Happy New Year

Happy New Year!
Best wishes for all of you!!!

Why do I need to learn English?

  Nowadays the question on why do we need to learn english is constantly taking our times. If you are not a native english speaker, you are always running into someone or someplace that is charging you about your english. Furthermore, the companies still are every time putting english like one of the requirements to hire new employees. Although we can realize the trend on this behavior, other times we can not understand why are they requiring it, if none inside the company is using it. Another question is: why english and no other language? Or still: why do I need english if in my country nobody can talk with me in english? Why do I need it? Therefore, back and forth we are asking ourselves why do we need to know english.

Firstly, it is important to know that this is not a large conspiracy. The reason of the world requiring english from all of us, is neither because USA is the dominant country in the world nor because after the growth of capitalism the world has suffered an americanization. The USA is a superpower country and there are many american trends in the world. However, we need to remember that was United Kingdom that had spread the english language in the world. Thus, during ancient times when United Kingdom had colonized continents, they spread the language to several places including Scotland, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, some Caribbean countries, New Zealand, South Africa, part of South Asia and India, some countries at West and East Africa, and South Pacific. The British colonialism took place during 17th and 18th centuries and was an important event to turn english into a decisive language, due to the english spread to countries with potential to grow up.   

     Secondly, during 18th and 19th centuries United Kingdom was the leader of the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, it was necessary a language to dominate the industrial spread, and automatically the powerful country (British at first and USA after) tend to dominate the universal tongue. Thus, english turned into a business language and with the advance of USA during 20th century, english as a language was established as a commerce language. Although there are many countries with power in some trades, there is a tendency to set an unique language to standardize the operations and facilitate the business communication. Moreover, the USA economical and political dominance boosted with the technological advance perceived nowadays with devices having english as a dominant language, concentrate still more power around english. So, the computer revolution during the 20th century has still spread english on softwares and applications. To cut a long story short, who tends to dominate the trade (business and economy) tends to overpower the idiom. 

  Third, as well as english has been dominating the trade and technological world, it is easy to notice like important factors in our societies are dominated by english language. For instance, english dominates movies, series, cartoons and universal entertainment on TV, theater or devices. English also dominates music, being used in countries like an alternative tongue. Moreover, the culture of advertising comes from countries that have english as language. International travel and safety has been standardized in english with many signs and warnings in english. Furthermore, the educational trend nowadays is to use english as first or second idiom. So, english has been used within educational system (class and publications) like the main language in several countries that do not have english as the native tongue. Therefore, we could put here several other examples of english increasing in importance inside the world.

Concluding, seems unavoidable to consider english like a pivotal language to know nowadays. Even though sometimes some people have been overstating the importance of english in our daily lives, seems factual that be successful and be prepared to the future means among other facts, know english and has the ability to communicate and utilize english daily. Albeit now perhaps you can not perceive the importance of english in your life, it is likely that in the future the focus will turn around. Therefore, the world will carry on doing business in english, the use of english in technology and education will go on, and every day the world will keep on moving with people employing english as an universal language.    

Podcast: I BingeWatching

Hello. I am here again to share my podcast (I BingeWatching) with all of you.

https://itunes.apple.com/br/podcast/i-bingewatching/id1245811001?l=en&mt=2

I have already done 6 episodes that you can download at the feed above on Apple iTunes. It follows the list of series and movies from these first six episodes.

#01 - Bloodline

#02 - Vikings

#03 - Me Before You

#04 - Breaking Bad

#05 - The Leftovers

#06 - Hacksaw Ridge

Download, listen and share with me your opinion... Best regards. See you soon...   

Has advertising changed?

I would like to make some reflections about advertising nowadays, because seems for me that a lot of money has been spent wrongly for many agencies. Unfortunately seems that some people around the world insist interpreting inaccurately the idea that "the advertisement is the soul of the business". Of course that advertising is a fundamental part inside the field of business, however, in my point of view, there are many mistakes when agencies and companies think about sell goods. Moreover, the markets have been changing, and nowadays, they need to be reflected deeply because the society is more selective. Furthermore, the clients can have more knowledge and can choose among innumerable possibilities. The world has been changing quickly, otherwise, seems that advertising has been changing slowly.
Like most part of you know, I am a professor and among subjects that I have been teaching there is advertising. I graduated in Marketing and Advertising in 2001. During these 16 years I have been seeing the world changing fastest than advertising, and perhaps I am also carrying part of the blame when I teach the subject nowadays. Undoubtedly one of more important reflections that the professional needs to do nowadays concerns to consumer behavior, most precisely I believe that advertisers need to understand culture more than all. When we see young people choosing in life nowadays, it seems clear that they are thinking: "What culture or subculture are we gonna be part of?". Consequently, do you know what is important for us professionals nowadays? The best research that we can do is going and walking around the streets, going to festivals, malls, squares, stations, restaurants and bars, and surely most important, monkey around with social media, talking, sharing and knowing better the world. You need to go to everywhere and meet people. The secret of good advertising is to understand the target, hence you need go there and bump into them.
The students when studying advertising want to know how to create good ads. There is no secret. You can not teach good ads, but you can teach techniques. You can not teach how to interpret the world and transform in good ideas. You only can prepare them to analyze the world. In my opinion, advertising is a point of view, is someone trying on something that can be suitable to a culture or subculture. And how do you do it? Understanding deeply this culture, nursing your knowledge to have perfect decisions. Thus, you have to understand two things: the business problem and the audience need. Therefore what you need to do is listening rather than talking.
What makes a successful and effective campaign? The successful and effective campaign exists when we affect how consumers think, feel and behave with a brand. And, how can we do it? As I said before, understanding our consumers. How is the mistake then? The biggest mistake in my opinion is the practice to copy all. In my point of view, with some exceptions of course, advertising is a big copy. The majority of students go to universities and schools of communication to learn models, ads that worked, techniques from famous advertisers, and of course this is part of the process, but is not the unique part neither the essential. So, authenticity is more important than that. Be yourself. Research by yourself. Create by your own ideas. Try on. Understand the consumers and be yourself. Take risks. Nobody rises up in advertising without courage. Risk and creativity is part of this profession. However, one thing is the most important: authenticity. The way you will be recognized as a good advertiser is being different from the others.
Summing up, there are two important points to be efficient in advertising and achieve the success. First of all you have to understand your consumers better. You need to have contact with them, meet them, live what they have been living, because only with a big deal of knowledge about your target you will be precise and accurate. This first Renzo Rosso simplify well: "We are not doing things for them, but with them". Secondly, You have to copy less and be more yourself. You need to let the blossom happen and be different from others. Thus, what you need is something called authenticity. Hence, be yourself.

Thanks. See you soon.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day my darling...

New podcast

If you love movies and series, and like to listen podcasts, I am launching a new podcast called "I BingeWatching ". Enjoy it and subscribe.

https://itunes.apple.com/br/podcast/i-bingewatching/id1245811001?l=en&mt=2

Valentina's retrospective

My daughter did 7 years. Follow the retrospective with great moments...

A nice week. See you...