Total's CEO Christophe de Margerie dies in Moscow plane crash

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Christophe de Margerie's plane was trying to take off at Vnukovo airport, as Dmitry Medvedenko, from the Voice of Russia radio station, reports

Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of French oil company Total, has died in an air crash in Moscow.

His corporate jet collided with a snow plough and then was engulfed in flames. All four people on board were killed.

The driver of the snow plough was drunk, according to Russian investigators.

Mr de Margerie, 63, had been chief executive of Europe's third largest oil company since 2007. He was highly regarded within the oil industry.

'Huge loss'

"France is losing an extraordinary business leader who turned Total into a world giant," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement.

"France is losing a great industry captain and a patriot."

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences.

News agency Tass quoted a Kremlin spokesman as saying: "The President highly appreciated de Mergerie's business skills, his continued commitment to the development of not only bilateral Russian-French relations, but also on multi-faceted levels."

Mr de Margerie joined Total Group after graduating from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Paris in 1974.

At the company, where he had spent his entire career, he was nicknamed "Big Moustache".

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil, told the BBC: "It's a huge loss to the industry and its future focus.

"What he has done for Total in repositioning the company to return to integrity and sound operations is deeply respected and highly regarded."

According to Russia's Vedomosti newspaper, Mr de Margerie had met Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia.

The Ghanaian woman who made millions fighting skin-bleaching

African Dream: Ghana's Grace Amey-Obeng

Ghana's Grace Amey-Obeng, one of West Africa's most successful businesswomen, made her fortune promoting products which emphasised the beauty of the black skin, at a time when many of her competitors were selling dangerous skin-bleaching formulas.

The business empire she started a quarter of a century ago with around $100 (£63) now has an annual turnover of between $8m and $10m.

"The women in the market had destroyed their skin with all this kind of beauty products, bleaching products” - Grace Amey-Obeng

Grace Amey-Obeng

• Age: 55
• Studied Beauty Therapy at Croydon College, London, UK
• CEO FC Group of Companies
• Annual turnover: $8-10 million
• Start-up capital: $100
• Number of employees: 95
• Exports to: Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ivory Coast, UK, Switzerland
• Branches in Ghana: Eight
• Trainees: 286 currently in hairdressing/beauty therapy
• Hobbies: Collecting African art

 

Her FC Group of Companies - which includes a beauty clinic, a firm that supplies salon equipment and cosmetics, and a college - has eight branches in Ghana and exports to Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ivory Coast, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Mrs Amey-Obeng has won dozens of accolades and industry awards for her skincare beauty products and marketing.

But one of the things that make her especially proud is her FC Beauty College which, since its opening in 1999, has trained more than 5,000 young people, mostly women.

"It's like a family bond. I'm so proud that they have managed to go through the programme," she told the BBC's series African Dream.

Equally important to her is her role as a medical aesthetician and she cites seeing a skin condition resolved as something that gives her "joy".

"I'm so happy that God has given me that talent and that touch to heal people," she said.
'Irreparable damage'
Mrs Amey-Obeng studied beauty therapy in the United Kingdom and after graduation, in the 1980s, returned to her native Ghana.

She knew that in her country women take great pride in their appearance and was convinced that there was a niche market she could "tap into".

Working out of her bag and going from house to house she advised people on skincare.

Soon, however, she became aware that there was "a lot of skin-bleaching going on", a trend she found "alarming" and something that is common in much of Africa.

"The women in the market had destroyed their skin with all this kind of beauty products, bleaching products, and so I saw the need for assisting them to reverse the process because otherwise it would become a social problem," she said.

"The level of damage - in this climate - bleaching does is irreparable," she added.

Not long after her return to Ghana, she opened her first beauty clinic with financial support from her family.

"I couldn't access any funds from the bank. I didn't even think about it because everybody said 'In this country nobody will give you money'".

Business loan offers came pouring in only after her business had been running for three years.

Although access to bank loans in Ghana might be relatively easier these days, she advises that budding entrepreneurs should take care not to borrow too much.
Made in Ghana
Mrs Amey-Obeng explained that, once her clinic was running, she realised that the imported products they were recommending often proved too expensive for their clients.

Since its opening, the FC Beauty College has trained more than 5,000 young people

This was often a result of currency exchange rate fluctuations.

"It was a challenge. They would come back with worse conditions, and so we said: 'OK, why don't we start our own line that we can sell to our people?'".

