by Martin MacGregor (@MartMacG) The debate has been raging recently about whether digital advertising is everything it has been claiming to be. This was sparked by the chief brand officer of P&G, the world’s largest ad spender, who described the way online media was managed as “murky at best and fraudulent at worst”.
Marc Pritchard put the marker down that the company would only spend with publishers and agencies if they developed a standard viewability metric, and offered fraud protection and third-party verification metrics.
“The web’s lapdog”
Blogger The Ad Contrarian (Bob Hoffman) summed up the thinking behind this perfectly: “the advertising industry has become the web’s lapdog — irresponsibly exaggerating the effectiveness of online advertising and social media, ignoring the abominable results of display advertising and glossing over the fraud and corruption…”
I listened to a creative director talk the other day and bemoan the kind of creative work that he was being forced to do in the digital age. And whom did he blame? The media agencies and online publishers which are shoehorning clients into massive digital buys that created nothing more than “digital landfill” — compromised creative work living in the dark places of the digital universe that nobody really visits.
I often come across this argument in various forms and, without wishing to sound ageist, usually from creatives who were more traditionally schooled.
The last stand
The last stand in this argument is usually highlighting that, if you walked through a supermarket today, it’s difficult to find one brand that was created through digital advertising rather than through traditional advertising. My counter is that this argument is now outdated in the new age of ubiquitous digital video on a social feed.
Yes, to be honest, static banner advertising — no matter how well targeted, relevant and creative — never made the impact that it was initially thought it would back in the late ’90s. Then it was felt that it would work as well as either print or outdoor advertising had done — and there is no debating that these media had worked hard to build brands.
Banner advertising never seemed to benefit from the stature or premium environments that these media offered. On a web page, advertising felt like an annoyance and an intrusion — and the ridiculously low click rates, despite much excitement around “engagement” from the digital industry, proved it.
20 years on
But, 20 years on, the code has been finally cracked. The ability to target broadly with audiovisual content in an intimate environment is working and finally getting the long-yearned-for traction.
In 10 years’ time, any new brand on the supermarket shelf is going to be digitally built. Hopefully by then, publishers and agencies will be in a much-more-honest space, with a simple audience metric, totally transparent reporting and with companies such as Facebook finally opening up their data for third-party verification. As a digital consumer, I’m looking forward to this age of spam and landfill being over. Most importantly, it will shift advertising into a more-positive space again.
Digital media is around 21 years old. The time is definitely right for it to mature.
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.
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Cheryl Hunter (shelflife at marklives.com)’s weekly pick of all things new — product, packaging, design, insight, food, décor and more!
JML creates PJ Pops
PRIMI introduces gaming
SAB goes green for St Pats
Adult lollies
In September 2016, Pierre Jourdan wine popsicles were launched in South Africa, creating a new brand category on local shelves and achieving sales of more than R1m in the first four months from selected Pick n Pay stores only.
Created and developed by JML Consulting, the popsicles were initially launched in 26 PnP stores and, by the end of December, were available in 38 stores across Gauteng, KZN, Limpopo and the Western Cape.
According to Natasha Alomia, director of JML Consulting, the PJ Pops took 13 months of planning, conceptualising and hard work to develop: “Launching a new brand in what would be considered a luxury item category was not something we did lightly, given the current tight economic times. An extensive amount of research went into the PJ Pops as we honed the design, production and, ultimately, the end product into something which we are very pleased to report has garnered the South African public’s full support.”
Riaan van Niekerk, managing director of Clos Cabriere, says: “If anything, the success of PJPops is built on the universal basics of a partnership — common sense, a common purpose, and strong ethics.”
As with anything new, where there is no rule book to follow, the only way you learn sometimes is the hard way and Alomia says they experienced challenges and occasional setbacks but, six months post-launch, the company is currently developing three new flavours for release this year. It is also in negotiations with other retailers, both in SA and internationally, to stock the wine popsicles: “We hope to be top of mind when it comes to creating premium alcoholic and eventually non–alcoholic popsicles.”
Rising food inflation, wages and utilities are putting significant pressure on the bottom line for the SA restaurant industry, forcing businesses to innovate and adapt to drive sales and encourage footfall. One example is PRIMI.
