-20-million-canadian-tourists-contributing-a-staggering-20-5-billion-and-fueling-job-growth-across-140000-american-positions/) ‘United States Tourism Soars To New Heights With 20 Million Canadian Tourists, Contributing A Staggering $20.5 Billion And Fueling Job Growth Across 140,000 American Positions’ are the flipping kidding me? As we have been given from a multitude of places “Amid the president’s immigration crackdown, travel bans and sweeping global tariffs, the U.S. is expected to be the only one out of 184 countries to see foreign visitor spending fall in 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. The study suggests that the U.S. economy is on track to lose $12.5 billion in international spending this year alone – but the actual shortfall might be much greater.” (Independent, July 4th) and it matches what others have given me. But no, here comes the Travel and Tour World article giving us “A remarkable 20 million Canadian tourists visited the United States, contributing a massive $20.5 billion to the U.S.economy, while also sustaining around 140,000 jobs across the United States, as reported by the U.S.Travel Association. These figures highlight the essential role Canada plays in U.S. tourism, making it the largest source of international visitors for the country. With Canada’s population of about 40 million, this represents a significant proportion—half of all Canadians visited the U.S. last year. In fact, Canada accounted for 26% of all international tourists to the U.S., which saw a total of 77 million visitors in 2024.” And CBC on July 3rd gave us “The data shows there were 88,686 fewer recorded crossings at the Peach Arch, Pacific Highway, Lynden and Sumas points of entry throughout the month.” As such (apart from the confirming feeling), it seems that (as I personally see it) the U.S.Travel Association are beefing up numbers by the millions and no one reacts? How is this setting acceptable to anyone? As I see it, America might be in deeper waters than anyone thinks they are. It seems that Wall Street needs to be mismanaged so that they will give America the credits they desperately need. Apart from The deal that Canada now has with Aluminum provider Australia in stead of America, the setting is far worse then anyone is considering. The TTW article has a few other capers that makes for a weird setting “While Canada did not actively seek to “steal” American tourists, certain Canadian destinations are benefiting from a surge in European visitors. In fact, a recent study from Context Research Group highlights that Canada is experiencing an unexpected tourism boom, driven largely by European high-spenders who were previously considering U.S. destinations for their vacations. As the U.S. tourism sector struggles with internal challenges, Canada seems to be emerging as a viable and attractive alternative.” It is the word ‘steal’, you see, after the Florida setting where people seems to feel insecure and unsafe and there is the US customs setting where people are seemingly evicted by a owning a mere meme and then there are the numerous events that customs is scanning your social media, the land of the free now seemingly takes away free speech. I don’t care about the meme’s some other people send. I find it a waste of my time and as such any second hand meme might actually debunk the only vacation you can afford. That is a principle setting why people go somewhere else. And the internet is bustling with numbers of places that have a massive downturn, as such the TTW article isn’t even funny or actual in several settings. And as we have seen the amount of the 51st state mentions, the Canadians seemingly like Americans, their blood in particular. See what I did, I made an actual funny (TTW please take notice) The article has other things missing, the first quote didn’t give a timeline, whist other mentions do give a timeline, but these moments can be misread. So who is behind this? The TTW article doesn’t carry a name, neither does it state opinion piece, which might not be a setting that has weight as the TTW is not journalism, but in the B2B world the writer is often indicative of how serious you need to take an article. The Independent piece was written by James Liddell, a US News reporter and giving us (a little late) the facts we already had. The CBC article gives us the charts that show that as per February 2025 the numbers going to America started going down with 40K less visitors, in March the drop was over 80K and going on and on until June where it was a little over 80K as well, and this is merely the BC/Washington crossing. So where did they find these 20 million Canadian tourists? Did the TTW not vet the files they publish? Because as I see it, it is their name that comes up. 

Was it just the one?
So we can fret over this, but there was another reason to mention this. You see, I mentioned the Aluminum setting and as it was given to me yesterday, Canada is now in conversation with Rio Tinto as a new supplier of Aluminum, which might delight Coca Cola and a few others who are ‘diverting’ to Canada to avoid tariffs and other bad news towards their shareholders. The larger news was given to me by MSN (at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-extends-visa-free-entry-to-more-than-70-countries-to-draw-tourists/ar-AA1I9PTl) there we see ‘China extends visa-free entry to more than 70 countries to draw tourists’, I have no idea what the impact will be, but there will be thoughts on many being interested in seeing Beijing and a few other places. The fact that China has its own theme parks, Disney has two in China, one in Shanghai and one in Hong Kong. As I see it, this might be massively bad news for America as well. I have no idea what the impact will be, but 70 countries imply a loss of thousands of tourists in a time America cannot have any more bad news. And the one thing we tend to forget, most people (as assumed 90%+) can only spend their money once and thousands going to China means that they cannot spend that money in America, more importantly, many Europeans are trying to find a place far away from America (optionally Canada too) and now China makes this move. A tactical move that could hurt America a few points more. And as I see it (through the graphics) the move will hit many in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. And I think it matters, it is the Commonwealth nations, the Arabian countries and Europe that will wield the largest punch for China. So what the TTW article to dissuade people from going to China? I think that might have been a bad move as it only shows America to be more desperate than even before. And with the Rio Tinto move Canada is showing itself more than apt to counter whatever America throws at them, I reckon that yesterday’s threat on 10% addition for BRIC’s minded governments and as a bonus President Trump soured the well in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, what a 24 hour score to make.

