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Spotted in today’s Kompas daily, there was a review of Pintu Terlarang or Forbidden Door, a recently premiered Indonesian movie. Or so it seemed.
 
Printed in a different typeface from the rest of the articles, away from the regular entertainment section, and with a clearly defined border, it was quite obvious that it was less of a review and more of an advertisement for the movie.
 
The piece however does not claim to be an actual review as the top of the article actually said “Iklan”, or Advertisement.
 
This form of honest fake review seems to be gaining traction in the media. I was informed that at least one movie adopted this approach before.
 
On one hand people get more of an insight into the movie should they choose to read it but as it is an ad, it does not point out any deficiencies the movie may have.
 
My question is, is it a wise decision to market the movie as such? I would argue that if the movie is as good as my colleagues who were part of the audience say it is, it shouldn’t need such an ad, rather they should promote it in a different way.
 
Which reminded me, I actually passed on an invitation for the premiere. I’m not much of a horror movie fan. Especially local ones as they have been so disappointing as of late.
 
 
 
Sent from my mobile

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A few days ago I was invited to the soft opening of Jakarta’s latest Apple Premium Reseller run by the city’s widest reseller network, iBox. Currently iBox has at least six outlets spread across the capital city from north to south not including sister reseller Click with three outlets.

iBox APR

The 110m² outlet was unveiled along with the opening of Plaza Indonesia’s new extension building which replaces the old extension bridge leading to eX, Plaza Indonesia’s hip and glamorous wing which opened a few years ago.

A far cry from an actual AppleStore opening, iBox’s APR opening was a very low key affair which involved only internal staff as well as myself and my colleagues from Macworld Indonesia. There were no cheers, no clapping of hands, no shouts of joy nor T-Shirt giveaways that accompany the opening of every AppleStore outlet. There had been zero promotion or hype to get people to come to the store and there were no crowd to speak of. This was not Apple’s own outlet. This was a reseller outlet. The large iBox sign hanging from the roof explained enough.

Many passersby who saw the store seemed indifferent although those who paid a visit were pleased that there is now a full fledged Apple reseller at Plaza Indonesia. Previously iBox at Plaza Indonesia only had a tiny corner at the old extension bridge and a small shop inside eX at the ground level. The small shop remains though the corner shop has been shutdown along with the old bridge.

Identical Appearance

You’d never be able to tell which APR shop you’re in thanks to the uniform visual design. It seems that Apple South Asia has decided that every APR in Indonesia will sport the exact same look, most likely reason is to enforce the Apple brand and experience. All APR outlets have solid and simple brown wooden tables, black rack-mount walls and glass cabinets that are identical from store to store regardless of the operator.

Only the signage, acrylic stands and the brochures let you know whether you’re at iBox, Infinite, Zoom, or EMAX. At the moment only eStore APR at Ratu Plaza has a distinct design but that will change soon as they have began their Apple-enforced renovation process.

While existing APR outlets have at least one training room, iBox’s, being the smallest of the bunch, focuses solely on retail. There are no training rooms and no service counters. However, being the most compact gives it the advantage of looking the most well-equipped and even during quiet times when there are only a handful of customers, the store seemed busy. They do ask that any and all service enquiries be addressed to either iBox at Puri Imperium or iBox at Ratu Plaza.

If you’re ever in the neighborhood with a craving for Apples, check out this new store. Its neighbors are pretty hip brands such as Starbucks, Adidas, Metrox, Puma, Mos Burger, Pancious, Hello Lulu, and Fossil, among many others.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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So last night I was asked to come to a Microsoft event. What’s a Mac geek like me doing at a Microsoft event? Because like it or not Microsoft is part of the Mac world. Ya. Mac is a PC too. You see now you can run Mac OS X and Windows on a Mac so in a way Mac is like the only computer you’ll ever need… wait… that sounded familiar.

Anyway, odd that I’d make an appearance at a Microsoft event? Not so much because after all I’d soak up anything to do with tech and the Internet and Windows Live is mostly about the internet. Microsoft was launching it’s new Windows Live service that to me looks like a direct competitor to Facebook, which is strange because Microsoft is a Facebook investor. Then again it’s probably not so strange considering it’s Microsoft.

The invitation said the show was to run from 17:30 to 19:00. My friend and I got to the place just before 5:30 to do the registration and we were the first to arrive. Entering the show floor we saw dancers still practicing their routines on stage and staff still doing all sorts of checking.

While punctuality was never expected at any public event in Indonesia, we never expected to be forced to wait without any kind of sustenance for over 2 hours. At 7 pm we spoke to the PR agency that handle Microsoft Advertising that we are clearly unhappy with the situation more so  because not a single person offered an explanation as to what the hell was going on. They extended all sorts of apologies but we were having none of it. They clearly did not appreciate people’s time so why should we extend our courtesy to them?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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