UPDATED 29/03/2009: ENG gets in touch... (see end of post)
So there's this whole other industry out there which couldn't give two hoots about Lynx it seems. Which is nice.
Of more pressing matters, unsurprisingly, are people's wages. Specifically, those nice people at ENG. The company's been having problems paying on time for a while, and if this latest effort is to be believed, staff are still waiting for last month's paycheques.
Yes, someone's set up a website: ENG are tossers (site now suspended)
Here's what the website's creators have to say: "ENG (Emirates Neon Group) was one of the leading visual communications and outdoor media solutions companies in the UAE and across the Middle East. They delivered [skip to the end...] and outdoor media.
"Communication is all about engaging with people—so it needs to be persuasive and highly effective.
"Unfortunataly this pack of c**ts don't pay their staff.
"It is now the 26th of March 2009 and ENG staff have not been paid a penny of their February 2009 wages."
Ooops.
If this is true, it's definitely not good.
I feel slightly sorry for ENG, in that it wasn't its fault that it started a new venture (print mags) at what turned out to be the top of the market, only to see its main revenue source (outdoor) crumble in a few short months.
Having said that, if the firm had banked more of the swingeingly huge fees it was charging for spots on Sheikh Zayed Road, it might have avoided some of these problems. But that's by the by.
Here's hoping ENG finds a solution. We rather like Media Week. And iQ. And BH&W or whatever it's called - essential reading. Especially for insomnia.
UPDATE: Well, it looks like ENG has a bit of a bee in its bonnett about all these accusations over unpaid wages.
On Saturday I received a rather charming email from ENG's corporate communications department, which read as follows:
"Hi Eliot
Hope your having a great weekend.
I am writing with reference to the official Ad Nation blog, where you have uploaded a blog that mentions our company ENG. I wanted to bring to your attention that the content you are cross-referencing at [this post] is a misrepresentation of facts that harms the credibility of your professional body and the content has since been found to be against the legal obligations and the linked website has also been taken down by the hosting company.
In this regard, you are requested to remove the quoted text and all reference to it from the aforementioned blog immediately.
I look forward to your affirmation.
Regards
Asma Shabab
Asst. Manager, Corporate Communications, ENG"
I politely declined the request to remove the post - there's been too much talk around this issue in the market for it not to be credible.
I did suggest ENG might like to make an official comment - in which case it'll probably move this whole thing to the main site. Until then, watch this space...
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
An open rasberry to Simon Jenkins
Below is an open letter to Guardian columnist and former Times editor Simon Jenkins, in response to his column: As they did Ozymandias, the dunes will reclaim the soaring folly of Dubai
Dear Simon,
As many of my fellow Dubaians have already done, I read your comment piece on this city yesterday.
What utter drivel.
Your contempt for a place that, unless you have missed a major point from your article, you have never visited beggars belief.
This does not adhere to any reasonable measure of journalistic competence; your research is non-existent, your generalisations are sweeping, and your prejudice shines through from the headline, standfirst and introduction of your piece.
Speaking as a young journalist, had I written such appalling trash, I would, I hope, feel ashamed. I would not expect to remain a journalist for very long, and would expect to move into a profession more suited to my particular skill-set – street-sweeping, say, or licking the grime from Germaine Greer's don't-fuck-me shoes.
I will not bother to list the many, many factual errors and incorrect assumptions you make in your article (although I can certainly do so if you would like).
Instead, I had rather intended to make a series of wittily sweeping generalisations about your good self, possibly of the nature that your inability to spell the names of the world's capital cities clearly means you're only minutes away from a retrograde step to the Guardian's subs-desk; or that the large parts of your brain that are currently lying unused and decaying will no doubt be occupied in short order by packs of malevolent dwarves (although possibly this has already happened).
However, as this would merely be lowering myself to your level I will content myself with blowing you a raspberry from 3500 miles away, which would seem to be a rather more mature response to your childish malice than it in fact merits.
Thrrrrrrrrrrp.
On a serious note, Dubai – and the UAE as a whole – has many faults and problems, some of them appalling, and some of them appalling only to those with delicate sensibilities and a dislike for what they perceive as "vulgar".
But this type of comment does nothing to address them – and if you, as a human being, really take such glee in the downfall of others, well, I feel somewhat sorry for you.
Others more eloquent than I have rightly described Dubai as an experiment, an alternative to the hitherto oppressive and closed cultures that have been seen in the Gulf. As Dubai has succeeded, others – Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, and now even cities in Saudi Arabia – are tentatively following in this city's footsteps.
Were Dubai in fact to fail – and more importantly, be seen to fail, and be publicly derided by people such as you – then the experiment would be for naught. Other cities and states may well see that the reward for risk is ridicule, and quietly slip back into the old way of doing things.