As I see it, I wouldn’t take the entire TTW article too seriously, but as a part in a larger setting it gives us (optionally wrong) that there is a larger setting in America, the cracks are seemingly showing and that presents a larger setting for multiple players, all stating the same thing. Doing business in America is starting to become a folly for anyone entertaining that thought. A setting that is merely the consequence of the last 12 months. For America a bad thing, for the business entrepreneurs a new horizon they haven’t see for a long time and what is new tends to be sexy and explorable for the eager greed driven minds.

Have a great day today.

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July 1, 2025 · 06:02

That day, today

We all have that day, the one day that is tattooed into our brains. The Americans have the 4th of July, the Dutch have April 30th, queens day going back to Queen Juliana as it was her birthday, a day that Queen Beatrix kept as her birthday was in January. The new King (aka King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was born April 27th) so it is not to big a sidestep. Others (especially those who served) have other dates in mind. They are the dates that are in their brains and it differs per nationality, no matter if you are a Commonwealthian or not. These days matter to those who are there and now for Canadians there is Canada day, a day they celebrate on July 1st. The British North America Act (today known as the Constitution Act, 1867) creates Canada. June 20, 1868: Governor General Lord Monck signs a proclamation that requests all Her Majesty’s subjects across Canada to celebrate July 1. So they get to be thankful of Lord Monck (in a way) and remember that he instilled this setting and I reckon that today and this year it matters a lot more. Canada moved out of the scope of the American insult (aka State 51) and according to Fox News ‘Trump continues with comments about Canada being 51st state’ and “Donald Trump said Canada is a ‘very tough country to deal with’ and should be the 51st state, and that the USMCA is ‘no good.’” So, in short we were given a mere 5 years ago “The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which entered into force on July 1, 2020, is a free trade agreement that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It aims to create a more balanced and reciprocal trade relationship among the three countries, supporting high-paying jobs and growing the North American economy.” And as such, as I personally see it. Why did PM Carney suspend the digital services tax? I reckon that the insults give weight to instigating this setting, not suspend it. OK, I reckon that the PM has a truckload of reasons, but America is waving the ‘we win’ flag but the setting is a lot less happy for them. I still see America one step away from collapsing and the ‘news’ I saw yesterday gives me reason to re-enforce this way of thinking, when corporations like Coca Cola, GM, Alcoa, Campbells and a few more steering towards the north shore of the American plateau. Things are a lot worse than even I imagined. So why is America condoning this level of stupidity? And why is Canada resisting the coup de grace unto the near dead carcass called America? I reckon that some of these Tech firms might get a better deal in Vancouver anyways (personal reflection). And getting them people to move to ski shores a mere 2 hours away might seal the deal with the bulk of these companies.

So as I see it, some president needs to be cut down to size and the insults of the 51st state is a good enough reason. That and the tariff’s being one of the dreaded nail into a corpse collection system (coffin seems too crass) is a good enough reason for me. And as we see ““It’s very simple. Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America,” Ms Leavitt said.” We need to get a little infuriated to the blonde spokesperson. The Commonwealth dies not cave to America, a lot of us see that America is about to cave to the world economy and the debts it holds. A mere $36,215,828,296,013 (as stated by sources). This set the debt to $106,112 for EVERY American individual and after the deportations it becomes  more, how much is unknown at present. So did Canada cave Karoline, or did some American Moguls plead with PM Mark Carney as this act would ensure that the dollar might actually  collapse and end the reign of the almighty dollar? 

For reference, there are voices that the successor is already known:

I personally would prefer the British pound of the Canadian dollar, but that might not be a realistic possibility. So I would advise ms Leavitt to imbue a little humility into her boss, because at some point we have had enough and we all get that house of cards to collapse. I know, it is not easy being the most debt riddles nation on the planet, but America wouldn’t reign in their horses believing that they were too big to collapse, and here is a newsflash. “When you piss off everyone in the field, including your own team, collapse is the probably the best you could hope for”

So as we look towards the celebrations of Canada Day, we all can see that Canada, at present has a lot going for it and this turnaround is largely due to the former “Marky Mark of the British Bank”, so I see this as two boxers, one dabbles in economy (President Trump to be clear) and the other is the almost undisputed heavy weight champion of the world (Prime Minister Mark Carney) and this match is about to get nasty (for America), so I would advise Ms Leavitt to seize here ‘cave’ references and just for references, as I personally see it Canada has the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand firmly in its corner. As I personally see it America seemingly losing friends a lot faster than they can. Oh, just for references can we get a real tally of what President Trump is bringing in towards its economy, because as I see it, the trillions ‘promised’ towards America is stated to be about 50% short. However, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates  (UAE) are doing well at present. So is the sales pipeline of America broken?

