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Mostly Everything

One skin care product all men should consider using

[Off topic]

Happy weekend!

There are such rare occasions when I get invited – not directly, but as a date to beauty events. Such is life, and the last “beauty event” I attended was the new Shu Uemura store launch at The Powerplant Mall in Rockwell. I didn’t care much for the make up and was more busy gallyvanting with Daniel Tan in between his shoots. I’m not too comfortable with the crowd in lifestyle events – not because I dislike the general atmosphere, but because I don’t know too many people. Tech press conferences are very different in tone, pacing and atmosphere from the lifestyle ones.

I did have a take home though – a loot bag from Shu Uemura. I gave all of it to my mom except for this one sampler bottle of Skin Purifier, High Performance Cleansing Oil you see above. Wow. After the Swiper demonstrated to myself and the Beautynomist how it is a very effective make up removal, facial cleansing, and diluting oil, I was urged to try it out for a few days. OK what did I have to lose right? I’ve never really used a “beauty product” out of due diligence, and I wouldn’t usually care less. But yeah, sounding like a girl from off a beauty commercial, “my face feels so much softer and smoother.” 🙂

And it’s a powerhouse for make up removal. I was part of this viral campaign for Axe and having had a ton of make up on, I removed it the fastest with this one (note: I’ve been in theater and had to wear stage make up for performances and it was always so hard to remove!).

I did a lot more research on Shu Uemura’s cleansing olls and yeah, apparently they’re really top notch, if you can afford them . The bottles are expensive – at P1,7xx.00 for the small one and P4,xxx.00 for the huge economy sized one.

To the geeks – if you spend a lot of time in front of the computer, this is your saving grace.

———

Fast forward. Reading this post now after taking a break makes me wonder why I wrote it in the first place. I guess it’s one of those things you just have to share when you make small discoveries which are so off from your niche. Hehe. Please don’t judge me.

Let my flawless face be the judge. Bwahaha! Can’t resist. 😛

[/Off topic]

Categories
Mostly Everything

HTC Touch HD Easter Egg: Weather Animation

Just came from the launch of HTC’s new Touch line of smartphones. The most interesting part of the evening wasn’t part of the official program – we were shown some of the embedded Easter Eggs for the HTC Touch HD. With the 3.8 inch screen, you slightly tap the upper left and right sides of the top weather bar and you get a nifty animation, as seen in this post.

Pardon the low quality, but what happens is that the weather bar shows the sun shining and the weather slowly changes to a storm with droplets on the 3.8 inch screen. A wiper pops out and wipes the raindrops away, all in one really cool and seamless animation sequence.

[Digg It!] You saw it here first!

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Mostly Everything

Contest: 10 TICKETS for Trance Alliance with DJ Fleming and Digital Blonde

The year was 1999 and barely out of high school, I heard of an events group called “Big Fish.” I admit I was a late bloomer in the clubbing scene and have steered away from big room events in favor of the usual dinner plus movie night outs. Add the Ozone Disco Inferno incident back then and you’ll see why I was traumatized (remember that, kids?). Fast forward to ten years later and today most of my exposure to these sorts of events was thanks to my job with the media where Embassy, Ascend, A Venue, Warehouse 135, and the World Trade Center are staples for work, not pleasure.

People will tell you that they’ve outgrown loud music and the air of frivolity. And you tend to agree. But you also get to a certain age where you need the relapse of losing yourself, away from your daily responsibilities. It’s not about being pretentious or an exercise in frivolity. You just want the night off.

So my early memories of clubbing were actually late ones and it was only then that I got to experience the good stuff – Tiesto, Chicane, and smaller pocket events usually organized by Motorola or Nokia.

So that’s the context of this contest I’m running – I’m giving away 10 tickets to TRANCE ALLIANCE:

Brace yourselves for the 2 group’s opening salvo! NOVEMBER 29, 2008, SATURDAY, DRIVEN MANILA and WORLDWIDE WOMB present TRANCE ALLIANCE featuring Superstar DJ JOHN “00” FLEMING & DIGITAL BLONDE in a never before done big room dance experience as they perform their LIVE SET at the A-Venue, Makati Ave. This is the launch of a new movement and you are all invited to be a part of it. See you all on the dance floor!

Thanks to a high school batchmate, I met up with Domini Primero and Hilary Favila-Bautista of W135 and we talked about the “younger days” of this very interesting “clubbing industry.” It was always about the music – and yes readers, if you want a shot at winning a ticket to TRANCE ALLIANCE check out the contest mechanics below.