Says Sean Holmes, marketing director at PRIMI, “As with the lifecycle of all brands, creative thinking is key in order to shift the curve and maintain relevance in an ever-evolving consumer driven market.”
In what is reportedly a first for the local restaurant industry, PRIMI has introduced an interactive mobile device game, making use of a one-click engagement platform.
Partnering with Smirnoff, it is the first game of its kind whereby patrons may win instant prizes or the grand prize of a R30 000 Smirnoff experience for the winner and friends.
“Consumers nowadays want to interact and engage in real time, and the gaming platform enables us to facilitate this interaction in-store at table level. Not only can we interact this way via the consumer’s mobile device in a fun way, but we can also reward the consumer in real time. This will be in the way of a voucher or coupon, which in turn will be received by the customer whilst at the table, enabling it to be redeemed instantly.”
PRIMI also recently underwent a massive “revitalising” exercise, including a name and logo change, the introduction of a new menu and more. With the redesign of the restaurant, each store also creates its own visual identity, including graffiti art, which embraces its local context and the personality of the restaurateur.
It’s that time of year when pubs and taverns all over the world create traditional green beer for St Patrick’s Day.
Tourist attraction, SAB World of Beer, will be hosting its annual beer tour linked to the Irish tradition 13–19 March. Visitors may sip on green Castle Draught in the Lion Bar — apparently it’s just a drop of food colouring that turns the beer green — and, for luck, tour-goers are encouraged to wear something green.
The Taproom will be serving traditional Irish fare.
Shelf Life is MarkLives.com’s weekly column covering all things new. 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.
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by Herman Manson (@marklives)In front and all around us, concrete reaches for more concrete in the charmless heart of the civic centre precint. It’s a reminder of the architects and planners of this place. Their fears built bunkers (in the US, they would be building walls) and that language presents clearly in our surroundings. Blue MyCiTi buses careen past. The perimeter is fenced off and everybody enters through a skew piece of fencing manned by two security guards.
Reinvention and integration
Like the monstrous highways that cuts the city from the sea, the gaping hole of a bulldozed District Six once very much the heart of this city, this part of Cape Town’s CBD feels brutal. It begs for trees to break the harshness and the heat. If ever there were a place in need of reinvention and integration into the rest of the cityscape, this would be it. Welcome to the design event of the year in the heart of the design capital of Africa.
Outside, the sun beats down on a not-entirely successful attempt to replicate the sculptural cool of AfrikaBurn. Hundreds of people eat Woolies sandwiches, wraps and salads, staring over the grounds leading up to the main entrance of the Artscape Theatre complex. The asshole in front of me lights a cigarette. I eat my smoked-chicken sarmie.
Back inside the theatre’s air-conned belly, three days of sometimes mind-bending talks and performances aim to stimulate and inspire a fairly diverse audience of designers and agency folk. Design events always feature chair talks. It’s a thing — designing chairs, then talking about it endlessly on the design-talk circuit.
Design Indaba 2017 kind of kicked off with a chair talk. I know this because I saw chairs on the screen as designers Dokter and Misses offered a presentation on their work and their design ethos. “Kind of” because the film presentation’s sound wasn’t great at the back where I sat. So I got to skip the chatter about chairs and other stuff and instead marvel at the choreography of conceptual performers Dear Ribane. At the end, I wanted them to do it all over again. It was the most-brilliant chair talk ever.
Image supplied by Design Indaba
Global graduates
The global graduates always impress. They may not sell tickets and put bums in seats but often their innovative ideas and unconventional thinking is what many delegates take away at the end of the show. Kaja Solgaard Dahl drew a lot of attention for her Cape Town-inspired scent called “Tapputi and the sea. Cape Town edition” and her use of dyed, natural sea sponges to create a unique, exclusive mechanism to hold and apply the scents.
Arjun Harrison-Mann, meanwhile, told a profoundly human story where dialogue meets design and advocacy — in his case, to enable people with disabilities to protest and have their voices heard through the merger of offline and online protest action.
Chris Sheldrick, the founder of what3words, has figured out an innovative way of giving the 4bn people without a workable physical address by creating a map that chops the planet into 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares and giving each square a unique three-word address (flitter.alliance.competently).
