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#MagLoveTop10: Best South African magazine covers of 2014

by MediaSlut (@MediaSlut) 2014 is drawing to a close, so it’s the perfect time to reflect on some of the best, worst and most talked-about magazine covers over the past 12 months. For the third year running, the 10 Best South African Covers are a true testament of the quality and creativity in the South African magazine industry! (View last year’s best South African magazine covers here.)

It’s the first part of our #MagLoveTop10 magazine cover series, which includes:

Friday, 5 December 2014: Best South African magazine covers of 2014
Friday, 12 December 2014: Best international magazine covers of 2014
Friday, 9 January 2015: Worst magazine covers of 2014
Friday, 16 January 2015: Sexiest magazine covers of 2014
Friday, 23 January 2015: Best food magazine covers of 2014

10. Marie Claire South Africa, May 2014

Lupita Nyong’o has made massive waves this past year and, with every single magazine cover she appears on, she absolutely rock it! On African soil, this is my favourite Nyong’o cover!

It would have been very easy for Marie Claire South Africa to repurpose one of the international sister-brand covers for the local version, but the team took it a step further and made it their own.

9. Golf Digest South Africa, May 2014

This being one of its most popular issues, I can only assume that this year’s broke all previous records with this bright yellow cover that states exactly what is to be expected.

It remind me of a ‘hazard’ sign… a warning to golf addicts who should now want to try out all 100 Top Golf courses!

8. iMagazine (City Press), 12 January 2014

iMagazine unfortunately is no more, as it was thrown overboard by City Press newspaper after being published as its own glossy weekly magazine for a few years.

It started 2014 on a very high (and wet) note with this brilliant cover concept, which is also one of the firsts in SA! The team took the Liquideep guys and executed the band name literally…

7. Dossier, April 2014

Bonang Matheba is our local version of Lupita Nyong’o, as she not only sells issues when she’s on the cover but she always looks stunning and fierce! Which is definitely the case on this 3D-element Dossier cover.

I love how the cover design picks up from Matheba’s dress, and displays her like the queen she is! This digital issue may be viewed here.

6. Ideas, March 2014

The Ideas/Idees teams definitely pulled out all the stops with this cover, in celebration of their “Illustration Issue”. The concept, execution, design elements — even colours — are brilliantly executed.

And it’s done in true Ideas-style, so perfect for what the brand stands for.

5. My Tyd (Rapport), 16 February 2014

For My Tyd’s 100th issue, it hit it out of the park all the way to Mars! The cover story is about Kobus Vermeulen (a normal South African…) who is in line possibly to go to Mars. The photography, typography and everything come together to make this story a must-read!

This was also the second-last issue of My Tyd, as Rapport also discontinued this weekly glossy magazine.

4. JSE, January – March 2014

This customer publication for JSE clients is extremely clever — a simple cover story that is broken down into something that even I would want to read. And genius copywriting to top it all off…

3. Getaway, July 2014

This cover is so clean and calm, I’ll also keep the explanation short: Photography, copy editing, cover lines, designs, reproduction — pure magic!

2. VISI 70

Look quickly, and you might miss it… Look closely, and you’ll see the subtle differences in this split-run of four VISI covers.

A busy cover, but striking, bold, colourful patterns that were the perfect way to welcome in 2014, the year of Cape Town being the World Design Capital 2014.

This was an authorised WDC2014 project, and a WDC2014 collector’s issue. The four different covers are based on the hand-cut felt works of Capetonian artist Jody Paulsen, in collaboration with photographer Nico Krinjo, and together this set of four gets the no. 2 position!

1. British Airways High Life (South Africa), September 2014

And the no. 1 position goes to British Airways South Africa, which constantly produces world-class covers with mind-boggling creative executions!

This one ticks all the boxes! I mean, how freaking creative to work all the issue’s stories into a “South African Heritage (and other curiosities) Crossword”?

And then the little pencil scribbles to make it look as if someone has already started (giving you some starter clues…). Epic.!

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

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 (for now anonymous) 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.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

Heroes & Zeros: Afrisam & newspaper inserts — best & worst ads of the week

Every week, The Ad Feature team on 702 takes you through the highs and lows of advertising in South Africa. This week, Andy Rice (@ricecommaandy) and Jenny Crwys-Williams (@jcwLIFE) commend cement brand, Afrisam, for its unlikely creative use of space and give a big thumbs down to a specific type of newspaper advertising — retail inserts.

Find out why these feature in this week’s Heroes & Zeros by watching the webisode below:

For a fresh look at the world of advertising, Jenny Crwys-Williams of talk radio station 702 (@Radio702) chats to advertising critic Andy Rice on The Ad Feature, every Wednesday 2.30pm — 3pm. The filmed Heroes & Zeroes will appear on MarkLives every Friday as a webisode.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

Shelf Life: Agencies on the move

Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s weekly pick of recent product, packaging and design launches:

New views for several agencies and media
Scottish Leader whisky refreshes
Coke gets social, and
Black River amps Vuzu

Making an entrance

There have been moving vans outside a few agencies and media recently as they seek out new spaces. Joe Public, John Brown, Quirk and Retroviral have all nailed it with their airy new designer HQs.