Her skincare line, which she started in 1998, would soon have a huge success not only because of the products' prices - which currently range from $3 to $15 - but also, in her opinion, because they were made taking into account black skins and the West African climate.

In view of her concerns about skin bleaching, the name of her brand, Forever Clair (Clear), may seem controversial to some.

However, she argues that "clair" there refers to "light, hope and strength", not skin colour.

"The joy of putting smiles on the faces of people that this business offers, that's what makes me want to do it forever”

"Light shows the way. It's not about complexion, it's about the heart," the entrepreneur said.

And she seems indeed bent on helping others to gain hope and strength. She is well-known in Ghana for her philanthropic work, especially through the Grace Amey-Obeng International Foundation.

Women leaders, she says, should offer a helping hand to less fortunate women, encourage them and share expertise.

"The joy of putting smiles on the faces of people that this business offers, that's what makes me want to do it forever."

African Dream is broadcast on the BBC Focus on Africa radio programme every Thursday afternoon, and on BBC World News throughout the day on Fridays

Most parents 'lie to their children'

 

 

 
The tooth fairy, bringing wishes to stressed parents

Most parents tells lies to their children as a tactic to change their behaviour, suggests a study of families in the United States and China.

The most frequent example was parents threatening to leave children alone in public unless they behaved.

Persuasion ranged from invoking the support of the tooth fairy to telling children they would go blind unless they ate particular vegetables.

Another strategic example was: "That was beautiful piano playing."

The study, published in the International Journal of Psychology, examined the use of "instrumental lying" - and found that such tactically-deployed falsehoods were used by an overwhelming majority of parents in both the United States and China - based on interviews with about 200 families.
'I'll buy it next time'
The most commonly used lie - popular with both US and Chinese families - was parents pretending to a child that they were going to walk away and leave the child to his or her tantrum.

"The pervasiveness of this lie may relate to the universality of the challenge parents face in trying to leave a place against their child's wishes," say the researchers.

Another lie that was common in both countries was the "false promise to buy a requested toy at some indefinite time in the future".

 

"Your pet went to live on your uncle's farm where he will have more space to run around”

Well-intentioned or immoral? An example of what parents told their children

Researchers established different categories of these untruths.

There were "untrue statements related to misbehaviour", which included: ''If you don't behave, I will call the police," and: "If you don't quiet down and start behaving, the lady over there will be angry with you.''

If these seem rather unheroic examples of parenting by proxy threat, there are some more startling lies recorded.

Under the category of "Untrue statements related to leaving or staying" a parent was recorded as saying: "If you don't follow me, a kidnapper will come to kidnap you while I'm gone."

There were also lies motivated by protecting a child's feelings - labelled as "Untrue statements related to positive feelings."

This included the optimistic: "Your pet went to live on your uncle's farm where he will have more space to run around."

A rather self-serving untruth was used for a quick getaway from a toy shop: ''I did not bring money with me today. We can come back another day."

There was also a selection of lies relating to "fantasy characters", also used to enforce good behaviour, such as in the run-up to Christmas.
'Broccoli makes you taller'
The study found no clear difference between the lies used by mothers and fathers, according to researchers, who were from psychology departments at the University of California San Diego in the US, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua in China and the University of Toronto, Canada.

Although levels of such "instrumental lying" were high in both countries, they were highest in China.

The study found there was an acceptance of such lies among parents when they were used as a way of reinforcing desirable social behaviour.

For example, the lie told to children that they would grow taller for every bite of broccoli was seen as encouraging healthy eating habits.

The study raises the longer-term issue of the impact on families of such opportunistic approaches to the truth. It suggests it could influence family relationships as children get older.

Researchers concluded that this raises "important moral questions for parents about when, if ever, parental lying is justified".

 

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

Apple’s Iconic Ad!

 

This was the ad that created history. This 60-second commercial ran only once on the Super Bowl in 1984 and achieved the distinction of earning an unprecedented US $150 million in media in value being replayed as the subject of commentary on leading international television channels such as ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC and CBC. It is considered as one of the greatest television commercials ever.
The brief by Steve Jobs for the 1984 ad was simple: He said, I want to stop the world in its tracks. When Jobs introduced this spot at Apple’s annual sales meeting at Hawaii in October 1983, he cast IBM in the role of Big Brother.
The Big Brother was not IBM, but the collective fear of technology, not a corporation either real or imagined. The Big Brother was any government dedicated to keeping its populace in the dark.
Apple wanted to democratize technology telling people that the power was now literally in their hands. They knew that computers and communications could change all that.
Here’s the complete script of the commercial:
(In walk the drones)
Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information of Purification Directives.
(Apple’s Hammer-thrower enters, pursued by Storm Troopers)
We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where every worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts.
Our unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth.
We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.
Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.
(Hammer is thrown on Screen)
We shall Prevail!
(Boom!)

