Pixel Prose

Viva la revolución

2009-06-27T22:42:00.006+04:00

Change is never easy. The rights we take for granted today were sown by people who believed in their cause so passionately that they would huddle under the shimmer of moonlight at risk of life and limb to bring about change. Of course, things have come a long way since then. First there was email, then blogs and now micro blogs.

I've been on email since 1997 and written this blog since 2006, but I have to admit that I've never quite felt as empowered to build support for change as I have since I began tweeting earlier this month. If you don't believe me, start by asking yourself a simple question - how many times have you wanted to drop an anvil on your computer in frustration or go out on to the streets in protest, but just couldn't convince yourself or couldn't, period?

Those are the exact questions the people of Iran and the Email Standards Project asked themselves this month - and they did something about it. By encouraging people to voice their opinions on twitter, these two campaigns successfully built support for change. In fact, you too can join the revolution by simply tweeting about something you're passionate about. For example, you can start by telling Microsoft to fix Outlook 2010 before it's too late or wake up to find all those great looking emails charred in your mailbox in 2011.

Viva la revolución.

Lock, stock and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars

2008-08-15T14:58:00.014+04:00

When wine.com and business.com sold for a record-breaking $2.9 and $7.5 million, respectively, at the height of the dot-com bubble, a growing number of people saw an investment opportunity which we've come to know as cybersquatting. In fact, a brand-jacking report released by MarkMonitor this spring shows that the practice has grown by approximately 40% in the last year alone into a multi-million dollar industry.

Despite the apparent lawlessness, a legal framework does exist to protect genuine trademark owners. However, the opportunity cost involved in pursuing a domain name dispute often outweighs what most businesses are willing to invest in their presence on the Internet, let alone the risk of losing a dispute to a legal loophole. Some famous disputes that have made the news in recent years include nissan.com and PETA.org.

Prevalent as it may have been in the rest of the world, cybersquatting hadn't quite made it to the Middle East until word of Dubai's growing prosperity began to make the headlines in 2003. For example, Sama Dubai - a leading real estate company and television channel in the UAE have their domain name held to ransom with a rumored seven figure US$ asking price. One among the fortunate few who got away with a bargain is Dubai's first low cost carrier - Fly Dubai, whose domain name appears to have been sold for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Rollover to explode the world

2008-07-01T10:09:00.004+04:00

I normally don't revel in other people's goof-ups, but (cross my heart and hope to die) this advertisement really did appear on Windows Live for MSN Arabia's travel service this morning. Hats off for reaching out to an untapped target audience.

Fare and square

2008-06-05T18:16:00.023+04:00

In the face of skyrocketing oil prices over the last five years, airlines have had a tough time trying to convince the average Joe that they're better off flying than taking the train or not traveling at all.

The first and simplest model is that of the base fare, which most low cost carriers have adopted. They believe that if you can attract a prospect with a $10 base fare, that they can then be convinced to purchase a ticket at its actual fare of $200. After all, once you've trimmed away your last olive, why take the blame for the mile-high list of airport, bank, fuel company, insurance and government surcharges.

The surprising thing about this model is that it works - or will at least work until everyone else follows suit. For example, imagine picking up a pack of crisps for 5 cents, only to have the cashier hand out an itemized bill with an additional $1.95 in display, storage, transportation, municipality, cleaning and government surcharges. FMCG arguably isn't the best example, but you get the picture. The restaurant industry reacted in a similar manner when they faced rising taxes a few years ago, only to fall back to all-inclusive prices in due course. Distancing yourself from the reality of an industry to maintain sales targets only breeds commoditization and is at best a short-term solution.

Then there's the value model, which is by far the most demanding. Instead of competing or justifying price, most premium airlines create value by investing in long-term solutions such as service differentiation, improving brand perception and encouraging travel. This option is particularly difficult for small airlines to adopt because it requires substantial short-term investment. The advantage however, is that the airline and its customers won't be held ransom to market fluctuations.

Last on the list is the transparent cost model, which airlines usually adopt after either exhausting or forgoing the value creation model. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one - the airline's fares fluctuate in proportion to its costs. While it may pinch sales in the short term, you can at least rest in the consolation that the airline isn't compromising its standards. Airlines in this model tend to either shelve all non-essential services or offer it at a significantly higher premium. The key word here is brutal honesty; anything less and it's back to the base fare model.

