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The CX-Files: Avoid own hype; put yourself in customers’ shoes

by Julia Ahlfeldt (@JuliaAhlfeldt) As one who lives and breathes industry disruption, it’s no surprise that I watch ‘TV’ on Netflix or the local version, Showmax. Why only wait for scheduled programmes or rent DVDs when so much great content is available online? One such show that I really enjoy makes a particularly poignant point for the business world: Be careful of buying into your own hype.

If you’ve watched Silicon Valley, you’ll recognise this cringeworthy scene. For those who haven’t, you’ll relate anyway.

After many days and nights developing its tech product, Pied Piper — a sophisticated compression application built by protagonist Richard Hendricks (who is loosely based on Mark Zuckerberg) and his cobbled-together team — it thinks it’s ready to take its product to market, leaving Hooli, the incumbent industry giant, in its wake. The product would blow people’s minds, it says. Investors will wait in line to fund them, it says.

And so, when Pied Piper goes live, the signups are, well, dead. Unexpectedly flat-lining except for a few glimmers of hope that are short-lived. Despite the significant anticipation of a runaway success, Pied Piper doesn’t enjoy the consumer attention that the team anticipated.

What we can learn from Richard

As a customer experience (CX) practitioner, I advise both the Hoolis and the Pied Pipers of the world to always remember the customer, and build products or services around their needs, not the company’s own. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, across sectors, being too confident can come back and bite. Why? Because customers don’t care how hard you worked to create your product, or what profit it yields for shareholders. They just want a value proposition that meets their needs, a seamless experience, support if something goes wrong, or all three of these things.

Now, let’s retell the Pied Piper story with the customer at the centre. Firstly, Richard wouldn’t have only asked his techy buddies to hack, test and feedback on the product. He’d have gotten a room full of actual people together to see what they understood or didn’t. (Disclosure: Richard did do this later on in the show). The layperson’s take on the product may have revealed insights that the team hadn’t been aware of or was too narcissistic to see.

Leave the ego at home and put yourself in your customers’ shoes

While it makes for a funny premise for a comedy show, a failed launch is far from amusing in reality. Too many businesses, as well as their marketing managers and agencies, fall into the trap of designing customer experiences with their blinders on. When creating a product, service or campaign to appeal to a market entirely different from themselves, creatives and developers need to leave their likes and dislikes at home and make an effort to truly understand the end-user of their products. At the end of the day, the customer will make or break a business, so they should be the first point of contact to research and engage.

Fortunately, things can turn around, but only if businesses are brave enough to ‘do’ a Richard and face up to what’s broken. Otherwise, they’ll continue barking up the wrong tree, blaming their marketing agencies and wondering why the numbers just aren’t there. The truth, however, is that their would-be customers might just not care.

Julia Ahlfeldt (@JuliaAhlfeldt) is a certified customer experience professional (CCXP). She consults to blue-chips and multinationals, working with Virgin Active, Momentum, Absa, and American Express, Ross Stores and JP Morgan Chase in the US, among others. By tapping into her vast local and international network, she produces a monthly podcast, Decoding the Customer, interviewing leaders on CX trends and adoption (including Michelle Beetar). She contributes the new column, “The CX-Files”, to MarkLives.

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Cover Stories: APWOT, Cosmo, Curate, Gandalf’s Garden, TIME, New Yorker

Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct)’s weekly analysis of media design — both past and present, print and online — from South Africa and around the world:

Miscellaneous: A Profound Waste of Time makes game culture uber-cool, presented mostly through the tasteful and curated application of world-class illustration
Local/print: Cosmopolitan South Africa highlights the question of activism, sparking a heated debate on social media
Online: Curate brings ethical design, anti-bureaucratic values, and neo-romanticism into the world dominated by a blind and stale faith in capitalism and consumerism
Iconic: Gandalf’s Garden was an eccentric and esoteric publication that made a crucial contribution to British counterculture during the ’60s
International/print: Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, New Yorker once again draw attention to Donald Trump, asking: how sustainable is America’s isolationist policy in relation to its snowballing trade war with other global powers?

Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us at @Marklives and @shanenilfunct.
Want to view all the covers at a glance? See our Pinterest board!

Print

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cosmopolitan (South Africa), Activism Issue, August 2018

There has been a fair amount of furor surrounding the cover to this August issue of Cosmopolitan South Africa, which carries the tagline: “The Rise of the Female Has a Really Loud Bang”. In celebration of Women’s Month, film and television actress, Nomzamo Mbatha, defiantly announces her own brand of femininity, sporting a bold and contrasting bodysuit with the words “female activist”, “feminist”, “power”, “amandla” and “fearless” printed on it. There’s been an ongoing debate, specifically on Twitter, which began when Nelisa Ngqulana questioned Cosmopolitan’s idea of activism, implying that Mbatha isn’t an activist and this cover’s simply an exercise in branding, PR, and self-promotion. This critique was spurred on by a reaction from musician, poet, and artist, Ntsiki Mazwai, on Twitter. Mazwai implied that the cover is a baseless and fraudulent gesture, opportunism and artifice to the nth degree, insinuating that Mbatha is an armchair activist and asserting that she’s rarely “represented anything beyond her looks”, and that she’s falsely been ‘positioned’ as an activist.

Counter-arguments to these criticisms are that Mbatha is a motivational speaker, and am UNHCR ambassador who regularly assumes humanitarian work. She has also been publicly vocal against sexism, particularly in relation to #metoo, and has been involved with social awareness surrounding issues of mental health. That said, Mbatha is also the ‘face’ of Neutrogena, and is a brand ambassador for L’orèal, Puma, and Audi, which may place her perceived activism in question as just another PR stunt.

