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ABC Analysis Q4 2012: The biggest-circulating consumer magazines in SA

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period October 2012 to December 2012. Here are a couple of consumer magazine ABC numbers that popped out for us. We also updated our list of the biggest circulating consumer magazines in SA!

Note: We compare the current figures with the same figures for this time last year and not with the previous quarter!

Not a good quarter for Entertainment & Culture

Music title Huisgenoot Tempo (Quarterly) lost its happy tune by falling from 62,928 total circulation in the previous corresponding reporting to 39,991 in the latest reporting period. heat kept up its decline – will it ever hit bottom? – to 27,945 from 31,753 (and down from 28,316 in Q3 2012). TV Plus (Afrikaans) fell to 37,667 from 41,551 and its English language edition tanked to 41,889 from 48,211. Drum declined to 118,793 from 138,479 and Huisgenoot fell to 270,310 from 283,355. YOU saw a significant decline to 155,125 from 172,403 (and from 162,689 in Q3 2012).

People kept steady at around 85,978.

Bona is up slightly to 97,190 from 95,261. Readers’ Digest climbed to 40,269 from 35,833 (but gave away 7,562 copies for free).

Oh and missing in action: Rolling Stone magazine. Last seen Q2 2012 with a paid for circulation of 3,782.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – State of the Nation #brothersunite

Near the Eastern Cape in town of Gcuwa, which used to be known as Butterworth, a 110-year-old, partially-sighted woman is struggling to come to terms with a brutal attack that was perpetrated against her on the night of Saturday 09 February 2013.

Daily Dispatch reported recently that the aged grandmother was alone, sleeping in her mud home in the village of Jojweni when she was raped. “I was sleeping when the man entered my house,” said the granny. “He did not say a word. I just felt his hand reach over my left leg and he pulled me from my bed to the floor. I hit my head against the cement and I started screaming and asked him what he was doing. By then he was on top of me and he put his left hand on my mouth as he used his other hand to undress me,” the grandmother to 21 children, and great-grandmother to six more told Daily Dispatch journalist Zwanga Mukhuthu.

The attacker fled when the grandmother’s family came home. Upon finding her the family told the newspaper that the elderly woman was trembling with fear and shock. “I have lost my appetite, my heart is heavy and I constantly feel like throwing up,” the granny told Mukhuthu. “The medication from the hospital makes me sick,” she added.

The terrible story which featured in Daily Dispatch last week is no anomaly. If you follow the news closely, as I do, your heart is likely to be broken daily with stories of rape committed against our sisters, our mothers, our children; and at times even our brothers or fathers.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – when the product becomes the artwork

MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – when the product becomes the artwork

This week’s Ad of the Week is once again about a campaign that moves outside of the mainstream, and engages with the community, using art and social media.

For anyone growing up in SA in the past six decades, there are several brands that have come to symbolise our very ‘South African-ness’ and which are as much a part of our fabric as braaivleis, Soweto, ‘koeksusters’ or Mandela. To get a sense of what I mean, think of Springbok Radio, Marmite, Sunlight, Mrs Ball’s, Marie biscuits… and of course Chappies bubblegum.

When I was young, there was only one flavour of Chappies, and that was the juicy gum that was a sort of fruity pink. And yes, I mean pink as a flavour. You got four for a cent, and they came in a wrapper with an inspired gimmick – one that has endured for generations.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – AbsolutZA

For most people there is probably one vodka brand that is top of mind: Absolut Vodka. I don’t even drink vodka, but I love this brand. It has a personality – it is fun, quirky, sometimes sexy, often outrageous. It has noticeability, talk-ability. You’ll stop and look at an Absolut ad or billboard, because you know there’s something – a hidden message, a play on words, a design trick… and the execution is always intelligent.

Absolut Vodka is produced only in Åhus, in southern Sweden. Since its launch in 1979, Absolut Vodka has achieved worldwide sales growth from 10,000 nine-litre cases (90,000 litres) to 11.0 million nine-litre cases in 2010 (99.0 millions of litres). That has made it the third or fourth best-selling refined spirit in the world.

