Can you read this?

Here’s a goodie for you:

Cna yuo raed tihs? Suteids sohw taht olny aoubt 55 prcenet of plepoe can (atculley trheer is no scuh sudty). I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. Tihs sohws us the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are in, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The rset of the txet can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but isntaed rades the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and we awlyas tghuhot slpelnig was ipmorantt!

Chaleo Yoovidhya, Red Bull Co-Founder and Thailand’s 3rd-Richest Man, Dies

Chaleo Yoovidhya of Thailand, who earned billions by creating and marketing Red Bull, the energy drink that has added a caffeinated jolt to countless all-nighters and parties, died on Saturday in Bangkok.

His death was reported by the state broadcaster MCOT, which cited the Thai Beverage Industry Association. The Nation, a Thai newspaper, reported that he was 90, while several other news media outlets in Thailand said he was 88. Forbes recently put his age at 80.

With little formal education, Mr. Chaleo founded a small pharmaceutical company, TC Pharmaceutical Industries, in the early ’60s. He started producing antibiotics but later turned to concocting a beverage that was loaded with caffeine, as well as an amino acid called taurine and a carbohydrate called glucuronolactone.

Christened Krathing Daeng — “red bull” in Thai — it was marketed to laborers and truckers in need of a boost. The drink, along with its many imitators, became the unofficial beverage of the expansion that turned Thailand into one of Asia’s so-called tiger cub economies in the ’80s.

Krathing Daeng’s path to international phenomenon began when Dietrich Mateschitz, a sales representative for the German household products company Blendax, found Asian pharmacies peddling a variety of syrups as potent pick-me-ups and discovered that they cured the jet lag he experienced on his frequent flights around the world.

He got in touch with Mr. Chaleo, one of Blendax’s Asian licensees, and soon the two had a partnership that would bring Red Bull to the rest of the world. According to an article in Forbes, each man put up $500,000, and each took a 49 percent stake, with the last 2 percent going to Mr. Chaleo’s son Chalerm.

It was Mr. Mateschitz who came up with the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings,” and for a drink with more than double the amount of caffeine found in Coca-Cola, the name was apt. With its distinctive silver can, Red Bull was embraced by students who needed to stay alert into the wee hours, and by carousers who wanted to perk up while they imbibed. Mixologists, amateur and professional alike, dreamed up a slew of new cocktails, like the Vod-Bomb: Red Bull and vodka.

There were tales about the dangers of this combination, including a 2007 article in the British newspaper The Daily Mail with the headline “Mixing vodka and Red Bull can be deadly, warn experts.”

Such articles, as well as the occasional ban in European countries, only added to Red Bull’s cachet with its fans, which tend to be young and male. An aura of danger was part of the brand. The company’s Web site contains videos of stunts like a man back-flipping off the Tower Bridge in London.

Red Bull long eschewed traditional media outlets, like television, and focused on sponsoring student parties, sporting events and athletes, with a special emphasis on the stars of extreme sports.

The strategy worked. In January 2011, the privately held company reported that it had sold 4.2 billion cans of Red Bull, generating revenue of $5.1 billion. It claimed a 70 percent share of the energy drink market. Forbes estimated Mr. Chaleo’s wealth at $5 billion and ranked him the 205th-richest man in the world.

In terms of personality, Chaleo Yoovidhya was the opposite of the adrenalized fun his drink inspired.

He was reclusive and, according to one of his sons, had not given an interview in 30 years. He was born in central Thailand, the son of a poor Chinese family. His parents reportedly sold fruit and ducks, and among his early jobs was a stint as a bus conductor.

“I never heard words like ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’ from my father,” his son Saravudh said in a video recorded for a series to be posted next month on the Web site of The Nation, the Thai newspaper. “He dedicated his life to his work and never complained that he was tired. He really enjoyed work and sometimes carried on until 1 or 2 a.m.” Information on survivors was incomplete. He was said to have been married twice and to have 11 children.

By DAVID SEGAL Published: March 18, 2012

Symantec - AMIT VP (CXO Event)

Amit Walia, Vice President of Product Managment,Information Management Group and the Symantec team.

Event held - Armani Hotel at Burj Khalifa.

Budweiser @ The Underground Pub, Dubai.

If you are at The Underground Pub, Habtoor Grand around JBR in Dubai, then walk towards the end of the pub, past the bar and towards the pool tables. Turn to the left and stare at the wall, and there it is, the Budweiser wall branding.

This was commissioned by Sirocco, the client handling the Budweiser brand in the UAE. The Underground Pub is a perfect place to relax and enjoy the football and rugby games, and specially if you are a Liverpool fan, As it is their home pub in Dubai!

Make sure, you check out their menu too, the all day English Breakfast is a must have! With real PORK!! And make sure you chase it down with a Bud!

Cheers!!

Recreate your first car.

Subaru USA is asking consumers to share the story of their first car at Firstcarstory.com. The site, launched to promote the 2012 Subaru Impreza, features an animation generator that allows users to recreate their first car (even down to its dents and dings), and tell its story, turning the tale into an animated video, which they can also set to music of their choice and narrate with their own voice. The video can then be shared by social media.

Credits : Carmichael Lynch

Infor10 on the Road, Dubai 2012

I am a Lousy Copywriter

British-born David Ogilvy was one of the original, and greatest, "ad men." In 1948, he started what would eventually be known as Ogilvy & Mather, the Manhattan-based advertising agency that has since been responsible for some of the world's most iconic ad campaigns, and in 1963 he even wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man, the best-selling book that is still to this day considered essential reading for all who enter the industry. Time magazine called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry" in the early-'60s; his name, and that of his agency, have been mentioned more than once in Mad Men for good reason.

With all that in mind, being able to learn of his routine when producing the very ads that made his name is an invaluable opportunity. The fascinating letter below, written by Ogilvy in 1955 to a Mr. Ray Calt, offers exactly that.

April 19, 1955

Dear Mr. Calt:

On March 22nd you wrote to me asking for some notes on my work habits as a copywriter. They are appalling, as you are about to see:

1. I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home.

2. I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the past 20 years.

3. I am helpless without research material—and the more "motivational" the better.

4. I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve. Then I go no further until the statement and its principles have been accepted by the client.

5. Before actually writing the copy, I write down every conceivable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy platform.

6. Then I write the headline. As a matter of fact I try to write 20 alternative headlines for every advertisement. And I never select the final headline without asking the opinion of other people in the agency. In some cases I seek the help of the research department and get them to do a split-run on a battery of headlines.

7. At this point I can no longer postpone the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife comes into the room I growl at her. (This has gotten worse since I gave up smoking.)

8. I am terrified of producing a lousy advertisement. This causes me to throw away the first 20 attempts.

9. If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy.

10. The next morning I get up early and edit the gush.

11. Then I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. (I cannot type, which is very inconvenient.)

12. I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editing’s, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose.

Altogether it is a slow and laborious business. I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility.

Yours sincerely,

D.O.