To counter this perception, the issue also includes other ‘change agents’, showcasing eight courageous women who negate the pretenses of armchair activism, actively advocating for change. More contents inside include important notions such as: “we should all be feminists”, and “the ultimate guide to decoding feminism”. Despite all the ambiguity and hostilities surrounding the definition of activism here, this issue has certainly created a debate — people are talking and are aware — which can only lead to positive outcomes for the future.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ TIME (US), 30 July 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek (US), 23 July 2018 and The New Yorker (US) 30 July 2018

US president Donald Trump’s trade war has many questions attached to it, particularly about how sustainable it is and how much damage it’s causing to international relations, which could take years to mend. Many covers have commented on this situation, with arguably TIME, Bloomberg Businessweek and The New Yorker being at the forefront of the debate.

TIME’s contribution relates to the recent Russia–US summit between Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin, which began on 16 July 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. The portrait on the cover is a superimposition of both their faces, suggesting ongoing suspicions that Putin might be Trump’s proverbial puppet master. This follows a weak rebuttal from Trump after his failure to confront Putin in Helsinki about Russia’s involvement in the last American election. When the question was posed, “Who do you believe?”, Trump remained on the fence, showing faith in both the media and Putin.

Bloomberg Businessweek presents a simple equation to all the perceived cloak-and-dagger gesticulations of the American president. It’s simple: America will end up being isolated while the rest of the world will go about business as usual.

The artistic prowess and satirical wit of renowned illustrator, Barry Blitt, returns to make yet another cover for The New Yorker. Blitt relates Trump’s performance at the summit in Helsinki to an event that happened three years ago, when Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency as he was descending the escalator in Trump Tower. A rich and compelling way to announce such an important thing, to say the least. Salt of the Earth stuff.

Multiplatform

A Profound Waste of Time (UK), July 2018

Inspired by videogames, the editorial style of A Profound Waste of Time is indeed fresh and defies any remaining stereotypes that surround the gaming industry and its audiences. If the cover to the inaugural issue is anything to go by, there’s no doubt that gaming has successfully transitioned from the doldrums of geekdom into the open world of cool. Issue 1 is available thanks to an effective Kickstarter campaign, with a small batch, numbered, special edition also printed (already sold out) sporting a unique glow-in-the-dark cover. A reprint of the standard edition is being considered, based on the overwhelming popularity the magazine has received so far. As a self-funded magazine, A Profound Waste of Time is a testament to the influence of, and interest in, independent publishing.

An advocate of the gaming industry and discourse surrounding gaming culture, A Profound Waste of Time elevates games to the level of art and design, particularly in the context of storytelling and immersive experiences. Every issue will showcase a range of influencers and trailblazers (underground or mainstream) within the gaming industry, with an insistence on the title “videogame industry”. Each cover will also be illustrated by established illustrators and artists. #1 sports one by celebrated London-based illustrator, Dan Mumford, who’s done work for Disney, Sony, CBS and many more. The magazine’s one-page scrollable website is also worth mentioning for its simplicity in design and style, substantiating the tasteful sensibility of the print publication.

Online

Curate Lab and Curate Magazine (UK), July 2018

A subject that has consistently arisen in this column is the dynamic between culture production vs that of culture consumption. Associated with this is that people are increasingly living to work, rather than working to live. Many shareholders could be blamed for the state of humanity as it is today, including multinational corporations and their respective brands, and the agencies that represent them. Perhaps the answer would be to consider stakeholders instead of shareholders, but the fact remains that nobody is thinking about humanity or the environment in this context; they’re only thinking about profit. One remains dumbfounded to find an answer to the question: is this sustainable?

Given these assertions, it’s refreshing to find an agency that focuses on designing for sustainability and improving people’s lives. Replacing the alibi of design thinking with the promise of purposeful design, Curate Lab has a philosophy focused on collaboration with brands that defy the profit-driven status quo and place core values and great ideas at the forefront of their businesses. With a sense of reverence towards thoughtfulness in design and always keeping design in mind, as opposed to design thinking, Curate Lab shows how the ethical implementation of creativity can change the world, and help to produce culture.

Curate Magazine accompanies Curate Lab, with a drive towards the embrace of remote working, independent productivity, and culture production, and always being critical of the bureaucracy and mediocracy that remain dominant in many office and studio environments. Averse to the materialism that accompanies consumerism, Curate moves beyond the usual borders dictated by industry and promotes authentic human experience, supported by Culture Lab’s website. Themed as a “Culture Manual”, the site is a manifesto of sorts in defiance of materialism.

The print edition of the magazine, with #6, investigates the nature of the word ‘material’ — interpreted in more ways than one — often associated with fashion or pop culture. Relating to the notion of material in an indirect way, from many angles, Curate magazine challenges established thought and industry practices and entices the curious to obey less and defy more. All these perspectives are consistent and in synergy across the online footprint of both Curate Lab and Curate Magazine.

Iconic

Gandalf’s Garden (UK), 1968–1969

Named after the well-known wizard from Lord of the Rings, Gandalf’s Garden was a spiritual organisation of sorts, focused primarily on mysticism, which thrived in England during the late ’60s. A proponent of the hippie-underground, particularly in London, Gandalf’s Garden also took the form of a magazine, printed to promote the esoteric perspectives of the beaming counterculture community in London at the time. Among many provocative topics, featured prominently were meditation and drugs. The magazine’s editor, Muz Murray, founded the publication in 1968, with six issues printed in all until its demise in 1969. Associated with the underground press (otherwise known as the “Overground”), the magazine existed parallel to the International Times (“IT”, previously featured in Cover Stories). As opposed to the psychedelic bedlam of OZ (also featured in Cover Stories), Gandalf’s Garden was eccentric, romantic, and ethereal, with arcane subject matter and topics, such as: “Atlantis Rising” from #4, and “The Cosmic Continent” from #6.