Have a great day and as such to all (especially Canadians) a really great Canada Day and remember:

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January 20, 2025 · 03:54

And there was more

You see three days ago (merely two days and change) I wrote ‘A story in two parts’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/17/a-story-in-two-parts/) where I laird bare a few of the ‘shortcomings’ of Microsoft. However there was more. I had initially chosen the title ‘The color is blue’ yet I decided that the premise is not about Azure, there is more to it all. You see Fierce Network gives us ‘Google Cloud could overtake Microsoft’s No. 2 cloud position this year’, which sounds nice. However there are a few issues with that. We will all love ““Google Cloud is already nearly equal to Microsoft Azure in revenues, and has a higher revenue growth rate than Microsoft Azure,” Gold wrote in a research note. “By the end of the next four years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.”” The research note gives the proper “Based on the Average of Past Two Years Revenue Growth Rate

Assuming Same Growth Rate Going Forward” so that is good, but it does not despair from “By the end of the next 4 years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.” Yet this setting does not account that someone at Microsoft ‘suddenly’ takes an innovative step towards (who knows), the second setting is that the technology premise stays where it is. Huawei with their HarmonyOS is another factor, the Chinese factor. In this I predict that they might use Microsoft down the line and might step away from Google (speculative). We have little insight in what places like the UAE does and they have a large investment in their approach to AI and in this Microsoft has the inner track there. So I love the premise, but I have thoughts of consideration on how the future unfolds. There is a chance that AWS will clear house, but there are reservations on that front too. 

Still, Azure has issues. You see the Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/azure_m365_outage/) gives us ‘Azure, Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks out users across regions’ with the added “Microsoft’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday’s busy start for European subscribers.” I understand that it comes with “It’s fixed, mostly, after Europeans had a manic Monday” now I wonder why we see the use of ‘mostly’ there are perhaps a few gaps in the solution and that happens, but how many of these events will Microsoft cater to until a user like Coca Cola gets a tap on the shoulder to start looking for alternatives? Do you think that a man like James Quincey keeps his sense of humor when his bottom line is under fire? And that is only the beginning.

Still Microsoft has its own ‘defense’ knee jerk operation, we are informed of that by Techi where we see (at https://www.techi.com/microsoft-files-suit-against-hundreds-abuse-azure-openai-services/) with the headline ‘Microsoft Files Suit Against Hundreds for Abuse of Azure OpenAI Services’, so not only is their OpenAI ‘flawed’, it is open to abuse (apparently). We are given “API Key Theft and Hacking-as-a-Service”where we see “As per Microsoft, the defendants systematically and through their deceitful acts stole API keys, the fundamental means of authentication to its AI services. The hacked accounts were allegedly pivotal in creating an act of “hacking-as-a-service” One main ingredient for that operation would be De3u, a software that enabled one to convert images synthesized by OpenAI’s DALL-E without the necessity of writing an actual code.” I kinda covered that on September 8th 2024 in ‘Poised to give critique’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/09/08/poised-to-deliver-critique/). Michael Bargury gave us a small example of how bad things can get.  Here the operational setting is given through “A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”” and here is the premise now consider what (under Torts) customers will do, for example Coca Cola. Do you think they go after the so called hacker with not enough money to afford his/her own place or Microsoft with access to several bank vaults? Take the fortune 500 clients with claims of transgressions, do you really think there will be even a penny left in those Microsoft vaults when their legal teams are done with them? It might not be fair on Microsoft, but the setting of the use of the term AI opens up a whole new can of worms.