Camping out…

We love the new creative space of John Brown SA in Cape Town, designed by Inhouse Brand Architects, with the premise that ‘creative spaces inspire creative work’. The office opens into a shared ‘play’ space that includes an open-plan kitchen with a breakaway dining table and bar-style seating.

Directly opposite the kitchen and communal meeting table is a series of three pods featuring high-backed booth seating in the signature teal. Their ‘campsite’, meanwhile, is kitted out with faux grass, picnic-like seating, timber plant boxes and canary-yellow tree trunks. Brightly hued lounge seating, a cartoon-covered ‘bed’ and birdcage light fixtures add visual fodder. My favourite part is the private space designed to look like an intricate woven weaver bird’s nest, complete with little blue birdies peeping in. SO. WANT!

Joe Public United…

Joe Public relocated to its own three-story offices in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The building, a collaboration between Joe Public, Architects Boogertman & Partners and Interior Designers I4C (Interiors for Change), has been specifically created to be a collective space where all of Joe Public’s specialist businesses can meet and inspire each other.“Our view is that great creativity comes from great inspiration. Creative people love beautiful spaces and we truly believe your work space needs to be both highly functional and highly inspirational if you want to deliver great work for your clients,” says Gareth Leck, CEO, Joe Public.

Included in the new building are the following collaborative and specialist disciplines: Joe Public (above-the-line agency), Ignite Joe Public (below-the-line agency), Shift Joe Public (brand communications agency), Engage Joe Public (public relations agency), Connect Joe Public (digital agency) and Think Joe Public (strategic media planning and buying unit). Together they form Joe Public United.

Greening their space…

Retroviral’s new office building is the first small commercially viable building in South Africa to achieve a Six Green Star SA rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA). To achieve this all materials used in construction had to be procured from within a 400km radius, in order to reduce the carbon footprint.Trend Group, led by Mohamed Okasha, points out that the company ensured that all wall finishes and floor finishes had a green rating, and were as eco-friendly as possible. Megan Bürge of Paper Space Design, who created the interior décor, sourced furniture and feature lighting from local manufacturers and suppliers which invest in sustainable design.

There are many other innovations, such as air-conditioning which moves air around the building to heat or cool it according to the seasons; light shelves which reflect light into the building when the sun is high reducing the need for electric light; it’s close to public transport; providing showers and storage for cyclists; harvesting rainwater; using photovoltaic panels to generate electricity for the building…

As Retroviral founder, Mike Sharman, explains: “All of the remarkable content we create online, is inspired by the remarkable space we inhabit offline. Light, colour, and multiple glass surfaces for lumo-marker-brainstorms are critical components for us to convert strategy into tactics. This new space inspires us, provides clients with goosies in areas such as our ‘bioscope’, and amplifies our passion for creating tomorrow what didn’t exist today.”

Quirky…

Quirk moved into its new offices in Salt River, immediately raising rental prices, my sources tell me. Its cool new space is also home to the Red & Yellow School of Magic and Logic. Space is the watchword here and I’ve seen staff using skateboards to shoot from one end of the open plan floor to another. Uber-cool.

Scottish Leader soars

Scottish Leader whisky has revitalised the brand with a new look, an enhanced recipe and the introduction of an additional, premium Signature blend.

After 12 months of global consumer research, the newly positioned Scottish Leader Original has been reformulated with improved body and balance. The blend of top malt and grain whiskies is the recipe by Burn Stewart master distiller, Ian MacMillan, and now has a warm, honey sweet, smoky taste. It has also been repackaged to signify the change.

SA marketing manager, Taygan Govinden describes the fresh look as “modern, tall and proud”. “The bottle now has clean-edged glass chamfers skilfully designed to show-case the rich gold colours of the whisky. The Scottish Leader ethos is expressed in the new soaring eagle brand icon, an inherently Scottish symbol, which conveys success, vision and power.”

The brand is sold in more than 60 countries.

Be happy

Coke has relaunched its Share a Coke campaign by introducing more popular phrases and memes on their cans to heat up summer among fans.

It’s ‘cray-cray’, but the brand is asking ‘whaddup’ with your ‘BFF’s’ and your ‘cuzzies’… Coca-Cola has also increased the amount of names on the personalised 330ml cans and 500ml bottles.

“Social networking is a huge part of the teen scene. Messaging and sharing content with one another makes up a significant part of almost every teens waking day,” says Sharon Keith, marketing director at Coca-Cola Southern Africa.

“Coca-Cola is also part of their lives and by giving them the tools to create these special messages using our packaging, we hope that we can help bring smiles and happiness to the faces of many people over the festive season”

The brand wants you to say what’s on your mind with an inanimate object, hoping to tap into the social networking scene by allowing people to put names and words together with their cans to make phrases.

‘Amazeballs’, indeed.

New channel amps it

The new local entertainment channel Vuzu Amp which launched recently on DStv was branded by creative agency Blackriver FC. The agency assisted in the development of the new channel’s brand positioning, creative strategy, logo, pay-off line, brand identity, on-air indents and advertising campaign.

