Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week: Lay’s serves up a deli variant; a brand refresh for Quirk’s magical Red & Yellow school; Virgin sexes it up in the malls; and, not to get too technical, but Pyrotec’s access to new pack printing technology means it can expand its African footprint.
Category archives: Marketing
YouTube Views: Increasing the shareability of your YouTube videos
by Jerome Mouton The best and most simple way to get YouTube viewers engaged in your content is by showing them something that causes them to experience strong emotions. When your content truly has an impact upon viewers, it has shareability.
Africa Style: Going beyond the Big Idea… to just play
by Masingita Mazibuko. In the marketing world, we often talk about the ‘Big Idea’. This is a term that I believe is possibly misleading, and perhaps results in us considering things which have the potential to create real changes as inane and dumped.
Smart Africa TV: 44% of Kenya connected, but ad spend still on 2%
by Russell Southwood (@BalancingActAfr) In this interview, Gaurav Singh, chief digital officer at Scan Group, a leading African marketing services group, talks about how an increasing number of Africa’s citizens have access to digital devices (he cites 44% in Kenya) and that soon advertising spending will come to reflect this with a transition to digital online and social media.
Fair Exchange: Equal benefits
by Erna George. January is usually when we all consider how we’d like to do things differently in 2014. But, before we start planning the year ahead, evaluating the year behind us is key.
Shelf Life: Two-for-one specials coming to a fast-food outlet near you
Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week: January is the time of sales and special offers and even fast food isn’t exempt as KFC cooks up; Native VML shows how branded content works for Jameson; the tinsel has hardly been put away when the shops are slathered in red for Valentine’s Day and “sincere” messages on chocolates; Pepsi takes to the streets; and it turns out the Sodastream deal wasn’t that sweet for Scarlett Johansson.
trendMARK: Dave Duarte, Dion Chang, Mandy de Waal +
trendMARK contributors touch upon a wide array of subjects and trends that deal with consumers, the reputation economy, technology and the budding 54 market-strong continent that is Africa.
Green Sky Thinking: “Live design. Transform life.”
by Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) The role of design has indeed evolved and broadened rapidly in the past decade. Concurrently, the design process has also evolved and human-centred design is now finally enjoying centre stage.
Smart Africa TV: The Cola Road
by Russell Southwood (@BalancingActAfr) The subjects of a new award-winning documentary (The Cola Road), in this interview the founders of Cola Life, Jane and Simon Berry, talk to Rob Mayes about how they are using Coca Cola’s distribution system to get medicines to some of the most rural parts of Africa.
Africa Style: Why leaner budgets could be good for adland
by Masingita Mazibuko. When it comes to marketing budgets, these are often financially ambitious and informed by the principle that, with more money, one can do that much more.