Then the Business Times (at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says) gives us ‘Microsoft-OpenAI partnership raises antitrust concerns, FTC says’ in this I might actually be a bit on the side of Microsoft. They give us “MICROSOFT’S US$13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent artificial intelligence (AI) market, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a report released on Friday (Jan 17).” My issue here is that there is a setting we had in the past and in countries they created their version of the FTC. It was a power for good then, but there is now the setting that LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning has grown to a scope that the FTC cannot really fathom. This IT solution goes beyond what they know or understand and all the tech companies face this. So either they grow their ‘programming with barricades’ side of it all, giving tech companies the flaws that the law imbued in whatever country it is based. And that for global companies will set a larger flawed premise. It is like parties are limited to what others have. As such all criminals will come to us with BB-guns, because that is what the police have. Does that sound realistic? I don’t think so. But this also falls straight into the premise that Fierce Networks gave us. It works out fine for Google, until Google gets barricaded I reckon. So this is a setting that the tech firms are set to whatever the wannabe’s can do, that is a direct strangling of commerce and innovation and it sets whomever develop the trigital computer system and if you think that these systems are fast now? The next level system develops with a trinary operating system running on that hardware will astound the world. As I see it should diminish the IBM Deep Blue to a simple calculator. The difference will be THAT much, so who will innovate that when the FTC strangles innovation?

And finally we get the CIO (at https://www.cio.com/article/3802745/microsoft-commits-to-ai-integration-but-delivers-no-particulars-to-differentiate-from-rivals.html) who gives us ‘Microsoft commits to AI integration, but delivers no particulars to differentiate from rivals’ and as I see it, it was already lagging too much against AWS, and now apparently Google is coming up fast and under these settings we get this headline? And the part that matters is given with “Analysts, however, agreed that the statement reflected no meaningful changes to Microsoft’s AI strategy. The bluntest assessment came from Ryan Brunet, a principal research director at the Info-Tech Research Group: “This is classic Microsoft. It’s very much the same old garbage.”” It reminded my towards an old premise from the late 80’s when the PC was exciting and new ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ in the age when everyone considered themselves a Market Research executive and these wannabe’s had not even mastered the basic needs of data quality. It was a Gender versus Shoe size and they thought that the solution was add the Lambda test (I think it was Lambda). And I get it, Satya Nadella talks his own street side, the problem is that there are too many unknowns at present and he hopes to get all the others onboard before they have thoroughly selected their options and in light of the selected abuses, that setting is not a given, especially as Google seemingly doesn’t have these flaws (as far as I know neither does IBM or whatever AWS wields). 

A setting that was more and could set a lot of people in the liable column of choices. And some of this has been known for at least a quarter. When you add this with part one, you see why I predicted the downfall of Microsoft three years ago. And as I see it Microsoft walked to dotted line in a near perfect manner, too bad they never read the byline ‘this way to the crevice you will not avoid when getting too close’.

It is as some say ‘the way the cookie crumbles’. Darn still 4 hours until breakfast. Time to find a new story. Have a great Monday and if you cannot get into Azure today, feel free to investigate alternatives.

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November 25, 2024 · 18:22

Marketing sidestep

The day before yesterday I was given a mini-can of a Walovi tea as a trinket as well as a can of Walovi tea. The tea was slightly too sweet, but the taste was otherwise good. I liked it. I put the little knick knack on my keyring and that was it. Today I amended to the idea to make it a little more of a real device that people will like and put on their desk. A functioning thing that could be bought and people will pay for something that is good. Even if it costs a few dollars. 

Now consider it not merely a simple toy, but something functioning. Consider the following. The mini can is set with the following.

A battery so that wireless connections are possible it has a charge point at the bottom through USB-C and at the top

A switch looking like a soda can lid so you can switch the device off. When rotated on, there will be two connections. A SD card and a Micro SD card. Now you think that it is out there, but you would be wrong. I have looked and I cannot find anything like this and even as I set this as a Coca Cola can. It could just as easily be a Pepsi can. Bottle shaped like a soda brand or a beer can, the can could be a beer too and this would see a massive level of visibility. So why didn’t anyone grasp that option? There is enough out there to see the the futility of some marketing attempts. So why am I the one looking at this and are others not even close to this? Then there are the options. The battery and WiFi connector could be optional making it a simple SD card reader and none of those seem to be around either. So what are the marketing boffins doing? Why are they not ahead of me? I can think of Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Heineken, Vita Coco Company, Asahi Group Holdings, Anheuser-Busch InBev and no one with these billions of dollars thought of this? Perhaps they did and they rejected the idea. Yet nowadays, we have mobiles, laptops, netbooks, consoles and tablets. All relying on WiFi for connectivity. So what was keeping them?

Just a question to put out in the open. So have a wonderful day and don’t let creativity stop you from making a wild idea out in the open. Look at what is out there and see what could be in every living room and office for all to see. So what kept them in the first place?

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October 11, 2023 · 03:55

The number is three

Weirdly enough, my mind came up with something that was out there and for some reason it matters. The rhyme goes like “They touch, they break, they steal. No one here is free. Here they come, they come for three, unless you stop the melody.” You see, there is a second meaning to steal, it can also mean ‘move somewhere quietly’, we forget that sometimes, we all do. And with this I saw a few articles. 

