What's Happening

Sprint! Yeah, the telecommunications company.

I am a loyal customer, but that is because I only use my phone to make calls, and am not really interested in fancy features. I also like paying less than $40 a month for an amazing number of minutes and free text messaging.

Anyways, I have never liked Sprint commercials, ever. I thought the CEO saying how sprint is revamping was crap and didn't really do much for me. But today I saw Sprint's "What's Happening" commercial. It is brilliant... I think.

I can't figure out whether my favorite part is:

1. 233,000 just twittered on Twitter. 26% of you viewing this had no idea what that means.
2. 2,000,000 people are sending a text message during a business meeting. Most popular subject:Diapers.

I like #1 because twitter is awesome (thanks J. Lee), but I feel like more than 26% of people watching don't know what twitter is (bad market sizing Sprint), especially because I was watching Desperate Housewives (yes guilty, but I don't watch regularly).

I like #2 because I know plenty of people who text message during meetings (not me =)). But diapers? That is just ridiculous... or is it?

Anyways a gold star to Sprint's new advertising gurus, and thumbs down to their strategic intelligence and marketing crew (for the low numbers, but please prove me wrong).

In case you don't watch Desperate Houswives:

Uttarayan (Kite Festival) and Marketing.

If you grew up in Gujarat, India, one of your favorite festivals of the year is probably Uttarayan. Well lucky for me, it happened to be a much celebrated festival by the Gujarati community in Houston when I was growing up.

According to http://hinduism.about.com/cs/festivals/a/aa011103a.htm, Uttarayan (known as Makar Sakranti in other parts of India) is the day when the sun starts to travel northwards marking the decline of winter. The days become longer, the skies clearer and the breeze cooler.

Why am I posting about this? I was recently in Chinatown shopping randomly and came across a store that contained nothing but KITES. It was unbelievable, they had the most beautiful kites ever (see picture), and it jogged my memory of an event I use to look forward to every year (Btw... I suck at flying kites).

In the royal days of India, trained fliers were employed to fly kites for kings. Slowly, the art started becoming popular amongst the masses. Although we might think of kite flying as a leisure activity, in India (and other parts of the world), it is actually considered a sport in which you compete to "cut" another individuals kite string (this might sound familiar if you've read the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini).

Today, manufacturing kites is a serious business. It attracts big names in the corporate world as kites provide a cost-effective opportunity for branding.

Isn't that interesting? It's a great way to take advantage of air space, having your brand fly on millions of kites. Although kite flying is not as big in the US, it still might be a cool new marketing tactic to try, especially with the economy in shambles, and companies cutting marketing budgets like whoa.

Thoughts?

Cupcakes.

..they are nothing short of delicious.

Recently a new cupcake place opened around the corner from me, Miette - Patisserie and Confiserie. Not only is the shop extremely cute, the cupcakes are outstanding, seriously. My favorite are the gingerbread cupcakes. The actual cake is made with a dark stout beer (don't worry you can't taste it), molasses, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom. And to top it all off, its has a sweet cream cheese frosting.

Yum =).

As the name implies, Patisserie and Confiserie, it's not just a cupcake joint, they also have many other delicious sweet treats. So if you are in San Francisco, check them out:

Locations:

Ferry Building

Ferry Building Marketplace

Shop 10

San Francisco, CA 94111

Hayes Valley

449 Octavia Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

Marina

2109 Chestnut Street

San Francisco, CA 94123