Vuzu Amp is a youth-oriented digital satellite television channel produced by M-Net for pay television platform, DStv, and Black River FC’s assignment was to communicate the promise of an “amplified experience” built on the success of the existing Vuzu channel. Working closely with Nkateko Mabaso, M-Net’s Director for Local General Entertainment Channels in South Africa, and his marketing team, the agency created all the advertising and marketing assets.

The first point of departure was the creation of the sleek monochromatic Vuzu Amp logo. The logo shows a close relationship to the Vuzu logo, but the forward-moving lines and shadows are a reflection of the channel’s content.

The logo features on all creative executions, including nine animated indents which were created in collaboration with visual effects companies, Flic and Wicked Pixels.

Black River also conceptualised the Vuzu Amp promo ad, ‘The Adventures of Captain Makhamisa and the VA Starship’, which was directed by Jono Hall and Louise Minnaar of Darling films.

Shelf Life is a weekly column by Louise Marsland. Tweet new product, packaging and design launches to @louise_marsland or email her at louise.marsland at gmail.com. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.

Louise has written about the FMCG, media, marketing and advertising industry for 20 years as a former editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing, as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. She also edited the weekly Wednesday Media & Marketing Page for The New Age newspaper. She is currently the publishing editor of industry trendwatching portal, TRENDAFRiCA, for consumer insight, research and trends in Africa; a regular industry columnist and speaker; a consultant on content strategy; and contributing editor to Fast Company South Africa magazine, which has just launched in South Africa.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

Africa Style: Commitment to the cause

by Masingita Mazibuko. It’s a common refrain, “If only I had turned left instead of right, I’d be happier/richer/healthier…”, and also the concept driving the 1988 movie, Sliding Doors. In the movie, a woman’s love life and career both hinge, unknown to her, upon whether or not she catches a train. The audience sees her life play out both ways, in parallel. So, choices — they impact us upon personally. They also impact upon us as marketers.

For those of us living in the world of marketing and communication, the right choice can put the brands we curate on the road to prosperity. Sometimes that road is smooth and can be travelled quickly. At other times, it can be harder to navigate with pot holes and speed bumps along the way.

Pic courtesy of CNaene at freedigitalphotos.net

It can also be straight and endless, mind-numbingly boring. And, once in a while, you can round the bend only to discover the road ends in a cul de sac.

Werner Herzog¹states that “there is nothing wrong with hardship and obstacles but there is everything wrong with not trying.” In other words, as brand managers, we should expect the going to get tough every now and then. What we shouldn’t do is give up on the course we’ve chosen. Who knows? Just over the rise may be a long downhill.

Herzog also states that making a decision is a prerequisite for “creative mastery” in the future. By this, he means that you can only be creative about how you take the brand on the journey after you have decided where you want to go.

In other words, you cannot plan, you cannot prepare, you cannot move forward without having taken a decision, without having made a choice. I’d like to add that a firm foundation and clear vision are vital if the choice to be made is a well-informed one.

Bryon Sharpe² highlights that building distinctive assets and reinforcing these consistently entrenches the brand and what it stands for the consumer’s memory to create an “enduring” brand. Yet, how often do we marketers get bored and veer off on a tangent to fix (recreate) what ain’t broke?

Sibusiso Vilane, the first black African to summit Everest, told me that this achievement required extreme patience and persistence. He revisited and revisited and revisited the same mountain paths over and over and over again to acclimatise to the varying altitudes on the journey to soar to the heights of the Himalayas. His was a journey of clarity and focus on the end goal, and not veering from the chosen path. Yes, he got bored, but he stayed the course.

The choices marketers make are not necessarily as adventuresome, but ensuring we do not succumb to our own boredom along the brand’s journey is critical.

And, yes, we will falter or come to a dead stop along the way; that is inevitable. The challenge at these times is not to pack away our failings into a trunk to be engulfed by cobwebs and never to be seen again. Instead, we must reflect upon the failing, and use the reasons why to inform our future direction. And, when it is time to start moving again, we must ensure we stay true to what has informed our brand in the past and what should inform it going forward.

Marketing is about choices and being relentless in peeling back the layers to ensure that our brand remains distinctive. This is ever more important as our consumers get inundated by multiple messages. Can you recall the brands featuring on the billboards you pass driving to and from work each day? Do you even know that you are passing billboards?

Maybe that should be your wakeup call to stay true to that which made your brand famous in the first place.

Sources:

www.brainpickings.org/?s=werner+herzog: Werner Herzog on creativity, self-reliance, making a living of what you love and how to turn your ideas into reality.
Sharpe, Byron. How Brands Grow — What marketers don’t know.

Masingita Mazibuko is a marketing director at Unilever. The views expressed within this monthly “Africa Style” column are, however, entirely her own.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

#Top40TVratings: 24–30 November 2014

by SAARF & MarkLives (@marklives) See who made it to the top of our National and DStv charts for the week of 24–30 November 2014! Please note that Generations data should be able from next week onwards.

A collaboration between the South African Audience Research Foundation (SAARF) and MarkLives, this #Top40TVratings column is a weekly roundup of SA’s TV audience viewership.

