The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Remember that Singaporean DVD that John Dodds wanted to get a copy of?

The one that taught parents what their kids were up to when their back was turned?

Well I don’t know what’s happened, but the nanny-state has seemingly gone sexuality crazy because passing another DVD store, I came across [not the best choice of words there] this …

Keeping in the theme of sex – and possibly John Dodds – I recently saw an ad in the US for the dating website Match.com.

Despite the internet not being ‘new’ anymore, there’s still some people out there who feel there’s a stigma attached to meeting a partner online which is why I’ve always loved Match.com’s line of ‘It’s OK to Look’.

Saying that, I can’t help but feel Match.com should broaden their positioning because it’s almost like they are perpetuating the taboo rather than addressing it – however that’s not what this post is about, it’s about this …

Now maybe I’m a sick ol’ bastard, but does the girl in that ad look very young?

Then there’s the fact her supposed username is ‘TWOBITS12’.

Jesus, why not go the whole hog and call her ‘BreastsLike2BeansOnAPieceOfToast’ …

Going off on a slight tangent …

A lot of people out there think Singapore in a clinical, repressed, patriarchal dictatorship … and whilst there are more than a couple of things that I don’t agree with, I believe it is an amazing country that has demonstrated creativity and vision to get where it is at.

Saying that, I was somewhat alarmed when I walked into shop and saw this on sale …

Now I appreciate most of you will be too young to remember Cutting Crew … hell, even I am almost too young to remember Cutting Crew … but the fact is, they had one hit [I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight] back in 1827 or something, so the fact they not only recorded a live DVD but have it currently on sale in Singapore is beyond all comprehension.

Jesus, it’s not like they were the Elvis or Beatles of their day – more like the Aqua or Craig McLachlan.

I can only assume the ‘Full House Rock Show’ is some German thing given that nation seem to be the home for the ‘one hit, bad hair’ wonder.

Hasselhoff anyone?

Finally, I’d like to go back to an issue close to my heart – innovation for the sake of innovation.

As much as I have a real problem with the LG brand – or should I say the people who run LG – I have always been a big fan of their ‘Mecca Phone’ developed in association with my friends at Y&R Malaysia.

I’ve said it many times, but I think the future for brands and NPD is cultural insight rather than just category and in that product, they demonstrated it’s power in spades.

Saying that, I always sort of guessed it was a one off and as time has passed – with them launching a continuous stream of style over substance phones – I guess I was proved right.

However if anything was needed to really bang home that LG adopt a scatter gun approach to product development, then this new product exemplifies it perfectly.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you the WINE PHONE …

Look how clever the creatives are to have someone hold that phone like a waiter serving a customer a bottle of wine.

See how they cleverly imply this phone is for a higher class of user with the words ‘For the truly discerning’.

Stand back and applaud when in the features they say ‘User Friendly Keypad’ even though it looks exactly like every other fucking keypad in the World, except that old Nokia mobile which for some reason was made to look like an old phone dial.

But that’s not all … the reason it’s called the WINE PHONE is because it has an inbuilt Wine Encyclopaedia.

FUCK ME.

Imagine how truly discerning you’ll look when you pull out that phone in a restaurant and search for the details of a wine that is on the menu. Relax in the knowledge that you will be able to tell the Maitre’d you won’t be long because you have a ‘user friendly keypad’.

What next, a phone with books ISBN numbers?

I appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are massive fans of wine – but I don’t think a phone by a fucking Korean manufacture is going to be something they’ll trust and be happy to be seen consulting.

There’s so many things that they could of put into their phone that would of been truly useful to users – that it’s almost worth applauding their complete lack of judgement.

Seriously, this sort of thing makes me sick – and I can only assume it was an old model they’d been trying to flog to the blind/elderly that they had gathering dust in a warehouse.