Although the value and transparent cost models may seem worlds apart, they're actually not that different. The difference lies quite simply in whom the models benefit. While the former benefits the airline industry, the latter benefits passengers. In fact, most airlines choose a balanced mix of the two.

Family name etymology

2008-05-30T17:33:00.011+04:00

In most parts of North India, you'll come across some interesting family names which have roots dating back to their first ancestors' professions, such as Screwvala, which literally means screw vendor. However, back down in South India, I was content with the fact that our names didn't mean much; or at least that's what I thought until earlier this week, when I stumbled across my family name's etymology.

What would you do

2008-05-16T08:34:00.016+04:00

Last Monday, a father inadvertently left his 23-month-old son in Vancouver airport; a story which should remind you of Home Alone 2. No, the son didn't thwart a midnight heist of Duncan's Toy Chest, but nonetheless, Air Canada generously offered to fly the father all the way back from Winnipeg and to Vancouver again, which, given the minimum $438 round-trip fare, is something they weren't obligated to do, let alone in 2008.

The question I was recently asked of a similar situation was how I, as a shareholder of the company, would have reacted to the news. Even if you put aside the warm fuzziness and consider the chip off the company's bottom-line, the answer's still obvious - I'd be proud. As a customer, you'd be silly to expect them to do it again, but at least you'll know that they have a heart, which in turn builds brand empathy.

It goes against everything you may have learnt in B-school, but it works. For example, while most airlines throw in bonus reward miles and levy second bag surcharges, Air Canada offers its customers an alternate $22 discount for forgoing reward miles, checked baggage and date flexibility. Honest.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but for some odd reason the only thing that comes to mind when I hear the word PR is Prentiss McCabe. Air Canada has shown that by focusing on genuine customer satisfaction, that they've spent a fraction of what they would've paid their PR agency and achieved so much more.

Inspiriert

2008-03-18T00:13:00.004+04:00

For those of you who've pulled dusty Merriam and Webster out of the closet, the title's German for "inspired"; and no, you're not going to receive a Zertifikat Deutsch for guessing that anytime soon. I simply reckoned that if Audi could be brave enough to push "vorsprung durch technik" around the world, they must have had a pretty damn good reason.

The question is, were they arrogant or simply inspired?

For someone who's been in advertising, I can tell you that the inspiration behind a brand seldom makes the fifteen feet from the marketer's sketchpad to the developer's keyboard. Yet, it is that very inspiration, which makes the product break free of the clutter of price and promotion.

And what better way to be inspired than in the details; which is precisely what Audi have managed to do with their 2008 A4 (well, at least for the first 15 seconds). From the error messages to the manner in which the experience begins, the theme of setting a new standard is reinforced time and again. It's just a shame that the rest of the site doesn't quite follow suit.

The incredible Brandini 2

2008-02-13T00:08:00.000+04:00

Even as children back in grade six, we knew there was something special about the swoosh or those three stripes we found on our desks. They were brands that inspired. Brands that inspired you to make every last segment of pencil lead count, as your chemistry teacher turned to the periodic table on page 345.

While some companies have the luxury of throwing bags filled with Benjamin Franklin at the likes of Landor and The Brand Union, figuring out a brand on your own brings its own satisfaction. In this particular case, I'll use the example of Musafir - a brand I've been working on these last few weeks.

If you've read the first post in this series, I'll skip having to discover the brand for obvious reasons and jump right into defining it. Now there are books that ramble on about procedures to define your brand, and animated slides that make even less sense. In all honesty, all you need to do is look at your competition, look at your market and find your niche.

I've personally seen brand pyramids that can go as far as nine tiers and rarely do they share the same terminology, but it's relevance that matters at the end of the day. We found our nirvana in understanding our brand's benefits, personality, values and essence.

With the definition locked in, the abstract moves to the tangible - creating the brand's visual identity. You'll have noticed that a bit of color theory went into the brand pyramid above; and with good reason too. The two weeks it took to define this particular brand were overshadowed by the four it took to approve a visual identity.

This is obviously the most subjective step in the entire process, with the only boundaries being those set by the brand pyramid. However, ten rounds of archaic, indistinguishable and complex artwork later, we finally reached a consensus.

And that in a nutshell is defining and creating a brand at its simplest. There'll be more about cultivating and communicating a brand in the posts to follow.

