Tuesday, September 27, 2011

How to use private bankers

In some countries, financial advisers or private bankers can advise their wealthy clients on tax and estate planning, so that they can minimize the tax payable on their income or on the estate that is transferred to the dependants.

It is difficult for these advisers to help their clients in market timing or stock selection - as this is speculation and a zero-sum game. In fact, after allowing for the cost of transactions and fees, it is a negative sum game for the clients.

The best way to get a good yield on the investments is to invest in an index fund and to invest for the long term - to average out the good and bad years. There is little that the advisers can help the client to achieve a better yield.

I have seen many cases where the investor who had relied on the financial adviser to pick the manage the investments on their behalf - only to be disappointed with the bad results. The financial adviser probably did their best, but when the market is volatile, some investors will be at the wrong end, and the results can be disastrous. For each winner, there will be a loser - and after deducting fees and expenses, most investors (actually speculators) will be worse off.

To avoid speculation, you should learn how to invest for the long term. Read my book on financial planning (www.tankinlian.com/ishop) or attend the financial planning talk organized by FISCA (www.easysearch.sg/fisca).


Monday, September 26, 2011

Best practice of site takeovers

Check these out first 




Cadbury Rollpack
After the success of the Gorilla of Zingolo, and kids eyebrow dance ,they have now, with help of Saatchi Australia, managed to customize a youtube page.










Click on the image to visit the dedicated page. You will find also a parrot who plays basketball, and a man in a dog that is shit in a giant wheel.



















YouTube Falling Apart

Ads are destroying YouTube, or so it seems with this current ad from Acciona. A Spanish sustainable energy advertisement makes YouTube break into pieces.
acciona
Once you go to the YouTube channel the page starts falling apart. 
http://www.youtube.com/experiencere
Agency : McCann Erickson
Brand: http://www.re.acciona.es/



24-hour Human Clock-Sprint, mobile phone operator








sprintyoutube2.jpg


As part of its 'Now Network' campaign, Sprint has staged a homepage takeover on YouTube using user-generated videos to create a unique human clock


Designed to highlight the relevance of Sprint's network to people's lives the campaign is part of an integrated effory to build buzz around the launch of its new Palm Pre smartphone. Selected participants used their web cam to capture a 3 second clip of themselves displaying their assigned number. The videos were then edited together throughout the day into a digital clock that showed the exact time (for example 12:37), and changed with each passing second.

The ideal fit for YouTube, the ad doesn't just demonstrate the central idea of 'now', but does so in a way that chimes perfectly with the platform's look-at-me community of contributors. Better still, the groundbreaking format is the first time user-generated content has been incorporated into masthead advertising on the site. It's just part of the wider picture, however; tailored homepage takeover ads are also set to appear on Yahoo, AOL,ESPN.com, WSJ.com, People.com and CNET in what is billed as Sprint’s most extensive web campaign to date.

More than 11 million unique users visit YouTube’s US homepage in one day, and the new masthead ad formats are encouraging experimentation and seeing good returns - 14%interaction rates, according to YouTube, compared to the industry average of just under 5% for similar-sized units.

The ad lives on after Takeover day too; it's now available as a widget at sprint.com/nownetwork, along with a host of other content intended to reflect the idea of 'now'. Goodby Silverstein & Partners are responsible for the creative.

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 Wario Land: Shake It!

Nintendo and YouTube collaborated to promote Nintendo’s latest Wii release Wario Land: Shake It!. The very unique site got about 1.3 million visits in one week time and blogs likeWiredKotakuJoystiqGameSetMatch and over 800 others wrote about the ad. The idea of trashing a site is not new though, check HemaClub Internet: Le Duel & Le Défi,Nationale VacaturebankThe Good FightJumperCarhartt and Netdisaster


Honda Let it shine on Vimeo


BRAND OWNER:Honda
CATEGORY:Automotive
REGION:EMEA
DATE:Apr 2009 - Dec 2008
AGENCY:Wieden & Kennedy
MEDIA CHANNEL

