Lupita Nyong’o is definitely making a name for herself!
This Kenyan-Mexican actress made her film debut in the 2013 movie 12 Years a Slave and made everyone in the industry sit up and take note of her. And this New York cover is doing it again!
She’s just swimming in a sea of red patterns, but she’s standing out and shining bright, like the stunningly beautiful star she is!
But this cover, all made from chocolate, is again something I’ve never seen before, and something worth sharing [that said, I’m so over this trend — ed]!
I’m always in awe of these types of covers, for their pure brilliance, status, and for just getting all of these names in one room together to create a True Hollywood cover!
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 three work days. Sign up here!
by Shauneen Procter (@procter101) When it comes to bidding for new business, the South African ad industry is getting it wrong. There are people who love pitching, and others who loathe it; few are neutral on the subject. Instead of dueling the dichotomy, let’s put the beast on the table.
Let’s unite to find a way
Let’s unite to offer alternatives, and find a way to deal with this beast for once and for all.
I’m in two minds about the business of pitching myself. It’s the beginning of the year — high season for pitching. We already have three pitches waxed, and part of me loves the thrill of the race to try and win a new client. The other part hates the idea of stressing the agency – the late nights, stretching the team so early in 2014, and the prospect of turning on a tickey for what isn’t always good odds.
As a serial entrepreneur, my experience of sales is that referral business trumps the pitching business every time. Referrals on the back of excellent work and relationships are a more efficient and sustainable way of doing business.
And I’m not the only one who’s divided about pitching.
New research
New research conducted by market research firm, Provoke Insights, shows about half of the agency people surveyed for this study hate the process of bidding for business.
The poll showed some 47% of advertising professionals are unhappy with the approach their agency takes to pitching. One ad professional canvased stated: “I hate the pitch process. It means working 24-7 and completely wears everyone out.”
Key sources of frustration
The survey cited unrealistic timelines (66%) and long work hours (65%) as the key sources of frustration. People answering the online survey said their experience showed pitch processes were usually “very chaotic, [with] no clear direction until the last minute.”
Other frustrations cited included the lack of appropriate data and research during client bidding wars.
For as long as I can remember, pitching has been an agency issue locally, with much grumbling that periodically bleeds over into resentful interviews in the marketing press, and angry debates.
If our industry is so divided about the issue, why don’t we learn from advertisers in the UK who’ve taken a smart approach to the problem by banding together to solve the issue?
Good Pitch Week
Our marketing compañeros in England have joined together to create a themed week to educate the market about best practice (good perspectives) when it comes to pitching. Called the “Good Pitch Week” the campaign, founded by the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), it creates a platform where clients and agencies can share thoughts and ideas about the pitching process.
The effort has yielded great tools and guidelines for both clients and agencies, as well as a united forum for lobbying the industry to move towards better practices that suit both parties.
The Good Pitch campaign has come up with a “New Business Pitch Pack” with guidelines on how the bidding-for-business process should work. Other support offered to agencies and clients includes information on intellectual property rights, a pitch protection service, templates for clients and a tender alert service.
The Good Pitch drive also has advice for clients on how to go about finding an agency, briefing an agency, and evaluating and remunerating an agency. There are insights, too, on how to judge creative ideas and how to develop a communications strategy.
Good work being done locally
Don’t get me wrong. There is some good work being done on pitching locally. The Association for Communication and Advertising has put together a best practice guide on pitching, while the likes of Angelika Kempe of relationship-management consultancy Ad-Ops have brought rigour to the process. Others which have boosted the positive fundamentals include management-by-measurement company, Yardstick.
When looking at the pitching process, what we need is a bigger view of things. The debate isn’t just about the process; it is also about results, efficiencies and the sustainability of the advertising system.
If the industry is to mature and move to a place where we truly serve clients by growing brands and building an intelligent, integrated industry, isn’t it about time we stopped complaining and did something to make pitching less imperfect and more useful for business growth, brand values and advertising sustainability?
— Shauneen Procter is a founder member of Idea Engineers, a brand, advertising, social media and reputation management agency that engineers bespoke marketing solutions for companies in a complex, socially networked world. Procter is an advertising veteran who started her career at Grey Phillips in the ‘80s. She was the founder of Sorcery Advertising, voted by clients as the “Best Local Advertising Agency”. A champion of sustainability, Procter is an investor in smart new businesses, a mentor to emerging brand talent, and an iconoclast who eschews awards but believes in building value and respect.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), San Francisco Bay It was going to change business forever. It was going to make traditional advertising irrelevant. It was going to revolutionise marketing.