Mark, Mörker and Minifångst

2008-01-08T22:15:00.001+04:00

They say there's nothing like a bit of free publicity, and what better way than to invite a comedian (slash) filmmaker of CNN repute to live in your apartment while his house is being fumigated? Well, that's exactly what an IKEA store in New Jersey did. In return, your guest gets to play laser tag with the security guards and write about it all week long!

Mark lives in IKEA is an interesting little campaign which is sure to raise a few eyebrows, if not drive people to check out the IKEA in Paramus. It's a long way from anything award-winning and the missus certainly didn't share Mark's enthusiasm, but only the coming weeks will tell if IKEA's holiday cheer was put to good use.

In case you're still trying to swallow Mörker and Minifångst, join the millions of other IKEA customers who can't introduce their own table lamp and organizer.

I double dare you

2007-12-22T14:43:00.000+04:00

Morgan Stanley spent months trying to figure out if the serifs in their corporate typeface made them look weak (if you've only noticed the "g", look closer Holmes). On the other hand, a bunch of old mates caught up over a pint of Stella to discuss the next best thing online and in a drunken slur, christened it "zyb"!

But don't let the name fool you. Zyb is a great little service that lets you back up and synchronize your address book across as many phones as you'd like to - and it's idiot-proof. Those of you who've lost a night or two trying synchronize their Blackberries over Bluetooth will particularly appreciate this.

One of the really neat things about the site is how it provides pretty much up-to-the-second feedback when you synchronize your phone.

PS: If you don't know how to configure your Nokia to use the Internet, their support website will get you going in just a few clicks.

High treason versus evolution

2007-10-06T12:25:00.000+04:00

I thought I'd run out of things to write about this weekend - that is until Etisalat came along. With two long-drawn IVR telephone calls behind me, I'd finally managed to set up my E4ME account, only to receive this SMS.

Your high school English teacher would have called it high treason and I personally think that it reduces Etisalat's brand to mulch, but you have to admit that the abbreviation "ur" is just about as legitimate as the contraction "you're". In fact, just six centuries ago, you'd be ridiculed for using anything short of "thine".

I'd hate to think that's what the schools will be teaching in a couple of years' time, but there's a small chance that internet slang could just be evolution at work. Think of how much print space we'd save.

On that note, you'll also be interested to know that Hinglish is recognized after all.

406 acres of trees

2007-09-28T19:41:00.000+04:00

While Gulf News have been busy running the results of March's BPA audit these last few days, has anyone stopped to think about the amount of useless paper they drop at your doorstep each morning?

The freehold, properties and classifieds sections alone accounted for an average of 330 half-size pages from Sunday to Thursday last week. If you factor in their circulation base of 103,163 and for argument's sake, assume that half of those people have no means of looking up these listings on the internet, you end up with a staggering 2.2 billion full-size newspaper pages each year, which we could do without.

Before you start to feel sorry for the people that have to deal with all that pointless waste paper each year, let's do a little more math. Boise Cascade reckons that it takes 1 cubic foot of cottonwood to make approximately 738 full-size newspaper pages. If we're to assume that Gulf News' stock works along the same lines, that works out to 2.9 million cubic feet of wood.

Furthermore, if Murray and Harrington have done their bit correctly, that translates into 406 acres of cottonwood plantation each year, which, is roughly about the size of Monaco. While it may not seem like a lot at first, bear in mind that each cottonwood tree takes 60 to 75 years to mature.

So Gulf News, if you're reading this, I'll gladly fork over the same subscription fee - just stop sending me the freehold, properties and classifieds sections.

The incredible Brandini 1

2007-09-22T17:47:00.000+04:00

With three weeks of meetings, pyramids and snide comments behind me, I've come to the conclusion that anyone who has anything complex to say in a brand exercise meeting either hasn't the faintest clue of what they're talking about or is trying to mask their own uncertainty. I know this to be true because I did it twice, and at lightning speed, I might add.

So, over the next few weeks, I'm going to reduce the process of creating a new brand to its basics. For starters, here's how the process should look from afar.

Discover: Find out about the company, the people that drive it, what makes them unique and why they need a brand.

Define: Form and test five statements about the brand - what it represents, its benefits, the values it stands for, how it should be perceived and how it fits with the brands it works with.

Create: Build the brand's physical manifestation - the colors, shapes, images and words which will help reinforce the brand's statements.

