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Marisa Meltzer uses a post at The Daily Beast to put the three-minute satire into context: "Haskins is a comedian and culture critic whose short-but-sweet segments called 'Target Women' on Current TV's Infomania have already become a kind of girly Daily Show, making fun of the many merciless ways consumer products are marketed to women."

Haskins pulls no punches in her critique of female-oriented yogurt ads. While running clips from TV spots in which two female friends kvell over the wonderful qualities of their yogurt, Haskins nods enthusiastically in faux agreement while spooning some into her mouth. "Say more stuff I generically relate to!" she says.

She then switches back to commentary mode. "Yogurt eaters come from every race, but just one socioeconomic class. The class that wears gray hoodies. It's the 'I have a master's but then I got married' look," explains Haskins. And it will come as no surprise that they all seem to have another stereotype in common. "These ladies are on diets," she says with heavy emphasis.

There's some more fun before Haskins concludes with this scathing summation. "Yogurt," she says. "What else could a woman possibly need?" And this leads directly to your Marketing Inspiration. When using advertising clichés to reach women, be aware that some in your audience won't appreciate such an obvious approach

India without a doubt continues to be one of the most dynamic and fastest growing major telecom markets in the world. There was little evidence by mid-2009 that the global financial crisis was dampening growth in any significant way. 

The mobile sector in particular continues its strong march forward. The country’s mobile subscriber base has already grown from around 10 million in 2002 to 350 million by the start of 2009. A number of factors have been responsible for this amazing growth, including low tariffs, low handset prices and most notably a highly competitive market created by the government and the regulator. While GSM technology remains dominant, by early 2009 CDMA was still managing to hang on to a 25% market share. 

The total mobile market was expanding at an annual rate of close to 50% coming into 2009. All things considered the mobile industry should continue its present strong growth for the time being. On the somewhat contentious subject of 3G licences, the delays continued up to mid-2009, by which time the most recent roadblock, a dispute between the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Finance over licence fees, appeared to be close to resolution. In the meantime the two state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL had made a start on rolling out their pilot 3G networks. 

With fixed-line subscribers at slightly less than 38 million in early 2009, the market has witnessed a modest decline in that particular segment. Growth initially stalled in 2006 and fixed-line numbers are not expected to pick up again for some time. (It should be noted that in 2005 India’s telecom regulator began counting fixed WLL services as ‘wireless’ services and not as ‘wireline’ meaning that they were absorbed into the mobile statistics and were not able to be separated out any longer as fixed services. This has caused some confusion in the reporting data.) The total telephone subscriber base (mobile and fixed) had passed 400 million by February 2009, as the number of subscribers was rose by an average of 12 million per month in the first half of the year. 

Regulatory reform has been central to the development of India’s telecoms market. Sweeping reforms by successive governments over the last decade have dramatically changed the nature of telecommunications in the country. In the meantime, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India remains committed to further regulatory and structural reforms. The adoption of Unified Licensing, a change in the Access Deficit Charge regime, and the encouragement of increased infrastructure sharing, especially the towers for mobile networks, are all contributing to ongoing growth. Another important initiative has been the government’s revised Foreign Direct Investment policy which increased the foreign ownership cap from 49% to 74%. 

If anything it could be said that the regulation of the market has been overly enthusiastic; there are some signs that the market was starting to suffer from the complexity of the regulatory regime. Changing the regulation of the industry was certainly not easy with many observers initially being sceptical of the strategies adopted by the government. In parallel with the regulatory change process, there has been a continuing evolution of the market through a series of mergers and takeovers among the mobile operators that has resulted in welcome and productive consolidation. In the final analysis the so-called ‘licensing by circles’ policy has been credited with establishing a highly competitive and healthy telecoms market. Initially the circles policy had been considered complex and unwieldy. But, with the assistance of a comparatively well regulated commercial environment, with plenty of growth potential and an increasingly open market, India is proving to be an attractive telecoms destination for foreign investment with a clear way forward to further growth.