It was social media marketing. And it’s been the biggest disappointment since the NFL hired referees.
While advocates for social media still cling to the wreckage of “the conversation” and continue to hound us with apocryphal tales of social media magic, dispassionate observers are starting to realise what a delusion the whole theory of social media marketing has been.
The idea that consumers were enthusiastic about having conversations about brands online, and they would activate their network of friends and followers to share their enthusiasms and create a socially transmitted tsunami of sales has proven to be deeply fanciful.
It turns out that the average consumer has a lot more on her mind than conducting online conversations about fabric softener. And the ones that do seem to have no ability to generate enthusiasm in others.
While people with a financial or ideological stake in social media continue to propagate the fantasy, those annoying, troublesome things called facts keep popping up to undermine their careless assertions.
The first crack in the wall came in 2011 when the largest, boldest experiment in social media marketing ever attempted — the Pepsi Refresh Project — was exposed as a nasty failure that seems to have cost the brand 5% of its market share, which it has never recovered.
“Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales…”
A few months later, a story in The Wall Street Journal reported on a study IBM had done on the effect of social media on Black Friday sales. While sales were great, the social media contribution to sales were essentially nonexistent.
Shoppers referred from Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated .34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, a decrease of more than 35 percent from 2011.
The Journal commented…
“…there’s one notable under-performer in the online shopping frenzy: social media.”
But perhaps the most damning report on the negligible influence that social media marketing has on sales was issued a few days ago by McKinsey & Company.
This sentence from the report says it all:
“Email remains a more effective way to acquire customers than social media – nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.”
We’re talking about email here, not the Super Bowl. Email 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined? Now that’s frightening.
The social media fantasy is in a death spiral. Social media marketing is no longer taken seriously as a sales builder by anyone with a functioning cortex.
Social media marketing will continue to be strangely popular and sporadically effective in some small niche categories.
But when it comes to serious brands, in the vast majority of cases it is evolving into just another cost of doing business.
The Ad Contrarian is Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), the author of The Ad Contrarian and 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising.
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Sanlam has “re-scoped” its existing contract with ad agency MetropolitanRepublic. Ainsley Moos, head: group communications at Sanlam, has confirmed the news to MarkLives after queries as to whether the agency/client relationship between Sanlam and MetropolitanRepublic remained in place.
In a brief statement, the group said that it had “re-scoped” its current contractual relationship with MetropolitanRepublic but that it is retaining the agency on a limited capacity. No reasons for the decision were forthcoming.
“Sanlam has reached an agreement with MetropolitanRepublic to re-scope their contract and they will remain on board in a limited capacity,” reads the statement from Moos.
MetropolitanRepublic won the Sanlam account in early 2013. It subsequently launched an office in Cape Town to help the service the business, which continued to be run through the Johannesburg agency.
MetropolitanRepublic CEO Alison Deeb says the changed terms of the contract between Sanlam and MetropolitanRepublic will not impact upon either the future of the Cape Town agency or job security for staff at the agency. “We have exciting plans fo Cape Town,” says Deeb, adding that, while there will be an impact upon the agency, it won’t include any job losses.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
Andy Rice (@ricecommaandy) talks about his best and worst adverts of the week with Jenny Crwys-Williams (@jcwLIFE) during The Ad Feature on Talk Radio 702 (@Radio702). Find out which brands feature in this week’s Heroes & Zeros webisode.
For a fresh look at the world of advertising, Jenny Crwys-Williams of 702 Talk Radio chats to advertising critic Andy Rice on The Ad Feature, every Wednesday 2.30pm — 3pm. The filmed Heroes & Zeroes will appear on MarkLives every Thursday morning as a webisode.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
by Faheem Chaudhry (@FaheemChaudhry) The marketing industry has always been synonymous with having too many buzzwords. For that, we’re guilty as charged. It’s the currency that advertising schools arm their young horses with as they charge into day one out on the front line.
Too fixated
The problem with buzzwords is that people tend to get a little too fixated on them, and so it follows that one chooses a side. Traditional vs digital. The big idea vs big data. The odd maverick will even put out a rebuttal or two against the current trend, such as fellow Marklives.com columnist, Bob Hoffman the @adcontrarian.