Cultivate: Educate the people that drive the company about what the brand stands for, what their role is conveying its benefits and why it's important to the company's perception.

Communicate: Share the brand with the rest of the world.

Simple

2007-09-22T12:58:00.000+04:00

Chiquita planted their flag online in Belgium last year, in an effort to save their image after eight executives were framed for dealings with the Colombian paramilitary. While I'll give them credit for exploring the medium, the question you need to ask yourself is does a brand with an otherwise simple proposition really need to be that complicated online?

I came across their "Brain Fuel" sticker down at the local grocery this morning (yes, it's probably been around for ages, and no, I didn't notice it). It's simple, conveys the product's proposition and doesn't even have to bat an eyelid for your attention. In fact, if you spend the extra five minutes to dig up why they're considered brain fuel, you'll find that every word of it's true.

Do the people in coach ride for free?

2007-09-08T01:55:00.000+04:00

Here's what Keith Longstaff, a Senior VP of Emirates' commercial operations in Europe had to say about their new A380 in an interview with Arabian Business - "You run an aircraft to make a profit. All of the [gizmos] will be restricted to first and business while economy will be very similar - it will be a seat".

Thanks Keith. Makes me feel great after that TVC running through the snow :|

Is 8C really the best seat

2007-08-23T20:50:00.000+04:00

Unlike the watch-making fraternity which sets all their time pieces to 10:10:30 for a good reason, it appears that there's no real reason why Air France chose seat 8C for their advertisements.

In fact, you'll find that there're actually better seats all around it. SeatGuru is a great little service which can pinpoint the best seats on any aircraft operated by as many as 40 international airlines when I last checked.

The next time you fly to Bangkok, look out for Thai's Airbus A340-500 (345), which has up to 16% more room in coach than any other airline.

Une carnet sil vous plait

2007-08-22T21:38:00.000+04:00

My first words in French. Suffice it to say that the lady at the Metro station smiled quite a bit more than what I'm used to when I speak in Hindi. And if you think that's laugh, you should've heard the operator when I called for a taxi from Gare Aulnay Sous Bois.

The good news is that contrary to popular belief, English will get you where you need to go as long as you stay within city limits. However, if you're thinking of a trip, here's a few things you should know:

First: a visit to the top of the Eiffel tower is not going to be the highlight of your trip. In fact, if you work above the fortieth floor of a building or have ever made it to the top of a reasonably tall hill, you've already seen it.

Second: any guided tour within city limits is a rip off - especially Cityrama's Paris Historic tour. Take the Metro and set yourself a limit of no more than an hour or two at every spot. Yes, that includes the Louvre, unless of course, you're an art fanatic. If you really want to break away from the crowd, try Paris Vision's tour of Epernay or Cityrama's tour of Giverny.

Third: even the best looking Parisian brasserie isn't too far from the likes of your average McDonald's. The food's either inedible or doubled up in butter to make up for the former. Finding a good spot takes a bit of searching, and a good sommelier is all the more difficult to come by. Whatever you do, resist the temptation to try Chinese, Irish, Japanese and Lebanese food - there are probably three of them for every French restaurant in the city. Frommers has great reviews of the leading restaurants in the city - listen to them!

Fourth: if you're looking for clean, no-frills accomodation, stay at the Ibis. Look for ones located close to the heart of the city and especially ones located close to a Metro station.

Fifth: Air France isn't the best carrier to fly to France, at least not in coach. They have a great experience all the way from the internet through to the boarding gate, but it's a different story on board. On the way in, their in-flight entertainment system crashed when I tried to switch to English and on the way out, they had me on the waiting list for an hour, despite a confirmed reservation. People may say that I'm biased or that they have a bad record with being on time - it doesn't matter. I flew them last year and I can tell you that they deliver. Fly Emirates.

PS: There's a stack of photographs from the trip in the Photography section.

Dinner for three

2007-06-16T23:46:00.000+04:00

The secret's finally out. I've been slacking off on my grad school application because I can't answer one question - "If you could choose any three people who have ever lived to join you for dinner, whom would you invite and why?". Sounds simple, right? Read on.