We reveal the best-watched shows of the week before (in this case, 24–30 November 2014), where they ran and how many South Africans tuned in to watch.

We offer two tables:

The first covers all households — free-to-air viewing (the various SABC channels and e.tv), as well as the DStv platform.
The second charts the best-watched shows on the DStv network of channels only.

SAARF/MarkLives #Top40TVratings Charts: 24–30 November 2014

National

Market	Target	Activity
National	Total Indv (incl guests)	Live + VOSDAL
Counter	Description (grouped)	Channel	Level 1	_{Level 2}\^variable	(r) AMR %	AMR	SHR %
1	SKEEM SAAM	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	19.0	8 164 700	62.35%
2	KOWETHU	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	14.3	6 145 904	47.97%
3	SOUL CITY	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	14.1	6 049 349	46.83%
4	MUVHANGO	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	13.2	5 662 855	46.95%
5	MUTUAL FRIENDS	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	12.6	5 424 877	41.87%
6	SHREDS AND DREAMS	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	11.9	5 094 925	41.70%
7	ZAZIWA	SABC 1	Variety	Variety	10.5	4 502 673	37.01%
8	SELIMATHUNZI	SABC 1	Variety	Variety	9.9	4 241 192	32.58%
9	JIKA MA JIKA	SABC 1	Music	Music	9.7	4 154 606	37.10%
10	MY PERFECT FAMILY	SABC 1	Sitcom	Sitcom	9.5	4 080 577	32.53%
11	TASK FORCE(DRAMA)	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	9.4	4 041 582	32.68%
12	POWERBALL	SABC 2	Variety	Variety	9.1	3 882 953	36.93%
13	SCANDAL	e.tv	Drama	Drama	7.6	3 260 227	26.77%
14	XXX 2:THE NEXT LEVEL	e.tv	Movies	Movies	7.5	3 223 302	31.58%
15	XHOSA NEWS	SABC 1	News	News	7.5	3 205 376	31.26%
16	ZULU NEWS	SABC 1	News	News	7.5	3 199 803	29.70%
17	SPEAK OUT	SABC 2	Actuality	Actuality	6.6	2 844 430	31.44%
18	SKEEM SAAM -R	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	6.6	2 826 001	52.60%
19	SKWIZAS -R	SABC 2	Sitcom	Sitcom	6.4	2 760 601	31.35%
20	NELSON MANDELA CHALLENGE-SOUTH AFRICA VS COTE D’IVOIRE	SABC 1	Sport	Football (soccer)	6.0	2 552 858	35.39%
21	THE X FACTOR SOUTH AFRICA	SABC 1	Reality	Reality	5.9	2 534 258	32.45%
22	EMZINI WEZINSIZWA -R	SABC 1	Sitcom	Sitcom	5.9	2 531 060	47.33%
23	RHYTHM CITY	e.tv	Drama	Drama	5.9	2 525 137	25.59%
24	MUVHANGO -R	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	5.7	2 430 163	45.66%
25	MOHLOLOHADI 2	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	5.6	2 419 646	25.09%
26	SUNDAY LIVE	SABC 1	Actuality	Actuality	5.6	2 387 330	22.91%
27	KHUMBUL’ EKHAYA	SABC 1	Magazine	Magazine	5.3	2 284 313	21.91%
28	WWE WRESTLING RAW	e.tv	Sport	Wrestling	5.3	2 253 285	27.85%
29	7DE LAAN	SABC 2	Soap opera	Local	5.1	2 171 672	21.94%
30	HOLA MPINJI	SABC 1	Educational Program	Educational program	4.9	2 103 039	19.62%
31	ISIDINGO:THE NEED	SABC 3	Soap opera	Local	4.9	2 101 325	18.95%
32	ISIDINGO -R	SABC 1	Soap opera	Local	4.8	2 045 833	44.85%
33	YOURS MINE AND OURS	SABC 1	Movies	Comedy	4.7	2 023 621	21.71%
34	SA SPORTS AWARDS	SABC 1	Sport	Variety	4.7	2 012 172	24.67%
35	TEMPY PUSHAS -R	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	4.6	1 973 573	39.06%
36	CUTTING EDGE	SABC 1	Actuality	Actuality	4.6	1 967 196	22.10%
37	90 PLEIN STREET	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	4.5	1 947 509	21.27%
38	MUVHANGO -R	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	4.5	1 929 630	30.24%
39	MARMADUKE	e.tv	Movies	Comedy	4.4	1 890 883	20.31%
40	HOLA MPINJI -R	SABC 1	Educational Program	Educational program	4.4	1 869 015	40.39%