For young people entering the industry, it can all become a little muddy. And, as the industry continues to change at a pace like never before, how do we focus on what’s most important?
I’d like to argue that it’s time we write the new rules. It’s time to rethink how we orientate ourselves in the ad industry. We’re in the midst of our own revolution — the consumer revolution. So let’s take a moment to zoom out a little, and focus on what is really going to drive remarkable change for organisations and businesses in the years to come.
Persuasion game is changing
Marketers used to control all communication that brands were associated with. Consumers’ perceptions were shaped by the messages that companies used to put out. Well, comrades, the persuasion game is changing.
The reasons consumers choose brands are influenced by a growing number of variables. None more important than the views of consumers themselves. People now own brand conversations. Everyone is an author. Everyone is an advocate and influencer of brands and what people think of them.
As young marketers growing their careers during such a time, there are a few things we need to change up and realise.
1. Experienceisn’t always expertise
While many of our seniors in the industry were able to learn from their predecessors, very few people in the industry today can truly claim to have the experience in how to navigate the changing tides of the industry. This is simply because the rate at which the communication game is changing far outpaces the speed at which people are able to master new capabilities.
We’re finding various other industries having a growing influence on communication. Techies and coders, for example, are playing a massive role in the persuasion of brands and how consumers are exposed to, and experience them.
Additionally, young people are becoming far more influential much earlier in their careers. The buzzword-lot call these digital natives or something of the sort.
The point here is, that from a young age, far before we even studied communication, we were engaging with technology and learning skills that are of critical importance to the way brands communicate today. We were giving and sharing our opinions on companies and customer service way before we were in jobs, where managing this is now of such importance.
So, having past industry experience doesn’t always translate into having the expertise necessary to be ahead of the game. As young marketers we’ve got to embrace this shift, and sometimes look to previously unconventional industry sources to increase our overall expertise.
2. Agility
Those who adapt fastest will win. The industry is no longer looking for only those who are specialists in a particular discipline. More so, the youngsters who show a strong hand at their core discipline, but can add value across the communication spectrum, are the sought-after talent.
Being able to influence the communication of a brand at every point that it meets a consumer is a skill set that we’ll need to grow in. Bringing a singular skill to the table just won’t be enough at a time when adapting to change is fast becoming a core competency of success.
As new efficiencies enter the market and brands by effect are influenced in such ways, being flexible enough to welcome, understand and grasp change with speed will be of the highest importance. Things are going to keep getting faster; best we do, too.
4. Good isn’t good enough
The industry has forever been criticised for how much average communication is put out there. Now, more than ever, good just isn’t good enough. More and more companies are entering the competitive sphere. A startup of eight people may be as successful in reaching its market as a 50-year-old established organisation of 500 employees.
So pushing out good communication, at a time where clutter is becoming king, isn’t going to get you noticed. Great communication is what might get you noticed. Stand-out communication is what gives you permission to speak.
Consumer’s lives are just too fast and too busy to give their time to brands talking the same talk. As the next generation, we’re going to operating at a time when clarity and distinction will win. Anything that risks becoming part of the clutter will struggle to hold much of the consumer attention.
5. Finding new connection points
It’s time we take what the textbooks say about channel advertising with a pinch of salt. Consumers are connecting with brands in some of the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. These are the brands that are trailblazing their categories, as they’ve explored unique moments where they can enter their consumer’s lives in the most meaningful and persuasive of ways.
Let’s take Tom Ford, for example. Las year, on the album Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay-Z dropped a track named after the designer himself. Whether this was a marketing stunt pulled by Ford or not — the alignment with Jay-Z was a masterstroke.
What better way to make your name and brand synonymous with youth and popular aspirational culture than by having a global icon of such a movement name a song after you on his much-anticipated album?
As the next generation looks at planning the communication of brands, the most unique and relevant connection points outside of the ordinary should be at the core of our thinking. It will help us drive meaningful communication out to consumers, as opposed to the tried and tested ways of the past.
Lead the charge
As the industry continues to push and learn about its boundaries and growing capabilities, young marketers need to lead the charge in redefining how we do business. We’ll need to make full use of our growing experience and, through being agile, grow our expertise in as wide a way as possible.
As more and more businesses leverage technology to enter the competitive environment, millennial marketers will need to be far harder on ourselves than ever before. To repeat, only stand-out communication will give brands the permission to speak to consumers who, in turn, have a growing influence on the perceptions that shape business.
