Last Friday we were joined by David from Corona Research, Melissa who is a planner for hire while she cooks up other interesting plans, and two marketers on the market, Rebecca and Anoud. If you'd like to get in touch with any of these folks I'd be happy to make the connection.
We talked about a lot of stuff. Of course, about the new Dove spot Onslaught. The new TV Guide. And David shared his love of the Facebook Cities I've Visited and Borat applications.
Anoud brought up the subject of Dubai the brand.
From floating cities to skiing indoors, the country has taken bold steps to make a name for itself and attract attention from the West, and in some circles it's being called the New York of the Middle East. She mentioned one proposal for a bubble city floating in the air. I poked around and found it mentioned in the Washington Post:
"A few months ago one of the newspapers did a spoof about a project called Bubble City," said Sohrab Motiwalla, a longtime Dubai resident who tracks development trends. "It was going to be a huge city encased in a glass bubble, suspended above Dubai by helium balloons. The problem was that it took people here a few weeks to figure out it was a joke."
Amazing how long it took people to figure out the joke was on them. The country is so used to spectacle a bubble city was not outside the realm of believability.
Then we trailed into a reverie of travel stories, tips, and lists. Melissa told us about her Balinese honeymoon. Anoud shared her transformative Galapagos trip. And on and on. I won't go into more detail except to say that we basically covered every continent and by the time coffee was over there was a palatable wanderlust in the room.
Next coffee: 10/19