DStv

Market	Target	Activity
DStv	Total Indv (incl guests)	Live + VOSDAL
Counter	Description (grouped)	Channel	Level 1	_{Level 2}\^variable	(r) AMR %	AMR	SHR %
1	SKEEM SAAM	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	11.5	1 549 000	37.20%
2	MUVHANGO	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	9.0	1 222 636	31.73%
3	POWERBALL	SABC 2	Variety	Variety	6.0	804 904	22.91%
4	ZAZIWA	SABC 1	Variety	Variety	5.7	774 247	19.18%
5	ISIBAYA	Mzansi Magic	Variety	Variety	5.6	752 949	18.34%
6	JIKA MA JIKA	SABC 1	Music	Music	5.0	678 419	18.75%
7	SHREDS AND DREAMS	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	4.9	666 142	16.89%
8	SCANDAL	e.tv	Drama	Drama	4.8	651 159	16.17%
9	7DE LAAN	SABC 2	Soap opera	Local	4.4	591 501	16.82%
10	KOWETHU	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	4.4	588 138	14.13%
11	NELSON MANDELA CHALLENGE-SOUTH AFRICA VS COTE D’IVOIRE	SABC 1	Sport	Football (soccer)	4.2	572 284	21.21%
12	SELIMATHUNZI	SABC 1	Variety	Variety	4.2	571 653	13.76%
13	SPEAK OUT	SABC 2	Actuality	Actuality	4.2	570 654	19.92%
14	SOUL CITY	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	4.1	549 649	13.32%
15	RHYTHM CITY	e.tv	Drama	Drama	4.0	540 998	15.43%
16	MY PERFECT FAMILY	SABC 1	Sitcom	Sitcom	4.0	536 789	12.73%
17	XHOSA NEWS	SABC 1	News	News	3.9	528 544	14.72%
18	WELSH INTERNATIONAL RUGBY WALES VS SOUTH AFRICA	SuperSport 1	Sport	Rugby (all)	3.9	522 169	19.07%
19	SKWIZAS -R	SABC 2	Sitcom	Sitcom	3.8	511 222	16.92%
20	MUTUAL FRIENDS	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	3.6	482 280	11.83%
21	ZULU NEWS	SABC 1	News	News	3.6	481 487	12.68%
22	WWE WRESTLING RAW	e.tv	Sport	Wrestling	3.3	449 245	14.99%
23	OUR PERFECT WEDDING (MAG)	Mzansi Magic	Magazine	Magazine	3.3	447 392	11.60%
24	SKEEM SAAM -R	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	3.3	439 976	24.27%
25	KHUMBUL’ EKHAYA	SABC 1	Magazine	Magazine	3.2	438 611	13.12%
26	TASK FORCE(DRAMA)	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	3.2	434 578	10.94%
27	MOHLOLOHADI 2	SABC 2	Drama	Drama	3.1	417 605	13.27%
28	BOER SOEK N VROU	kykNET	Reality	Reality	3.1	414 306	10.19%
29	ISIDINGO:THE NEED	SABC 3	Soap opera	Local	3.0	405 662	10.71%
30	THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL	SABC 3	Soap opera	International	2.8	375 261	12.01%
31	MUVHANGO -R	SABC 1	Drama	Drama	2.7	368 615	20.45%
32	THE X FACTOR SOUTH AFRICA	SABC 1	Reality	Reality	2.7	361 269	11.95%
33	MADEA’S BIG HAPPY FAMILY	Mzansi Magic	Movies	Drama	2.7	360 995	9.78%
34	ABSA PREMIERSHIP POLOKWANE CITY VS KAIZER CHIEFS	SuperSport 4	Sport	Football (soccer)	2.7	360 518	9.08%
35	NEWS	e.tv	News	News	2.6	347 370	9.41%
36	NUUS	SABC 2	News	News	2.4	329 712	8.92%
37	XXX 2:THE NEXT LEVEL	e.tv	Movies	Movies	2.3	316 003	8.72%
38	EMZINI WEZINSIZWA -R	SABC 1	Sitcom	Sitcom	2.3	311 380	17.52%
39	IT’S GOSPEL TIME -R	SABC 2	Music	Music	2.3	310 092	11.78%
40	ISIDINGO -R	SABC 1	Soap opera	Local	2.2	299 963	18.10%

How to read the tables

AMR% refers to the number of people in a target market who were watching an event ie programme, expressed as a percentage of the population for that demographic: “On average, 16.3% of adults aged 15+ who watched TV from 28 Jan-3 Feb 2014 watched Society on SABC 1”.

AMR is the number of people in a target market watching a specific event ie programme per minute, expressed in absolute figures: “On average, 1, 541, 066 adults aged 15+ who watched TV from from28 Jan-3 Feb 2014 watched Society on SABC 1”.

Share % (SHR %) is the share or proportion of the available audience (people watching TV at that time) that a specific channel/programme has achieved at that time: “Society achieved a share % of 52.59% from 28 Jan- 3 Feb 2014 on SABC 1″.

SAARF is the name by which the South African Audience Research Foundation is familiarly known. SAARF’s main objective is to direct and publish media audience and product/brand research for the benefit of its stake-holders, thereby providing data for target marketing and a common currency for the buying and selling of media space and time. SAARF has thus the responsibility to measure the audiences of all traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema and out of home media.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

New look for Media24, Naspers Centre renamed

Media24 has unveiled a new visual identity, as well as visuals of what its foreshore head office building will look like once its current revamp is completed. The new logo was designed by Crispian Brown, group creative director at New Media Publishing, a Media24 affiliate.