Marina Willer amazed with her extracts from her upcoming feature film, “Red Trees,” which tells the story of her family, specifically her father, who were one of only 12 Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague, and their eventual escape to Brazil. She also danced during a presentation of her other work in case the audience found the slideshow boring. One of the most charming individuals to take the Design Indaba stage for sure.
Much has been made of the Design Indaba collaboration with IKEA. Essentially, a group of African designers will design a 40-piece “Africa” collection for the retail giant. Which is wonderful, until you realise this company pushes out 2000 new products every year. It’s a start at least!
Business angle
Olafur Eliasson was one of the few designers who offered a business angle during his presentation. The designer of the Little Sun project (which creates an affordable solar-light product shaped like a sunflower), he is rolling out a solar phone charger and a second lamp, the Little Sun Diamond, which has a more-masculine feel to it (a response to a design criticism by men who didn’t want to buy the original Little Sun lamp).
The project has sold 280 607 lamps via some 600 distributors on the African continent. The lamps sold here are subsidised by a premium charged for the lamps in Europe.
Eliasson acknowledges that he had hoped for a bigger impact, given the power shortages on the continent, and hopes the additional products will spur more local entrepreneurs to carry his products.
Image credit: aysebirsel.com
Definite highlights
Two definite highlights on day one included talks (which will be covered in more detail in the weeks to come) by:
Birsel discussed how design thinking may affect your life (as it did hers).
Ahtisaari discussed music as precision medicine; in other words, how it affects our health and wellness both physically and emotionally. His projects take research beyond the intuitive to the scientific and, ultimately, he hopes to tackle our dependence on pharmaceuticals for our general well-being.
[You try taking notes in a dark opera house/theatre complex. The guys next to me could have been necking and I would not have been the wiser. It. Was. That. Dark.]
Sometimes it was a bit much. One performance artist on day two either blew your mind or tortured you endlessly (clue: I wrote “endless” in my notes). Another designer droned on and on in the world’s most boring monotone: veteran journalist Louise Marsland over in the media simulcast chewed gum to stay awake; I took a power nap.
Standing ovation
The only presentation to receive a standing ovation this year was for two Dutch guys bitching about people in poorer countries stealing their marvellously original work. They were funny — truly funny — but something still felt off about the whole thing; I’m guessing the whole global discussion on privilege passed by that bit of Europe.
Information designer, artist and the co-author of “Dear Data,” Giorgia Lupi, urged delegates to rethink their relationship with data and to rediscover unique points of view by removing software and automation from data analysis. Her handcrafted approach to data dissected her life and that of co-author, Stefanie Posavec, revealing the hidden patterns of their individual lives and helped build understanding between the two friends.
Global grad Thandiwe Msebenzi confronted the audience with images of the weapons her mother and grandmother sleep with at night so they can fight off attackers. These are brutal, incredible pictures that punch you in the gut, and would seem unbelievable if this weren’t South Africa. They show fear but also courage and determination, and confront this country with its own cruel reality — later in the day, SA’s rape statistics would appear, revealing that 110 people are raped in SA every day (the consensus is that only a fraction of cases are reported; the real picture is much more frightening).
Most intellectual
TL Uglow (‘Tea’) gave an insightful talk on how context changes content (also see note on IKEA) and how information really is a spectrum we can play with. I suspect her talk went over a few heads; it was, by far, the most intellectual of the three-day event but delivered with charm and grace. Check one of projects she is involved in: Editions at Play, an experiment in digital literature. The other, which is still a work in progress, investigates ownership (of literature, in this case ) in a digital world. It truly is ground-breaking stuff.
Brian Collins (the designer, not the country music singer) is chief creative officer of COLLINS, a design agency with offices in New York and San Francisco. His agency has a library. A library, folks, with real books. And his staff members have to go in there and read stuff before they get going on a project. AWESOME.
For now, Luis von Ahn is best-known as the co-inventor of CAPTCHA (which we also found out is a brilliant way of digitising books) but that will soon change, thanks to his education disruptor, Duolingo, “a language-learning platform created to bring free language education to the world”.
