Friday, July 22, 2005

Marina Bay

HA. I was reading the newspaper about the new name of Marina Bay being .......Marina Bay. Yes, it was kind of funny when I first saw the headlines. I then realised that the national development ministry actually spent $400,000 in a branding exercise which took months of discussion with developers, retailers, restauranteurs and branding experts. In actual fact, they came up with over 400 potential names but in the end still decided that the best name is still Marina Bay. So each potential name cost about $1000? HA. This reminds me of my class last night. We were being lectured on decision making, and that decision making costs money, even if in the end you decided to do nothing. So Mah Bow Tan and gang organised a branding exercise, had many options, spent $400K and finally decided that the name should remain. What do you think?

Well, it seemed quite a logical thing for them to do. Although they went one full circle, I guess the expenditure was justified. But what if the branding exercise cost $4 million instead? Would the sentiments have been different? Ponder Ponder.

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