AboutRussel Ray Expertise I can answer questions about all marketing although my specialty is Guerrilla Marketing. If you don't have the budget of Wal-Mart, you need Guerrilla Marketing. If you're not familiar with Guerrilla Marketing, the premise is that you can do what the big boys do, but less expensively, if you're willing to use your time, energy, and creativity.
Experience 42 years of experience marketing companies that I have founded, developed and sold, starting with my research and typing service for college students when I was 10.
Education/Credentials Graduate of Texas A&M University
Expert: Russel Ray Date: 5/22/2008 Subject: societal marketing
Question I just read your note in societal marketing, and how it reduced apartheid in South Africa. Do you think Africa is better off now than it was before?
Thanks, Dick
Answer Hey, Dick.
Yes, I do.
A repressed society like South Africa at that time, and North Korea and China currently, or a theocracy such as Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and others (and which some Christians here in America want for us) can ever live up to the potential of a free society where people can read, listen, talk, think, explore, etc.
I'm reminded of all the things that were discovered by American scientists in the race to the moon, such as Teflon, or what the British and Americans came up with during World War II. What did the Russians and Germans come up with other than a better ability to steal what we had? I don't consider stealing to be a worthwhile endeavor of a truly free society, notwithstanding the fact that America obviously steals, as well. Unfortunately, I also have to be a Realist in that if we don't come up with good ways to steal from our enemies, then they will get the better of us like they did on 9/11. Even America is not truly free, though, being a representative democracy and having different rules in different states. Nonetheless, while not perfect, I do believe it's the best ever seen in history, but as seen recently with the California Supreme Court ruling regarding marriage for all people, not just heterosexuals, times change, and a great nation must have the ability to change with it. South Africa has one of the most "liberal," if you will, constitutions guaranteeing all sorts of freedoms to all of its people, some freedoms that America has not seen fit to provide to all of its people, and I do believe they are better off for it. Will they ever match America? Probably not due to the distinct fact that they are a much smaller nation. But imagine what the one billion people of China might be able to do relative to our measly 300 million if they were allowed to freely access the knowledge that abounds on the Internet.
