by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) NEW YORK CITY: So by Day 3 of the AdForum Worldwide Summit, normally there have been one or two agency presentations that have not lived up to our expectations as consultants but, this year, the standard has been extremely high and very competitive.
Author archives: Simone Puterman
The Switch: Off to see the Little Five
by Alistair Mokoena (@AlistairMokoena) For bush lovers like myself, nothing beats escaping the city madness and spending a weekend surrounded by nature’s very best. I love that the air is fresher and the sky clearer. The eclectic mix of sounds, smell and colour constantly remind you that God was smiling when He created the earth.
A lesson never to forget
I’ll never forget a lesson I learnt from one Elvis, a game ranger in the Waterberg region of Limpopo.
The setting was one of those red-eye game drives that are a pain if you love sleep like I do, but are a real gem when it comes to sightings. On the Landcruiser was myself, my wife, a South African couple from Durban and two American families.
Off we went in Elvis’s Jeep. Armed with my trusted Nikon D5000 and a newly acquired 400mm telescopic lens, I could not wait to spot the first of the Big Five. My assumption was that we were all there to see the Big Five. Boy, was I wrong.
Shelf Life: Jack Daniels hits the road with Frank Sinatra
Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week:
Get the skinny on Appletiser; Jack Daniels hits the road with Frank Sinatra; a sunny future for Formula1 Hotels; and, P.S., Cadbury’s has a message for all students.
AdForum Worldwide Summit: Publicis Omnicom merger “fatally flawed” — Sorrel
by Johanna McDowell. NEW YORK CITY: Day 2 of the 2013 AdForum Worldwide Summit started off with a taped message from Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP in response to key questions we were asking regarding the WPP group, as well as the potential impact of the Publicis Omnicom Group merger.
AdForum Worldwide Summit: Grey back in SA soon, Maxus could follow
by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) NEW YORK CITY: Day 1 of the AdForum Worldwide Summit is always a big day, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is often the only time the consultants have seen each other in a 12-month period and there is always a lot to catch up on. Secondly, on Day 1, we have a lot of energy and spirits are high.
Africa Style: Inspiration from an unlikely contender
by Masingita Mazibuko. So, I’m stuck in slow-moving traffic when a minibus taxi tears past, missing my car by the smallest of margins, then screeches to a halt … before calmly and remarkably sedately reversing around me to pick up a customer hailing it down. It is not appropriate to pen down the thoughts that engulfed my mind at that specific moment. Relating this near-collision experience to a friend later, the discussion about the taxi industry took an unlikely turn.
One could argue that the minibus taxi is an evil necessity in South Africa, given our scarcity of public transportation. However, when one considers the yellow cabs in New York, the black cabbies in London or the mutatas in Kenya, it is obvious that the taxi as a form of transportation has endured for years, regardless of undulating economic conditions.
In fact, taxis feature in our songs and movies – there was Zola Budd in the 1980s by Brenda Fassie, and the iconic movie Taxi with Robert De Niro in the 1970s was remade in the 1990s, starring Queen Lafitah.
Loeries 2013: Nice show, great work
by Louise Marsland (@louise_marsland) A conversation I had with Draftfcb group CEO John Dixon at the annual Draft media lunch at The Bungalow, Cape Town, on Sunday afternoon got me thinking about The Loerie Awards and how far it’s come.
I’ve been covering the Loeries since the sequined Sun City days 14 years ago, when then M-Net presenter Michelle McLean changed her outfit more times than she got to hand out a Loerie, all through the chaotic excess of the Margate years to the return of the more-formal glamour of the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Dixon asked what I thought of the awards Saturday night and my response was: “It was nice; the work was great, though.”