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Brand reinvention: Oral B and the new word of mouth

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee). The most personal mass-market gadget of all, the toothbrush, is being reinvented at the high and low end of the market.

We all imagine that there can be no gadget that is more personal or intrusive than a cellphone. But move your focus ever so slightly and you come across an even more invasive device – and one that is not usually regarded as a gadget at all: the toothbrush. But ever since the first electric toothbrush was invented by the Swiss in 1954, this household object has become ever more closely associated with gadgetry.

Now, just as phones have given way to smartphones, electric toothbrushes have been taken to a new level, with the “smart toothbrush”. Oral B may not be as cool a brand as Samsung or Apple, and certainly won’t appear in as many headlines, but it also has a shot at revolutionising a routine task.

It has produced a toothbrush that costs more than R1700, which is a huge mouthful in its own right. But then, the Oral B Triumph 5000 is not your common or bathroom toothbrush.

The Gate Keeper (Chapter 12: In which Mama E thinks)

by Andrew Miller TBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande is an agency in crisis. Their ‘basket of boutique services’ strategy has bombed. Only a massive new project can keep the doors open – all eyes are now on the corporate tent at Mangaung. Far in the background, an emergency replacement executive PA with decades of experience makes important decisions. Interns rise, board members take unexpected steps and things begin to change…

Mama E faces the facts of her life, considers the truth about advertising and begins to reassess how it all went wrong…

The Gate Keeper (Chapter 12: In which Mama E thinks)

Mama E parked her silver Daihatsu Sirion in the empty parking garage and snorted deeply, the taste of drain cleaner slipping terribly down her seventy year old throat. She was, she knew, far too old to be indulging like this. Now she had a terminal headache and an olfactory system that would be completely contaminated for days. Still, it had been fun – there was no doubt about that. And she was particularly proud of her restraint when it came to the table dancing. Maybe old age did bring a modicum of wisdom after all.

She walked gingerly through the creative commons to her desk. At 8:00 am on a Saturday the place was bizarrely quiet. Later, she knew, the slaves would start to dribble in and click, but now it was eerily empty, like a post apocalyptic chicken farm.

She turned on the filter coffee, flopped down at her desk and wondered why she had come in. She had given Gerald some pretext about fetching files but the truth was she couldn’t sleep, or be in the house, or even think about breakfast. She was, she admitted, almost possessed by the need to come in and sit at her desk, where she now was, thinking about why such a thing should be as true as it was. She snorted again, winced and swallowed, and chased it with some filter. Something was most definitely wrong. She just needed to figure out what it was.

The thing with Tim Broadbent was ever present, but she knew – as she was sure he did too – that she had come too far with Gerald to risk throwing it all away, again. The vibes would have to just stay where they were, lingering and tantalising, up in the air.

Allan Kent leaves Saatchi AtPlay for Primedia Broadcasting

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Allan Kent, Head of AtPlay at Saatchi & Saatchi, has left the agency to join Primedia Broadcasting where he will head up the digital division.

Kent has spent close to twelve years at Saatchi – first as an ‘external resource’ (his words) then from 2006 as an employee.

Primedia Broadcasting, a client of AtPlay, consists of really passionate people, says Kent, who has grown to know the business well. When the new position came up he felt it would be a great opportunity to spread his wings at a business where he “already knew what I’d be getting myself in for,” says Kent.

Springleap – design crowd with marketing muscle

How do you turn a T-shirt company into a powerful marketing play? You provide access to your pool of 17 000 designers to brands needing beautiful and relevant content (through design) and utilise your social media skills and significant global crowd source loving fan base of course.

That’s just what Eran Eyal and his team at Springleap.com has been doing and so far the results have been positive.

The Springleap team has been proving their concept using the best possible case study – themselves – having grown Facebook their fan base 6000 to 193 000 in less than a year (it’s now closing in on the 200k mark). Eyal says at one stage he was testing 600 different Facebook ads to figure out best practice and what achieves the most success.

At its core sits 17 000 designers who submit designs to Springleap.com – these designs are then voted on by its community and as many friends as the designers can pull through their own networks to the site. The winners receive a cash prize and royalties from the resulting product, usually a T-shirt. Sales are handled by Springleap. Eyal looked at this talent pool and their social pull and realised it could be a powerful asset to activate design and brand fans.

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

With the help of Google Insights for Research we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days. Kaizer Chiefs manager Bobby Motaung and the Mbombela Stadium fraud case was of obvious interest to South Africans. Also in the news were the Lonmin strike and shooting of mine workers by police and ongoing student protests at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). (For past data click here)

ABC Analysis Q2 2012: Daily newspapers — Isolezwe breathing down The Star’s neck

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period April 2012 to June 2012. Total daily newspaper sales in South Africa fell from the 1,386,504 in Q2 2011 to 1,373,377 in Q2 2012.

ABC Analysis Q2 2012: The biggest-circulating consumer magazines in SA

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

Magazine covers we love (to ogle)

MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them.

E-retail: Local brand activity marks a shift in how clothes are sold online

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee). The arrival of a Mr Price shopping cart on both Web and mobile sites, and new initiatives by Edcon and eBucks, mark a shift in how clothes are sold online.

For much of the past decade, online clothing retail in South Africa has seemed like the toddler party that the big kids avoided. Start-ups, newcomers and unknowns dominated, while the established brands either stayed away or made only a grudging appearance.

Edgars had a web site with a shopping cart, but it was more of an apology than a serious online store. The likes of Stuttafords, Truworths, Jet, Foschini and Mr Price were entirely absent from e-commerce.

Recently, in one week, three major brands have come to the party, and getting dressed will never be the same again.

The biggest splash was made by the chain that is increasingly positioning itself as cool and go-ahead: Mr Price. Even their new web site address reflects that image: MrP.co.za. It claims 18 000 items in its catalogue, and allows customers to choose by size, colour, brand and … trend. Delivery choice is wide, from home to Post Office to nearest store.

Payment option is even wider, including credit card, COD, gift vouchers and account. More important, returns are allowed within 30 days, via store, Post Office or courier.

Probably the single most important option in all of the MrP bouquet, however, is it’s mobile site. It uses a web development standard called HTML 5, which allows the site to look the same on any phone browser, regardless of model. But the real killer app, so to speak, is not the mere fact that it can be used on a phone: it is that it looks great on a phone. It appears inviting, and that is the first step in convincing potential customers to become paying customers.

The Gate Keeper: Chapter 11 (In which people get drunk)

The spirit of a recently deceased copywriter invades Friday afternoon drinks, creating a dangerous frisson, while the intern discovers the power of her second personality…

Chapter 11: In which people get drunk

The TBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande bar had a reputation for getting a little mean. Mostly it was a social place, but Fridays were different, and it was commonly recognised mythology within the agency that roughly once a month, on a Friday, in an eerily lunar fashion, the whole place would go mal.

Some called it the blood letting. Others were too freaked to speak of it out loud at all, but everyone knew its name deep down, one way or another.

It was on one of these lunar Fridays that Vati ended up buried in Phil’s shocked arms – and as a result she took the next three off completely, citing family commitments. Now, however, with the moon full in the Jozi sky, she had not only had her internship extended but had also shot to the top of the agency’s entire strat team. Thus, at 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon in late August, Vatiswa slammed another tequila down her throat and burped theatrically. The crowd roared in appreciation.