The first step
The first article is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/05/australia-fifa-world-cup-2034-bid-saudi-arabia-challenge) where we hear ‘Australia given 25-day deadline to challenge Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid’. It is here that we see “Football Australia, state and federal governments and potential Asian co-hosts have been given 25 days by Fifa to decide whether they will bid for the 2034 men’s World Cup”. Other articles give us that Australia is pissed.  The why part is out there and it is not asked. Consider that I wrote some time ago regarding “Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions secretary Tim Ada told the inquiry that the event’s costs had nearly doubled from $2.6 billion in March 2022 to $4.5 billion a year later.” As such, they already fumbled the ball once, so now they want to give that another try, now with FIFA? And why is 2034 so important? We have 2026 (USA, Canada, Mexico) and in 2030 we get that on October 4th 2023 it was announced that Spain, Portugal and Morocco would host the majority of the 2030 FIFA World Cup in an unanimous decision from the FIFA Council, with one “celebratory game” each being held in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. The game is evolving, it is too big for one place, so who would be able to afford to host the games? The general costs were in 2014 (Brazil) $19.7 billion, in 2018 (Russia) $16 billion, and 2022 (Qatar) had a $229 billion cost message. We can agree that the last one was outlandishly big, but a country that could not fork over $5,000,000,000 for the Commonwealth Games will share well over triple that with New Zealand? What is wrong with people? I am not debating that this event is good for a nation who hosts this, but Australia and a few other places are not in a financial sound place. Saudi Arabia is one of the few nations who have that kind of money available. The 2030 innovations that the kingdom is showing could (or should) show the world that Saudi Arabia has what it needs to make it work. 

We are all in the need for games, but these games (FIFA, Commonwealth Games, Olympics) are slowly pricing themselves out of a global market and no one is asking serious questions here. I get why the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants this and lets be clear, they can afford it. Australia? I am not certain, yet the errors made last year and the triple costs now make me wonder if some politicians have any idea the amount of money that they are spending. 

The second step
The second step is not that clear, we are given (at https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/hamas-strike-israel-force-market-190723900.html) ‘Hamas’ strike on Israel will force the market to ‘beg’ Saudi Arabia to pump out more oil, famed crude trader says’, so when the market begs. How sturdy are they? The fact that this event is used as an excuse to beg for more oil. How shoddy as their position to begin with? The USA and EU are not reliant on either Hamas or Israel for oil and their oil needs are not on the USA or EU. OK, perhaps Israel might benefit, but Gaza does not. So when I see “the militant group’s raid will disrupt longer-term supplies, with Riyadh unlikely to start pumping out more crude until Brent hits $110 a barrel.” I wonder who believes that setting. I get that oil prices will increase that was already a given, but that is mostly due to the fact that OPEC has decided to decrease outputs. It was the hard lesson the USA had to learn from being politically utterly stupid. The price it had in June 2022 will be returned to and most likely get surpassed, neither of the two Gaza players had a hand in that. Yes, these tanks will require fuel, but that would be on Israel. 

The third step
The last step comes from Business News Australia. The article (at https://www.businessnewsaustralia.com/blog/trademark-group-connects-aussie-businesses-to-saudi-boom) gives us ‘“Like Dubai 20 years ago”: Trademark Group connects Aussie businesses to Saudi boom’, we get the notion and the act to get close to any business boom that can be ‘exploited’. As such we are given “Australian businesses that missed out on the Dubai growth story of the past 20 years have been urged to take a closer look at Saudi Arabia, a country that Trademark Group founder and CEO Sam Jamsheedi describes as the sleeping giant of the Gulf region.” Yes, I agree. But I saw that essential setting over two years ago and I wrote about that in this blog on numerous occasions. As such it is nice that Sam Jamsheedi woke up to the notion two years late. My issue with the article is not the notion. It is also accepted that we see “Each industry that the Saudis are trying to develop provides massive opportunities for Australia businesses to capitalise on – from construction and agriculture to food, beverage and even sport.” In this I agree, yet my thoughts are where the article failed. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim nation, it largely acts and reacts as the Quran inspires them. Yet the article does not even once mention ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ settings. That was my first stage when I was testing my IP. Yet Muslim rules are all over Saudi Arabia, they are in advertising which is a first hurdle ANY business needs to overcome. They need to test that their advertising adheres to those rules. The article makes no mention there either. It reads like a wishful thinking article, all whilst basic needs are not mentioned. It reads to me that these are ‘small’ hurdles that they will overcome in due time. That is an entirely wrong setting to take. 

