Student Council’s Election

Aaron Lo’s usually mundane life gets jazzed up a little today.

Today was Student Council’s Election, and like last semester, the spotlight is on students running for positions in the Student Council. The speech that was required by all participants in the election was a great chance to hear about the student’s credentials and past experiences, as well as to discern how diverse our student body is. Or so I thought.

I ran for Publicity Officer, which is primarily like a PR person, although I’ve always interpret it as an advertising job. At some point of time before deciding on the PR job, I thought of running for President, but upon much deliberation, I decided that I do not want to repeat my mistake in Grade 11 of holding too much leadership positions and do just little (that have always made me feel like a jerk). Much to my surprise, I won uncontested, which grants me a little ambivalence. For one, it feels darn good to win uncontested. On the other side of the coin however, no competition exists, which took away all the fun, excitement and risk.

So my speech basically covers my past experiences in the field, rather that trying hard in desperation to beg people out there to vote for me. My speech went like this:

-Introduction, greetings, etc
-Illustrate the role of Publicity Officer (just a little bit)
-Why Student Council needs an advertising or publicity person to do the job
-Explain why I am in a unique position to take on the job
-My winning of that competition organized by Ogilvy & Mather
-Ads appearing in national newspaper recently as case study of a good ad
-Was in Student Council last semester, did posters last semester
-Did copywriting work and issue press statements for NGOs (publicity related stuffs)
-Made an ad presentation in front of the Education Minister of Malaysia, posters available in all secondary school in KL, coz’ that’s where sex is rampant..
-My advertising club (did some advertising too, asking people who are interested to join)

After I gave mine, there were a few other speeches from those running for Vice President and President. Some speeches were really short and succint, while some were as lame as that of Hao-Wei. Some goes extra miles to stress how many presidential positions they hold in high school.

Pardon my expression, but I personally have cynical views about people who boast how many presidential positions they hold. I mean, it doesn’t really show anything about you, apart from manifesting your audacity to stalk the teacher in charge to grant you a presidential position. I believe the most important thing to share, is what have you done and what impact and legacy have you left behind during your tenure as the president, not how many presidents you have in your resume. It is a typical quality over quantity notion.

Those who did not ask people to vote for them but insist that people only vote for them only if the people have confidence in them, have total reverence from me. I believe the most noble thing is to leverage on strengths, credentials, and experiences to win something, not through campaigning and asking friends to vote for you. Here, I can’t help comparing this situation with our government. Why do the Member of Parliament even want to appear to campaign for the election? Do a good job and people will judge for themselves, not appearing only when the general election is coming. The roads near my house were recently resurfaced, perhaps an indication an upcoming general election?

During the voting session, everyone is free to move around, so I was walking around with these lecturers telling me that I made a good speech, which sounded a little superficial to me. I mean, I know what I did. I screwed up the first part of my speech. I was totally tired after playing the piano till 1am the night before for some competition. Some lecturers were asking me about the Education Minister. First it was Miss Woi, then Miss Najjar and another new male teacher, Mr La Voie I think. Mr Welch too came to talk to me about it. So did Puan Dzura. And all of a sudden my otherwise mundane life turns wow.

The most memorable thing, however, is when the Program Director aka Principal Mr Terry Butcher (Bu-Shey) came to tell me that he hoped I can contribute in a profound manner to the Student Council. Ok, that was fairly expected. But what was not expected, was when he told me that he’d heard a lot about me, good things. I must admit that I am a little flattered, but hey, HOW? I mean the program director had just arrive a month ago and today was my first contact with him (Insert random enigmatic theme). He also opined that I am an “articulate young man”, much to my surprise.

Enigma and mysteries aside, today is a fun day for me, but probably not-so-fun for Hao-Wei. He claimed he screwed up his speech, which I thought he kind of did too. As a person who values remarkable friendship a lot and whose purpose of existence is to bring joy and alleviate sufferings of the people around (that’s me), I decided to use my new-found philosophical problem solving technique to help him. This week’s reading materials are all about Philosophy.

