Prakash Patel, CEO of Prezence, looks at attrition, talent and transformation — the “elephant in the room” — in the marketing industry in this first of a two-part series.
Category archives: Adland
Social Media Gets An Ass-Whooping From Google, Email
Over four years ago, in a post entitled Looking For Volunteers, I wrote the following…
“TAC predicts that when the frenzy over Facebook, Twitter, and other social media calms down and the dust clears, email and search will continue to be the dreariest and most productive forms of online advertising.”
In an article on Monday entitled “Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online” Wired had this to say:
“An endless stream…of advice from marketing consultants warns businesses that they need to “get” social… Despite the hype… it’s relatively antique tech that appears to be far more important for selling stuff online.
Wired’s source for this article was a company called Custora that studied “72 million customers shopping on 86 different retailer sites.” Their conclusion: search and email are far more effective at generating sales results than Facebook, Twitter and banner ads.
Why advertising is business insurance
On April 23 of this year, Apple reported…
“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,”
This report was remarkable for two reasons: First, it is generally believed that Apple has not introduced any new products or features of major interest to consumers in about two years. This in an industry whose oxygen is new products and features.
Second, it is also believed that Apple’s advertising has fallen from the lofty standard it had established over previous years, to a point that it is now inferior to its rivals in the tech industry.
So how did they achieve record revenues?
After 20 years, SA ad industry sees demise of last print trade magazine
by Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) It was with sadness that I learnt today that Media24 has closed down leading business-to-business magazine, AdVantage.
The 20-year-old print brand, started by legendary adman and editor, John Farquhar, pushed the boundaries in both content and advertising advantageover the years, winning multiple awards.
The last issue (dated July 2013), went to print today and the June cover, which we display here, has been entered by Ogilvy into the Loeries.
When I was the editor, we redesigned and won awards for writing, design, covers and supplements two years in a row, including the Media24 internal awards for best B2B publication.
Outgoing editor, Danette Breitenbach, said she was “devastated” about the closure of the magazine.
“It is a fabulous product in a wonderful industry and it is very sad for all of us and such a pity it is closing after a legacy of 20 years.”
Media24 will also be closing and restructuring some of the medical titles in its B2B division and a number of staffers have been retrenched.
Inside view: Judging Cannes Lions Film
by Alistair King, Chief Creative Officer, King James Group (@alsparkles) The last time I judged Cannes Lions Film I swore never to do it again. I found the process political and argumentative, and many of the jury members devious and full of agendas. I found letters in my room from production houses telling me what work to look out for and hardcover books, elegantly printed by holding companies, showcasing their finest work. Party invites inevitably came with a 5 minute sales pitch on which ads they had entered. All in all I found the whole thing sickening and desperate and so I decided to approach this Cannes with a sense of calm and humour. As it turned out my pre-judging-self-pep-talk proved to be unnecessary. Apart from an early effort to establish alpha dog supremacy in the room, (which Sir John Hegarty won convincingly) the entire process was smooth, friendly and massively constructive.
After 4 days of hearing people motivating for work they admire, you do start to see patterns that mostly fall on nationalistic lines, but generally speaking this year’s panel was wonderfully neutral, with few signs of the block voting and favour trading that typified my previous experience. This time I left having made a few good friends and feeling that the best work won.
By its very nature, the award process is flawed. There are 3500 commercials and films to view over the first 3 days and one can fully expect the opinion of 22 jury members to differ vastly from that of a different set of 22. With so many films to view, many of which are between 30 and 90 minutes in length, judges are initially split into 3 groups to filter out what will eventually become the long shortlist. I have a feeling judges are put into filter panels that minimize the chances of them judging their own country or agency group’s work as I saw very little South African work in my slots, and very little again when I eventually got to view the long shortlist. Much of what I considered to be the best South African work was eliminated at those early stages. It is brutal to say the least. Just like that, your 640Euro entry is gone at the press of an iPad screen. After 3 full days of judging, the jury was put together for the first time to view, in one 14 hour sitting, all 385 films that had made it through. Of these a further 100 would be culled leaving you with what is commonly known as ‘The Shortlist’.
Authenticity is the non-digital revolution sweeping our industry #canneslions
by Charl Thom, Group MD, FoxP2 The seminars and speakers over the Cannes Lions week are some of the most inspiring and informative an advertising or marketing person could hope for. Here are a few of the many notes I made during the week, and a few interesting quotes (some more colourful than others) that stayed with me.
Beware Of Marketers With Ideologies
In 1996, Seth Godin had this to say to Fast Company…
“I guarantee you that by the year 2000, Internet banner ads will be gone.”
Oops.
Let’s be fair to Seth. He’s a very smart guy and he has been right about a lot of things. But the problem with the above statement, like so many aspects of marketing these days, is that it is rooted in ideology.
Seth’s ideology was “permission marketing.” He believed that the “interruption model” of traditional advertising was on the way out, and that in order to communicate effectively with consumers, marketers would need their “permission.”
Like much of new age marketing philosophy, it sounds lovely. The problem is that the world is impossibly complicated. Having operating principles is fine, but being ideologically committed to a “big idea” often ends in a train wreck.
Breaking now: WPP buys NATIVE, joins agency to VML network
by Herman Manso. Digital agency NATIVE, one of the last major independent digital agencies in SA, has been bought by WPP.
Final gold for SA at #canneslions
The Film, Film Craft and Branded Content & Entertainment Lions category winners have been announced at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The agency Gen Y built
by Herman Manson (@marklives) It’s the tale of many a start-up. A strat guys meets a creative and they see synergies in the services they offer, so they launch a business together. Usually it’s people that have done their time in the corporate world, spent some time in an agency, and have a pretty good relationship with somebody on client side. A bit of wink-wink and nudge-nudge later they are in business with, presto, a launch client (ever notice how often that clients sits on a booze brand?).
The story of Engage Brandcraft has a couple of extra twists and turns. A creative, just out of Vega, meets a strat guy, who got his degree and had interned at a couple of agencies before going freelance, and they launch a business together with no real experience in advertising or client relationships and with no booze brands to back them up. Then they reinvent the wheel (their words) in building their own agency in the middle of one of the greatest worldwide recessions in a generation. “We’ve been paddling really hard over the past few years,” says Chris Human (the strat guy) on building Engage Brandcraft. “We’ve had to discover all the golden rules for building a business all on our own.”
Now, six years in and with a decent portfolio and a bunch of clients under the arm, and armed with a credible reputation and a snazzy office in The Boulevard (also home to Quirk and Y&R) in Cape Town, Human and his business partner Ian Nel (the creative), finally feel the agency has come of age, and they are ready to emerge from under the ad worlds’ radar. The founding duo has also brought on board a third partner – Dijon Jones.