When I came back from Singapore I had the pleasure of finally flying an Airbus A380 - the largest commercial airliner in the world.

I was deeply impressed with the aircraft. It flew gracefully. It was incredibly quiet. The cabin was amazing and spacious.

All these things withstanding, probably because I’m a massive nerd, I was most impressed with the in-flight entertainment system.

I have taken a series of (bad) photos of the system below. Some highlights include:

• A USB port to allow you insert a thumb drive. Most spreadsheet, presentation, or word-processing documents can be opened on the screen and modified using a full QWERTY keypad on the back of the system controller!
• An ethernet port to allow for limited Internet access (when it’s available).
• A video input jack to allow you to play video on the screen from a third party device like an iPod, iPhone, portable DVD player, or video camera.
• Language tutorials. I believe there were 19 languages available. Not a bad thing to learn on your way to Asia!
• Loads of a games with a controller that reminds me of a Nintendo NES controller. They’re some 3d games in there, a bit laggy, but not a bad way to pass the time.

9 out of 10 ads feature westerners.

I just spent the weekend in Singapore. It took 31 hours to get there. Thankfully I’m taking a pit stop in London on the way back to Miami.

I can honestly say that I love Singapore and could imagine myself living there. It has all the western amenities that I’m familiar with but with a heavy dose Asia. The reason I say a heavy dose - is because the western influence was really surprising to me.

Everything is in English (with Mandarin subtitles in some places) - even the road signs have the same design style as US road signs (green with a white ring - same font). The first day I got there I walked out the front door of my hotel and I didn’t stop walking for about 3 hours. I walked all the way to Orchard Road: the primary shopping district for the city-state. Along the way I made a point of walking down all kinds of side alleys with rows of asian food stalls. The authentic local food smelled great, looked great (aside from one shop advertising “Pig Organ Soup” as the name of the place), and made me feel for a moment that I was truly abroad.

Once I got back onto any main thoroughfare things started to change. I started to notice a patern in their advertising. All the ads that featured photography typically featured westerners. This really perplexed me.

I considered all kinds of alternatives. Is it because the culture here holds western culture in high regard? Was it just because they love western celebrities or was it that brands just were not investing in local celebrities for budget reasons?

I ended up asking as many locals as I could. They varied in descent from Chinese, Malay, to Indonesian. I was surprised by their response. Some claimed they just thought westerners “looked better”, other said they loved the western celebrities, but when I pressed the issue further they agreed that they would like to see more of their own celebrities, athletes, and actors in these ads.

I think there is a missed opportunity there for marketers. Why is no one there catching on to this? Am I missing something - if anyone has any insight please post a comment.

-Freddie

One set of photos is a sunrise at 38,000 feet shot on a flight from Miami to New York.

The second set, my favorite, is a photo taken at Atlanta airport. The airport management have encased a series of objects that you shouldn’t attempt to put in your carry on luggage. Based on the layout of the case it seems one of their primary concerns was people packing CHAINSAWS. I’m not sure if that’s just a regional problem for the residents of Atlanta or if it’s a new global phenomenon….

Visit our flickr stream!

On a side note I’m using an application called Klick on my iPhone that uploads photos straight to our flickr stream. It’s pretty straight forward and I think makes a nice addition to any blog.