I spend a considerable amount of time shopping for different products online, with books being my key purchase. Every now and then, I am requested by my father, who happens to be a film enthusiast, to buy some very old and rare DVD titles for him. Very recently he requested for the 1964 classic “Sex and the Single Girl” starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda. Now the product only cost me a mere £2.51 and that’s a great bargain for a classic. Unfortunately, what the seller ste40125 did not know was that I am a Bangladeshi and have seen rip-off DVDs such as these all my life. The slimline case said it all! What was funny was that when I wrote to the seller about my utter dissatisfaction with the purchase, his instant reaction was for me to “BIN” the DVD as it would not be of any use to him….I wonder why??? He even tried to justify his reputation as being an authentic seller on amazon and that he always wants to his customers to be 100% satisfied with their purchases. I say save me the trouble of your silly excuses. There is no way that an original DVD can come in a slimline case. This is the most common form of piracy conducted in Bangladesh by all the DVD resellers. So, I can certainly vouch that it’s bloody easy to download the movie and burn a HD quality print on to a blank DVD.

The point of writing this is to let you all know that piracy on amazon is something that everyone should be aware off. This is my first experience of it, hence I wanted to share my story with all of you. If you are the next victim of something similar to this, make sure you immediately write back to the seller and ask for a refund (in my case I got back my money). And more importantly, leave a nice little feedback for the seller so that prospective buyers can see whether or not the sellers products are actually genuine. The seller upon seeing my negative comment actually challenged me to send the DVD to the amazon head office and that would prove that it’s not a fake copy. Now my friend ste40125, not all of us have the time to go through the process of filing a complaint on amazon. But we all do have that 2-5 minutes to leave a “authentic and honest” feedback for others to see. So, next time you are buying DVDs or any other product from amazon, take 2 minutes to ask yourself “Is this seller actually selling me an original item?”

Thought I’d take some time and write this post regarding some future projects I’m looking into. While working in the advertising industry in Dhaka, I found the communication campaigns developed by the social wing of both McCann Bangladesh and JWT Bangladesh extremely interesting and informative. Although commercial advertising did interest me equally, I still felt that social communications in a developing nation such as Bangladesh is extremely important. I found further inspiration from my good friend Korvi Rakshand, founder of JAAGO Foundation in Bangladesh.

JAAGO Foundation is a youth based organization dedicated to the betterment of underprivileged and poverty-stricken people of Bangladesh. Founded in April 2007 the organisation focuses mainly on battling illiteracy and malnutrition in children and on rehabilitating their families to better environments and social conditions. JAAGO’s long term goal is to have a school in every district of Bangladesh with supporting projects helping the whole community. Their main aim being in seeing every child in Bangladesh receive quality education and be given the platform to a secure and prosperous future. (http://www.jaago.com.bd)

Then I came across something that is of a major problem in Bangladesh i.e. provision of clean drinking water in the rural areas. I looked into this video \”Water changes everything\” uploaded by Charitywater.org which highlights the issue of availability of clean drinking water being of the major problem in the developing nations. This is a project I’m quite keen and interested in starting up when i go back home…a charitable organisation such as charitywater.org. Most of the concerns mentioned in this video applies directly to Bangladesh.

Hope to achieve this goal of mine in the near future and looking forward to any form of support from my friends and well-wishers back home and abroad.

I am on to my 15th day on the Easter Vacation and all I have been doing over the last 2 weeks is work on my pricing essay, revise for the 3 exams I’ve in May and watch episodes of Modern Family.
It’s been difficult times for me in the last 2-3 days since I’ve been pondering over my future and whether or not I really want to base my future plans in the UK. I mean it is a vital decision for me owing to the fact that I’ll have to dedicated the next 2 odd years to a life in London, a life which I am highly unsure off.
This is where one has to ask the question and balance out the pros and cons of life in a foreign land. Regardless of whatever bullshit other people talk about, unless you have a top job or a rich dad to pay for whatever you want, life in a foreign land can be uber tough and challenging.
That being said I did dwell upon it for a while and came to a consensus that I will devote the next 2 years to a life in London and take on the challenge of achieving something that I came here for. I wouldn’t wanna have any regrets if I am to return back to Dhaka sometime on 2013. Till then let’s hope for the best and keep working hard to reach that goal!

Time and again we come across people who are following various brands, celebrities, organizations, etc. on Facebook and it always baffles me as to what can be the sole reason for this. Upon asking a few people I got a few responses which were obvious and some which were out and out ridiculous.

The primary reason for following brands/organizations is to keep track of any new offering or deals whereas the primary reason for following celebs was to keep track of what the respondents believe to be an exciting life. You heard the saying before “Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous!” This to me sounded very funny and I still can’t understand the point in keeping track of what your favorite celebs are doing. Here I was thinking that we subscribe to any form of social media to express ourselves and not act like mere sheep following celebs and brands. I mean what exactly is the point. Then the other interesting response I found was why people become friends with or follow a brand on Twitter or Facebook is “To show other people that they like the brand”. And voila that’s when I remembered what Jack Trout wrote: “People want to express themselves through brands – brands express a person’s personality and the people they like to be with.“
Ultimately we use brands to create or reinforce our identity and showing our support for a brand on Facebook might just be the same as wearing it on a T-shirt. It tells others about who we are.

However we also follow brands on Twitter or Facebook to get deals or information before other people. Although the feeling of exclusivity might get lost since there are about a million fans of the same brand, it still is a promising sign for marketers. It is usually the loyal customers or potential customers who follow your brand on social media. It is you who are communicating with the brand via social media by assuring them that they are the ones who want to buy from you and are constantly searching for new information about your organizations products and services. So marketers in Dhaka should look in to this matter more seriously these days and start using Social media as channels for building engagement among the most important audiences. If done properly through better engagement then the results will not only be fruitful for the organization but other brands can use their example as a case study and use social media for greater engagement with their target audience.

However, all this still doesn’t answer why on earth people keep following these celebs on social media!

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