Basically, he gamified language tutoring, and his site keeps on learning where people struggle and what may be done to make these parts of the language easier to learn. You may learn in 34 hours what you would have spent a semester learning in college. Learn English, French, Spanish and a host of other languages, including Swahili and, soon, isiZulu.
The final act of the final day usually veers off course at Design Indaba: it’s reserved for the amazing. Hugh Masekela-amazing. For South Africans, it’s the best part of the indaba because it reminds us that we are more and better than the corrupt politicians and their very wealthy friends (and proprietors of the Saxonworld shebeen) would have us believe.
Honouring the Arch
Image credit: Jonx Pillemer, Design Indaba
This year, the event honoured Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. He was frail, he was humble, he still laughed and clapped his hands together. Nobody would sit down after he entered the theatre. Nobody. Would. Sit. Down. They stood until it was time to leave. He had his chair moved so he could view the choir and so it didn’t block the view of the audience. He invited the other archbishops (current and retired) to share the stage at an event designed to honour the Arch (his argument seemed to be they are all Arches!).
We realise we are with a man who helped bring down apartheid. A friend of Mandela and the Dalai Lama and a generation of leaders who offered humanity and hope and peace, rather than shit and guns and drones. Leaders who were willing to design a different world. We walk away. Yet, when we enter their presence, still we pause and wonder at what could have been. Could be.
Outside, the crowd disperses and the concrete swallows us up. We disappear for another year.
Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com.
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by MarkLives (@marklives) The marketing and advertising industries are transforming. So why are so many black professionals disgruntled with the rate of progress? And is the quality of most of the work specifically directed at a black audiences still sub-par? We emailed a panel of key industry executives for their take. Next up is Ahmed Tilly of FCB Africa.
In order for this discussion to move forward, the responses to the question need to be blunt. It has been 22 years since the first discussion on the very same topic. We’ve run out of time.
The larger advertising industry has not transformed. We can all say some progress has been made but, after 22 years, “some” is simply not good enough.
And the reason for this is simple; there is no will to transform. There is neither desire to right the wrongs of the past nor is there a willingness to share power and wealth. We have all been inundated with excuses. I say excuses because, 22 years ago, we had reasons; now they are just excuses.
Boardrooms are too white — agency boardrooms
If you look around, you will find that, in most agencies in the country, if there is a black creative director, there’s always a white executive creative director. If the agency has a black ECD, the chief creative officer is still white. Power and control have not been transferred. One step down: creative teams in agencies are still largely skewed towards white talent. Twenty-two years later. It’s unacceptable. It’s not 1994. The work is still generally developed by white creatives, approved or rejected by white CDs, presented to white clients for a black audience. A population that comprises of 80% black people! This makes no sense to me at all.
The clients are predominantly white, too. It doesn’t matter how many black brand managers and marketing managers there are. Where are the black marketing directors? The black MDs and CEOs? As a result, there is no pressure been applied by companies onto their agencies to force change, either.
The work is vanilla
With clients also white, how is it possible to produce marketing that is incisive and insightful for a black audience?
This clearly is reflected in the work we see around us — “vanilla”. By “vanilla” I mean neither nuanced for the audience, nor exciting. Nothing breakthrough has ever come from caution and ignorance. It is no surprise that creative output is uninspiring when the decision-makers have to second-guess what the audience will love and, in most cases, the super-sensitivity around what may offend that audience.
Work that is designed to charm a black, South African audience cannot be fairly assessed by white individuals.
Black advertising professionals are gatvol
Black advertising professionals have seen all of this first-hand, for years. They have experienced the inappropriate comments made in boardrooms. They have heard first-hand the gross ignorance with regards to black audiences. No amount of “immersion-sessions” and “field trips into townships” will be enough. Black advertising professionals have seen the limitations for growth to the very top. It is demoralising. Opportunities to the corner office are limited and a history that spans 22 years has proven this. And I haven’t even started to talk about the very necessary equity discussion. Why would they stay in an industry that refuses to transform?