We see three settings, They touch (oil), they break (FIFA), they sneak (Business) and they all want a piece from Saudi Arabia. Yes, the second one is flimsy, but when we see the cost part, I am almost clueless that Australia is setting it all up. It is my speculative view that with Qatar players like Coca Cola missed out on too much and now they are anxious and eager to make sure that FIFA is set in a place where their interests are larger like in Australia. All at the same time we see a setting of 5G and a few other settings where Australia is not in the best place and I feel 99% certain that the drain on 5G will be enormous in 2034 and I am not entirely certain that Australia will be ready at that point. They politicised too much, which made them massively non acting, merely talking loud. As such, when we were given in May 2023 the setting of New guidelines, we were also given “These renewed warnings come amid the Australian government’s plan to strengthen national security and make Australia one of the most secure countries in the world by 2030” that sounds nice, but the fact that the nation is lacking security settings for 8 years is flimsy to say the least. But no one is looking at that, are they? I still get 4G mentions all over Sydney today, as such I fail to see that they are ready by the time it matters and it mattered yesterday. We are presented several issues and no one is looking at the picture we should be seeing. As I personally see it “unless you stop the melody” refers to presentations given and these presentations are lacking on several levels. Feel free to disagree, but when you look behind the presentations you need to see a solid setting, solid numbers and solid facts. We aren’t given those. Why not?

Enjoy the final part of the first half of the week.

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August 3, 2023 · 13:43

Envoy of Coca Cola

This all started with a weird dream. In the dream I was meeting up with a marketing friend in Sweden who had become the new Marketing director of Coca Cola. He was bringing me gifts. There was a box with 12 bottle of cola (4 classic, 4 cherry and 4 vanilla cola). There was a second box with all kinds of swag, embroided polo shirts, T-Shirts, and the piece the resistance a metal model of the original cola delivery truck from 1927. We were talking in a seating corner in what I think was supposed to be his office. We were going over some details and then I woke up. I might have woken up, but the elements were already in my brain and I went to work.

The Envoy system
You see social media has become unreliable, even unpredictable at times. As such I came up with the envoy system. To see the larger frame, lets take a look at its Twitter profile. 

As you can see 3.3 million people follow Coca Cola, not bad. But the untamed fields are there and the larger corporations are the first who can wield in the results. To see this lets take a look at the envoy system. There is the company and their server(s), the envoy and the instance. Every cycle the envoy needs to make sure that their instance is up to date. Their instance is a personalised setting for every social media setting. As such the instance will cover Facebook, Threads, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else is out there. As such one person can have well over 4 connections and in that one instance all five are reached and inform so that all their friends get the message. This is not direct marketing or mass marketing. This is personal marketing and it is set in a new light. This is not some blanket setting, this is one department optimising the message, their mission statement and the envoys are the way to get there. 

So as I see it, the the aware person sets the instance (the unaware person), both message the server (a verification of A and B) and from there the message starts and now those people lets say 100K envoys will give message to 1-50 million people, none of them following Coca Cola, but they are still getting the message. No advertisement money used and it will have larger impact. Would you believe a company stating that they are good, of a friend or influencer stating that this company is good? This is not an easy track or the small or the faint of heart, but I reckon it could send a much larger message than we currently see and I reckon that at some point all the larger players will some kind of system like this.

Well that is another nice day, all ready to go towards an evening of gaming and perhaps a movie, enjoy yours and remember, tomorrow is Friday. 

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December 20, 2022 · 23:26

The murky river

The mind can get murky and this case it is me. I do not believe it is the case, but I must be willing to consider that THIS time around, I could be wrong. It all started when CNBC (at https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/19/meta-could-face-11point8-billion-fine-as-eu-charges-it-with-antitrust-breach.html) gave me ‘Meta could face $11.8 billion fine as EU charges tech giant with breaching antitrust rules’, now to be clear, even for the legally trained mind (mine) anti-trust cases are a nightmare from start to finish. So here goes! 

“The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said that it found Meta breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the markets for online classified ads. The Commission took issue with Meta’s pairing of the Facebook Marketplace service, which lets users list items for sale, with its personal social network, Facebook.” My issues is ‘Are you f’ing nuts?’ Facebook is a free service, it makes income by selling ads, what is wrong with that? With the added “Furthermore, we are concerned that Meta imposed unfair trading conditions, allowing it to use of data on competing online classified ad services”, now lets be clear, I do not have the highest regard for Danes to begin with, but two things will happen if this fine becomes a reality. In the first I will demand that Coca Cola will it its premises be forced to sell Pepsi Cola on that same term, Pepsi Cola will have to sell Coca Cola on their turf, as such Coca Cola might win, but this is about the form. In the second she would need to get her chest into gear and make sure that EVERY Danish supermarket has Danish AND Swedish mineral water. The EU would not act when Microsoft destroyed Netscape, now that it has no place to go, it starts to cry to the EU, but this is not merely Microsoft. This is the EU trying to find ways to spice their pockets. I will make it my mission in life to evangelise the need to anti trust cases all over Denmark and the EU. All with a slightly personal nature. 