It’s an ever changing dynamic for us to wrap our heads around, but what an adventure it’s going to be. It’s time to write the new rules.
Faheem Chaudry (@FaheemChaudhry) is a passionate marketer at M&C Saatchi Abel. With a focus on the future, his aim is to better entrench the importance of creative thinking to solving critical business problems. Faheem contributes the monthly “MillennialAd-grad” column to MarkLives.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week:
Shift Joe Public makes waves in uncharted territory for SAMSA
Kor launches in South Africa with filtered water on the go
the new logo of IAB South Africa — formerly the DMMA
Milpark Garden Court upgrades, and
how to have a happy ending on Valentine’s Day, even if you’re single!
Making waves in uncharted territory
Advertising agencies don’t only make their money off glamorous TVCs — a lot of their bread and butter is work such as designing annual reports. But, of course, this is Joe Public, which is leaving most of the industry trailing in its wake these days, so any annual report it does is bound to leap out.
Shift Joe Public was briefed to create an annual report that would position the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) as a global maritime authority, with influence across southern Africa and the continent.
SAMSA’s objective is to lead and champion South Africa’s maritime interests. Its mission is to develop and position the country as an international maritime centre while ensuring maritime safety, health and environmental protection.
SAMSA aims to make waves in uncharted territory as the “gateway to the world’s seas”, calling itself the “wave makers of growth”. There are also some nifty graphics and a fold out map.
And that’s it for the maritime metaphors, I promise.
Still waters run deep
We all know we’re supposed to feel guilty for harming the environment by continuing to buy and drink out of plastic water bottles. Kor Water hopes to change that bad habit with its plastic water bottles with built-in filters.
Just launched in South Africa, Kor Water has a range of high quality, reusable water filtration bottles made from BPA-free EastmanTritan, intended to lessen the impact on the environment.
The brand, Kor Nava, is centred on “sustainable, personal hydration”, with an underlying mission to make clean water easily available, challenging a bottled water market that creates mountains of eco-unfriendly waste.
The key to the product range is a filter made from coconut shells converted into activated carbon, creating a purification system that is supposed to be natural, safer and renewable. The filter lasts about three months, or 40 gallons of water — equal to about 300 half-litre bottles… That’s a lot of plastic that doesn’t end up on a rubbish heap!
Apart from that impressive product descriptor, the bottles are designer-cool in appearance and should find a market among hipsters anyway, even with a price tag of R200, as stars such as David Beckham, Robert Downey Jr, David Duchovny and Hillary Duff have all been spotted with a bottle in hand.
Founded in 1996 in New York City, the IAB comprises more than 600 leading media and technology companies responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. Its global representation includes countries such as China, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, France, etc — and now SA.
The IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend, globally. It aims to educate marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising.
In SA, IAB will continue to “provide members with a platform through which they can engage, interact and address digital issues of common interest, thereby stimulating learning and commerce within the South African digital space”.
IAB SA currently represents over 96 local online publishers and over 93 creative, media and digital agencies, accounting for more than 16 million local unique browsers and 440 million page impressions.
Milpark makeover
City loft living was the inspiration for the fresh look Tsogo Sun’s Garden Court Milpark hotel in Johannesburg, following an extensive refurbishment and upgrade of facilities.
The new design takes the surrounding environment of city loft living into consideration and expresses “a contemporary aesthetic with strong geometric forms and bold patterns”.
The massive rejuvenation project included the refurbishment of all the bedrooms, the lobby, the lounge and the corridors, and the addition of two new conference venues and a new fitness centre.
Brand-new room types have been introduced, including ‘Executive’ rooms offering a small open-plan lounge and kitchenette with semi self-catering facilities.
The three new conference facilities have seating for up to 140 people, and existing meeting rooms have been upgraded.
Get lucky
So, if you’re one of those sad singletons on Valentine’s Day, here’s how you can still have your happy ending — or in this case, ‘beginning’ — to the dreaded day and sidestep the schmaltzy love fest with a knowing smile of your own.
Aaccording to the Huffington Post, for sale on Amazon this month is a new product that guarantees satisfaction (pun intended): the Wake-Up Vibealarm clock vibrator that promises to wake you up with “morning orgasms”. I Kid You Not.
It comes (pun intended) in three fashionable colours and will wake you up with a vibrating crescendo that builds into a climax (pun intended).
Unfortunately, there is already one negative review posted that complains that the guaranteed vibrations were rather flaccid… Okay, I’ll stop now.
