Ashraf Sheikh's Expresso Blog (thats Espresso + Expressions)

Is your Coke the real thing?

A friend of mine complained of Colitis a couple of weeks back and we realized it has something to do with the water, She said the Natur -security/watchman (The guys who apart from their real jobs also seem to be controlling the real estate rental  market and now the water trade) delivered her water Can. So we decided to investigate (actually, we just walked down two floors). We asked the Natur, where did he get this stock of Oasis can- he had 2 answers for it and  nowhere close to the one we were looking for.

Its simple, what happens when your printer cartridge ink runs out?  Do  buy another cartridge worth Dh 115 or simply pick the classifieds with scores of  options on an appx.  Dh 25 refill (the math is simple). You choose the brand and they have the refill options.

I don't remember crushing my Coke 1.5 litre or the bottle (that's too much noise). Now, its not very surprising when friends tell me that sometimes Coke tastes Different from exactly the same product bought in a different store.

While parallel brands are welcome to this economy (competing or me-too options), Parallel trade certainly isn't.

Piracy, counterfeiting and parallel trade have had a large share of its discussions during investments forum in Dubai and the forthcoming event Dubai Business and Investment Roundtable (Economist conference in Feb 2005, London) will address some of these issues. 

Good Cinema, Poor Marketing

There seems to be an elitist positioning to the Dubai Film Festival. I went for the 'Mr. India' -the movie, last night. The Dubai Media City amphitheatre has a capacity for 2500 people. The Movie is a classic and was huge hit in the 80s.

The total turnout last night at the amphitheatre - 100 odd people

Leaders in Dubai (Yaawn!)

I've never understood why companies spend $2500 to have most of the leaders read their book summaries to their executives.
Suggestion- Buy every book than each one has every written (should total up less than $1000) and then have a book discussion session. What you get is - the book (of course) and what you don't get is - bored executives sleeping at such seminars.