Hasta La Creative!

A dusty street vendor taps on the taxi window. He’s not peddling flowers along the thoroughfare in Myanmar’s business capital of Yangon. He’s touting homemade copies of the country’s foreign-investment law and import-export regulations.

Myanmar is open for business. After two decades of isolating sanctions, this Southeast Asian country represents one of the few places largely untouched by Western brands. “The market is totally fresh. … And the price of making a mistake is high,” said Shakir Moin, marketing director for Coca-Cola in Myanmar and 10 other Southeast Asian markets.

There’s heady optimism surrounding the Texas-size former British colony also known as Burma, though it presents acute challenges. The country is grindingly poor and rural, and distribution is a major hurdle. But the potential for change is dizzying. Myanmar is rich in natural resources, with a large working-age population and heavy foreign interest in infrastructure deals. In the digital age, farmers plowing paddies with water buffalo could be checking rice prices on smartphones in the not-too-distant future.

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