Old McDonalds had a bathroom, clean-y-, clean-y, O!

BPC was in a marketing & communications training today with international marketing heavyweight Peter Krieg from Copernicus ... itna cheap I am being name dropping, but I simply must as anyone who works in the filed will know how surreal it is to be in the presence of, to learn from (and in the lunch break, have a chat with) someone like him. Think of it like getting an acting class from ... say ... Michelle Rodriguez. She's not exactly Julia Roberts or Uma Thurman, but she's still something. (IMHO Rodriguez totally kicks ass.)

So yeah, training with the Rodriguez of marketing. Some really good insights, but I still had the same complaint I have with 99% of the International trainers that come to our side of the desert: lack of local content in the training program. All data, statistics, case studies etc etc were for brands that the average North American probably swears by, but which was pretty much Mongolian to those of us from Crazy Headquarters in Dubai. I mean, who the hell is Harvest Valley and MobilExxon?!!!

It does make me question the training skills of these trainers brought over from faraway lands. Don't get me wrong: the program itself was great, but does it really take Einstein to figure out which international brands the average entry level Middle Eastern marketeer/communicator is familiar with?

Any way, that's not the point of this post. The point is, BPC had a 'moment' during the training (y'know, a 'moment' ... when something happens, or you see or hear something that you and only you understand the significance of and the whole world just lights up ... or totally blacks out ... depending on what kind of a 'moment' it is.)

So this was one of those 'moments' that makes you smile from the inside because it transports you to a time and place that was one of the best in your whole life.

Krieg was talking about Brand identitites, what associations marketeers want their consumers ot make with brand and how, sometimes, they are totally out of touch with what the consumers really associate the brands with.

According to research, McDonalds means three things to the majority of people: BigMac, Happy Meal and ... get this .. clean bathrooms!

LOL

No kidding: clean bathrooms. A huge percentage of Americans automatically think of clean bathrooms when they think of McDonalds.

And that's where I had my 'moment'.

As Krieg revealed this interesting fact, I was taken back to backpacking days in Europe, summer of 2001.

After countless 'smelly' encounters, a fellow backpacker (no prizes for guessing which country he came from!) clued me in: when nature calls, you look for those yellow arches. BPC discovered a whole new world ... one without bits of toilet paper stuck to your shoe when you leave the loo ...

Ah yes, the days of leisure when the toughest choice I had to make was whether to turn in early and catch a train to some strange new city the next morning, or to stay up all night gazing at the Tour Eiffel.

*sigh*

Why can't we be forever young and carefree?