Is my opinion radical? Perhaps. I’m okay with that. I have always stressed that a transformed industry will help transform a country and, ultimately, a more-united population overall. The workplace is an incubator that forces people to learn about and understand each other. The workplace is where the country really transforms. I have never espoused an exclusionary culture in terms of diversity. I have never propagated that there is no place for white professionals in our industry.
The need to be normalised
However, I have always believed that the country and the industry need to be normalised before it can move forward. And it hasn’t. I believe that a transformed industry will be a more-robust industry with more work for everyone. White and black. I believe that diversity is a beautiful thing. A place for all. But, if there is resistance to change, a stubbornness to hand over, a reluctance to share the wealth and the power, spaces in the industry will be limited.
If you’re reading this as an agency leader or as a CEO of a company that is not transformed, be radical in your approach. Your “reasons” had a time limit. That time limit has passed. Transform now. If you haven’t, try harder. No one is interested in your excuses anymore.
Launched in 2016, “The Big Q” is a regular column on MarkLives in which we ask key industry execs for their thoughts on relevant issues facing the ad industry. If you’d like to be part of our pool of potential panellists, please contact editor Herman Manson via email (2mark at marklives dot com) or Twitter (@marklives). Suggestions for questions are also welcomed.
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by MarkLives (@marklives) The hottest primetime television shows on DStv in South Africa revealed: TV ratings for January and February 2017.
In 2016, the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA) changed its policy about giving away TAMS and now only monthly reports, highlighting the top 20 or 30 primetime shows on several popular channels, are available.
The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (the BRC) is a non-profit, industry body that was incorporated in 2015 to cater to the audience research needs of the radio and television industry in South Africa.
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Ironically, Australia hosts one of the biggest and most-fab gay pride events in the world, yet it doesn’t recognise gay marriages. Cosmopolitan Australia has made a big splash by showing its support with this “Special Cosmo Pride Issue”, coinciding with the massive Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras that took place on the weekend of 4 March 2017. On the cover is the beautiful Ruby Rose (you might recognise her from the massively successful prison drama, Orange is the New Black), who is Australian herself, and plays a lesbian character in the TV series. Cudos to Cosmopolitan Australian for taking such a strong stance!
Like a phoenix swan arising from the ashes, the Ideas/Idees team has brought this massively creative and stunningly beautiful title and brand back to life! Yes, after Media24 announced that it would be closing the title, and the team produced its last issue, the editor negotiated with Media24 to have the title and brand transferred. The team members took their severance packages and did the ‘first’ issue ‘for free’ — now THAT is dedication! The ‘first’ new issue looks fantastic, and regular readers won’t even notice any changes, which is a really good thing! Make sure you read about the “journey of ideas” right here.
It’s a pity this issue didn’t coincide with International Women’s Day (8 March 2017), as it would have had even more of an impact, especially with all the protests that took place all over America and the world (mainly against Donald Trump). A strong message, made very clear, on a strong cover.
Our poster boy Trevor Noah is now also a (TIME) cover boy! He’s featured on the Europe, Middle East and African edition as part of its annual “Next Generation Leaders” issue. He joins this sought-after list with “9 other stars ready to take over their fields”.
Popular cartoonist, Zapiro, took this opportunity to show the difference between two of our South African ‘leaders’, in a way that only he can…
MagLove by @MediaSlut is a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week, recognising well thought-out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three-in-one) covers and celebrating the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them. The anonymous (for now) blogger behind MediaSlut knows way too much for his own good about media in South Africa, magazines in particular. His mission is to show when SA magazines fail but, most importantly, also when they succeed. If you’re looking for a library about SA magazines and news, this is your one-stop pitstop.
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by Paulo Dias (@therealptp) And you won’t believe what happened next…
Now that I’ve got your mouse pointer or finger hovering eagerly over my very clickbaity headline, let’s turn your attention to the very 2017 fad of fake news and more specifically how, in an era of fake news, radio maintains its position as the medium you may trust.
Intimate medium
We’re always told that radio is the intimate medium, the one where listeners build a one-on-one relationship with presenters and trusts them implicitly. I know from numerous non-traditional radio ad campaigns, and radio being the first influencer-driven marketing medium, how much trust listeners put in the words of their favourite presenter. I’ve seen first-hand that, by the presenter telling the listener to go buy something or attend an event, they will strongly consider it.