One market segment that has continued to puzzle the observer is broadband Internet. Despite the obvious enthusiasm for Internet access to be found across the country, India’s move into high-speed broadband has been noticeably sluggish. The number of dial-up Internet subscribers has been increasing in a healthy fashion over the years. Between 2003 and 2008, the total Internet subscriber base increased fourfold over that five year period. The question remained, however, where was the broadband? It is true that there have been a number of surges in growth over the years, but this has always been off a relatively low base. Despite a major jump in subscribers in 2008, by early 2009 broadband Internet penetration remained only 0.5%; and broadband services still only accounted for one third of the total Internet subscriber base, still in itself comparatively low. In other words, by early 2009 there were only around 6 million broadband subscribers in India out of a total of around 18 million Internet subscribers. In the meantime, somewhat paradoxically the overall level of Internet usage seems to be growing strongly, perhaps boosted by the widespread use of Internet cafes and other points of public online access. There were an estimated 90 million Internet users throughout the country by January 2009, representing a penetration rate of almost 9%. 

Key highlights:

• The mobile market continues to move along its boom path; by early 2009, India had 350 million mobile subscribers.
• The mobile market continued to expand at an annual rate around 50% into 2008.
• GSM remains the dominant technology in the mobile market, but CDMA maintains a solid 25% market share.
• The number of broadband Internet subscribers in India is starting to become more significant, having increased by more than 70% in 2008, yet broadband subscribers still only comprised 0.5% of the population at the start of 2009.
• DSL, representing about 81% of the local broadband market, is steadily losing market share to other non-DSL broadband platforms.
• After experiencing a series of frustrating bureaucratic delays, India looks set to issue 3G licences in the second half of 2009.
• The MCIT’s target of 500 million telephone subscribers (fixed and mobile) by 2010 looks likely to be exceeded by around 100 million.

A new Netherlands Ambassador was recently appointed to Australia.

I met His Excellency Willem Andreae a couple of months ago at a reception to welcome him. He told me that the project that is most important to him is the construction of a new Dutch Embassy in Canberra.

And his goal is nothing less than to build the world’s first smart embassy!

This includes various ‘green’ and ‘smart’ aspects – from design to materials used, production of the raw materials, climate control, daylight, acoustics, temperature, ventilation, lifespan of the building, trees on the site and water usage.

The aim is to be 100% carbon neutral.

The architecture of the building is stunning. It is a round structure with an atrium in the middle and a ‘sun mill’– a sun panel that moves with the sun – on the roof, similar to the Dutch windmills that were turned according to the direction of the wind.

The building will also use thermal energy.

But the vision of the Dutch government goes beyond the actual building. They also want to use this project to bridge the distance between the two countries, to make it a joint venture. It was designed in the Netherlands but will be built by Australians, with local expertise and materials.

The Netherlands will also use this to position themselves for the future. There is a rich history between the two countries but here the focus is on the future. It is envisaged that experts and companies from both countries will use the opportunity to build research, expertise and commercial bridges. There was an open invitation from the ambassador for others to become involved with ideas, suggestions and participation in the project.

Of course, when he mentioned this project to me I immediately saw a connection with the other smart activities that are happening in Australia. I thought of the trans-sector potential that this project offers, particularly in relation to other ‘smarts’ such as telecoms (connected to the National broadband Network), smart grids, and other communications and IT smarts. So I suggested organising a meeting at the embassy with industry representatives to develop this further.

It was a very successful meeting, and further follow-ups have already been planned. It clearly spoke to the industry imagination and fitted in nicely with the many activities that are currently underway in Australia, from both the government and the industry. Some of the obvious links that can be established are with the TransAct broadband network, ACTEWAGL’s smart grid and the proposed sun farm in Canberra. Both the ACT government and the universities can be involved in various studies, promotions and other activities. E-health was also addressed. A study project looking at the current work situation of embassy staff and comparing it with the situation in the new embassy at a later date could show if smart buildings also make for happy people.

It will be fascinating to see how all these different elements will come together in this project, delivering one truly integrated end result. The aim for completion is late 2010.

The embassy is currently developing a website where it will present its plan, and where progress reports will be published. They will have blogs about the many aspects of the building and they hope to engage students and other interested parties to discuss and debate the pros and cons as the building progresses.

I envisage that this could become a highly visible demonstration of a smart building project; it will enable the broader industry to show how a ‘green’ and ‘smart’ trans-sector approach can work. Presentations of this project – in both Australia and the Netherlands – will certainly also feature in some of the industry conferences covering various smart areas in relation to planning and architecture, energy and sustainability, communications and IT, and this would highlight the capabilities of those involved in the project in both countries.