With the launch of Honda’s Insight hybrid car, the automotive brand wanted to make a big impact without a huge environmental impact.
It created Let It Shine – a 60 second TV spot which at first looks like a huge LED screen, but you soon realise the animation is being created by hundreds of car headlights. A matrix of hundreds of car headlights was created and animated with each set of headlights acting as a pixel. The ad was a huge viral hit and Honda wanted to leverage this in an online environment. It teamed up with high definition video hosting site Vimeo to create an experience which went beyond the borders of the usual flash player box, taking the traditional 
page takeover to a new level.People who went to Vimeo to view the Honda ad can press play to see the video and the whole page around the video also transforms.Just as the ad shows action taking place over a whole night until sunrise, so the background of the page goes completely black, blocking out all of the usual page inventory and comments.The animations created in the desert with the cars leak out into this expanded space. As dawn breaks in the ad, the background of the page also goes through the sunrise colours. Visit
http://vimeo.com/4281939 to see the experience.
The work echoes that of Nintendo’s Wario YouTube ad, where the violence of the game knocks all of the comments and buttons off the web page.



PSA ad on cyber-bullying by National Crime Prevention Council.




http://www.youtube.com/oceanking97


EA Sports Push with Joy



E




















A Sports Push with Joy






Samsung 3D takes over YouTube with game

Samsung is taking over You Tube with a game. The game-take-over starts with a film of the 3D projection on the Beurs van Berlage. Then it slowly takes over YouTube. The game is nothing special (click on as many butterflies as possible  and win a 3D LED TV), but the take-over makes quite good eye candy.




Samsung 3D YouTube - June 2010






http://www.youtube.com/Samsung3devent




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Shahrukh Khan gets candid while discussing Ra.One! Watch him share the behind-scenes experience live, at:
http://www.youtube.com/raonemovie




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Louder is Better
   

[CLIENT]
Virgin Radio
[AGENCY]
Buzzman
[PRODUCTION]
Film : Iconoclast Web : Lumini
[CREATIVE DIRECTOR]
Georges Mohammed-Chérif
[ART DIRECTOR]
We Are From L.A.
[PLANNER]
-
[PRODUCER]
Laurent Marcus, Julie Bourges




Sunday, September 25, 2011

Advisers acted honestly but gave bad advice

Many people had bought a bad financial product from an agent or adviser whom they know and trusted. They learned later that this was a bad decision.

The adviser might have acted honestly but gave the wrong advice, due to being naive. The advisers desperately needed a job, e.g. they have just graduated. They were taught about the positive aspects of the financial product (e.g. life insurance policy or structured product) but did not know about the negative aspects (i.e. the high charges and high risk). They honestly sold the financial product to their friends and family members thinking that they are giving good advice.

When they learned later about the negative aspects, they felt quite bad about letting down the people who trusted them and left the business quietly.

Their agency managers knew the full picture, but exploited the ignorance of the newcomers. Some advisers or agents, who later learned the tricks, decided to continue the game and make a lot of money for themselves.

I do not wish to imply that all agency managers or experienced advisers are dishonest. I know of a few who are honest and acted in the best interest of their customers. But there are dishonest or naive advisers as well, so consumers should be wary.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Life insurance book

The life insurance book is now available at a reduced price from i-shop
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=375

Order here: www.tankinlian.com/ishop

Unscramble the words

Here are some familiar words that have been scrambled. Can you rearrange the letters to get the correct words?

tseiyco
crposse
nalruta
neetpsr
uspelim
crupoed
sgutisd
teliwsh
atnesgr
rlatehe


Additional scramble words and the answers can be found here

Word Power - test your vocabulary

This book contains scrambled words. You can test your vocabulary by rearranging the letters to form the correct words. Suitable for children and adults.

The answers are found here.

Consumer Protection and Fair Practices Act

This Act is administered by the Consumer Association of Singapore. Some bad business practices may be disallowed under the Act, e.g. forfeiture of life membership of gym. Read the legislation here:
http://www.case.org.sg/cpfta.htm

Read the details of the unfair practices here.

Here is a specific practice that may be relevant to the gym membership:
11  Taking advantage of a consumer by including in a consumer agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive or excessively one-sided so as to be unconscionable       Bullying a consumer by using oppressive terms in the sales contract       Example:       Consumer signed agreement for some renovation works. Consumer changed his mind the next day and was willing to compensate contractor on any cost incurred. Renovation company insisted that consumer must pay a termination charge equivalent to 80% of the total renovation sum as stipulated in the agreement