The first option which almost naturally flashes through any Indian's mind is Mahatma Gandhi. Father of the nation, the 1000 Rupee note, Ben Kingsley on 35mm and even that 8-lane highway you'll find in pretty much any Indian city. The problem with Mahatma Gandhi isn't quite as much about the glory of the ideals he stood for (I owe him my nationality). It's about how many Indians' essays will have him feature in it. It emphasizes conventional wisdom and has a hint of morality, but I honestly can't picture Mahatma Gandhi having an influence on the 21st century economy.

I can't quite explain it, and I don't think an ink blot test with Freud will prove otherwise, but I've had the strange urge to add Osama Bin Laden to the guest list since day one. Ethical dilemma and blunted cutlery aside, you have to be intrigued as to how a fifty-something year old man has had the entire western world running on a wild goose chase through 2 countries for over 5 years now. It screams of the unconventional, but has rash judgement written all over it.

Somewhere between delirium and sleep, I figured we might as well save a spot for George Bush Junior. After all, since the question said nothing about your guests having a positive impact on humantiy, I figured we might as well ask him what on God's green Earth he was thinking when his team presented the project plan for Iraq. Adding the most ridiculed person in world history to your list may not seem like the brightest idea, but you have to admit it'd be interesting to have him talk about the subject without a teleprompter.

An odd, but late addition to the list was Tipu Sultan. It's the palace which most people remember, but historians will tell you that Tipu Sultan was an innovator, a patron of the arts and a man of his word - ruthless, as he was determined. Now, here's someone I can almost see on the guest list - a man who was willing to die for what he thought was right. It has leadership and more importantly courage in big bold letters. So the admissions office will have a laugh trying to pronounce it, or worse still, call him Tipper Sullivan, I think we have a winner (one down, two to go).

(To be continued)

Your carbon footprint

2007-04-27T16:06:00.000+04:00

I read an article in the paper the other day about how Sheryl Crow thinks we're an "industrious enough people to make it work with only one square per restroom visit". A Seinfeld rant cut short (and this will come to bite me in a couple of years' time when we've run out of trees), I don't think I'll ever live up to her expectations.

For example, you probably think you saved a tree by not reading this on a piece of paper. However, if you live in a city which runs on fossil fuels, like I do, your computer, airconditioner and halogen reading lamp alone were responsible for 12 pounds of CO₂ in just the time it's taken you to get to this sentence.

The EPA and climatecrisis.net provide nifty little carbon footprint calculators which factor in everything from the model of your car to what you recycle. I found my carbon footprint to be a staggering 40,500 pounds of CO₂ each year. In fact, the UAE (where I live) has the world's third highest CO₂ emissions per capita, outranking the United States and France by factors of two and five, respectively. Those of you who see recycling as just another brown brochure will also be interested to know that you can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 4,000 pounds of CO₂ each year by simply recycling.

So go on. Figure out your carbon footprint! Even the lowly burger has one.

The limited edition screw

2007-04-21T14:43:00.000+04:00

A little over a week ago, Scientific American reported that Facebook had established a base of over 19 million registered users. It should come as no surprise then, that the team over at Facebook may be trying to nurture a potentially huge revenue stream from the simple one dollar gifts they introduced in February.

Of course, no one's expecting the limited edition screw and toilet paper to go anywhere, but imagine buying an iPod for your best friend's birthday and having it pop up on Facebook too? A year ago, I'd have sounded the privacy alarm if you told me that information was going to be public domain, but I guess that's now a part of the growing pool of information which we're willing to share.

Clutterphobia

2007-04-20T16:41:00.000+04:00

Some of you may have noticed that Google experimented with an alternate search result layout a couple of days ago. For a second there, I thought to myself, that's a great idea to draw attention to the AdWords which appear on the right-hand-side of each search result page. But if you spent a couple more seconds, you'd realize that you just couldn't take your eyes off the big blue box to get to the AdWords, which they'd probably tried to lure you into.

It's quite possible that having gotten used to the regular layout that I might've been intrigued by the experimental layout and focused on the big blue box to a degree that I wouldn't have, had it been around long enough. But I'm willing to bet that an eye tracking experiment will prove otherwise.

Shaped by design, the world of advertising challenges you to be unconventional - to break the mold and be different. However, we often forget that when it comes to user experience, it's quite alright to be conventional - predictable, if you will.

Johnathan Doeworthy Junior goes online

2007-04-06T17:52:00.000+04:00

Most people usually set a glass ceiling to what they'd purchase online. About 5 years ago that ceiling would have been my $75 domain name. Could I have purchased a $1500 air ticket online? Certainly. But I'd probably be more comfortable with the keys to the White House on a park bench in Baghdad.