Esmaré Weideman, chief executive of Media24, says the revamping of the building and renaming of the Naspers Centre to the Media24 Centre is “Naspers’s gift to us to commemorate 100 years of publishing excellence since the inception of Die Burger in July 1915”.

The new Media24 logo will be displayed on the west façade of the building and will be unveiled in December 2014 to mark the end of Cape Town’s reign as the World Design Capital. It will reach 34m high and stretch 6m wide. The rest of construction is due for completion in July 2015, when Die Burger celebrates its 100th birthday.

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Motive: Reaching the masses in magazines — pay up

by Jocelyn Duff. If Sarah Palin lived in South Africa (heaven forbid), she would surely have said, “YOU magazine is my fave and what I really like are the back scandal pages!”

“All of ’em, any of ’em that have been in front of me over all these years.” — Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News

You want to reach the masses by using magazines? Simple, use the ubiquitous family stable: Huisgenoot, DRUM and YOU. But hold on — not anymore.

Titanic

Circulations of these famous brands have dropped considerably, totalling 41 000 copies. That is 7% less than just over a year ago. Many niche publications would be overjoyed with a circulation of 41 000 and to lose that in a year would be titanic.

So what has happened with the income received by these three mags over the same period? Has that gone down proportionately, and are we going to see Naspers, the highly successful holding company, suffer as a result?

On the contrary; there has been an increase of R66 million to R79 million — an increase of 18% coming from ad revenue alone. Yet circulation is on the downward slope and income is on the upward. That makes for an interesting financial strategy — deliver less and make more rands.

Like a chocolate bar

It is like a chocolate bar reducing the size of its offering and then asking for almost 20% more on its cost. Inflationary? You bet!

The latest highly successful results for Naspers published last week shows that the group made a profit of R2.25bn.

It is common knowledge that it is diversifying from print and pay-TV to its internet businesses outside of SA.

It earns 72% of its revenue offshore. Naspers’s internet segment, which includes classifieds, payments and online retail platforms, has remained the fastest-growing segment in the group and accounts for 58% of revenue. Naspers’s DStv business reported profit of R5bn: an increase of 11%.

At our cost

From the financial report: “The print media businesses continue to struggle. But revenue grew slightly while margins contracted further.” We know that! So print is being replaced — but at our cost.

Note to media planners: be careful with the budget, negotiate, and make the combination of these magazines work hard for you. They still deliver but not at the same level.

Jocelyn Duff is an analytics & insights strategist at Nota Bene, specialising in gathering insights and disseminating best practice media theory. She has been in the media and advertising industry since 1984, the longest stint having been within the WPP group of companies, particularly at Ogilvy, where she was media director. Follow @mecnotabene for regular media updates.

“Motive” is the new 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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Fair Exchange: Call me!

by Erna George. A day or so after my Fair Exchange column focusing on Pick n Pay’s Brand Match hit the web, I received a call from Gareth Ackerman. He wanted to discuss several of the issues I had raised, because he felt I had the wrong end of the stick.

Truth be told, I’d been planning on touching upon them here because — during the long lead time between deadline and publication — several points I had indicated as nonsensical and ill-conceived had been righted by Pick n Pay, particularly with respect to in-store communications and T&Cs.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

Even though not as breakthrough as I would prefer, a pat on the back, PnP, for introducing new news in a lackluster retail environment, and for correcting your course once you’d experienced that it wasn’t 100% correctly charted.

Conversing with customers

Anyway, this exchange got me thinking about ‘conversations’ with customers, especially via call centres. So many brands that do initiate conversations seem to take the role of a parent talking to a child: the conversations are one-sided, directive and sometimes distracted.

What with the shift in power towards the consumer (slow though it may be in South Africa), the opportunity to have dialogue as equals is enormous.

Delving into the world of call centres is daunting and frightening — managers, employees and, of course, consumers have experienced myriad varied interactions.

Limited follow-through

Many brands make a promise to, others invite feedback but — other than this declaration of intent — follow-through is limited. And can it be classified as dialogue?

Take Nestlé and its brand Milo, for example. A few months ago, Milo was offering a limited-edition offer, and directed folk to its website.

Off I went and made the enquiry on the page I was directed to. Upon hitting send, I got an instant message along the lines of ‘if you are having trouble getting through to us online, please send us an email’ and lost my two short paragraphs. Frustration! In the interest of research, I rewrote my enquiry using email … and then waited three days for what read like an automated response. Dialogue?

At least my experience was better than my husband’s with Kellogg’s. Upon discovering an alien product in his cereal, he called the number proudly displayed on the side of the box. It rang, followed by the obligatory ‘your call is important to us’, followed by ‘we cannot take your call right now; please leave a message after the beep’. Only there was no beep, just the call being cut — twice.

If the brand is not present

Maybe this was just a call-centre problem. But the issue is that the conversation cannot happen only at a time that is convenient for the brand. If the brand is not present, why should the consumer continue to engage, or indeed purchase, the brand going forward?

