RoneBreak Contributor: Sebi

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Zurich’s Song

Zurich, the Cultural Capital of Switzerland and the city with the best quality of life in the world, has its own song. Zurich Tourism created a video that shows the nicest places in and around the city underlined by a pop song. I like the song, but what bothers me is that the lyrics are in German language instead of Swiss German dialect.

Don’t get me wrong, I like German lyrics, but here we’re talking about a song that is representing the most popular city in Switzerland. Since the main language spoken in Zurich is Swiss German, I think it is more than obvious that the song should be sung in Swiss German too. It is the same like having a song representing the City of Houston, Texas, where the singer sings with a very thick Scottish accent. Well, I like the song. Nonetheless, I’d rather have Plüsch, Florian Ast, or even Gölä singing and representing Switzerland.

Clinton And Yeltsin: What A Laugh!

I have to admit, the 1990’s really americanized me. It was not only Hollywood, the Seattle grunge music exports, such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, or WB’s series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, just to name a couple, it was also Bill Clinton’s unique way to show how entertaining and “human” politics could be. Of course, he wasn’t perfect, after all, he is just a man. But that was exactly what made him so interesting.

I came across this video that shows how much fun Bill Clinton had with Boris Yeltsin, former president of Russia. My friend Simon Kurt gave me some background information: The American press was selling Yeltsin as a disaster concerning his function as a president. Yeltsin, realizing that this would be the perfect moment for striking back seized the opportunity for mocking the American press right in front of the whole nation. However, Clinton obviously knew about Yeltsin’s sense of humor and knew that it wasn’t really supposed to be unfriendly as well.

This 1996 footage is proof enough that Bill Clinton loved what he was doing. I keep enjoying the way Clinton hugs Yeltsin. And, what a genuine laugh!

Ron Paul Knew It Best

It is no secret, today’s financial crisis could have been avoided, if the US government would have been more serious about monetary policies. I found two very interesting quotes by Congressman Ron Paul, a 2008 republican presidential candidate:

Make no mistakes, the problems faced by the American people are not caused by unscrupulous mortgage brokers or the rising price of oil. These are symptoms of an economic disease caused by a spendthrift Congress enabled by loose monetary policy.
–Congressman Ron Paul M.D., November 3, 2007

The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation.
–Congressman Ron Paul M.D., April 10, 2007

Why didn’t anyone listen to him back then?

Joe The Plumber’s $250,000 Dilemma

Joe The Plumber’s $250,000 Dilemma has dominated the third and final US presidential election debate and has given me a bad headache.

Let’s be real here. $250,000 is (still) a lot money everywhere you go in the world. If I’d be a regular Joe the plumber from a US suburb and earn a quarter of a million US dollars, I wouldn’t mind paying a bit more taxes. A family can live very well with that kind of money. Just think about how many people live on minimum wage in the US or on less than $2 a day in other countries. McCain was saying that he wants to help Joe realize his American Dream. Still, that doesn’t mean that Joe is exempt from tax paying. It is like turning down a higher income job. No one would say, “No, I don’t want to earn more, because I don’t want to pay more taxes.” I understand that no one likes paying taxes. But in the West, we all need to pay taxes. That is how we finance our welfare.  Read more

Berlusconi And The Lectern

Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon, made again news with one of his always-so-embarrassing-shit-happens moments. The right-wing politician was guest in the White House when he demolished the lectern during his speech before a banquet. He was praising his friend George W. Bush and wanted to give him a hug afterwards when he somehow tore the lectern apart. I ask, ‘Dude, how the hell can that happen?’ Obviously, all guests where having a blast and couldn’t stop laughing at Berlusconi’s, let’s call it, Italian charm. Berlusconi stayed visibly cool and kept talking with a piece of the lectern in his hands. His buddy President Bush seemed amused and kissed his embarrassing friend on the cheek, the Italian way.

Berlusconi has been making this kind of news over and over again. His maybe most embarrassing verbal escapade was when during a European Parliament debate in 2003, he offered Martin Schultz, a German member of the European Parliament, the position of Kapo, a privileged prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, in a movie shot in Italy. I couldn’t find an English version of the video, but I’m sure you will enjoy it anyway. Check out Berlusconi’s tone and attitude. For the first time in my live I was immensely amused and deeply shocked at the same time. Watch it here. Read more

XXXL-Chocolate

Last Saturday, 15,000 people celebrated the Schoggifest, a chocolate festival in Bern (Switzerland), in honor of the biggest and heaviest piece of chocolate in the world.

A 100 kilo world-record Toblerone chocolate was distributed by Alex Tschäppät, Mayor of Bern, and Daniel Meyer, CEO Kraft Food Schweiz.

Please don’t climb into this locker

RoneBreak contributor Sebastiano Mereu checks in from his trip to Japan…

After arriving in Osaka from Tokyo, I deposited my bags in a locker at Umeda Station. When I opened the locker, I saw a sticker on the inside saying something like ‘please don’t climb into this locker,’ in Japanese. I was surprised. Who would ever climb into a locker? Well, apparently there have been cases where people locked their children or pets into a locker. Scary thought. Still, I’m not quite sure a sticker will keep people from doing that.

Misunderstanding Hiragana

Coming back from Iojima, a very nice island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan, I saw a sign written in Hiragana stating a ship’s name: ‘biggu a—su.’ I immediately turned to my fiancée Aya—she is Japanese—asking her why anyone would name his or her ship Big Ass. Aya laughed and said that the ship’s name is Big Earth, not Big Ass. My Japanese is not that good but I can read Hiragana and understand some Japanese. My next question was, “If ‘biggu a—su’ is Big Earth, how do you write Big Ass in Hiragana or Katakana?” Aya thought about it for a while and said, ‘biggu a—su.’ So, it’s the same. Intriguing but funny, I thought.

Attention Through Guerrilla Marketing

The TV-Industrial complex is dead, as proven by marketing-whiz Seth Godin. Companies used to be able to buy their potential customers’ attention with TV commercials, but since (especially young) people do not spend as much time in front of their TV sets as they used to, TV commercials have lost their efficacy. Today, marketing people need to come up with more aggressive ads, campaigns, or some other way to gain the attention of potential customers. Guerrilla marketing is one way to spread the word and it has become easier and more effective thanks to the Internet.

Wikipedia explains, “Guerrilla Marketing was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his popular 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing, as an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary to also describe aggressive, unconventional marketing methods generically.” Read more here.

Some tactics are great and others are rather shocking. The quintessence is that people talk about it and spread the word. I suggest to actually creating a remarkable product or service instead of a remarkable marketing campaign. You will be better off in the long run.

The following video shows examples of guerrilla marketing. Enjoy and let me know if you can think of other guerrilla marketing campaigns.

Bloguerrilla - Guerrilla Marketing