Roll forward 5 years to last summer and I couldn't figure a better way to purchase my air ticket than to log on to emirates.com. It's a different story altogether that after 2 failed attempts and 3 days of emails that I eventually decided to go with the paper ticket (and no, it wasn't my fault).

The thought it evokes is that with increasing security and confidence in online transactions, people are beginning to raise their glass ceiling higher each year. And that most certainly includes Johnathan Doeworthy Junior too. Unlike Johnathan Doeworthy Senior, who had his personal assistant pick out his new $5000 organiser, Johnathan Doeworthy Junior is web savvy and would probably want to make that decision himself.

Statistics from comScore reveal that not only has the number of online apparel buyers gone up 23% for sites such as Amazon.com in the last year, but the average order value also increased by 6%. An interesting aspect though, is that the same category lost 3% on its consumer loyalty score in the last year.

There's a hint of a waning long term audience, but the opportunity for an exclusive high net worth retailer to step in, build customer loyalty through great experience and turn that score around is very real. A great little example I came across this morning on Three Minds is 20ltd's sale of one of only 20 eleven forty "Good versus Evil" Opus football tables in the world. Yes, Santa's the goalkeeper and Jack the Ripper plays opposite Mother Teresa, but it's the fact that it's going for GBP 14,500 that interests me.

i'm Confounded

2007-03-02T15:21:00.000+04:00

Microsoft just launched an interesting little drive to spread the word about Windows Live Messenger 8.1. Yes, I'm just as surprised that they didn't limit the terms to a build and release number, but the good news is that for every time you begin a conversation with the word "i'm", they'll chip in "a portion of the program's advertising revenue" to help causes from the American Red Cross to UNICEF.

Sounds generous, right? Wrong. Not only do you need to check off those two boxes, but you also need to suffix your messenger nickname with one of the nine carefully selected text codes to determine which cause you'd like to contribute to. I'll bet teenagers in the United Kingdom are just dying to suffix their nicknames with *naf. Add the fact that Microsoft doesn't really tell you how much they're willing to chip in, that it's only available in 33 countries and voila.

In all honesty, it's quite a bit more likely that Microsoft ran a usability test on the number of people who'd be willing to bend over backwards to contribute this way, and figured, what the heck, let's go for it! Besides, there're probably only 500 users who'd follow the instructions either way.

If you'd like to prove them wrong, take out 5 minutes from your schedule, download and install Windows Live Messenger 8.1, suffix your nickname with the text code of your cause and begin every conversation with an "i'm".

Personally, I'm satisfied with the advertisement-free Windows Messenger 4.3 that shipped with my computer back in 2004, and will more than gladly chip in the extra 2 dollars Microsoft could've chipped in to UNICEF on my behalf by the end of the year.

The drive only goes to show that even the best of intentions can be tarnished by poor usability and worse still, a poor understanding of your audience's capability.

Global warming

2007-02-14T19:52:00.001+04:00

Phenomenal success aside, Apple and Google share something in common. You could belittle it by calling it brand empathy, but it takes more than just brand empathy to turn the "I want an iPod this christmas" to "my iPod will keep me warm this winter". There are no lovable ad campaigns and their taglines don't need the word "human" - it's all about products which you and I see genuine value using.

Organic brand affection can be difficult to culture in an ad agency's studio, but that doesn't stop marketers from trying to graft in a branch or two. Recent campaigns range from Toyota's well-choreographed human touch to Cisco's unconvincing human network and Budweiser's pointlessly extravagant, login-driven Bud TV.

The latter two probably did their work as brand awareness and recall exercises, but that's where it ends. The problem is that most of Cisco's advertised value has nothing to do with Cisco as far as you're concerned, and we all know how good Bud and his buddies are for you.

The question isn't quite about how you plant organic brand affection. The dummies won't be rolling out a guide for that anytime soon. It's about whether your brand is worthy of affection in the first place.

Tax? What tax?

2007-02-07T16:54:00.000+04:00

If bouncing from Dubai Police's website to the RTA's website to Dubai E-Government's website to Comtrust's website and all the way back again doesn't drive you mad, here's something that will - the AED 10 "Knowledge Fee" they levy on top of every fine you pay online.