Playing on this relationship is so crucial in an age where, according to a BuzzFeed analysis in 2016, headlines such as “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President” and “Morgue Worker Arrested After Giving Birth To A Dead Man’s Baby.” ranked as some of the most-engaged-with and -shared stories.
Who is driving the fake news agenda and why is being debated in much more detail and with more authority than me elsewhere. It’s pondered whether it is propaganda fuelling political agendas, is it just a new method of making money from online content ensuring more clicks and views, or is it just being driven by faceless and friendless online trolls who worship at the altar of Milo Yiannopoulos? Whatever the reason, and I don’t dispute that there are sinister agendas behind fake news, let’s consider the role radio plays as a trusted source of information.
Built their reputations
The majority of radio groups in this country have built their reputations on being premium suppliers of news and information. 702 and its doggedness for the truth spawned the integrity behind EWN, 947, KFM and CapeTalk and laid the foundation for honest programming that people could trust. Others followed suit and even music radio stations made a point of offering premium news services to their audiences.
Today’s instantaneous news cycle and the need created by social media to be first or trending, rather than correct, has shaken up traditional news establishments and the way they operate their newsrooms, but the truthfulness and transparency expected from radio stations in all facets of their programming means they are not excused, and judged more harshly than other media when they do put out false or incorrect information. Lord help a DJ who gives you the wrong artist’s name when back-announcing a song or gives an incorrect answer during a quiz. There’s no place to hide or a bottom corner of page 2 retraction for that…I know from hard and hate-filled experience.
Never call him Jason Bieber, no matter how new an artist he is.
“In radio we trust”
Search hard enough and you will find radio stations which have fallen victim to fake news stories but you’ll find more truth in radio news reports and from radio news sources than you will from the average social medium.
When writing about the same topic, Robin Lustig, Radio 4’s veteran broadcaster, said “In an era of fake news radio is not a luxury — it’s a necessity” and closed it off with a sentiment close to my heart, “In radio we trust.”
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
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by Tom Fels (@thomasfels) Politics and religion have long been sensitive territories for any brand to play in, although they have provided plenty of topical ammunition for brands such as Nando’s, whose consumers have come to expect to be the tongue-in-cheek voice of the people.
With Brexit and Donald Trump’s recent populist victory in the US, it seems that the collision of politics and religion in legislative policymaking has compelled many more brands to take a stand against the resulting discriminatory and divisive outcomes. In doing so, they are changing the communication rhetoric around the world. Our collective consciousness has shifted the advertising focus from individual beauty, individual performance and individual success to the virtues of equality and togetherness over ‘stories of one’.
Decisive action
Within days of the signing of Trump’s first immigration enforcement order, which restricts movement of people from several predominantly Muslim countries, Olympic gold medallist (and US immigrant) Mo Farah said, “The Queen made me a knight; Trump made me an alien.”
Nike CEO, Mark Parker, responded promptly by issuing a letter to his employees, stating that “[t]his is a policy we don’t support.” He further urged that “[n]ow, more than ever, let’s stand up for our values and remain open and inclusive as a brand and a company. We are at our best when we recognise the value of our diverse community.”
Shortly after, Nike released a star-studded manifesto film called Equality, depicting how the values of sportsmanship should extend beyond the field of play.
https://youtu.be/43QTjFCPLtI
In the wake of Trump’s executive order, several global brand leaders clamoured to make their stance known. Google set up a US$4m crisis fund to help employees and other people affected by the policy; Airbnb offered free accommodation to people left stranded by the ban; Microsoft sent a letter to its employees offering legal assistance to those affected; and Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, said that he was “concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump”. Uber founder, Travis Kalanick, stepped down from Trump’s business advisory council (after the CEO of competitor Lyft announced that it would be donating US$1m over the next four years to the ACLU to “defend our constitution”); and Starbucks committed to hiring 10 000 refugees over the next five years.
David LaChapelle added his talents and voice by creating a colourful film for Diesel entitled “Make Love Not Walls” — a literal and figurative outcry against the recent policymaking and proposed wall between the US and Mexico, which features, among other things, a rainbow-coloured tank and same-sex kissing. The tank will tour London, Milan, Shanghai, Tokyo and New York with the hope of spreading the message of global togetherness.