Shelf Life by Louise Marsland is a weekly column on MarkLives. 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 19 of her more-than-25-year career as a former editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing, as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. She currently edits the weekly Wednesday Media & Marketing Page for The New Age newspaper and is the publishing editor of industry trendwatching portal, TRENDAFRiCA, for consumer insight, research and trends in Africa.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
by SAARF & MarkLives (@marklives) For the week of 3 February — 9 February 2014, Generations topped our National SAARF/MarkLives #Top40TVratings Chart, while Ngempelah jumped to the no. 2 slot. Muvhango was the top-watched show on SABC 2 and sixth on the national list.
On e.tv, the action-thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, hit the top slot (and no. 8 on our national list). See the full table below.
This weekly roundup of South Africa’s TV audience viewership, a collaboration between the South African Audience Research Foundation (SAARF) andMarkLives, reveals the best-watched shows of the week before, where it ran and how many South Africans tuned in to watch.
We offer two tables, the first covering all households — free-to-air viewing (the various SABC channels and e.tv) as well as the DStv platform — and the second charting the best-watched shows on the DStv network of channels only.
SAARF/MarkLives #Top40TVratings Chart: 3 February — 9 February 2014
National (include all households — free-to-air viewing and DStv platform)
Market
Target
Activity
National
Total Indv (incl guests)
Live +VOSDAL
Counter
Description (grouped)
Channel
Level 1
Level 2\Variable
(r) AMR %
AMR
SHR %
1
GENERATIONS
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
21.3
8 529 687
67.40%
2
NGEMPELAH
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
15.2
6 077 638
49.52%
3
AMAZA
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
14.2
5 683 145
45.59%
4
LOXION LYRIC
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
12.9
5 181 969
41.88%
5
INTERSECTIONS
SABC 1
Variety
Variety
11.7
4 702 250
39.17%
6
MUVHANGO
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
10.7
4 300 116
37.76%
7
TASK FORCE(DRAMA)
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
10.4
4 176 927
36.02%
8
SALT
e.tv
Movies
Action/Adventure
10.0
4 025 177
38.95%
9
SCANDAL
e.tv
Drama
Drama
8.8
3 522 356
30.69%
10
POWERBALL
SABC 2
Variety
Variety
8.4
3 381 918
34.58%
11
XHOSA NEWS
SABC 1
News
News
8.4
3 368 950
30.30%
12
ZULU NEWS
SABC 1
News
News
8.4
3 353 898
29.45%
13
LESILO RULA
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
7.6
3 042 710
28.05%
14
RHYTHM CITY
e.tv
Drama
Drama
7.3
2 939 407
30.91%
15
ZIYAWA
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
7.0
2 816 288
26.27%
16
ABSA PREMIERSHIP ORLANDO PIRATES VS MAMELODI SUNDOWNS
SABC 1
Sport
Football (soccer)
6.7
2 699 842
27.49%
17
KHUMBUL’ EKHAYA
SABC 1
Magazine
Magazine
6.5
2 617 842
24.89%
18
90 PLEIN STREET
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
6.4
2 564 457
34.94%
19
FRIENDS LIKE THESE
SABC 1
Variety
Variety
6.4
2 560 920
27.89%
20
EKASI OUR STORIES:THREE DAYS IN HELL
e.tv
Drama
Drama
6.4
2 552 156
24.58%
21
WWE WRESTLING RAW
e.tv
Sport
Wrestling
6.3
2 510 780
30.22%
22
GA RE DUMELE
SABC 2
Sitcom
Sitcom
6.2
2 479 316
27.01%
23
SINGLE GALZ
SABC 1
Sitcom
Sitcom
6.0
2 407 221
22.81%
24
ABO MZALA
SABC 1
Sitcom
Sitcom
5.9
2 354 269
24.84%
25
7DE LAAN
SABC 2
Soap opera
Local
5.5
2 197 328
23.02%
26
HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE
e.tv
Movies
Action/adventure
5.3
2 138 688
23.13%
27
NEWS
e.tv
News
News
5.3
2 132 697
21.51%
28
SELIMATHUNZI
SABC 1
Variety
Variety
5.2
2 090 235
20.21%
29
THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
SABC 3
Soap opera
International
5.1
2 055 153
24.91%
30
MUVHANGO -R
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
5.1
2 052 498
43.89%
31
CUTTING EDGE
SABC 1
Actuality
Actuality
4.9
1 952 416
23.68%
32
GENERATIONS -R
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
4.8
1 923 271
43.00%
33
DATE NIGHT
e.tv
Movies
Drama
4.8
1 909 787
18.06%
34
MR BOX OFFICE
SABC 1
Sitcom
Sitcom
4.8
1 907 024
18.00%
35
GENERATIONS -O
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
4.5
1 814 627
31.83%
36
NONG SEAKALADI
SABC 2
Sitcom
Sitcom
4.5
1 785 279
20.20%
37
LIVE AMP
SABC 1
Music
Music
4.4
1 784 240
17.83%
38
MUVHANGO -R
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
4.3
1 724 301
28.39%
39
YOU DESERVE IT.
