October 2013 Archive • Page 6 of 6 •

Animation studio grabs international work, accolades

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Luma Creative Studios was launched in 2001 as a character animation agency just after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Paul Meyer, Jason Cullen and Jacques Venter had all been retrenched following the attacks. “We were artists who learned how to do business,” says Meyer of the experience.

Today, Luma Creative Studios is wholly owned and managed by Meyer and Gerhard Painter, who joined Luma about a year after its launch. Following a boom and a bust, the business is once again stable and its management team are dreaming bigger than ever.

MagLove: The De Kat cover retailers don’t want you to see

by MediaSlut (@mediaslut) The best international and local magazine covers in MagLove this week: Aucklandia Magazine, Variety (Power of Women), Hercules Universal, De Kat (with a controversial naked Elsabé Zietsman) and Taste.

Media Future: Acer opens new front in tech wars

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) A partnership with Intel may help give Acer an edge in bringing educational technology to Africa.

Shelf Life: For art — blood, sweat and tears

Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches:

An extraordinary campaign and product created with real bodily fluids; Magnum ice cream feeds your personality; Yum Yum Peanut Butter goes on a 3D ride; and Primedia has even taken over the changing rooms in store.

Tech Law: Yes, you can be sued for sharing a defamatory Facebook post or tweet

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) In the recent Isparta v Richter and Another case, Acting Judge Hiemstra found that the first defendant’s comments were defamatory. Reading the judgment, you may be forgiven for forgetting to ask whether the second defendant is also liable, particularly given that the second defendant was only tagged in the offending Facebook posts. Hiemstra’s finding on this question was very brief and, at the same time, pretty profound:

[35] The second defendant is not the author of the postings. However, he knew about them and allowed his name to be coupled with that of the first defendant He is as liable as the first defendant.

This is a pretty powerful finding. In the context of Facebook it means that, if you are tagged in defamatory content and you don’t do anything about being tagged (or perhaps even mentioned), you could be liable, too. This argument likely extends to other platforms such as LinkedIn, Google+ and perhaps even Twitter.

In the case of Facebook, you can control who can tag you (you can choose to approve any tags before the posts become public). As with Facebook, you can mention LinkedIn users, although it’s not clear whether you can control this and remove tags. It’s the same issue with Google+ mentions.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios — KFC imaginary friend

by Oresti Patricios. KFC is a global brand with a family-focused, everyday food brand promise. Like most fast-food brands, the emphasis is on fun, so most ad messaging uses humour to create a light-hearted feel. The latest ad also manages to sneak in another message: that KFC is also for special occasions.

BrandAlert: Consumers will pay more for products from ‘good businesses’

by Shauneen Procter. There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

In the world of branding and reputation, this idiom has never been more relevant, particularly when you figure out that the silk purse can be a metaphor for a company or product. No matter what you do, a wallet made of pig’s skin isn’t going to become silk. In branding terms, this aphorism is translated into the understanding that the quickest way to hasten a bad product’s downfall is to advertise or promote it.

The intelligent question, of course, is whether the converse is true: Do good companies perform better than others, and what happens when you promote them properly?

Grubstreet: Getaway — we won’t bamboozle you like Google

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) RamsayMedia’s Getaway is updating its ethos to reflect a more sophisticated view of travel among the South Africa’s growing middle class – a move that the magazine’s editor, Cameron Ewart-Smith, describes as “a fundamental shift in the very fabric of our magazine”.

This also means that the iconic outdoor adventurer’s magazine that was launched in 1989 has been redesigned. You’ll see the changes in the October 2013 edition that is already available in store. They include a glossy, more sophisticated cover, bolder use of typography and pictures, more graphics and a brighter palette of colours.

Ewart-Smith told Grubstreet last week: “(The change) was borne out of looking at South African travellers and realising there is a much more diverse community of travellers than waspy, (national) park-going traditional Getaway readers.