Vegans have grown a bad reputation because (or so the stereotype goes) they’d call out anyone eating meat — citing that meat is bad for animal welfare or climate reasons. They’re right, of course, but nobody wants to hear it. Yet like-minded businesses have sought to sell soy burgers or start ecological supermarkets, to take […]
Decline is inevitable, but misery isn’t
This morning I read Arthur C. Brooks’ article “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think” on The Atlantic. It’s packed with way more than you’d expect from a long article, and since I wish to absorb it all, I’ll leave a summary below here. — Memories of accomplishments don’t bring nearly as […]
Recycling is a massive red herring
Philip Morris launched Mission Winnow for a smoke free world, even though it’s nothing but a sloppy website with pointless terms like ‘passion’ and ‘innovation’. The Dutch Royal Airlines is going to make (a tiny bit) of kerosine from bio waste. Starbucks will ban straws (even though had already promised us a recycled cup for […]
Innovation isn’t flying cars or VR glasses
Last Saturday we found a new apartment in Shanghai through ZiRoom (自如). The app has zero flair and is pure efficiency. Through filters we narrowed down our options, listed on a map in north Shanghai (screenshots are just examples). Most apartments have 360° photographs. We got an appointment in 10 minutes, and later that evening […]
WRI: Generating appeal for plant-based dishes
Can we increase appeal for plant-based foods by simply renaming the dishes? The World Resource Institute, which works together with multinationals like Unilever, NASA and Google, approached Seventy Agency to mitigate the rising trend of meat consumption in China, as beef is very polluting to the climate. Together, we formed the tasks of generating new […]
Leftover women review
Through ‘Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China’, Leta Hong Fincher shares an important message and she deserves credit for this, but I have several problems with the book itself. Firstly — and I say this while I understand that gathering quantitative research data about China is difficult — this book takes cherry-picking […]
GoEast Mandarin
GoEast Language Center is one of Shanghai’s premium Mandarin language schools, with effective and fun teaching. I studied there, but felt that their communication lacked behind the quality of their teaching, and looked all the same as all language schools in Shanghai. My time was primarily spend on three things: Optimizing existing assets (mainly websites […]
Hershey’s Kisses on the Bund
Increasing Hershey’s share in wedding candy market on top of a brand image facelift Hershey’s wanted to increase its share in the wedding candy market in China (a huge market). Both online and offline sales, plus PR where an integral part of the campaign. KISSES ON THE BUND Couples where to showcase their love and […]
Greybox Coffee Shanghai Xintiandi store opening
Greybox is a coffee chain with fifty locations, trying to beat coffee giants in China such as Starbucks (3000 stores) Luckin (500 stores) and Costa (500). Each of these chains says they’ve got the best beans and machines, but only Greybox goes so far that they make extreme HR investments. So why not treat baristas […]
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are review
“All knowledge is a recognition of the mutual relationships between sense experience and/or things and events.” This is a dense book, packed with insights. Some of them so wise that they make you look at life in a different way. But others feel just plainly wrong or overly simplistic (“You are IT”) — or are […]