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A small independent business-to-business (B2B) publisher is leading the way in the B2B publishing segment with its innovative multimedia approach to publishing. HR Future publisher Alan Hosking has embraced the potential for significant cost savings and an increased footprint (and ABC circulation) that digital editions hold for B2B publishers.

HR Future has achieved an ABC-certified circulation of 15 468 for the period April 2010 to June 2010, up from 9733 in the corresponding previous period, of which 13 428 come in the form of digital editions.

Printing and distribution has always been a prohibiting factor towards building circulation in the B2B segment. It would be fair to say HR Future would not find printing this number of magazines financially sustainable. With nearly 87% of it circulation being digital, it now doesn’t have to.

The ABC  requires digital editions to be exact replicas of their print counterparts to count towards certified circulation figures. Digital editions are also only allowed for titles of ABC members with a print edition (so standalone digital magazines cannot receive an ABC-certified circulation figure). Sadly, this leaves little leeway for publishers to innovate.

The only other B2B player for which sees digital editions contribute significantly to its ABC circulation is Southern African Tourism Update, where digital editions represent just fewer than 10% of its total ABC-certified circulation.

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Three important digital and mobile agencies are merging to create what they hope will be a major new player in the South African advertising world. Cambrient, Stonewall+ and Brandsh will merge under the leadership of new CEO Jason Xenopoulos to create what they term a “full service digital agency” called Native.

Brandsh is a specialist in the mobile and social media field, Stonewall+ is one of the oldest and most respected digital agencies in the country and Cambrient is known for its content management solution (positioned as a marketing rather than CMS platform). The new combined agency will employ over 120 staff members and work with clients ranging from General Motors and Standard Bank to Seacom and DStv. No retrenchments are expected.

Xenopoulos (@JasonXenopoulos) says digital agencies have had to see strategy and brand leadership driven by traditional ad agencies while they were looked upon as little more than production houses.

Internationally, however, the trend has been increasingly for strategy to be lead by a digital perspective. According to Xenopoulos, the scale and skill sets that come with the merger will allow Native to take up that strategic role in partnership with brands and traditional agencies.

Xenopoulos says previously specialist backgrounds did not allow digital agencies to fully participate in brand custodianship and that a full service offering will remove a major hurdle in getting digital represented at a strategic business and brand development level.

According to Xenopoulos, the commonality of culture, positive chemistry between the different management teams and limited overlap in skills and strengths facilitated the creation of Native. The shareholders of the existing businesses, plus Xenopoulos, will be the shareholders in the combined company.

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Where there are award shows, there is grumbling. About the judges, the rules, the loopholes. The “something-for-everyone” mentality draws in entry fees and fills up gala functions – just ask the local ad industry. The statues are there, if only all of them came out attached with a healthy dose of credibility.

The PICAs are the only ranking magazine award in South Africa but the narrow content categories, particularly in the business-to-business section of the awards, coupled with an ineffective system of judging, meant plenty of trophies doing the rounds with less and less prestige attached to them.

In 2002, there were 287 entries and 42 awards. Yeah, 15% of entries were guaranteed a winning spot. Last year saw 78 awards handed out, including those to runners-up and the highly commended.

This year saw the Magazine Publishers’ Association of South Africa (MPASA) task Jonathan Harris, as chairman of the 2010 PICA Committee, and his team with a much-needed rethink around how the awards are judged and presented. Harris has set out to align the PICAs with international standards by streamlining categories and revamping the judging process and panels. The end result, he hopes, will be a credible award show that provides direct feedback from judges to publishers, contributing to industry excellence in the long run.

Harris is a well-respected publishing executive, having successfully launched his own magazine, Real, which he later sold to Media24. Today he serves as the CEO of Thought24, a Media24 division publishing some of South Africa’s leading black female titles including True Love, Real and Move!.

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Andrew Human, MD of the Loerie Awards, disagreed with my article titled Fall in entries for Digital Loeries points to adoption issues published on BizCommunity.com.

This is what he had to say:

Mr Manson’s assertion that “fall in entries for digital points to adoption issues” is simply not supported by our entry statistics. A breakdown of the digital category for 2009/2010 shows:
1. Online advertising remained virtually unchanged with 32 entries vs. 34 in 2009;
2. Microsites INCREASED from 26 to 32 entries;
3. Viral dropped slightly with 25 to 28 entries (however – viral videos moved to another category in Experiential media so in fact viral media increased this year);
4. Digital applications INCREASED from 8 to 12 entries;
5. Campaigns dropped slightly from 19 to 16 entries;
6. Digital crafts INCREASED from 22 to 24 entries;
7. Mobile advertising decreased from 4 to 2 entries;
8. The main cause for an overall drop in digital entries was a decrease in entries in the WEBSITES category from 37 to 19 entries. A drop of 18 entries or 49%.

Websites are not the domain of advertising agencies – they are large corporate projects traditionally sitting directly with digital agencies. I believe that the large drop in this single category is indicative of the economic times as this is a large expense that corporations can hold off – and there are less new companies coming into the marketplace now.

Clearly, the above stats are contrary to Mr Manson’s assertion: adoption of the digital medium in the advertising areas has been strong, and has kept the entry levels of these categories roughly steady – with some solid growth, compared to a drop in the development of corporate websites.

There is no need for me to be defensive about our entry stats, and that isn’t my intention. Rather, I believe it is important that any misperceptions created in this article are balanced with the correct information.

And my reply:
Hi Andrew,

I think you just proved my point which was that the larger advertising fraternity hasn’t successfully integrated digital into their offering and that this is reflected by entry volumes in the relevant categories of the Loerie Awards.

