The Last Word

Somalia’s reputation has taken a battering over the past two decades as a result of incessant conflict. However, one of the warring parties has come up with a novel approach to marketing the country as a destination –make getting married there cheap. The Ahlu-Sunna Waljamaa group, which controls the central regions of the war-torn country and is allied to the internationally-backed Transitional Federal Government, has set new rules for weddings taking place in areas under their authority. The strictures include a ban on long vehicle convoys. These can sometimes have as many as 50 cars, which the militants consider to be extravagant and un-Islamic. Consequently, wedding the wedding parties have been limited to a maximum of 3 cars. However, wedding tourists may be put off by the requirement that, according to one Ahlu Sunna commander, there be no celebration after the end of a week long honeymoon “when the couple are over with their whatever.”

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The board of directors at the world’s largest technology firm, HP, is fighting to restore its good name following the less than quiet departure of the firm’s chief executive. Mark Hurd was forced to resign after he failed to tell the board about a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor who was hired by his office. Additionally, he allegedly falsified expense reports for dinners he had with Jodie Fisher, a 50 year-old an actress and businesswoman whom the company was paying up to $5,000 per event to greet people and make introductions at events. In what must serve as a cautionary tale for executives everywhere, the details of Hurd’s malfeasance only came to light after Fisher sued him –get this- for sexual harassment. Now, some of his friends, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, have publicly challenged the decision to remove him, noting that he was getting stick from both ends without benefit of a carrot (the relationship with Fisher was never consummated).

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Marketers will tell you that a Brand Proposition is the bundle of benefits promised by any brand. For example, the slogan for JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost carrier, promises “Happy Jetting.” However, last Monday, this was a promise that the company spectacularly failed to keep on the tarmac at Kennedy International Airport. Following a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch luggage too soon, career flight attendant Steven Slater got on the public-address intercom and let loose a string of invective before making the most dramatic of exits. Grabbing a beer (or two, no one’s really sure) from the beverage cart not only from the plane, the probably-now-unemployed 38 year old deployed the emergency evacuation chute and slid down. He then ran to the employee parking lot and drove off, the authorities said.

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It might be accurate to say that Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm which recently agreed to pay $550 million to settle charges of selling mortgage securities secretly designed to help a hedge-fund cash in on the housing market's collapse, has soiled it image. Just don’t use a four-letter equivalent. In the wake of embarrassing profanity that came to light in recent Congressional hearings, the company has banned employees from swearing in emails. "[B]oy, that timberwo[l]f was one s****y deal," declared a 2007 email that was repeatedly referred to at the hearing. Now the company has employed screening software to catch naughty words, even those disguised by asterixes. In fact, so effective is the new software that the injunction itself had to be delivered to employees verbally.

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New Delhi is infamous for its unruly motorists who routinely ignore red lights, and other inconvenient traffic rules, to find open routes –much like our matatus. Now, the city’s traffic police have turned to a well known brand for help. Within two months of the cops starting a Facebook page where people could post photographs of traffic violations, digital informants had posted almost 3,000 photographs and dozens of videos. According to Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Satyendra Garg, using the license plate numbers shown in the images to track vehicle owners, Delhi Traffic Police have issued close to 700 tickets. Almost 50 these went to police officers.