Let’s look a little further afield to more service-focused industry and consider a little fact: did you know that many women tend to use the same garage to fill their car, mostly for the security factor? What this presents is a prime opportunity for a brand-consumer conversation driven by the petrol attendants, who are the primary face of the brand.

I overheard a conversation at a lunch and enquired a little more of the young woman who had filled up at her nearest Shell for years. The petrol attendants knew her by face, not by car. They proactively cleaned her windows and checked her tyres — and once even helped her buff light scratches out of her car.

Enter a new loyalty programme requiring her to use Caltex. To maximise her points, she did the switch but was dissatisfied by the absence of a friendly greeting and proactive service. She needs petrol and wants loyalty points but it just isn’t worth the effort. Her words? “Not enough for someone who is a people’s person.”

Differentiator

When your product costs the same as your competitor, shouldn’t great service delivered via a great conversation be your differentiator to keep consumers engaged?

Moving to retail, about an hour after buying some decadent pastries, I received an SMS from Woolworths asking me to rate the service at the bakery of the specific store I was in. What? “Who was stalking me?” I thought, having forgotten I had swiped my Woolworths rewards card in the hope of earning a good deal down the line.

It was a shock to find out that the card was being used to track service and experience. I was in two minds about the whole thing: proactive dialogue or intrusion? However, after my research into brand engagement, I decided that as this was the first time I had received such a call, it was a valid and targeted way to seek feedback and connect. If it continues to happen after each visit, my mind will change.

We should see more of this type of conversation happening as a new technology from a local tech company, Beaconeye, comes onstream. It’s launching a new mobile app called Piing which will allow retailers to engage with the customers directly, from welcoming on entrance to the store (or being close enough to ping an invitation) to special offers on shelf… all while earning loyalty points.

Judicious use

This could be really empowering for retailers, and will unlock real value if used judiciously.

It must be an interaction that benefits both consumer and retailer, uses the profile information its clients provide as a guardrail, listen to their wants and needs, and then engage on terms that suit them. It cannot be about spam or irrelevant stalker-like messaging. Too many of these will see consumers opt out of the app.

Hitting the streets soon, let’s see how respectful and patient retailers will be with this conversation platform.

What to do

So in short, interaction is sought, so:

Make sure your communication tools are working (I can’t believe I had to even say this) so you appear interested in consumer’s views and do not frustrate
Develop your staff as your brand’s mouthpiece as they take on this role anyway
And, as digital grows, balance what you want with what the consumer needs, using a well-considered and highly targeted relevant communication tool

If you get this right, the equation of delighted customer equals value in your store could just become a reality.

Erna George is the new director of strategy at Lowe Cape Town. She has worked with diverse brands and categories — from FMCG, alcohol and agriculture to financial services and entertainment — in countries across many geographies, including South Africa, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Philippines and Brazil. She contributes the monthly “Fair Exchange” column, concerning business relationships and partnerships in adland, to MarkLives.

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#AdoftheYear: Top 10 Best South African Ads of 2014 [ads 5-2]

by Oresti Patricios (@orestaki) Emotion — that’s the one thing in common with the adverts that have made their way to the top of the pile for 2014’s #AdoftheYear. All of these commercials entertain, but are remarkable because they connect to human feelings.

Let’s get on with it then. The countdown of the top ads of the year continues (see ads 10-6 here). The ads have been chosen by a select and top secret panel of judges. The judging criteria is undeclared. No correspondence will be entered into.

Want to view all the Ads of the Week at a glance? See our #AdoftheWeek Pinterest board!

#5. Celebrate the Rainbow Nation with a…

In fifth place in this highly subjective ranking is that beverage the whole world knows, Coca-Cola. This wonderfully innovative promotion by the leading global beverage brand celebrates the Rainbow Nation, sunny skies and all things outdoorsy.

The campaign was devised by FCB Johannesburg, as part of the buildup to the Freedom Day celebrations of 27 April 2014. It also marked 20 years of democracy in South Africa. It’s the sort of experiential exercise that gets people talking, twitterers tweeting and instagrammers flashing.

A specialist ‘rainbow maker’ was brought in from the US to create artificial rainbows at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg, using high-tech water sprinklers to make a fine mist at just the right place and time of day.

It was a campaign that drove a tremendous amount of social media buzz: it was visual, memorable and fun — a perfect association for the Coca-Cola brand [it also won a lot of awards — ed-at-large].

#4. Pop-up Street Store for the homeless shows real heart

Fourth on the list is the socially responsible Street Store for homeless people, created by Kayli Levitan and Max Pazak, with the support of M&C Saatchi Abel Cape Town.

The idea? To create pop-up ‘stores’ for people who live on the streets so that they can select used clothes in a comfortable environment, as opposed to the normal practice of bundles of clothes being ‘dumped’ by charities on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. The concept was aimed at granting homeless people greater visibility and dignity.

The hope? That homeless folks might gain a sense of empowerment through being able to choose what they want.

Since I first wrote about this open-source project, it has been rolled out in many cities across the globe, including Brussels, Vancouver, Johannesburg, Belém, Kentucky, Sao Paulo, and many more. Currently 125* events in total have been held in cities throughout the world. Please visit http://thestreetstore.org/ to find out more.