Heck, there are even fans with fan-pages – not only on Facebook – try www.absolutad.com, or www.absolutads.com. There have been spoofs and parodies, of course, which – as we know – is the sincerest form of flattery. It also underscores the brand’s impact on pop culture.

Instead of spending fortunes on logo design, the product, with its distinctive bottle shape, is the star. We all know the familiar spotlight-design pack-shot, along with a simple, two-word headline, using ‘Absolut’ as an adjective. Print ads are carefully placed in publications that are consistent with class, quality and style. Apart from the distinctive single page ads, Absolut has also experimented with ‘Collections’ – like the Seven Sins: separate pages throughout the publication, with the distinctive bottle artfully portraying Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Wrath and Pride, and an eighth with a halo over the bottle, labelled “Absolut Seven”.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – AFCON and the spirit of Africa

MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – AFCON and the spirit of Africa. The African Cup of Nations (AFCON) is on the go. In fact it is almost over. Mali faces off against Nigeria today (Wednesday 06 February 2013) at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, as does the Burkina Faso versus Ghana match which takes place at the Mbombela Stadium just outside Nelspruit, the capital of Mpumalanga. The semi-finals and finals go down this weekend on Saturday 09 February 2013 and Sunday 10 February 2013.

First up I need to declare my interests. I am a soccer lover of note and I have massive affection for Africa. Soccer is my passion but falling in love with this continent has been a matter of business, taking me from Kenya to Nigeria, from Ghana to Mozambique.

Over the past five years or more I have been travelling the continent, and let me tell you this has been a liberating, eye-opening and jaw dropping experience. I can only describe the experience as similar to blind dating, where you think you know someone from a distance and then meet them up close and experience their nuances, fragrance, wit, intelligence, culture and personality first hand.

The big problem that a lot of local brand marketers have is that they can view Africa as a country. Mighty Africa, of course, is no country but a massive land mass with very distinct and culturally disparate countries that are as different from one another as Alaska is from Australia. AFCON 2013 presented local brands with the perfect opportunity to explore this continent through soccer, a game that’s adored by so many South Africans.

Agency Leaders: 2012’s most-admired ad agency in South Africa

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Who is the most admired ad agency, creative director, or agency boss in the country? MarkLives asked South Africa’s ad agency MDs and CEOs to nominate their peers whom they most admired during the course of 2012.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – Diffusing political drama with satire

The last couple of weeks have been saturated with the drama of the ANC/FNB debate, resulting in heavy and heated discourse on the issue. That’s why it was such a delight when the latest CAR Magazine advert landed in my inbox.

If there’s one thing that effectively diffuses political drama it is satire, and CAR Magazine’s parody of the FNB’s controversial campaign does this with clever copy that will give lovers of radio a reason to smile when they hear the spot. The ad opens with the dulcet tones of an accent that’s very at home in South Africa. “There will be a day…” the ad sounds with serious music playing the background that sets up the scene for an announcement of some gravitas. “… a day when every car magazine throughout this magnificent land will come with a free, full-colour poster of the McLaren MP4-12C Spider.”

“There will be a day…” the ad continues in solemn timbre, its tongue firmly in its cheek, “when CAR Magazine will give its readers an exclusive preview of BMW’s new four series, with special emphasis on the M4. That day is today, and tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until March, because you can get all of this, and much, much more in the February issue of CAR Magazine. On sale today.” The ad ends with the voice over becoming more hopeful and wistful, and the music ending on an up-beat tenor.

Agency Leaders: 2012’s most-admired ad agency in Joburg

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Yesterday, we kicked off our poll results in Cape Town and today it is the turn of Johannesburg ad execs to tell us whom they most admired on the Jozi ad scene in 2012. Results for our overall national poll runs on Jan 23. We sent nomination forms to 54 agency CEOs or MDs from ad agencies in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. We received 34 responses.

The ad. A week. How can we help?

by Oresti Patricios This is not the ad of the week, because how could I do an ‘ad of the week’ and ignore the elephant in the room?

Agency Leaders: 2012’s most-admired ad agency in Cape Town

MarkLives set out to discover which agencies, agency bosses and creative directors other agency execs most admired over the course of the past year.