Focus, Focus, Focus!

 

What is focus?
Steve Jobs described focus the best in his own inimitable style soon after his return to Apple, the company he once CO-founded, at the Apple Developers’ Conference in 1997 during the Q&A session. He said: Focus is about saying No. And the result of that focus is going to be some really great products, where the total is much greater than the sum of the parts.
Focus is also about sacrifice. It is tempting for brand managers to leverage as much value as they can from the equities of their brand – something at the expense of why your brand matters in the first place. It is simply not possible to appeal to all customers in all segments however versatile your brand may be. A brand manager, like a good parent sometimes has to just say No. The more you say no, the more focused and valuable the brand becomes.
Saying no is not going to be easy. There will always be tempting, quantifiable opportunities to promote your brand in a number of indications that seems to make eminent sense, but you may intuitively feel and know that doing that will distract the brand from its reason for being. Focus, therefore is precise positioning of your product in the minds of the consumers.
Here is a brief case showing what clear focus can help you achieve.
The Case of Fefol and Livogen Capsules
The multi-hematinic market in India during the 1980s was highly fragmented with over a hundred-and-one brands. The market size was around ₹ 200 million with an annual growth rate of 1.2 per cent. Most of the brands did not have a clearly defined positioning strategy. A typical list of indications for no-position hematinic looked like this: In anaemias due to diverse causes such as increased requirements of hematinics during pregnancy, lactation, convalescence, due to malnutrition, due to restricted diet in obesity, chronic infectious diseases, tuberculosis, anorexia nervosa, achlorhydria, post-gastroctomy or gastro-jejunoctomy, chronic haemorrhoids, hookworm infestation , etc.
Only two brands, Fefol (Eskay Labs then and now part of GSK) and Livogen Capsules (Allenburys division of Glaxo) had a clear positioning strategy. Both were positioned as Pregnancy Hematinics. Why? Because, prescription research indicated that pregnancy accounted for about seventy per cent of the hematinic prescriptions and usage.
Fefol stayed with the theme Part of the routine during pregnancy and lactation consistently for many years. They had put their might behind this position (the mother and baby contests as one unique promotional strategy they had adopted to reinforce their positioning) and reaped a rich harvest of prescriptions.
Close on their heels was Livogen Capsules, which stayed on with its very strong, persuasive and distinctive theme, the only hematinic that provides 11 Blood-building Factors for the Mother and 5 mg of folic acid for the Fetus. This is not to say that other hematinics were not promoted in pregnancy. Pregnancy was one of the several indications in which other hematinics were promoted. Whereas both Fefol, and Livogen Capsules were positioned only in pregnancy and stayed on with that position unwaveringly and unflinchingly!
It had always been a neck-to-neck race to brand leadership for Fefol and Livogen Capsules, with a negligible difference of less than one per cent of market share points. Fefol had a market share of 11.6 per cent and Livogen Capsules about 10.9 per cent in 1992. Later, Merck had acquired Livogen Capsules brand.
What is the secret behind the success of these two brand leaders: Fefol and Livogen Capsules?
Focus, Focus, Focus!

Top Slogan Turns Twenty-five!

 