e.tv
Reality
Reality
4.3
1 707 047
19.77%
40
WIPEOUT
SABC 2
Competition
Competition
4.2
1 681 908
19.18%
DStv platform only
Market
Target
Activity
DStv
Total Indv (incl guests)
Live + VOSDAL
Counter
Description (grouped)
Channel
Level 1
Level 2\Variable
(r) AMR %
AMR
SHR %
1
GENERATIONS
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
15.2
1 769 830
45.18%
2
MUVHANGO
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
7.6
890 802
24.88%
3
INTERSECTIONS
SABC 1
Variety
Variety
6.2
721 460
20.00%
4
SCANDAL
e.tv
Drama
Drama
5.9
686 232
18.60%
5
RHYTHM CITY
e.tv
Drama
Drama
5.4
634 069
19.46%
6
SALT
e.tv
Movies
Action/adventure
5.2
607 281
18.32%
7
NGEMPELAH
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
5.1
599 236
15.36%
8
ZULU NEWS
SABC 1
News
News
4.9
567 891
15.69%
9
XHOSA NEWS
SABC 1
News
News
4.9
566 471
15.68%
10
LOXION LYRIC
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
4.6
537 096
13.52%
11
POWERBALL
SABC 2
Variety
Variety
4.5
528 363
16.81%
12
LESILO RULA
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
4.5
519 052
15.63%
13
7DE LAAN
SABC 2
Soap opera
LOCAL
4.2
492 678
15.07%
14
NEWS
e.tv
News
News
4.2
485 596
14.39%
15
AMAZA
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
4.2
484 629
12.38%
16
ISIBAYA
Mzansi Magic
Variety
Variety
4.0
471 536
18.13%
17
KHUMBUL’ EKHAYA
SABC 1
Magazine
Magazine
3.5
408 352
12.41%
18
ROCKVILLE (DRAMA)
Mzansi Magic
Drama
Drama
3.5
407 505
11.15%
19
WWE WRESTLING RAW
e.tv
Sport
Wrestling
3.5
406 680
13.27%
20
TASK FORCE(DRAMA)
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
3.5
404 705
11.15%
21
THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
SABC 3
Soap opera
International
3.0
349 048
11.83%
22
NUUS
SABC 2
News
News
3.0
348 246
10.36%
23
EKASI OUR STORIES:THREE DAYS IN HELL
e.tv
Drama
Drama
2.9
342 323
10.67%
24
GENERATIONS -R
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
2.9
340 847
23.08%
25
FRIENDS LIKE THESE
SABC 1
Variety
Variety
2.9
334 710
10.58%
26
SINGLE GALZ
SABC 1
Sitcom
Sitcom
2.8
328 930
8.70%
27
GA RE DUMELE
SABC 2
Sitcom
Sitcom
2.8
325 196
11.54%
28
ABSA PREMIERSHIP ORLANDO PIRATES VS MAMELODI SUNDOWNS
SABC 1
Sport
Football (soccer)
2.7
318 883
10.14%
29
ABO MZALA
SABC 1
Sitcom
Sitcom
2.7
312 283
10.26%
30
ZIYAWA
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
2.4
282 831
8.03%
31
ISIDINGO:THE NEED
SABC 3
Soap opera
Local
2.3
265 619
7.19%
32
GENERATIONS -O
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
2.3
265 464
12.80%
33
MUVHANGO -R
SABC 1
Drama
Drama
2.2
261 968
17.83%
34
BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE CHELSEA VS NEWCASTLE UTD
SuperSport 3
Sport
Football (soccer)
2.2
258 704
9.18%
35
90 PLEIN STREET
SABC 2
Drama
Drama
2.2
258 267
9.99%
36
BINNELAND
kykNET
Soap opera
Local
2.2
253 867
7.72%
37
ISIDINGO -R
SABC 1
Soap opera
Local
2.2
250 639
18.52%
38
LIVE AMP
SABC 1
Music
Music
2.1
246 224
7.97%
39
SPEAK OUT -R
SABC 2
Actuality
Actuality
2.1
244 620
9.55%
40
BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE MANCHESTER CITY VS CHELSEA
SuperSport 3
Sport
Football (soccer)
2.1
244 042
15.23%
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: “ociety 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 three work days. Sign up here!