Locally relevant
I wrote recently about the compelling need for South African brands to be active citizens, rather than bystanders to the political and social upheaval of the country. There is a great deal that we can learn from the decisive and relevant action taken by these predominantly US-headquartered businesses in the face of an attack on their people’s freedoms (both employees and customers).
This is now the most-pressing opportunity for marketers the world over — to speak truth to power and greed, and champion the interests of the people for a greater society.
~~~
PS Momentum continues to build around this rhetoric, as recent Oscars’ primetime advertising confirmed. This Cadillac commercial is yet another manifesto for the times and premiered during the show…
https://youtu.be/2SB4CbFB7OU
Source
Independent.co.za
With over a decade of local and international experience in leading brand consulting, design, shopper marketing and integrated advertising roles, Tom Fels (@thomasfels) has gained a deeply relevant understanding of the dynamics of agencies. His skills are put to work daily as group managing director of Publicis Machine. He contributes the monthly “Ad Exec” column to MarkLives.
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by Sean McCoy (@TheRealMcCoyTRM) Much of the discussion around the role of the internal brand and employee engagement tends toward service-based industries or sectors that are sophisticated in nature, such as financial services or the airline industry as examples. The world of mining, extractive and beneficiation industries and the broader industrial sector is no different, however.
A few days at Mining Indaba 2017 has brought into sharp focus the many and varied challenges and opportunities faced by the mining sector in South Africa. These range from policy uncertainty in the local context, commodity cycles and global demand, investor confidence in our country generally and a myriad social and environmental issues, to name but a few. Central to the social impact is the issue of the communities in which the mines operate, as well as the surrounding communities and regions — ones that are plagued by the triple issues of poverty, inequality and unemployment. In many instances, a typical mine employee also resides in that very community and therein lies the problem that is unique to this sector.
The need to ensure that employees are fully engaged, productive in their output, committed to the organisational journey and operating in a safety and quality conscious environment is key to these sectors. In South Africa, in particular, this happens against the backdrop of a dire need for enhanced productivity, continuously improving safety standards, and deteriorating ore grades and deeper level mining, exacerbating the pressure for automation and mechanisation in an attempt to help pull both these critical levers.
The paradox is huge
The SA mining industry has a history that is intertwined with apartheid and this legacy makes it forever difficult to move ahead. Fast-forward to the present context and the state of the industry demands that all critical stakeholders align, get their houses in order and solve the current-day issues in order to push forward to the benefit of all South Africans.
If this is not done at speed, the industry and, indeed, South Africa Inc, will again miss out on the anticipated commodity-cycle turn and potentially face greater economic woes than it has in recent years.
As one leading industry executive suggested to me recently, perhaps we should shift the narrative in the sector to one in which we try picture a country without a mining industry —a deliberately provocative statement borne out of frustration and exasperation of the need to take a very sober view of the industry at present and act with urgency and cohesion.
Employee as change agent
This has prompted me to ponder the opportunity of the mining industry employee as a potential change agent. This individual sits at the intersection of the community, the mining company and organised labour, and potentially has a pivotal role to play, albeit that it is a huge ask. If we can convincingly win the hearts and minds of mining industry employees and turn them into positive agents of change, they could be the very catalyst that could help mobilise progress and forward movement in the sector.
This is internal brand engagement at its potential best — employees who have a fundamental belief in the purpose of the organisation and the progress that the mining sector can and does deliver in the communities in which it operates.
It requires a leap of faith to equip them as agents for change and enable them to catalyse an improved sense of togetherness — employees, community members and the organised labour movement. This could potentially drive better relationships with mine owners and create a fundamentally better sector overall, with improved investor confidence and a cohesive pressure brought to bear on government to get its ducks in a row and provide the necessary policy and regulatory certainty that the sector so desperately needs.
Ideology and reality
In an industry that already has no shortage of ideological standpoints, my own may be equally biased and potentially utopian — or, some might suggest, even daft in the reality of the situation — and they may be right. It does beg the question, however, of what it will take to make the difference.