Although the magazine ended print in 1969, Gandalf’s Garden was a key influence on alternative forms of creativity in England, and remained coherent as a community until 1972. Murray currently lives in India, known as Ramana Baba, and practices as a tutor of mantra yoga and Advaita Vedanta (a school of Hindu philosophy and practice).

References

Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) is a designer, writer, and educator currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, working in the fields of communication design and digital media. He works from Gilgamesh, a small design studio, and is a senior lecturer in graphic design at Vega School in Cape Town. Connect on Pinterest and Instagram.

Cover Stories, formerly MagLove, is a regular slot deconstructing media cover design, both past and present.

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Social impact — it’s good business

success-business-businesspeople-plan courtesy of Pixabay

“The man who dies rich dies disgraced”

by Abe Louw. These words from Andrew Carnegie’s 1899 essay, The Gospel of Wealth, were especially radical for the time. Industrial America was booming and with it came the precursor to the elusive American Dream — characterised by glamour, status and wealth. Over 100 years later, it seems far more at home in light of the rise of social impact investing.

The premise and the promise

In his work, Carnegie argues that in every successful businessperson lies an obligation to actively use their capital for good, and not just to accumulate it to be passed on once you kick the bucket. Enter social enterprise. Its simple premise of ‘doing good while making money’ used to be the annoying promise that businesses had to make to address every aspect of their triple bottom line. Now social impact has started to move to the core of many business models and has attracted the investment to match.

Asset managers and investment firms such as Bain Capital, Blackrock and Goldman Sachs have all launched impact investment funds. Goldman has US$7bn invested in ‘impact’ businesses. According to the Economist, this is partly due to the transfer of wealth to women and the youth, whose investment goals transcend mere financial results.

The satellite connection

However, too many businesses still view their corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a satellite extension of their core, and merely as a redistribution of income. This is, sadly, the most-common form of how most businesses in modern economies tick the CSR box on their reviews.

Nevertheless, some businesses have engrained ‘good’ as an integral part of their DNA. Lumkani seeks to address the challenge of shack/slum fires in urban informal settlements in South Africa and across the globe. The Hippo Roller, a business created to help provide access to clean water, has carried about 16bn litres of water and has more than 500 000 direct beneficiaries. The Awethu Project invests in South African entrepreneurs who wouldn’t have access to capital and helps them set up their businesses.

Mind the gap

For any third-world country marred with high inequality, social enterprises have a pivotal role in closing the gap between the country’s rich and the poor. If we built SA as Carnegie envisioned, imagine what the country would look like today?

Yellowwood strategist, Abe Louw, is a creative at heart and an economist in mind. He has worked on the brand strategies of some of South Africa’s most-valuable companies.

“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.

Young, Gifted & Killing It: Tebogo Malope

by Veli Ngubane (@TheNduna) Tebogo Malope (@TebogoMalope) of Bomb is a Cannes Lions, D&AD and SAFTA award-winning filmmaker and the director behind some memorable TVCs, music videos, movies and television series.

Veli Ngubane: Tell us more about yourself: where did you grow up and what did you want to be when you were growing up?
Tebogo Malope: I grew up in the greatest hood in the world [hahaha]. Everybody calls their hood the greatest in the world; not sure which criteria we working with but, yeah, it was dope — Soweto — in fact I was at the geographic centre of Soweto called Central Western Jabavu. Next to my house was a park called Credo Mutwa [Cultural] Village, named after the icon; he spent some time in there making art and writing. To date, the park has the highest concentration of trees in the whole of Soweto. In the middle of the park was a tower called the Oppenheimer Tower; from the top of it, you could see the whole of Soweto. I spent most days in this park, either high on the tower looking out and dreaming, [or] down below in the bushes hunting down wild rats, [or] in the park’s hall rehearsing mini plays we’d perform for tourists, or on the field playing soccer. I’d always been a multitalented individual, which is a blessing and a curse ’cause, as a kid, it’s much easier to choose a path when others are eliminated ’cause of incompetence but I had lots to choose from; much later in life I narrowed it down to soccer and the arts. We can all see where the chips fell now.

VN: Please explain what you actually do and how an average day looks for you?
TM: I often think I get paid to drink lots of cappuccinos and talk a lot; I hire really good people so my talking churns out good work. I’m a director, I’m that dude [who] walks on stage and collects the award and pretends I did all the heavy lifting [hahahaha]. To try explain what I do is a bit tricky; maybe look at it as a group of really talented people standing in front of a massive canvas, all of them with different types of paint and brushes in their hands but they are not sure what to paint, who should go first and what the finished piece should be. Now imagine in front of them stood someone drinking lots of cappuccinos telling them what to paint, how and when. They all look to his guidance, even though most of them are possibly better at painting those strokes; the dude is just good at leading, guiding, inspiring and making sure we all work as a team. I hope that explains it.

Damn, I spent so much time on that first question; let me attack the second. I often write late into the night, so I usually go to bed after 2am. My days comprise standing in front of agency creatives. feeling super insecure about what I do and then try convince them I’m good at it. If I’m not in the pitch room, I’m observing people; yes, it sounds really creepy but I find it incredibly pleasurable to be sitting at a coffee shop and watching people. Then, in between, I’m leading a great team of young directors who I work with to research, build treatments and just inspire each other. Then once in a while I’m on set doing what I was born for: directing.

VN: You’ll be doing a project on the life of Shaka Zulu. Please tell us more.
TM: This project is both ambitious and important. Bomb has always sought to make a big spectacle of a piece, and the Shaka narrative is both timely and grand. Honestly, it is too early to discuss details as pen hasn’t even gone to paper yet — it is going through robust research at the moment. What I can promise you is that it’ll have scale and it’ll make our people very proud.

VN: You have won a coveted Gold Cannes Lion for best use of Film; what has that done for your career and what is that one award you still aim to win?
TM: The dopest thing about winning a Cannes Lion is how quickly it goes on your social media bio. If anything, that award said, yoh, the game has kind of embraced you now… I swear the one thing I’ve struggled with is believing that the ad game has accepted me; [I’ve] always felt like an outsider, still kinda do but, yeah. that award helped in that sense — I’m a gold-plated outsider now [hahahaha]. There are lots more awards I’d still love to get but, if I had to mention one, it’ll have to be the ultimate, an Oscar.

VN: What has been your career highlight so far?
TM: This is the hardest question on the planet; I’ve had so many. Weird, ’cause a lot of those highlights proceeded great traumas. Like getting arrested in Somalia on a shoot which led to me working on a series that won me my first SAFTA (yes, you read correctly but that’s a story for another day) or how my first-ever music video award and credit were stolen by my DOP and editor (another story for another day) or the other day, when a friend was in a tragic car accident where five people passed on; he survived. Those people were driving to my set; on that set I had over 200 musicians from all over the continent, the best talents Africa had to offer; my friend was lying critical in hospital; and here I was directing Don Jazzy, Patoranking, Mafikizolo, etc. So, yeah, a very tricky question.

VN: How do you know if you have a great idea? How do you deal with self-doubt and fear?
TM: My self-doubt and fear come from a deep insecurity and we’ve established I’m still grappling with that; I doubt it’ll ever go away. Over time, the only thing that has changed is what I say to myself in that moment of insecurity. I’ve never thought I have great ideas; at best, I have good ideas. I’m still chasing that great idea. I just reread my answer and realised how profound it is; maybe I’m not that bad. Perhaps great ideas come from always pursuing them.

VN: What do you feel is missing in the ad industry today?
TM: BLACK WOMEN!!!

VN: Where and when do you have your best ideas?
TM: I often write after midnight and, for a long time, I thought it’s the peace and quiet and the ambience that gets me there, [but I’m] starting to realise that my best ideas come when I’m not thinking about them — throughout the day, my brain is trying to solve problems. At night I stop thinking about the problems; I’m usually super chilled, ambient music playing in the background, late shower, reading a book, and then bam. Just like that.

VN: What advice can you give to young creative wanting to get into the business?
TM: I find the term “get in” means different things to different people, like I often get emails from [people] saying, “You know, I haven’t quite cracked it yet, I’m still camera assistant: how do I get in and become a director?” My first thought is usually “but you are in already.” I engage a lot with young talent and what I find frustrating is that, often. they are forward-looking while neglecting the present. Instead of being the best cable basher in the world, [they’re] constantly looking at the DOP position; that creates resentment and negligence. You can do both: have your eyes set on the future while being the best at what you are doing right now.

VN: Tell us something about yourself not generally known.
TM: I was a pretty meanass train surfer; okay. I was young and stupid but, still, I was dope with it.

VN: What exciting projects are you working on at the moment besides the Shaka Zulu project?
TM: It’s been a wild ride for about nine months now [at the time of the interview — ed-at-large], I’ve shot and dropped an ad every month since November. When this article drops, my latest one would have just gone live. So, yeah, it’s been wild, trying to recalibrate and take it a little easy on that front. I’m currently pitching on a few exciting jobs: I have a collaboration with an East European creative collective coming up, a small passion project in East Africa and [am] on the brink of tackling two really special documentaries. Haven’t worked on a doccie format in a while so the challenge is really exciting.

VN: You directed the Kwesta Spirit music video; please take us through that creative journey and subsequent reaction to the video.
TM: Yoh, I could go on forever with this one. In Kwesta, you have an incredibly humble and giving individual. His heart is for his people so, when he releases a track like Spirit, [it’s] an anthem for the people. Then you can’t help but make the video about the people. I often struggle to break down the creative process because it was somewhat a spiritual (excuse the pun) exercise. I don’t mean to sound so cryptic; the one thing I can say for now is that my initial departure was to create a piece that would be an onslaught of the kasi energy, I wanted to bombard the audience with so much of that kasi aesthetic that [it] would make it hard to shake off once you’d seen it. The reaction points to that fact; it’s been absolutely incredible witnessing how much the people love it, even international acts — getting shout outs from legends like Swizz Beats and Rick Ross has been incredibly humbling. I just wish people would stop screaming “SPIRIT” each time they see me in public ?

VN: Please would you supply two or three pieces of work you have been involved in that you are most proud of?

https://youtu.be/-f-E0AS5T_o

Veli Ngubane (@TheNduna) entered the world of advertising with a passion after completing his BSocSci (law, politics and economics) at UCT and a post-graduate marketing diploma at Red & Yellow, where he’s currently advisory board chairman. He also sits on the IAB’s Transformation & Education Council, is a DMA board member and has judged Loeries, Apex and AdFocus. He is the Joburg MD and founding partner of the largest black-owned and -managed full-service agencies in the country, AVATAR. He is also co-founder of M&N Brands, which is building an African network of agencies to rival the global giants. In his monthly column “Young, Gifted & Killing It”, he profiles award-winning, kick-ass black creative talent in South Africa.

Liquid expectations & lovability — building remarkable CX

by Wayne Hull (@wayne_hull) What is a brand experience? It’s an interesting question. Here in South Africa, many companies still regard the notion of ‘experience’ as somewhat esoteric — as an intangible that can’t be measured. Yet, if you look at some of the leading brands in both sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, you see a different mindset: recognition that experience is, in fact, very tangible. That you can measure it and see how it yields monetary outcomes.

Inherent lovability

What goes into a great brand experience? Today, it’s less about the basic usability or viability of a product; it’s about that product’s inherent lovability. And that brand love may, importantly, be built up into a remarkable brand experience. Critically, customers today are looking for remarkable brand experiences — because they’re already getting them elsewhere, from digital leaders like Amazon.

This leads into a key fact. Experiences today are what we call ‘liquid’. For example, if you’re a South African bank providing an online experience, your customers aren’t necessarily comparing your offering only to what other banks provide; they’re comparing it to Travelstart and Gumtree or Amazon and Facebook. Experiences today are critically important to consumers — and consumers are very demanding.

To build remarkable experiences, you have to design from the consumer inward, and use data as rocket fuel to do it. Do it right and you have an 80% chance of building a great experience that your customers will love.

Everybody has a favourite experience. For me, it was always a Nespresso shop. Wherever I was in the world, the Middle East or Switzerland, I always went to the Nespresso store. Everything, from the colour of the capsules and the design of the cups to how the staff engage with you and that they remember you from last time, was magical. When you buy the capsules, you feel like you’re buying something from Louis Vuitton. Since then, I’ve moved on a bit, to Vida Coffee. Its cafes have got energy and vibe and it’s doing great, leveraging the brand and expanding — proof that experience is about much more than just the product. It’s about energy and fun, usage, engagement and relevance.

The state of digital in SA

Recent research into SA from a digital perspective, which involved taking a number of top companies and measuring them against their global peers, found that companies in SA have got quite a way to go. When the SA company pool was compared to its global peers, it was found that only 5% of SA companies could be considered to be ‘digital leaders’, relative to 25% of global digital businesses.

In general, customers in SA are also slow to change. That’s why some weight needs to be put behind the digital agenda, to create that shift.

In doing so, there are some digital legacies that need to be overcome. Many SA companies went down the digital innovation path, for example. They invested in it like a holy grail. But only a tiny proportion of companies has actually seen a return on their investments in that regard. So, you’ve got these two headwinds — SA lagging in a digital sense and innovation failing to create the returns companies thought they’d see. It’s what you have to overcome when explaining to companies why an experience strategy is key.

Talking tech

In reality, today, almost every company is a tech company. You can be a tech company providing rooms, a tech company providing services to cars, or a tech company specialising in online products or banking services. And when there’s an enormous tech component to almost all businesses, there’s no such thing as a digital strategy any longer; there’s just the business strategy for a digital business.

In this kind of environment, working in an agile way is crucial. Waterfall approaches (where every product has a long design-and-build phase) just aren’t going to work in a market where you need to constantly iterate based on customer feedback. Today, you build products with your customers — not for your customers. Your customers are part of the journey.

Look at Rain, for example; it’s created a solution around a key customer problem, namely cost of data, and it’s building a new experience around that, and iterating based on customer needs.

Today, companies have to be courageous in terms of how they release new products and how they design experiences. Customers want to be recognised. They want relevant information. But they also want fun, energy and engagement. Pulling off every aspect needed to create remarkable brand experiences is very complicated. But it’s where the new battle for customer love and loyalty will be fought.

The above is based on views shared during a panel discussion “What Does the Customer Actually Want? Mapping the Customer Experience” at the GIBS/Strate Fintech Disruption conference, held on 19 June 2018.

Wayne Hull (@wayne_hull) is managing director of Accenture Digital for South and sub-Saharan Africa. He returned to South Africa after spending 13 years in the Middle East, Pakistan and Switzerland, where he was at the forefront of the cutting-edge technology in the areas of internet of things (IoT), data analytics and online media.

#DesignIndaba: Architecture & life after disaster

Alejandro Aravena presenting at Design Indaba 2018 - YouTube screengrab

by Herman Manson (@marklives) As Chilean architect, Alejandro Aravena, flew home from Design Indaba 2010, his home country was struck by a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by a powerful tsunami. The twin catastrophes destroyed 80% of Constitución. At Design Indaba 2018, he recounted his experiences in helping to reconstruct the city.

After finally making it across the border and back into Chile, Aravena assisted in planning for the city to be rebuilt. He drew up a plan to assist the devastated community after the initial search and rescue efforts had been concluded. To make the city habitable again, water distribution was a first point of action, including finding ways for inhabitants to move water to their dwellings so they wouldn’t have to carry it.

Temporary to final

This was followed by establishing temporary shelters around courtyards (so people could share resources like kitchens and lavatories). Interestingly, the system of building small communities meant they also shared an interest in co-operating among themselves, and helped decrease the isolation and sense of uprootment accompanying disaster — in South Africa, think of the fires that often sweep through our townships, year in and year out.

By day 10, the temporary shelters had been upgraded with more robust accommodation that would see inhabitants through several winters while proper housing was being constructed. These shelters also had to become part of the final housing solution.