Driven Manila and World Wide Womb, headed by Domini Primero and Stephen Ku respectively, have come together to form TRANCE ALLIANCE! A team-up of two of the most successful dance event promoters in the country. After a 2-year hiatus, Domini Primero, the original creator of the Big Fish Crew back in 1999, now Driven Manila and WAREHOUSE 135’s head honcho, is back at what he does best – doing big-room dance events. Teaming up with World Wide Womb founder & Embassy Promoter, Stephen Ku who produced Tiesto’s record breaking massive concerts in Manila, Driven Manila and World Wide Womb are both fueled by the positive energy that stems from the dream of giving that perfect musical experience to the dance community.

Contest Mechanics

1. This contest is open from today till 11:59 PM of November 28 2008

2. I am raffling off 10 tickets to DJ Fleming and Digital Blonde. To enter the raffle, simply leave a comment with a valid email address answering the question “What do you love most about Manila’s clubbing scene?” (i.e. I really miss Mars and the campy red lights!)

3. You can only win once, but you can enter the raffle as many times as you want by leaving different answers.

4. I will be using Luck of the Draw for the raffle.

Tgst! Tgst! Tgst! See you there!

Categories
Mostly Everything

Predictably Irrational: Perceived value with “bottomless” “unlimited” and “cheap”

Predictably Irrationa

I’m halfway through Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and I must say that this is my new marketing bible for observing the seemingly irrational behavior of consumers when certain buzz word concepts like “free,” “value added,” “extra” and “unlimited” are brought into the marketing copy. It’s a beautiful book — and if you’re the type who enjoyed other books like Freakonomics, The Long Tail and Tipping Point, this is another must have to your collection.

One of the chapters in Ariely’s book talks about a concept known as “anchoring.” The premise is that consumers never make choices based on a product’s price alone, but rather based on the relative price of something else. When you buy a mobile phone for instance, you always compare the affordability based on a previous phone you owned, or with the relative price of similar units. More importantly though, the book talks about how consumers’ anchor price can change. We used to pay P5.00 for a sachet of Blend 45. Now we pay P100.00 for a cup of Starbucks. Ariely explains how “perceived value” raises the anchoring price of things we buy. Starbucks’ ambiance makes you feel like you’re drinking quality coffee and marketing changed “small,” “medium,” and large to “tall,” “venti” and “grande.” It’s like stepping into a different country where the relative price of everything is different.

Sadly, anchoring of prices can work negatively as well for consumers when marketers weave in the concept of “free” “bottomless” or “unlimited” which is a very powerful word in this industry. When we see “bottomless iced tea” in the menu, we go for it, and restaurateurs know we will – that’s why they price it high even if we only finish two or three glasses – still way beyond break even price. The “Unlimited” calls and texts of SUN for instance charge P25.00 per day, which is P750.00 per month. The average prepaid usage for calls is 214 minutes per month based on consumer research and at a buck per minute for “unlimited rates,” that’s really P214.00 per month for calls. On a daily average, calls should cost P7.14 per day, not P25.00 (more less 350% higher?). There’s something that’s also not factored in – dropped call rate, which according to the NTC – SUN has the most alarming drop call rate at almost 20%.

There’s a third example – when you walk into a department store and see three LCD TV’s – a Samsung, SHARP, and a SONY in the showcase all at different prices, you tend to take a look at the weakest link (Samsung usually keeps the lowest priced ones) in comparison to the other two “higher end” and “higher priced” units. The fact is, the salesman built this arrangement on purpose so you can compare the cheaper unit side by side the other much higher priced units. Instinct tells you you’re getting a great deal on the most affordable unit, and so you buy it! The truth? That’s what the salesman wanted to push in the first place to meet his quota. He could have very well lined up the most expensive TV from the set (the SONY) alongside other cheaper or more expensive promos.

That’s why perceived value is always relative to something else. Comments?

Congratulations Moleskine winners!

Wow, what a run! We had 122 entries for the Moleskine contest we did last week and today we announce our two winners! For the first prize, we are giving away a Moleskine notebook courtesy of Jasper Ong of Avalon.PH. Many thanks to Jasper for sponsoring this contest.

Our winners had to answer the question, “when are you most inspired to write?” in the comments section to qualify.

And the winner of the ruled Moleskine notebook is ….

Juligel
I’m excited and inspired, mostly, after waking up and having a great vivid dream.

And our second prize winner for the three cahiers (courtesy of me) is …

Wrinkle
When I’m about to sleep, when I’m with rubber duckie, OR when someone pisses me off at work. 😀

Thanks for sending in valid emails! We’ll get your moleskine notebooks in your doorstep this week! I’ll be running a second contest very soon – to score tickets this time!

Didn’t win a Moleskine notebook? You can try to win one again from November 18 to November 21 at Viloria.net, where the next contest will be held.