MarkLives set out to discover which agencies, agency bosses and creative directors other agency execs most admired over the course of the past year.
Category archives: Marketing
‘Native advertising’ digital magic of the hour
You ready for the new online advertising miracle?
The digital advertising hype-cycle is growing shorter all the time. Apparently the online lemmingocracy has grown tired of “content” as the digital magic of the hour. Now it’s all about “native advertising.”
What is native advertising? Well, according to Solve Media…
“Native advertising refers to a specific mode of monetization that aims to augment user experience by providing value through relevant content delivered in-stream.”
Oh. Okay.
Now let’s pretend for a minute that we live on the planet Earth and we talk in a language that is comprehensible. Here’s what that BS means:
Native advertising is advertising that is pretending to be something else.
Africa Style: Afro-Gangnam Style — seeking out real relevance
by Masingita Mazibuko. Putting Gangnam Style in context in our nation, how does one ensure that this is not lost in the melting pot of colour at end of the rainbow? There is an increased desire for self-definition, recognition and acknowledgement.
The Dissident Spin Doctor: 2013 sees PR enter the boardroom
by Emma King (@EmmainSA) I can’t tell you what this year’s big business start-up or new social media phenomenon will be (oh, that I wish I could). But we can look at current trends and begin to plan around what we know will happen, so here are my thoughts on the big things we will see in 2013, and how we can prepare our businesses.
1. PR gets (way) more important Emma King
We’ve said this for a long time, but it’s never been truer. In a time of change, it’s important for businesses to manage their reputation efficiently, build relationships, and communicate clearly about what they are doing and why. Corporates realise that these practices need to be built into their very way of working, rather than trying to stick PR Band-Aids over their fundamental business issues.
It’s heartening therefore to see PR entering the boardroom, as with the recent rise of SABMiller’s ex-corporate affairs chief, Sue Clarke, to European MD. It’s recognition that reputation has a very real impact on the bottom line.
Hand in hand with this comes further collaboration between disciplines. I’ve already spoken about the need for integration, and for PR t to sit within creative planning, rather than stuck on as an afterthought here [link to previous article].
Communications professionals arebecoming increasingly responsible for managing the minute-to-minute face of a brand or business – and they cannot do this within virtual silos. Collaboration of talent and experience, irrespective of job titles or department, is crucial for brands to thrive in our super-connected future.
What does this mean for us? Experienced and heavy weight communications professionals need to be included in planning, and have an impact in the boardroom. Those businesses that strike it off a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than an essential, or, even more worrying, entrust their communications to a lightweight PR manager or junior social media intern, do so at their peril.
The Switch: What contract law taught me about agency briefs
by Alistair Mokoena (@AlistairMokoena) It is my submission that applying contract law rules to advertising briefs would be of great benefit to the creative development process. If anything, they serve as a good barometer for what makes a good advertising brief.
The Invincible Blindness Of Advertisers
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), San Francisco Bay Sometimes it is hard to overstate the cluelessness of the advertising and marketing industries.
We are exquisitely sensitive to every little gimmick or fad that pops up, and completely oblivious to dramatic, powerful change when it occurs.
The largest consuming group in the history of the world is moving into new territory and marketers are paying no attention. This change is vastly more important to business than mobile strategies or social media or content creation, or any of the other bonehead sideshows we are obsessed with.
The youngest members of the baby boom generation, the generation that changed marketing and essentially invented consumerism, are now turning 50. The oldest members are now over 65. These people are the financial powerhouse that drives our economy.
They control over 75% of the nation’s wealth. They account for 50% of all consumer spending. They buy 62% of all new cars. They dominate 94% of all CPG categories. They are the target for 5% of all advertising!
The rise of “independent pitch consultants” and how to deal with them
by Odette van der Haar. A lack of knowledge, experience and understanding of the business of advertising and communications, as well as how agency partners function complicates tender and pitch processes and has created the need for assistance from “independent consultants”.
The lousy record of “hyper-targeting”
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) In the past I’ve written a couple of posts (here and here) about the lousy record of “hyper-targeting.” My bottom line on this has been…
“As we have developed the ability to target people more and more precisely on the web, click-through rates of these hyper-targeted ads have dropped dramatically.”
The question is, why? If you believe conventional advertising wisdom, being able to target people based on individual behaviors, attitudes, and demographics ought to make advertising substantially more effective. And yet no one’s smarter than the facts. It hasn’t made online ads more effective. So what’s going on?
Advertising’s 5 Biggest Lies
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Among our fellow citizens, it is commonly believed that we ad hacks get paid to lie. While I am not prepared to stipulate, I do concede that sometimes we don’t quite tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So when you set out to write a piece entitled Advertising’s 5 Biggest Lies, you are begging for trouble. It’s like writing Las Vegas’s 5 Worst Buffet Dinners or Pepsi’s 5 Dumbest Marketing Ideas. No matter what you pick, someone’s got something to top you.
Nonetheless, trouble is my business. So here we go — advertising’s 5 biggest lies:
1. We’re all creative.
We’re not all tall. We’re not all handsome. We don’t all have nice complexions or charming personalities. But, according to the lore of advertising agencies, we’re all creative.
A good idea can come from anywhere, is the mantra. Yet, remarkably, good ideas seem to come from the same people over and over again. And, similarly, so do bad ones.
If you believe that we’re all creative, I’m afraid you also have to believe that it’s just a coincidence that Shakespeare wrote dozens of brilliant plays and Whoopi Goldberg didn’t.
Not only are we not all creative, even most of us who are paid to be creative aren’t.
South Africa’s top 10 most popular YouTube videos in 2012 – Made and Viewed by SA!
The most popular YouTube video results for 2012 are out. The list shows the South African videos that recorded the largest number of views on the popular social media platform over the past year. The list is ranked in order of South African popularity, determined by views: