Absolut Vodka: Absolut Vodka

“If you saw your life flash before your eyes, would you change the way you live it? Absolut Vodka thinks so, and to ensure people don’t get behind the wheel drunk, they introduce Absolut Life: a platform that allows people to watch a video of their Facebook lives flash before their eyes.”

Advertising School: Miami Ad School, New York, USA
Creative Director: Tara Lawall
Art Director: Lisa Zeitlhuber
Copywriter: Nick Partyka

France 24 Birds

French international news channel France 24 highlighted the power of internet freedom in “Birds”, an advertising campaign inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. A commercial and print/outdoor advertising campaign featured a Gaddafi-like dictator and other powerful figures threatened by the Twitter-like birds of revolution. Three posters, emulating the style of the original 1963 Birds movie posters, feature Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali.

Online social networks played a significant role in spreading revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya earlier in 2011. France 24′s Arabic language version broke all audience records during this period. But the channel as a whole has benefited from an increase in audience. In March 2011 france24.com experienced a peak in traffic with nearly 14 million visits and about 59 million page views. The channel’s Twitter following grew quickly due to a large amount of tweets dedicated to the Arab Spring topic.

Credits

The Birds ad was developed at Marcel Worldwide, Paris, by executive creative directors Anne De Maupeou, Veronique Sels and Sebastien Vacherot, art director Souen Le Van, copywriter Martin Rocaboy, agency producers Cleo Ferenczi and Fleur Laruent-Bruzy, art buyers Jean-Luc Chirio and Aurélie Lubot, account manager Cécile Henderycks, account manager Michel Kowalski, working with France 24 communications director Nathalie Lenfant.
Filming was shot by director Philippe Grammaticopoulos via Mister Hyde, Paris, with producer Hervé Lopez.
Music is by Christophe Julien.
Illustrators were Marie Morency (Gaddafi), Souen Le Van (Mubarak), and K.I.M. Florence Lucas (Ben Ali).

New approach towards new media

The Government is likely to take a new approach and a more active approach towards the new media.
http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=33833

I have seen the bad side of the new media and how people can act irresponsibly when giving their comments (and untruths) and malicious attacks under anonymity. I like to see the new media being used in a more responsible manner and will welcome moves in that direction.

Subsidy for Japanese manufacturers

The Japanese government is introducing a subsidy to help its manufacturers to keep their production in Japan, in the face of a stronger currency. This shows that the system of free trade and open market is now under stress. http://www.cnbc.com//id/44983686

Communist Manifesto - 1848

I read some parts of the book by Karl Marx entitled the Communist Manifesto. He described the struggle between the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeois (capital owners). Today, 163 years later, it is a struggle between the 99% (ordinary people) and the 1% (elite). This can be seen in the "Occupy Wall Street" protest.

National Service Deferment

The Minister for Defence said that there was no preference treatment for National Service deferment. He explained in detail to Parliament how the process for deferment was carried out. However, the newspaper report did not carry the details. I hope that our MPs in Parliament would question the process, to ensure that the relevant questions have been asked and answered satisfactorily.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Parliament/Story/STIStory_725378.html

My preference is for National Service to be made fairer to male citizens, so that they do not need to sacrifice their time and opportunity. This can be done through reducing the duration of national service and/ or compensating them adequately for the time that they have to spend. The Singapore males have to compete with foreigners and females in the job market and should not be placed at a disadvantage.

List of contractors

The list of contractors have been updated to include plumbing, electrical and TV repair. There are now 13 categories of contractors. This list will be converted into a database for easy access at a later date. The contractors have been contacted to establish their responsiveness to calls or emails.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=579