Independent industry news for marketing, advertising & media execs
The Nedbank account will be put out to pitch in the next few weeks. Thulani Sibeko, Nedbank Group Executive: Marketing, Communications and Corporate Affairs, says the pitch process will start once the bank has decided on a third party agency to assist with the search. The third party agency selected process is still ongoing, Sibeko confirmed.
“Net#work BBDO will serve the notice period of 6 months stipulated in our contract ending at the end of February 2013,” says Sibeko.
by Justin Gomes. Charl Thom recently wrote a piece on advertising awards that got me thinking about the role the Loerie Awards have played in my career.
by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Pendoring Awards, established in 1994 to promote and award Afrikaans language advertising, is coming to the Cape, one of the two provinces in South Africa where it is spoken by the majority of residents. It’s been warmly embraced by the city and its ad agencies.
The Pendorings have joined Cape Town’s Creative Week and the award ceremony takes place the Friday before the Loerie Award ceremonies (which happens on the Sat & Sun evenings of Sept 22 & 23).
Pendoring General Manager Franette Klerck says the move to Cape Town has reenergised the award show which has been run as a Section 21 (not-for-profit) company since 2010. This year saw over 500 entries – a jump of 40% on 2011. Entries from ad schools increased from 62 to 94 this year while entries from agencies jumped from 283 to 384.
Most categories saw increased entry levels although numbers for Outdoor were disappointing, Klerck admits. Digital entries grew well and, in a departure from judges comments on the crop reviewed in 2011, were commended for a dramatic increase in quality
by Herman Manson. MACHINE, the agency with strong BTL and digital competencies launched last year by Adrian Hewlett, has announced the appointment of its new Deputy MD , Tom Fels.
MarkLives doesn’t normally publish press releases in its main content feed but since this joint statement by SANEF and the Loerie Award relates, at least in part, to the issue of limited media accreditation that was initially raised on these pages, we are making an exception.
The statement, reprinted in full below, follows a complaint to SANEF by BizCommunity.com on the matter of media accreditation to the Loerie Awards, and the terms and conditions attached to it.
MarkLives had previously raised the issue of the partial accreditation of its editor, Herman Manson, which we felt was the result of an unfair and biased accreditation system that was applied with no consistently (some journalists had to submit a ‘media plan’ others did not), and was open to abuse to discriminate against specific journalists. Our case is set out here and we stand by it.
MarkLives welcomes the announcement that the Loerie Awards will be revamping their media accreditation procedures for the 2013 event. We have serious reservations about how the process was handled this year and any improvement that makes the current opaque procedure more transparent is positive news and a step in the right direction.
MarkLives has confirmed that the former Managing Director of Draftfcb Johannesburg, Jerry Mpufane, has joined The Jupiter.
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Added Value Saffron Hill recently released results from a study, commissioned by MEC and CNBC, looking at digital technology adoption by Asia’s CEOs. The study found that “Top executives are taking up digital technology, but the extent of the embrace appears to be tempered by their need to remain in control of their business ecosystem.” It goes on to reveal interesting insights on the relationship between technology and senior executives – including how the iPad has emerged as a game changer that makes execs, in the words of one, feel less like a salesman hidden behind a laptop. We caught up with the authors of the report.
MarkLives: What kinds of technology have been embraced by the CEOs in your study?
Saffron Hill: Anything to do with information and communication technology is valued as they are seen to be business performance enhancers. If you are talking about specific devices, these would include laptops, phones (BB and iPhone) and iPads.
MarkLives: What do they want to get out of technology?
Saffron Hill: Efficiency first and foremost. Also knowledge and, now more than before, entertainment.
MarkLives: An interesting aspect of your research centres on how distracting technology can be and how well CEOs recognise this – which is why they for example hand their mobile phones over to secretaries during meetings.
Saffron Hill: Yes the philosophy of these C Suites is that technology (as with other resources) should enable not dictate their lives. They are very conscious of not being enslaved by gadgets and very much value human interaction. They are still gentlemen in that sense, they feel it is most rude to place more importance/focus on a device than a real live person in front of them
MarkLives: Some comments in your research suggest CEOs prefer iPads to say laptops which make them feel like ‘sales people?’ So is the iPad a status symbol as much as a useful tool even in CEO circles?
Saffron Hill: I wouldn’t say the iPad is seen as a status symbol by these senior and very affluent people (it doesn’t cost much more than a phone). What is has though is more ‘cool factor’ compared to a laptop because of its aesthetics (typically with a nice cover) but also because of its novelty and the fact that it is embraced by young people. When a CEO whips out his iPad for a presentation, it is a subtle signal that he is forward looking and he is in tune with the latest developments. The CIO of Standard Chartered Bank was very proud to say that the bank was the first to issue iPads to all their senior people. For him, this move shows that the bank is technologically savvy but also open minded, willing to try new things.
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.
by Kim Penstone When Abdulla Miya resigned from Net#work BBDO in October 2011, he didn’t have a job lined up at another agency. In fact, on the morning that he was due to meet with agency heads Keith Shipley and Mike Schalit to put in his resignation, he heard that his tentative plans for a new business venture hadn’t panned out. But he resigned anyway.
At the time of his resignation, he was MD of Net#work BBDO, and over the previous 14 years at the agency, had played an integral role in the agency’s phenomenal success and growth. He decided the time was right to go it alone, and announced that he would start his own strategic consultancy in 2012. He did not have a firm business plan or even one client to his name.
Maybe Miya is an eternal optimist, but he puts it down to faith. Partly external, because he is and has always been, a very spiritual person. But also internal, because after 23 years in the advertising industry, he had earned a solid and outstanding reputation as that rare breed of advertising man who could bring together the often opposing worlds of business strategy and creative communication.
Wayne Naidoo has resigned as Group CEO of Lowe + Partners SA. Naidoo has been with the agency for close to fifteen years and helped oversee its rebranding from Lowe Bull to Lowe + Partners SA earlier this year. No firm date has been said for his departure but Naidoo says it will be sooner rather than later.