It might not have acted in the case of Google and Meta, but that leaves them with an additional avenue which knocks on the door of Amazon (yet again). Anti-trust is a complex setting, it is also a setting that is based on stages that are decades old. So when we consider “EU Antitrust policy is developed from Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 101 prohibits anti-competitive agreements between two or more independent market operators.” And I wonder how far this goes. Yet it was Yahoo! Finance that gave me a handle. It is “Our preliminary concern is that Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services called Facebook Marketplace. This means that users of Facebook automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace, whether they want it or not.”

In the first, Facebook gives a free service because they sell advertisement, that is still a factor. The second part is that if you seek Google, you can find several other advertisers. Yes they have a disadvantage because THEY HAVE NO CASH and Meta has billions. Still there are issues, but the largest one is that I want to see who gave the complaint. It is time to see what kind of wanker the EU works for. Facebook (now Meta) created a system, they offer it for free as they sell ads, this was in play for over a decade. In the same thing that Google Ads was the place for those who wanted to specify where they were. They were the visionaries, the leeching rest (like Microsoft and their Bing) missed the train because they thought they were clever. They were not. Now, I am not the greatest ally of Facebook, but fair is fair, they brought a system no one saw coming. And now they are screaming ‘foul play’ because the viagra managers forgot that whilst they were having their fun, others create new borders (like TikTok), or as a comedian would say ‘Content Homo Erectus got eaten before injecting its DNA’, for me it is a split case. This system is open to interpretation, it is open to outdated laws and inadequate CEO’s, COO’s and more of that trash. My Evidence? I placed in Public Domain IP worth over 20 billion a year. And when my first 5G device is released (encrypted) on 4chan the game changes even more.

It shows the wannabe’s how far they were off target, and my happy moment? Google and Amazon were both in the dark for part one, how much more they are missing? I have no idea and I do not care, at the end of my life I will end with the last laugh, because they cannot overcome public domain. 

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June 18, 2021 · 20:22

Officials? Bitching!

I have a few ideas on advertisers, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people wanting to advertise, or sponsor, yet they should open their wallets and keep their mouths shut. So as such when I saw ‘Euro 2020: Uefa warns teams could be fined if they move drinks at news conferences’ (at https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/57517337) I had to take a walk to cool down a bit. You see, not only is Aleksander Čeferin a bitch, he is apparently a prime time one. We might agree, or not on his position towards advertisers and that super league issue, but he has a duty to shield the player.

So when I see “Uefa has reminded participating teams that partnerships are integral to the delivery of the tournament and to ensuring the development of football across Europe, including for youth and women”, I merely wonder if he had lost the plot (which could be the case). So as we see ‘partnerships are integral to the delivery of the tournament’ we should remind Alex that the delivery of the tournament is not being a photo opportunity for the pleasure of James Quincey (CEO Coca Cola). Sugary drinks are in part a health hazard and if a soccer player does not condone them, he moves them, so suck that up Aleksander Čeferin, and go cry in a corner! If Ronaldo prefers water, that is his business and not the business of UEFA or Coca Cola. And if Pogba, a practising Muslim objects to an alcoholic drink in front of his face, you have to accept that, one better, if you knew that a muslim was there there should not have been any beer there in the first place. So reading “Teams have been reminded of their contractual regulations and Kallen said disciplinary action was “a possibility”” is quite literally a showboat of bullshit. So show EVERYONE just how much you fucked up and show those ‘contractual regulations’ where players have to take photo ops with sugary and alcoholic drinks and I will show you just how much UEFA failed the players! Oh and by the way, please show the UEFA contract that UEFA signed with Coca Cola, I reckon that there will be a few other issues in there that we will openly and loudly object to.

So whilst you might not like that they moved the bottles, you as president of UEFA fucked it up yourself. So as Martin Kallen hid behind “We are never fining players directly from the Uefa side, we will do this always through the participating national association and then they could look if they will go further to the player, but we are not going directly for the moment to the player”, you Alexander are in the end responsible for that mess and hiding behind legal talk will not shield you, so when we advertise that Aleksander Čeferin and Martin Kallen support health hazards to players, which we see when we consider “People consider sugary drinks to be a significant contributor to many health conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay. Research has shown that drinking a can of Coca-Cola can have damaging effects on the body within an hour” (source: Medial News Today), so do you have anything else to bitch about? No? Good, now go and for the love of god keep your advertisers (sponsors too) in line. 

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June 27, 2020 · 23:32

When it is about something else

We all have those moments, we see one thing, yet when we look at the news, it was seemingly about something else. This of course goes both ways, what we see is not always what we think it is and in this case I might well be wrong, yet I am willing to yet you decide.

It all started 10.3 minutes ago (roughly), I was munching down on a bag of ‘veggie straws’ I never had those before and they were on special (50% off) so I decided to take a walk on the Wilde side, so there I was munching on savoury goods whilst listening to Jordi Savall playing Matrimonio di Francesca Borgia, I remember the procession (I saw the Blu-ray on the Borgias), it was a lovely wedding and she copulated in public, the good old days where a wedding was only valid when they did it on the wedding day, all that before there was VHS and we got the best porn in the city. Ah well, as we see one thing we see another, so when the BBC showed me ‘Coca-cola suspends social media advertising despite Facebook changes’ I feel that we are shown something else. At present it sucks to be Coca Cola, let’s face it, when I was in the supermarket I got myself 2 bottles of Vanilla Coke, yet no advertisement would have spurned me, I know the stuff, it is 20% off and for a lot of people it is that way. Coca Cola has sent a truckload of cash in the right directions (Olympics, Sport events, public events, but Covid-19 is stopping it all from happening, so for players like Coca Cola there is no benefit, if there were pubic events, oh no, these are cancelled as well, apparently only a chosen few can have sex at 1.5 metres apart (names redacted for national security reasons). So, I understand the setting where all these firms are blaming Marky Mark of the Zuckerberg clan, yet that is so short sighted. We want to blame the for everything, yet this problem is a lot larger, it is drenched in fear and drenched in opposition to things we cannot control. We cannot control the flu, so when we get some slick politician making claims that big tech is to blame, whilst their own records cannot be properly vetted (the paying dead people issue) all whilst their internal systems are dodgy as hell, I wonder how large the issue is. It is not merely America, the failings in Europe are not small either and it is laced in technology. As these slick individuals took the cheap options, we now see how cheap is letting all kinds of people shout whatever they want, it brings fear to all.

So whilst we see brand after brand relabel their products as to avoid the backlashes, we see that there is a larger issue in play and the media is doing whatever it can to avoid them as to not anger their advertisers, they need all the advertisers they can as you can see.

It is even more dastardly than you think. The BBC also reported on shaadi.com, an Asian dating site that they were removing skin tone filters. Consider that this was done, do you think that they inserted the skin filter automatically, or was it done to appease their members? Do you think that a dating site, or any site will auto filter the look of a member without permission? How liable would they be? Consider the fact that the filter was created, do you think it was to make the programmer happy? He might not have cared, I reckon that if w get actual statistics on the site on who used it (numbers that optionally would suddenly be accidentally deleted), how many women (or men) used it? They would have started their optional relationship based on a lie. So when we see in the article “Priya (name has been changed) found her husband on the site after being rejected by others for her skin colour. “I am dark-skinned and saw the skin colour question on there (shaadi.com) and answered it the best I could,” she tells BBC Asian Network.

“I remember selecting ‘wheat-ish’ – whatever that means.””, so this person hid behind ‘whatever it means’, and I do not care, but we see two versions of deception and I get that she girl made a choice, hoping it would work out, but lets not deceive each other. There is a larger stage and it is founded on racism, you get better breaks (so they say) when you are caucasian and I will not fault anyone to get the better deal, yet the advertisement issue is a lot larger and is drenched in lost revenue due to ineffective advertisements (a Covid cancelled Olympics event for example) and it seems that it could go on for another 60 days and as such the people involved will stop advertising, especially if you already have visibility going up the kazoo (like Coca Cola, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, and a few Unilever brands), I get the idea that these people are watching the dimes they spend, but lets not call it #StopHateForProfit when it is about margins of profit, it is actually that simple as I see it.

We can push all we can, but it is the fellow man and woman next to us that needs to change, to stop giving in to hate and fear, we get it, it is overwhelming, and when you are African American in the good old KKK of SA, there are larger concerns and it is a lot more serious there, even as the Business Insider gave (two weeks ago) a list with 25 charts that show that racism is serious in the US, lets think about that, so in 2020 we see clear numbers on racism, so why is the US not acting? Do you still think it is that simple? (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6?r=US&IR=T), so when we are in a stage of #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter, consider that corporate America has not acted for well over a decade, the numbers give that much, even as the situation is seemingly going better, there is too much that needs to be done and government does seemingly not care, only 10% is non-caucasian there, look at the Business Insider for that part, so it is about something else and we need to consider that part, we need to consider that a lot faster then we think, because if this explodes, we see a much larger issue, especially when you consider that the pay gap is supposedly between 59% and 62%, and take in consideration the Fair Employment Act 1941, Civil Rights At 1991, Equal Pay Act 1963, and 4 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, so where was corporate America all these years? Let’s call the issue by its name, and let’s take a look at the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 2009, which directly impacts the case Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (2007). So when you are done with all that, consider that Coca Cola issue again and consider how many companies are in a shady place at present. None of it has anything to do with Marky Mark of the Facebook tribe, and a lot more with the bottom dollar as Wall Street needs it to be for at least another 30 years (at present).

 

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