* Updated 2014/12/03

#3. I see a different Brand Soweto

The ad that takes position no. 3 in our ranking is I See a Different You. This is not so much an ad as a self-started campaign by three Soweto residents to improve the image of their home town.

I See a Different You started as a photographic project in December 2011, with the three friends (two are brothers) taking pictures in Soweto. The trio used themselves as models, and played with a quirky juxtaposition of fashion and Soweto’s streets. Later on, they expanded into other areas, such as Alexandra and downtown Johannesburg.

Subsequently, the I See a Different You crew has been sponsored by Grant’s Whisky to do a project around South Africa based on the theme of ‘Stand Together’. The theme of this project is looking at how people help each other to succeed. The trio has also travelled to other African countries to take photographs, plus they’re involved in an offshoot video project.

This effort is a great demonstration of hope and entrepreneurship, blended with the power of social media.

#2. Give those ad makers a Bell’s!

Second place is awarded to the TV spot created by King James for the ongoing Bell’s Whisky campaign, and is called “The Reader”. The campaign’s classic payoff line is “Give that man a Bell’s” — a slogan that has become so successful that it has passed into common parlance here in SA.

This TV spot tells the story of an elderly man who enrolled for night classes to learn to read, largely because his son had written a book and he wanted to be able to read it.

This story certainly tugs at the heart-strings, but also speaks to the important issue of literacy. It is an inspiring ad that delivers a powerful, branded message.

Almost at the end

And so we come to the end of our journey through the best of the best. Almost, that is!

Next week we’ll reveal the top ad or campaign of the year (we know you can barely contain yourselves). Who will it be?

I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait one more week to find out.

Ad of the Week, published on MarkLives every Wednesday, is penned by Oresti Patricios (@orestaki), the CEO of Ornico, a Brand Intelligence® firm that focuses on media, reputation and brand research.

If you are involved in making advertising that is smart, funny and/or engaging,
please let Oresti know about it at info@ornicogroup.co.za.

— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!

The Switch: Staying on top — the need for planning

by Alistair Mokoena (@AlistairMokoena) If you ask most CEOs and sportspeople what their goals are, invariably all of them will say it is to be the best. In other words, they strive to be no. 1. And, if you read company vision statements, you will find the same goal. What you will seldom find expressed in those is a desire to remain no. 1.

However, if you pose the same question to army generals, they will tell you that success is winning a war, not a battle. In my view, being no. 1 is like winning a battle — remaining no. 1 over an extended period is winning the war.

Consciously express

The danger here is that, if you don’t consciously express the desire to remain no. 1, you won’t plan for it. Organisations that don’t have a plan for retaining their market leadership are no different to couples who plan for a wedding but fail to do so for a marriage.

We see this all the time with our favourite sports teams. They plan for one season at a time instead of planning to dominate for a number of years. They exhaust all their energies in winning the league or a tournament, and battle to retain their winning ways in the following season.

Many advertising agencies find themselves in this position following winning “agency of the year” after topping creative charts. Why does sustained success seem to elude us? How do other organisations get it right?

Do things differently

Organisations that manage to stay on top do things differently. Their game plans consists of two parts: one is called “brilliant basics” and the second is called “game changer”.

Brilliant basics is the plan that got you to no. 1 in the first place. This plan seldom guarantees victory in year two, either because the market place has changed or competitors have copied you. You therefore need to add another plan to your brilliant basics, and that’s called the game changer.

As the name suggests, this means planning for a future that is different from the current. It means moving the goal posts by disrupting the status quo. It involves using scenario planning to imagine what the future could look like and planning for victory in that future state. It is a way of ensuring that you remain in the lead and that your competitors play catch up.

Reinvention

Another word for this is reinvention. You have to reinvent the game by changing the rules so that whoever copies your previous plan fails.

The game plan that helps you become no. 1 eventually becomes table stakes. Everyone will copy it. You therefore need to create distance between you and the competition.

Organisations that enjoy sustained success tend to display the following attributes:

They are innovative and dynamic — they embrace change
They are hungry and passionate — they don’t allow themselves to become complacent
They are ruthless and uncompromising when it comes to performance — they are serious and measure performance against set targets
They keep raising the bar with every win — they are constantly trying to beat their previous performance
They have a broad view of competition in that they benchmark themselves against the best, not only in their industry but in other unrelated industries
They don’t stop learning — they constantly shine the spotlight on their blindspots
They reach breakthrough by breaking rules and inventing new ones — they set the industry agenda by determining what good looks like

Master the future

Sustained success requires you to master the future ahead of the competition. After all, the future belongs to those who invent it.

Alistair Mokoena (@AlistairMokoena) — a Unilever-trained Chartered Marketer with lots of blue-chip marketing experience — is currently the outgoing MD of FCB Joburg (he will be joining Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg as MD in January 2015). One of his favourite pastimes is driving around in the bush, photographing wild animals. Alistair, who switched from client- to agency side at the end of 2012, contributes the monthly “The Switch” column, covering relationships inside agencies and between agencies and clients, to MarkLives.com.

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