Villa Verde is the largest project in the reconstruction of the city of Constitución. All photos by Cristian Martinez / ELEMENTAL — “The architects designed the social housing units as half of a good house instead of a complete, but small one: building-in the possibility for residents to double the floor area of the house to 80 square meters.” Source: LafargeHolcim Foundation: Sustainable post-tsunami reconstruction master plan. All photos by Cristian Martinez / ELEMENTAL.

Day 20 saw plans for sustainable reconstruction beginning to take shape. The first step? Building an open house for civic participation in the process. Participation is really what drove the reconstruction of the city — beyond the private-public partnership, citizens were involved in the decision-making process, including setting priorities for reconstruction.

Disconnect from the river

Some of the feedback coming from the open-house process included complaints, ignored for years, about annual flooding, a fear of a loss of the city’s identity, especially a disconnect from the river which was the origin of the city, and which conventional thinking would’ve said should see the construction of barriers to protect the city from future flooding (because we learnt nothing from New Orleans circa 2005). Instead of barriers, the river front is seeing a new forest being planted to serve as a barrier against floods and to create open space in the city, as well as a space for citizens to enjoy their river, with the obvious long-term economic benefits that a pretty urban forest with river views holds for the tourist economy. This was made financially feasible when Aravena tallied up the totals that various government departments would’ve spent in a piecemeal fashion on reconstruction. By adding them all up, it became possible to create a feasible project budget. Public space has increased from 2m² per citizen to 7m², everybody now has access to the river, and a natural barrier to mitigate flooding is being created.

Keeping in mind the long-term economic recovery faced by the city, a new coastal road to the city has been built, further encouraging a tourist economy.

Participatory approach

Aravena’s fame rests on his participatory approach to architecture, where he demands communities be given a say in their urban environment, and how he works to address and incorporate this feedback into his work. It really is architecture for the people, and to the benefit of the people. He doesn’t subscribe to mediocrity in an urban context, having told the Observer “a mediocre environment can be as deadly as not facing basic human needs.”

Architects and town planners need to build a culture of participation around built environments. An integrated approach that puts people and their needs first should be prioritised, whether it’s for a new town development, inner-city upliftment, a new school building or construction of an office park. Let’s not be willing to live in mediocre built environments any longer.

Shelf Life: Lemaitre’s new CI • Secco drink infusions • LOL Surprise toys

Cheryl Hunter (shelflife at marklives.com)’s weekly pick of all things new in retail — consumer products launches, retail news and FMCG campaigns!

Working shoes
Great garnish
Prima surprise

Boomtown works hard for Lemaitre

Lemaitre Safety Footwear, part of the BBF Safety Group, recently briefed Boomtown Strategic Brand Agency to bring a fresh appeal to its brand and build awareness in the target market’s consideration set, resulting in the new tagline, “From one worker to another”.

Following in-depth research, the team uncovered an insight amongst the target market: ‘hard work is universal’ and centered the Lemaitre brand positioning and ad campaign on this.

Says Lauren McNish, Boomtown account director, “Within the brand visuals you see the connection between the Lemaitre worker with the wearer of the Lemaitre footwear. By showing one passionate craftsperson placing care and attention into the making of Lemaitre safety shoes, next to another individual wearing the footwear in order to fulfill their job, we were able to humanise the brand and provide a true reflection of the individuals behind the product.”

Boomtown developed the corporate identity and the execution for the brand, shot new visuals to express the new positioning, and rolled all elements out across the new Lemaitre website, catalogues, emailers, price lists, spec sheets and advertising collateral.

Peter Gerbrandt, BBF Safety Group marketing manager, comments: “Lemaitre is a trusted brand in the safety shoe category and our new positioning elevates our status further and, more importantly, reflects the unique culture behind the brand itself with dedicated workers and a significant local supply chain bringing a world-class, proudly South African product to the market.”

lemaitre.co.za • Facebook
boomtown.co.za • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Ramify

Secco gin infusions on shelf

South Africa has seen a growing trend of craft gin distilleries, leading to a significant rise in the consumption of craft tonics and mixers. In turn, this has birthed Secco, drink infusions made from freeze-dried fruit and spices.

According to Wessel Pieterse, Tastelab owner, the Secco range is aimed specifically at consumers wanting to garnish or infuse their drinks at home but not wanting to have to waste fresh fruit if the entire container isn’t used. The second aspect is that the shelf life of freeze dried-fruit is 12 months at room temperature, so consumers may have their garnish/infusion even when not in season.

Pieterse says this method of drying leaves the structure of the fruit open, allowing it to naturally release colour and flavour into a drink.

The product was launched earlier this year in the Western Cape but has now been rolled out across South Africa and launched on Takealot with new Spiced Pomegranate and Ginger Lime variants.

tastelab.co.za/secco • Facebook • Instagram

New LOL Surprise range hits Prima toy shelves

Prima Toys has launched a variety of new, mystery-filled LOL products into the South African toy market.

A winner of the Toy of the Year Award from The Toy Association, LOL Surprise has taken the world’s toy market by storm. The LOL Surprise! Doll assortment was the no. 1 Toy of 2017 in the US, the U. and Canada, and sold out in SA within weeks.

Chiquita Patrizi of Prima Toys says, “We knew that LOL Surprise would be big but I don’t think any of us could have anticipated how enormously popular they have become. The products have made a significant impact on two important super categories — dolls and collectibles. LOL. dolls and games are big on the surprise and unboxing elements, which kids love. They’re cute, fun, entertaining, collectible and now, with the addition of the games, very educational.”

The LOL Surprise range is focused on the element of surprise and each LOL. starts with a ball-shaped container. The range now includes little sisters, puzzles and games, a glitter range and a LOL Surprise Water Game.

