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ABC Analysis Q4 2012: Content marketers see mixed ABC results for custom print titles

The ABC still talks about custom magazines, magazines published on behalf of brands or organisations, even as the companies producing these magazines now prefer to talk about content marketing, and refer to themselves as content marketers rather than publishers.

For the ABC period October 2012 to December 2012, the custom magazine category saw a significant decline as the total number of magazines circulated (per issue) falling to 12,704,431 from 13,416,345. This was primarily because two of the cellular giants pulled the plug on their custom titles. Vodacom discontinued Vodacom Now! (circ 866,090) as did Cell C with its namesake title (circ 126,446). Click sheared nearly 200 000 copies from its club magazine. Dish Commercial (160,424) also closed).

The real cost of SA’s most expensive website

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) More was spent on the planning of the Free State government web site than most South African corporates have ever spent on the full development and implementation of their web sites.

The tender was awarded by the Free State Province on 24 February 2012 for the “Redesign/Relaunch of a comprehensive and integrated website” to the “Cherry Ikamva-Jugganaut Joint Venture”. It includes four phases prior to implementation, followed by implementation, maintenance and “content generation and management”.

The tender award document, supplied yesterday to Radio 702 by the Office of the Director General of the Free State Provincial Government, makes for startling reading.

Playboy ‘No means no’ cover still irks some

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.

Fast-to-change SA consumer mags are thriving

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Why is it that consumer magazines consistently outperform our newspapers in circulation figures these days?

Not that it’s plain-sailing for the magazine industry, as we saw in last week’s release of the fourth-quarter Audit Bureau of Circulations of SA (ABC) figures for 2012.

Just like newspapers, many magazine titles are suffering sales decline but it’s not across the board – there are more than a handful that are bucking the trend and some that are doing very well.

Take a look at these three graphs showing how consumer magazines have done over the past four years compared with daily and weekend newspapers. There is a slump in consumer magazines in the last half of 2012 but it is very different from the consistent downwards trend suffered by newspapers over the past four years.

Design Indaba 2013: Ben Terrett – Designing better government

By Herman Manson (@marklives) Design Indaba 2013 Public design projects have been getting a bad name of late and Ben Terrett, Head of Design at the GDS – The British government’s Government Digital Service (@gdsteam), wants to reverse the trend with GDS.

Terrett and his team had been tasked to make tangible his governments’ intention to transform its approach to digital delivery of public services from what government needs to what its citizens need.

By focussing on user (i.e. ‘we the people’) experience to cut red tape and speed up service delivery Terrett and the GDS is radically altering governments’ usual approach to its citizenry. Who knew government was about us rather than the political class! Terrett emphasises that the projects’ success rests on determining – and meeting – user needs. His team spends a lot of time thinking about how to make transacting with government easier and more convenient.

The first task of GDS was to launch a one-stop website at gov.uk that will eventually replace the hundreds of smaller government department sites. It means you don’t need to know what part of government handles a specific issue – you will find the information you require in a single digital space. Launched in October 2012 the site has already seen its 100 millionth user.

ABC Analysis Q4 2012: Oops! Newspapers just did it again

Yup print newspaper proprietors generally did a decent impression of Britney Spears’ career path judging by the current (continuing downward) trajectory of newspaper print circulation.

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period October 2012 – December 2012. Here are a couple of numbers that stood out in terms of newspaper circulations.

Note: We compare the current figures with the same figures for this time last year and not with the previous quarter.

Daily newspapers

Beeld falls to 66,132 from 73,486. Cape Argus falls to 32,337 from 44,159 and the Cape Times falls to 34,627 from 42,849. Tabloid Daily Sun is down to 322,324 from 380,683 (336,319 in Q3 2012). Pretoria News – down to 17,576 from 21,721. Son falls to 96,598 from 105,775 and the Sowetan is down to 100,349 from 117,862. The Star – 102,244 down from 128,683.

Isolezwe is up slightly to 106,858 from 103,467.

ABC Analysis Q4 2012: The biggest-circulating consumer magazines in SA

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

Note: We compare the current figures with the same figures for this time last year and not with the previous quarter!

Not a good quarter for Entertainment & Culture

Music title Huisgenoot Tempo (Quarterly) lost its happy tune by falling from 62,928 total circulation in the previous corresponding reporting to 39,991 in the latest reporting period. heat kept up its decline – will it ever hit bottom? – to 27,945 from 31,753 (and down from 28,316 in Q3 2012). TV Plus (Afrikaans) fell to 37,667 from 41,551 and its English language edition tanked to 41,889 from 48,211. Drum declined to 118,793 from 138,479 and Huisgenoot fell to 270,310 from 283,355. YOU saw a significant decline to 155,125 from 172,403 (and from 162,689 in Q3 2012).

People kept steady at around 85,978.

Bona is up slightly to 97,190 from 95,261. Readers’ Digest climbed to 40,269 from 35,833 (but gave away 7,562 copies for free).

Oh and missing in action: Rolling Stone magazine. Last seen Q2 2012 with a paid for circulation of 3,782.

Design Indaba 2013: Masashi Kawamura on merging storytelling with technology

By Herman Manson (@marklives) Design Indaba 2013 Masashi Kawamura (@masakawa), one of Fast Company’s “100 most creative people in business 2012,” is visiting Cape Town as a guest speaker at the annual Design Indaba conference. The nod from Fast Company is just one of many – Kawamura seem to have won a near endless stream …

Continue reading “Design Indaba 2013: Masashi Kawamura on merging storytelling with technology”

Design Indaba 2013: Oscar Diaz on our innate understanding of objects

By Herman Manson (@marklives) Design Indaba 2013 London based product designer Oscar Diaz (@OscarDiazStudio) has made a name for himself thanks to his innovative and creative work in on a broad range of products and services including furniture, shop window installations (see Alphabet shoes for Terra Plana below) and limited edition objects like his widely lauded RGB vases.

Diaz studied design at the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Bordeaux in France and took an MA in product design at the Royal College of Art in London. Diaz has worked in Japan and the UK.

This week Diaz is in Cape Town to give a talk at the annual Design Indaba Conference (running from Feb 27 – March 1). We tracked him down before his arrival to ask him what draws him to product design.

MarkLives: You started studying fine art but ended up with a Master’s in Product Design at the Royal College of Art in London. What about product design grabbed you?

Diaz: I discovered that people have an innate understanding of objects that they don’t necessarily have when it comes to art. Art is much more hermetic and needs a bit of knowledge to be appreciated.

It was the accessibility of design, which made me want to change field.

Aki Anastasiou on Pistorius, Twitter and what social networks mean for media

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) If, like me, you’ve been mesmerised by the explosion of tweets on the “Oscar Pistorius” hashtag around the Paralympian’s bail application hearing, then you’re just as fascinated with Twitter – and how it is changing how we cover and consume news – as myself.

Last Friday – the day after Pistorius was arrested after shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, I wrote this piece about Beeld being the first to tweet the breaking news and wondering about the role of Talk Radio 702 tech expert Aki Anastasiou in how the news went viral in the Twitterverse.