This is a complex issue – and if all you're seeing is ski-slopes and palms and shiny cars, you're not looking hard enough.
Regards,
Eliot Beer
Editor, AdNation Middle East
Dear Simon,
As many of my fellow Dubaians have already done, I read your comment piece on this city yesterday.
What utter drivel.
Your contempt for a place that, unless you have missed a major point from your article, you have never visited beggars belief.
This does not adhere to any reasonable measure of journalistic competence; your research is non-existent, your generalisations are sweeping, and your prejudice shines through from the headline, standfirst and introduction of your piece.
Speaking as a young journalist, had I written such appalling trash, I would, I hope, feel ashamed. I would not expect to remain a journalist for very long, and would expect to move into a profession more suited to my particular skill-set – street-sweeping, say, or licking the grime from Germaine Greer's don't-fuck-me shoes.
I will not bother to list the many, many factual errors and incorrect assumptions you make in your article (although I can certainly do so if you would like).
Instead, I had rather intended to make a series of wittily sweeping generalisations about your good self, possibly of the nature that your inability to spell the names of the world's capital cities clearly means you're only minutes away from a retrograde step to the Guardian's subs-desk; or that the large parts of your brain that are currently lying unused and decaying will no doubt be occupied in short order by packs of malevolent dwarves (although possibly this has already happened).
However, as this would merely be lowering myself to your level I will content myself with blowing you a raspberry from 3500 miles away, which would seem to be a rather more mature response to your childish malice than it in fact merits.
Thrrrrrrrrrrp.
On a serious note, Dubai – and the UAE as a whole – has many faults and problems, some of them appalling, and some of them appalling only to those with delicate sensibilities and a dislike for what they perceive as "vulgar".
But this type of comment does nothing to address them – and if you, as a human being, really take such glee in the downfall of others, well, I feel somewhat sorry for you.
Others more eloquent than I have rightly described Dubai as an experiment, an alternative to the hitherto oppressive and closed cultures that have been seen in the Gulf. As Dubai has succeeded, others – Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, and now even cities in Saudi Arabia – are tentatively following in this city's footsteps.
Were Dubai in fact to fail – and more importantly, be seen to fail, and be publicly derided by people such as you – then the experiment would be for naught. Other cities and states may well see that the reward for risk is ridicule, and quietly slip back into the old way of doing things.
This is a complex issue – and if all you're seeing is ski-slopes and palms and shiny cars, you're not looking hard enough.
Regards,
Eliot Beer
Editor, AdNation Middle East
Bhoyrul making sense? Say it isn't so!
Yes, you read that right - Anil Bhoyrul, sometime enfant-terrible of ITP, is talking sense!
Specifically, he has a witty dig at the utter crap estate agents here are spouting, trying to convince people to BUY BUY BUY.
Even in the way of estate agent lies, there are some doozies:
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but my boss's cousin works at HSBC. And they have been told that the market has already bottomed out, and in fact, prices in some parts of Dubai rose 12 percent in the past two weeks. This is triple A confidential. You really need to buy a property before the weekend or you will miss out.”
Ahahaha.
Enjoy.
Specifically, he has a witty dig at the utter crap estate agents here are spouting, trying to convince people to BUY BUY BUY.
Even in the way of estate agent lies, there are some doozies:
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but my boss's cousin works at HSBC. And they have been told that the market has already bottomed out, and in fact, prices in some parts of Dubai rose 12 percent in the past two weeks. This is triple A confidential. You really need to buy a property before the weekend or you will miss out.”
Ahahaha.
Enjoy.
Oh... hi!
Hello everyone.
Apologies for the lack of updates recently - seems the blog sort of fell by the wayside with some of the exciting things that have been happening.
And also the Lynx.
Anyway, I'll be keeping the updates coming with a bit more frequency, going forward in our new out-of-box blog synergising paradigms.
Apologies for the lack of updates recently - seems the blog sort of fell by the wayside with some of the exciting things that have been happening.
And also the Lynx.
Anyway, I'll be keeping the updates coming with a bit more frequency, going forward in our new out-of-box blog synergising paradigms.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
So you think we have it bad...?
For the last few weeks, it's been cuts, cuts, cuts - and it's all pretty bad.But we should remember, we could be worse off - we could be in the UK:
"ITV has announced it is cutting 600 jobs across its business, and plans to make other "significant" savings," reports the BBC, adding that the broadcaster made a £2.7 loss in 2008.
Ouch.
How insensitive can you get?
Last week we had junk food ads next to health stories - but this autoserving ad on The Guardian's website takes the biscuit when it comes to deeply inappropriate ads (keep watching all the way for the full effect):
Oh dear.
Automation's a wonderful thing, but only in moderation...
Oh dear.
Automation's a wonderful thing, but only in moderation...
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