All the Geelys on Autocade

The Geely King Kong Hatchback, one of the new entries on the Autocade website. Not that I blogged it at the time, but Geely’s multi-brand strategy in 2009 felt doomed. Earlier this year, the company retreated, and brought everything from Englon, Gleagle and Emgrand back under its parent brand again.    It wasn’t unlike Mazda’s […]

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The Wikipedia game

The contributors or editors of Wikipedia are often quick to make changes after errors are pointed out. A recent funny one was for the suburb of Cannons Creek, in Porirua, when Wikipedia told a friend’s son: Cannons Creek is a suburb of Porirua City approximately 22km north of Wellington in New Zealand. The citizens attempted […]

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Ikea tries to shut down its biggest fan site, showing us how the company thinks within

In an age of social media, you would think it was the most stupid thing to try to shut down the biggest online community you have.    Ikea has done just that, on IP grounds, against Ikea Hackers, by getting their legal department to send Jules Yap, its founder, a cease-and-desist letter after her site […]

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A tribute to Massimo Vignelli

The below ran in Lucire today, though it is equally suited to the readers of this blog. RIT Massimo Vignelli, who passed away on May 27, was a hero of mine. When receiving the news shortly before it hit the media in a big way, from our mutual friend Stanley Moss, this title’s travel editor […]

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The religiosity of the superbrands

Another friend asked the Windows laptop v. Macbook question on her Facebook today.    You can predict what happens next. The cult came by. As with the last time a friend asked the same question.    The cult always comes and proclaims the superiority of the Apple Macintosh. And it is a blinding proclamation, of […]

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This week it’s the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models; what’s next for our destination marketing?

In Lucire’s publication history, more Americans than New Zealanders have read from the title. Online, that was always the case, as we started off in 1997 with a 70 per cent US readership, which has dropped to around 42 per cent with other countries catching up with web browsing over the last 16 years.   […]

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MG SUV soon a reality: good

I have to admit I get a bit bored of those crying foul now that MG will launch an SUV, one which seems to have some parallels with the Ssangyong Korando C (left).    They say that MG should have made sports cars as part of its revival, and that the brand should not adorn […]

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Finance is broken, and we still haven’t learned

I posted this quotation from I Acknowledge on my Tumblr today: The news that should have us all worried is: the derivatives market contains $700trn of these debts yet to implode.   Global GDP stands at $69·4trn a year. This means that (primarily) Wall Street and the City of London have run up phantom paper debts […]

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Joan Rivers had better facelifts, but it’s the future of the black cab

Part of me admires Nissan for going after the taxi market in a big way in New York and London.    Another part of me wonders why on earth the London Hackney Carriage solution is so ugly.    I think Nissan should have asked Mr Mitsuoka for advice on how to Anglicize one of its […]

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Open the shop and strip away the jargon

I’ve been reading this Grauniad interview with Rory Stewart, MP, referred by Jordan McCluskey. I’m told that Stewart, and Labour’s Frank Field are the two worth listening to these days in British politics. On Stewart, someone who can speak with a Scots accent and has lived in Hong Kong must be a good bloke.   […]

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