Prima Toys • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram

Shelf Life is MarkLives.com’s weekly column covering all things retail. Notify us of yours at shelflife at marklives dot com. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.

Cheryl Hunter (@cherylhunter) has written for the South African media, marketing and advertising industries for more than 15 years. A former editor of M&M in Independent Newspapers and contributor to Bizcommunity, AdFocus, AdReview and the Ad Annual, she has also produced for various television networks and currently consults on communication strategy and media liaison.

Dear Radio: Brand managers are the new programming managers

by Paulo Dias (@therealptp) If you’re a brand or marketing manager with a long-term investment in non-traditional radio, both contest- and sponsorship-based, how do your radio partners treat you?

Are you just the client who pays the bill at the end of every month? Or are you treated like what you are in this branded-content age, like the programming manager for the segment that your company spends a lot of money on every month? If not, it’s time to challenge your radio partner to integrate you and your brand team into the programming you so generously fund.

Radio is a very simple medium, and radio programming is equal parts science, art and gut feel. While gut feel is a very unsatisfactory heading on a PowerPoint slide, good radio programmers know how to use the science and the measurements to back what they know deep down is right. When programme managers (PMs) talk to their talent about what is going out on air, they will demand that the basics are done very well and then leave it to the superstar radio personalities to add that gold dust that only the best can sprinkle.

So, what are some of these basics and how may you use them for your branded radio content campaign?

Face time

The best PMs will spend a good part of every week, one-on-one, with their talent. It’s so easy to treat radio talent as disembodied heads and forget the people behind the voices. This face time goes a long way to making the talent feel special and heard. Believe me, so many radio people I know do wonder if anyone is listening to them and simply showing that you are goes a long way to winning them over.

If you advertise regularly with one presenter, show or even station, make sure they give you the platform and time with the people selling your brand. Show them you care and take their input to heart. And ask for the talent specifically, not the myriads of people put in place to prevent you from reaching your most-expensive salesperson.

Buy-in

Use the face time to ensure they believe in your brand and aren’t just executing a competition moment. I always go on about how “real” radio is, and disinterest or lack of buy-in comes out instantly.

If this is happening with your brand, catch it quickly and change tact.

Prep

Show prep, segment prep, prep, prep, prep.

When radio presenters do this well, there’s no substitute. There are many presenters who aren’t outrageously, naturally talented but, because they prepare so well, they make up for it.

Demand the same in your commercial content moments. Are the presenters briefed? Are they working on something new? Are they preparing for your link while the song is playing or are they posting an Instagram story?

If you’re giving them the input and support, they should be prepared to shoot the lights out every time your brand comes up.

Over-delivery

You’ve bought a schedule with a certain number of spots, promos, live reads, social posts and talk time on-air. The money is in the bank; now the talent must over-deliver.

That’s why you spend so many hours negotiating the best deal with the radio station — everyone reaches a figure that they are happy with; now expect that, when the presenter talks your brand, they’ve opened negotiations for the next renewal. If it’s truly a relationship, what they give now you will give back when the time comes.

Real-time adjustment

That’s what attracted you to radio in the first place: the opportunity to market at the speed of culture. The live nature of radio, while risky, is richly rewarding when you’re able to adjust a property to suit you.

There are loads of ways to do this:

Make sure the info the team work with is up to date
Include them in emails, staff newsletters; make them part of your brand
Let them know your business and what it is going on so they are sensitive when they take to air.

As I said earlier, these presenters could be your most-expensive salespeople — arm them with real-time info so it affects the way they treat your property.

Instant feedback

Nothing worse than sitting in a post-campaign meeting after three months on-air and saying, “Well, that didn’t work.” Nothing was written in stone; this was a live property and able to adapt quickly — make sure your station is feeding back to you what works and what doesn’t, and make sure they update instantly with suggestions and improvements.

Once you’ve signed on the dotted line for a station competition, sponsorship or feature, your job title has just changed. You are a commercial radio programming manager and the talent on air, behind the scenes, data, resources and capabilities that radio stations have for their own content now belongs to you.

Make sure they let you use it.

Paulo Dias (@therealptp) is the head of creative integration at Ultimate Media. He works closely with the programming teams at leading radio stations to help implement commercial messaging into their existing formats. He contributes the regular column, “Dear Radio”, looking at the changing radio landscape in South Africa, to MarkLives.com

Media Redefined: The temptation of more in advertising

by Martin MacGregor (@MartMacG) There is a great saying that I try and apply every day: “You can’t do big things if you distracted by small things.” I’m constantly decluttering my desk, my inbox, my house, my life in an attempt to make sure that I am only focusing on the big things. So why aren’t media owners?

Curated branding

Earlier this year I spent a week in Madrid. I did the normal mix of plazas and art museums but I always like to go to a sporting event or sports ground while I’m in a new place. Aside from my love for sport, it’s a great insight in to local culture and passions. During that week, the Madrid Open tennis tournament was on and, although unfortunately Real Madrid wasn’t playing, I managed to visit the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. They were very different experiences but both were exceptional venues, and getting to watch Novak Djokovic live was an additional highlight. But what really struck me about both experiences was how curated the branding was.

There was a real sense that a huge amount of thought had been put into both protecting the integrity of the venue and the event, the spectator experience and, as importantly, enhancing the brand opportunity. The brands had completely bought into the idea of simplicity and that less is more.

