Muscat Municipality’s tender ad in today’s newspaper.
Multi-storey car parking at CBD and MBD may soon be a reality
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Who will bell the cat?
LuLu enters transport business?
Reader ASHWIN RAO emails a photo of a bus in Udupi (South India) which sports the LuLu logo. Has the LuLu conglomerate moved into transport business or is this is a case of an enthusiastic bus owner trying to show off his Gulf roots?
If you travel in the Malabar region of Kerala, a lot of businesses — from bakeries to restaurants to buses to barber shops – have taken a fancy for names from Gulf countries. So next time you bump into a Muscat Bakery or a Doha Motors, don’t get awed. With every household in the Malabar region having a person employed in GCC, it can’t get better than this. Last time, I almost fainted looking at a shawarma counter in Kannur, Kerala. Someone told me there is a milkshake called “Sharjah Milk Shake”. Malabar shall not forget its bread-butter roots, after all.
Related link: LuLu website
Separated at birth?
(Left) Khalid Al Nabhani, Omani tennis player. (Right) Irfan Pathan, Indian cricketer.
It takes a lifetime to turn them into adults…
…and it takes two minutes to bring them down. This is a scene in front of Indian School Muscat at Jibroo.
Recipe of the season: Glossy magazine
Ingredients: 2 good looking, dumb babes disguised as reporters/writers, 2 marketing/advertising fellas, networking skills, few contacts, 2 photographers, local contributors and an official website.
Preparation time: 15-30 days
Method:
1. Search for cover story ideas with a focus on beauty, health and tourism. If there are no stories to tell, no issues. Try an article on height/weight/hobbies instead.
2. For the article make sure you get in touch with the right people — CEOs, GMs, CFOs, MDs the better. Make the photographer click presentable pictures of these high worth people.
3. Ask the advertising chaps to chase these CEOs, GMs, CFOs, MDs for ads (you’re giving them free publicity after all). If they don’t budge, promise them an A4 size portrait in the coming issues. Better will be to strike an annual ‘deal’ with them (12 photographs for xyz amount)
4. Ask the photographers to attend all sundry events in town – birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, buffet dinners, launches, etc. The photos must catch spouses of high profile people socializing with the crowd with those million dollar smiles.
5. Bore readers to death by dedicating a dozen pages of these events on a weekly/fortnightly/monthly basis.
6. Write about hotel opening, dinner buffet options, broadband launch – all PR stuff that is.
7. Since the Internet is free, try to download as much as junk stuff and re-order a bit to suit local palette. Add Hollywood stuff for extra spice.
8. Have a recipe corner; people in Oman crave for food and it is the only time pass on weekends.
9. Make sure to use the best glossy paper for printing. It should be so glossy that readers should have readability issues. Print thousands of copies and dump it in strategic locations like gas stations, 5-star hotels, airport, supermarkets. At the same time, make sure to create a ‘sold off’ hype.
10. Get a contact list done and mail free complimentary copies to subscribers. Having a price tag or without doesn’t matter – after all people expect everything to be free in this market and all magazines survive on advertisements.
11. If you are lucky to survive for a year, make sure to host an anniversary bash and tell the world how successful the magazine is.