Obviously the above is based on my interview with Clint Bryce, chairman of both the Digital and Online Advertising judging panels of the 2010 Loerie awards, and the data given through to me. You seem to agree with me that digital entry volumes fell in a year that saw unprecedented growth in online/digital spend (at the end of point 8).

In fact five of the eight categories you highlight saw a drop in entries, one of them a cliff fall – the website category. Also “Online advertising remained virtually unchanged with 32 entries vs. 34 in 2009”. Virtually unchanged would be … unchanged. From 34 to 32 is a drop. So defacto there has been an overall DROP regardless of how many times you put INCREASE in caps.

In fact you recently told Tony Koenderman that entries into the digital media category saw the second biggest overall decline in entry volumes after the design category. Koenderman comes to a similar conclusion as I did – that the fall in digital entry volumes indicate “South Africa is struggling to catch up with the rest of the world in effective utilisation [of digital media].”

You write that Websites “are not the domain of advertising agencies – they are large corporate projects traditionally sitting directly with digital agencies.” Exactly. A website is an incredibly important consumer touchpoint yet ad agencies allow it to be dropped into the (capable) hands of digital specialists. Excuse me but advertising agencies are either all “integrated” or own specialist digital divisions. Or so I’ve heard.

Two entries in the mobile advertising category? Sixteen online campaigns? It’s worse than I thought. Brands will notice, as will smart agencies looking for a gap in the market. What is important is to address the issues around digital integration and utilisation at agency level as an industry rather than to deny what the numbers are clearly telling us.

Have a view? Share it on the BizCommunity.

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Wading through the near endless amount of PR on the digital transformation and seamless integration of digital into the advertising world, it must be a little disconcerting for Clint Bryce, chairman of both the Digital and Online Advertising judging panels of the 2010 Loerie awards, to see entries in these categories decline this year in spite of steady growth in online ad spend.

The Digital Media & Marketing Association (DMMA), formerly the OPA, reports Adex figures for June 2010 showed an increased in online ad spend to R61 240 862 – up from R49 556 438 in May. Year-on-year growth in online ad spend is expected to be equally dramatic as it rise from R450 million in 2009 to R600 million in 2010 (at a guess, add another R200 million on top of that for revenue generated by Google locally), according to DMMA chair Adrian Hewlett.

So while it can be argued that the recession would have impacted on Loeries entry volumes in general (Tony Koenderman reports entries declined to 2924, compared with 3077 in 2009), this should not hold true for the digital and online advertising categories.

Bryce, who recently joined Quirk eMarketing as its new CCO, says inter-agency relationships might be partly to blame for the fall in these categories. Bryce points to some ruffled feathers a couple of years ago, when BBDO NY won, among others, a Gold Lion in Cyber for the HBO “Voyeur” campaign. The digital shop that built the site, Big Spaceship, failed to receive any credit during the awards show until jury chair Colleen DeCourcy mentioned the “forgotten partner” – quote AdPulp.

Many agencies continue to view digital outfits as production shops, says Bryce, and the HBO “Voyeur” affair sparked a debate on attribution for multi-agency projects that is still to be resolved. Bryce is quick to add that the Loeries do try to ensure that all parties are credited, including both the ‘ad agency’ as well as ‘digital specialist’. It is in the industries’ interest for the Loeries to bridge any perceived divide, says Bryce.

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To see why the ANC wants to clamp down on media freedom and effectively squash investigative journalism through its Protection of Information Bill, the proposed state-funded media appeals tribunal and a number of other legislative efforts, you simply had to open up a newspaper over the past week.

President Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane Zuma, along with the increasingly infamous Gupta family, pulled a show stopper when their company Imperial Crown Trading (ICT) was awarded ArcelorMittal’s lapsed stake in Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine, only to sell it back to ArcelorMittal in what has been described as “the most toxic empowerment deal ever”.

ArcelorMittal has agreed to buy ICT for R800 million, should this politically very well connected company manage legally convert its prospecting right to a mining right – something Kumba is fighting in the courts. ICT’s shareholders also received a 50% stake in ArcelorMittal’s R9 billion BEE deal, according to Times Live. One of the beneficiaries called it “money for jam”.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has gone as far as calling the deal a looting scheme by “well-connected BEE parasites”.

In a piece by the Sunday Times that will certainly reverberate through the country for a while yet, former President Thabo Mbeki and the ruling party is linked directly to the setting up of Schabir Shaik’s business empire.

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A marketing campaign for a very small car grabbed hold of the imagination of millions of vehicle owners in a very big way for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. South Africans enthusiastically embraced a campaign, initially driven by MINI, to place the South African flag on the side-mirrors of their vehicles. Karen Valle, GM of MINI South Africa, talks to me about how the 6 Colours to Stand By campaign came about, and how it snowballed into one of the defining images of SA unity during this world cup.

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For online interaction with consumers to be successful, brands are required to undertake a transparent, truthful and open approach to communication. “You need to keep it real,” says Alex Hunter, independent brand consultant and a speaker at the Tech4Africa* conference recently held in Johannesburg, 12-13 August 2010.

If this sounds like common sense, it’s because it is. And if you are wondering why it needs repeating, look no further than the controversial marketing campaign from Cell C, during which the company duped online users with a YouTube video of comedian Trevor Noah bashing mobile companies and Cell-C’s subsequent ‘response’ in full page newspaper ads promising to address consumer issues.

It later turned out to have all been set up to announce the appointment of Noah as Cell-C’s ‘chief experience officer’ (opening the way for quips on what a joke Cell-C’s customer service actually is). “This just validates my point,” says Hunter, on hearing about the angry response from consumers on getting effectively getting punk’d by Cell C.

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