Undoubtedly, it needs the commitment and energy of all players in the sector, but I am of the opinion that the engagement of the employee who sits at the intersection of this delicate ecosystem could be just the difference we need. Easier said than done but the progressive players in the sector are actively engaging the communities and the employees who live and work within it.
We do need to see the change, for the benefit of all of us. A prosperous mining sector is undoubtedly good for every South African.
Dr Sean McCoy, MD and founding member of HKLM, is a prominent figure in the branding arena, with his expertise centered on client service, brand strategy and business development. He contributes the regular “The Real McCoy” column focusing upon internal branding to MarkLives.
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by Bogosi Motshegwa (@Thinkerneur) As digital and advertising agencies, it is our prerogative and responsibility to not ill-advise clients. We need to have important conversations about social media presence, and these include asking questions such as: Do we really need to post three-to-four times a week or day? Do we want to have eyeball frequency or have real emotional connections with people?
As a brand, no one cares about what you have to say. Unless you say what people — communities —are interested in or really want to hear. People gather around certain topics of interest because they matter to them. They become emotionally invested in the topics and conversations. As a brand, your role is then to be part of these interests and conversations without being intrusive and forceful. Your role is not to shout loud or try to stand out and be heard; it’s about listening and being involved.
Different approaches
The objectives of having frequency and making a connection are different, and therefore plans to achieving them will be unique, and will require different approaches.
Here’s a five-step approach to being socially relevant by making emotional connections:
As mentioned above, the fundamentals are important. If you think about it, social media is about conversations and gathering of interests and people. People are either pulled into or fall into pockets of interests. As a brand, you need to find and decide on these pockets. Have a plan and purpose.
If, as a brand, you engage with topics, conversations and interests that are important to people, then you will start to be relevant to them. Social media was never for brands to attract people into boring conversations. Brands should push themselves towards people, their conversations and interests, and gather there, not the other way around.
The next time content is to be shared or posted on any platform, before you even consider the platform itself, ask yourself: Does this really matter to people? Will people care? As you are about to hit that share, post or publish button, does it feel sexy on your fingers? If the answer is no, then why post it? Does it make you smile? Have you been eager to share with the world? If not, what are you doing?
As and when you create the content calendars, because the process is just as important as the end result, are you excited about what you are creating? When you finally get to publish your posts, when you click that ‘publish’ button, are you genuinely excited or is this just another post or tweet? Are you merely ticking the boxes, just doing your job? Don’t copy and paste your website content onto Facebook, Twitter or Instagram; that’s silly and a waste of your employees’ time and clients’ money. Don’t just tick the boxes. That’s easy.
Following on from above, this means that you’ll need to prioritise between quantity and frequency, and quality and resonance. Not copying and posting content from your website means focusing more and more on creativity and the crafting of your messages. The implication here is that, when giving people the responsibilities of managing pages, how exerted on the job are they — do they care about the brand? If they do, they’ll also care about what the brand is engaged in. They’ll dedicate time to crafting, as opposed to ticking the boxes.
Crafting social media content
Craft your social-media engagement effort; finesse and refine it, which will take time, effort and hard work. This means that social media people will need to spend more time on creative solutions, on coming up with ideas that will increase the number of people who fall in love with your brand(s) on social media. Crafting means paying more attention to the narrative of your posts, their quality, and not thinking about just trying to meet deadlines.
Not everybody cares if your brand has a page on any social media platform; they only care about their friends, what interests them and especially what they want to post. The rest is just background noise. If you want to see if people care, delete your page for a month (or just don’t post anything) and see if anyone will call and ask about your disappearance.
People don’t buy newspapers for adverts; neither do they go onto social media for them. They log on to post or look for content that is interesting that they can like, share and/or comment on. Social media is a social gathering space, so be interesting. Be socially relevant.
Bogosi Motshegwa (@Thinkerneur) truly believes that advertising can really change the world. Every single day he tries to prove this. He shares his thoughts on the industry and sometimes has unconventional views. Bogosi is a committee member of AMASA, an Advisory Council member at Vega, and also does speaker management at TEDxJohannesburg. He is currently a strategic planner at McCann WorldGroup Johannesburg.
“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.
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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.