The top slogan turns twenty-five!
Ranked as the second most powerful advertising slogan of the twentieth century by the leading advertising magazine in the world, The Advertising Age, Nike Shoe Company’s JUST DO IT slogan is turning twenty-five this year.
One of the core components of Nike’s brand, JUST DO IT is a highly recognized trademark of the shoe company Nike. JUST DO IT slogan was coined in 1988 at an ad agency (Wieden+Kennedy) meeting. Dan Wieden, the cofounder of the agency credits the inspiration for his JUST DO IT Nike Slogan to Gary Gilmore’s last words, just before his execution. Gary Gilmore, the notorious spree-killer, uttered the words ’Let’s do it’, just before the firing squad executed him in Utah in 1977. Eleven years later, the phrase became the inspiration for Nike’s JUST DO IT campaign. Nike tweaked these last words and made it JUST DO IT.
Wieden said that he liked the Do part of the slogan and JUST DO IT might make a good slogan for athletic gear. It became one of the most successful slogans of the century and people started reading things into it much more than sport. The slogan propelled Nike to improve its domestic sport-shoe business from 18 to 43 per cent during the decade starting from 1988 to 1998.
The original JUST DO IT campaign was aimed at Nike’s traditional target, 18 to 40 year old males, as well as younger teens and females. The campaign reached consumers on a humorous level and tapped into the fitness craze, which began at the time. The ads worked to shame people into exercising, and when exercising to wear Nike’s.
The strategy aimed at creating a belief that Nike was a pre-requisite to attain physical fitness. When you think of it, JUST DO IT acts as a very powerful and influential element in positive self-talk and affirmation. The super athletes and super sports-persons of world repute endorsed the Nike brand in the JUST DO IT commercials. The print ads contained some of the most inspiring copy in the advertising history. The campaign became so successful that by owning Nikes you were instantly a member of very desirable group. The ads struck a strong emotional chord in all the aspiring athletes-at-heart in addition to people who have a strong bent of mind to become athletics.
Neville Symington, a prominent British psychoanalyst in his work on therapeutic change in psychoanalysis suggests that a shift from the old routine to a new way of being requires an act of freedom, which means having a mind of one’s own, acting in faith in oneself and one’s good objects, and taking a chance. We must cut the ties to the old way to try something new. Nike’s slogan, JUST DO IT, represents this act of freedom. Jennifer Kunst, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst writes that psychological progress occurs in the face of anxiety and conflict. If we wait for the anxiety and conflict to subside first, we will never do anything. While thinking before acting is necessary and helpful, at some point, you have to JUST DO IT.
The tagline or the ad slogan of Nike, JUST DO IT is twenty-five years old and going strong. Although the tagline is fundamentally simple, it is distinct in its meaning. JUST DO IT means don’t think, don’t ask, don’t talk about it, don’t regret it, JUST DO IT. It appeals to the desire to be free, independent, overcoming all obstacles and social and physical inhibitions and limitations, both to the athlete and athlete at heart!
Click here to watch the first JUST DO IT television commercial.

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Management Paradigms: Old and New

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005), the Austrian-born American management consultant contributed to the modern management thought significantly as an educator and author. He was a prolific writer and his writings influenced the way many organizations think and work even today.
Peter Drucker has been recognized as the father of the science of management. Starting with his first book in 1939, The End of Economic Man, Drucker wrote many ground breaking books such as Managing for Results, The Effective Executive, Managing for the Future, The Post-Capitalist Society, and Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management among others.
Peter Drucker had a distinguished career of teaching for over sixty-two years . For more than twenty years he taught at New York University as a Professor of Management and later at Claremont Graduate University in California from 1971 to 2002. He taught his last class in 2002.
Drucker developed one of the country’s first executive MBA programs for working professionals at Claremont Graduate University, which was later named the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987.
At the beginning of the new millennium he wrote a book, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, in which he described the shifting paradigms of management. These are as valid and relevant today as they were when he wrote, which was about twelve years ago.

Old Paradigm	New Paradigm
1. Management is business management.	Management principles apply to all organizations.
2. There is, or there must be one right organizational structure.	Look for, develop and test the organization structure that fits the task.
3. There is, or there must be one right way to manage people.	Don’t manage people. Lead them.
4. Employees are just what they are, employees. What they need is a pay check and some motivation. You get the work done by commanding and controlling.	You need to treat employees as volunteers, not just employees. They want more than a paycheck; they seek interesting and rewarding work. You inspire them by leading, not commanding.
5. Innovations in your industry come from your own industry.	Innovations in your industry don’t necessarily come from within your own industry. They are likely to come from outside as well.
6. The economy is defined by national boundaries.	National boundaries restrain but don’t define.
7. Technologies, markets and end-users are predefined for each industry.	Customers, with their increasing disposable incomes dictate policy and strategy. Technologies crisscross.
8. National boundaries define economies.	National boundaries restrain but don’t define.
9. Cheap labor is a major competitive advantage.	Cheap labor won’t give a company a substantial advantage as manual labor is becoming smaller and smaller part of total costs. Labor productivity and not cheap labor per say will be a competitive advantage.
10. Change has to be managed.	You cannot manage change. You can only stay ahead of change to win at the marketplace.

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