I told him that he screwed things up because God wants to teach him a lesson on the importance of preparation (he did not prepare his speech before hand), so that he will get it right the next time, where the stakes could possibily be higher, like running for a position in Donald Trump’s company. He called me in return to tell me he felt better, albeit he did it in a subtle manner (he’s too afraid and shy to admit that I am the nicest friend he ever had..)

[ I might have interpret his words wrongly though]

I shall call this a day. A great day.

A Date of Significance

14th of February 2007 – a date of significance.

Not because I had a hot date on Valentine’s Day sipping classic wine in a French restaurant in the highest floor of Hotel Maya overlooking the Petronas Twin Towers. Neither because I receive a love letter by Anonymous via a pudgy little white pigeon when I was contemplating and looking out of the window staring at blank white walls of my neighbour’s house.

It was actually the day where my very first real-life marketing campaign saw its effectiveness, at least in the eyes of Mr. Aaron Lo.

To enlighten those who flash the big question mark at the thinking bubble/cloud behind them, 14^th of February 2007 was actually a theme day at my college, or in other words, a day where people dress up in accordance with a designated theme.

It was Pink and Red day on Valentine’s Day (still wondering how and why love is associated with pink and red).

The idea is to have everyone to dress up in either a pink or a red shirt. As a member of the Student’s Council, I volunteered myself to do a poster marketing campaign for this event, since I felt utterly uncomfortable not being busy.

And viola! This is the advertisement that I created. (And was pasted around college; See the two pictures below)

In brief (I could explain this in a two pages Microsoft Word document bearing the font size of “6” couple with the mundane font of “Times New Roman”), the idea is to show that there are indeed many ways of showing love (as shown in the top of the ad with the words “ways of showing love # 465; “465” is just a arbitrarily generated number to depict the sheer amount of ways to show love), but some can be expensive (that is what the platinum diamond ring and its price tag are for).

Thereafter, I conveyed the intended message, telling my targeted audience that a less expensive way of showing love is to wear a pink and/or red shirt, which I presume many already had at least one and that there is absolutely no necessity for them to fork out that extra money to get one. Hence, the “inexpensive exhibition of love” concept aimed at appealing to and in line with the reasoning and emotional side of my targeted audience.

Apart from that, one thing that I created without any “hidden agenda” was a logo for CIMP Theme Days at the bottom right of the ad. I am contemplating using the same logo for any future theme day’s advertisement. Indirectly, I’ve created a logo or a sense of identity for the student’s council that is bound to be pass on from generations to generations, and I am the one receiving all the credits and a ticket to the Hall of Fame. Wahahahaha – Not!

Initially, the plan was to have other expensive ways of showing love appearing on another ad, to bring out a few different but still integrated advertisements. Example: Ways of showing love #263, with a bouquet of roses with the price tag of US$ 99; or Ways of showing love # 784, with a Malaysia Airlines ticket for two to Maldives costing US$ 699 each. You know what I mean?

Alas and alack, time is scarce (I have said this plenty of times).

Nevertheless, I was quite please about the favourable response received when I first unveil the advertisement (I try to be as oblivious to unfavourable response as possible, though I have yet to receive any). Miss Ford, the Student’s Council teacher advisor gave me a thumbs up with an utterance of two words, “Very nice!” while my close friend Jeremy Gan said it sucks when I send it to him via MSN Messenger. A while later I notice the violation of my intellectual property rights when I see my ad on his blog with all that florid words depicting a favourable response to my ad. (The word is hypocrisy.)

On Valentine’s Day, many dressed up in pink or red, and that alone brought me much satisfaction and eagerness to come up with greater and more effective marketing campaigns and advertisements.

Anyway, the A Level’s Committee (some organization bearing some functional resemblance to Student’s Council) came up with a similar “wear pink/red” message few days later. You have to guess who is the copycat. Take a look:

I think I prefer mine…