At the tennis, there were only two brands which were permanently on the court:

One was Rolex, with its deep green, gold clock and match time — so recognisable at all tennis and golf majors and a lesson in sticking to a consistent brand message, where the medium is the message. Nothing talks premium precision-timing like being courtside at Wimbledon and teeside at Augusta.
The other was Ricoh, the camera brand, on the side of the umpire’s chair. Again, perfect placement and having the best view in the house says enough about what the brand stands for.

Almost indistinguishable

The only other branding were the digital boards around the side of the court, in a soft blue-green which stood out for TV viewers but was almost indistinguishable for the spectator.

At the Bernabéu, all three levels and 85 000 seats of it, amazingly there were also only two brands visible: next to the screen on each end was a big Adidas/Fly Emirates logo — and that was it. The rest of the stadium was clean and nothing else to distract — except, of course, when the Real Madrid players were on the field, with Fly Emirates and Adidas on their shirts. Talk about ownership and making a statement!

I’m often staggered when I walk into stadia in South Africa; there seems to be an obsession with making space for as many brands as possible. It’s a complete mess and I can’t believe that any brand is getting any value at all. This temptation of more is apparent everywhere, whether it’s in stadia, billboards on the side of the road, radio feature sponsorships or way too many and long ad breaks on TV.

More brands, less impact

Brands are demanding a place in premium spaces and media owners are happily obliging. But more brands actually mean less impact. I always recommend that brands look for an open space where their voice will be heard without distraction. If brands want to stand out in a big way, they need to ensure that the small things are not distracting all the attention away.

Martin MacGregor (@MartMacG) is managing director of Connect, an M&C Saatchi Company, with offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Martin has spent 18 years in the industry, and has previously worked at Ogilvy and was MD of MEC Nota Bene in Cape Town. He contributes the monthly “Media Redefined” column, in which he challenges norms in the media space, to MarkLives.com.

#AgencyFocus: Youth marketing agency comes of age, repositions

by Carey Finn (@carey_finn) As major player in the youth marketing sector, HDI Youth Marketeers, enters its 22nd year, the agency is changing tack. CEO Bongani Chinkanda says that its new positioning marks a focal shift from activations and research to becoming “the most-connected and -connecting company in the youth market.”

#NEXT

Announced at the Sunday Times Generation Next Conference last month, the new brand position is dubbed “We are for the next” and sees the agency embedding itself more deeply into the growing youth population in Africa. After six months of reflection on who exactly youth are and where they are found, as well as what HDI Youth stands for and how it wants to represent itself, Chinkanda says, the way forward became clear.

Though well-known for its schools programmes and campus activations, the agency no longer wants to be restricted to these areas in a mobile-first, digital-first world, he says: “We want to move away from the marketing agency model we had in the past, to being a futures consultancy. We believe that the youth are the biggest influencers of our future, and we exist to make that future more meaningful. What the ‘next’ means is that we’re here for the next generation of leaders; we’re here for the next parents, next entrepreneurs, next athletes. We want to be the most connected [agency], and that means entrenched in youth culture, fingers on the pulse, thought leaders, moving at the speed of culture.

Youth authority

According to Chinkanda, when the agency says it wants to be the “most connecting”, it means integrating brands with the youth. HDI Youth aims to position itself as the authority in youth across the board, he says, with youth defined as those up to the age of 24.

It’s not about just bringing the latest deodorant or sneakers to the youngsters, though, he says— it’s also about solving youth problems. As an example, he mentions his agency’s work taking Riverbed’s idea on responsible drinking and harm reduction for Aware.org below the line to students.

Chinkanda says that HDI Youth’s new direction was dictated in part by a drop in activation offerings over the past 12 months, as brands look to lower costs while increasing experiences. Upping the game with “bespoke insights-driven” offerings has helped the agency sustain growth in the region of five%, and it is actively pitching and seeking new business. With the maturation of its brand identity, he expects that, within the next three-to-four years, the agency will have exited the activation space altogether: “Activations [only] solve a problem for now and for today, but everything that we do needs to have future impact.”

Possible challenges

Over the next 12–24 months, he’s anticipating a couple of possible challenges: one being the reassuring of clients that the agency will still be delivering as usual, and another involving the management of market perceptions. While consultants are rapidly moving into the creative space, HDI Youth sees its fleet of creatives moving into the consultancy space, he says, but if clients need them to execute on the ground, they will — as usual, but with a little extra. The solutions offered will be more future-facing, geared towards building long-lasting relationships between young consumers and brands.

Both appealing to current youth culture and predicting future iterations requires data-driven insights, says Chinkanda; this is handled by an internal “insights hub” that combines research with social listening, making use of available tools including TBWA’s D/Live (TBWA owns 94% of HDI Youth Marketeers). Having a young team overall also helps; according to him, the average age of staff at HDI Youth is just 31.

HDI Youth Marketeers’ new positioning is being rolled out across Africa, where the agency has offices in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, among other countries.

hdiyouth.com • Ramify

Office locations: Joburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Harare, Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Dar es Salaam
Revenue band: R40–R70m
Staff count: 40 (South Africa)
Key clients: Pick n Pay, Aware.org, SAB, Sanlam, Rand Water, Jet
Services: Influencer marketing, experiences (activations), social media, insights & strategy, content creation & seeding

Updated at 3.38pm on 23 July 2018.

Carey Finn (@carey_finn) is a writer and editor with a decade and a half of industry experience, having covered everything from ethical sushi in Japan to the technicalities of roofing, agriculture, medical stuff and more. She’s also taught English and journalism, and dabbled in various other communications ventures along the way, including risk reporting. As a contributing writer to MarkLives.com, her new column “#AgencyFocus” is an ongoing weekly series updating the market on agency performance, including business performance, innovation, initiatives, the work, awards and people.