by Gill Moodie(@grubstreetSA) It was the story that all the editors feared the most.
For the past couple of years – and especially last year as Nelson Mandela’s health steadily deteriorated – South Africa’s editors waited, prepared and planned for when the father of the nation would pass on.
Websites were made in advance, obituaries written and supplements put together — even printed ahead of time in the case of The Witness in Pietermaritzburg.
Still, most were dreading it because they knew it would be one of the most challenging, extraordinary stories of our time. It would require deep thought and an accurate reading of the public mood. It would also demand superb management because of the less-than-communicative Zuma presidency, a feuding Mandela family, the massive security cordon to be thrown up around Mandela’s home, Qunu in the Transkei, and the huge international press corp that was to descend on our shores.
Looking back at those remarkable 10 days of official mourning between the death of Mandela and his funeral in Qunu, what were the main challenges and how do they think they fared. To be sure, many are relieved that it’s over.
“I don’t think anyone in our newsroom has ever worked that hard,” says Katy Katopodis, group editor-in-chief of Eyewitness News that serves Talk Radio 702, 94.7 Highveld Stereo, 567 Cape Talk and 94.5 KFM. “When I look at that time I cannot comprehend that it was only 10 days. It feels so much longer to me. One day was just melting into the next… People were tired towards the end. We were very stretched.”
“We had all these plans dating back to I don’t know when,” says Bongani Siqoko, editor of Mandela’s home-town newspaper – the Daily Dispatch – that circulates in East London and the Transkei. “And yet when Zuma made the announcement, it was almost unreal.
“My heart was actually torn,” Siqoko told Grubstreet last week. “I was looking forward to it as a journalist but I also knew that
Mail & Guardian special tribute front page 6 December 2013 — Madiba.
managing it would be very difficult. Deploying your resources was difficult – there was so much involved – and there was the pressure that came with it. Secondly, you didn’t have time to actually grieve. You wanted to be part of what was happening, to go outside and join the people who were singing but you couldn’t: you had to remain here and tell the story of how South Africans were grieving.”
After the rush of changing pages for a new edition of the paper on the Thursday night that Mandela died, Sikoqo said he told his staff the next morning: “This story is different. It’s like no other story that you’ve covered before and we have an opportunity to do this and do it well, the opportunity to cover history.
“As Mandela’s home-town paper, we had to take leadership on this story,” he says.
The Dispatch already had a four-person team in Mthatha in the Transkei (though one was in Cape Town and had to fly back immediately). In addition, on the night of the announcement reporters were despatched to the key places of Mandela’s life — to his old school, Healdtown, for instance, and university, Fort Hare – while more reporters and deputy editor Brett Horner made their way to camp out in a school in Qunu, arranged as a rental ahead of time.
Siqoko feels the Dispatch could have done better in reporting the story online but he is very happy with the print coverage — in part because his reporters made a concerted effort ahead of time to build relationships in the Qunu area, with ordinary people, the royals and the Mandela family.
Although the Mandela edition on the Friday after his death only got to the Transkei — a key circulation area for the Dispatch — in the afternoon, the paper still picked up an extra 11 500 sales that day. Sales throughout the period of mourning were also good, says Siqoko, telling us that in the eastern part of the Eastern Cape there was no Mandela coverage fatigue.
Katopodis said that no point did she seriously consider pulling back from the story. “I knew this was the biggest — if not the only news story for those 10 days — because there was always something happening. There was never a quiet day when we thought of leading with something else.
“At one point I was thinking of our listeners and our online news and wondering if it was too much. But I always consoled myself
Daily Dispatch front page 6 December 2013 — Madiba.
with the thought: ‘This is history unfolding before our eyes and we have a duty and a responsibility to do this well, for ourselves and for our audience.”
In Johannesburg, Mail & Guardian editor-in-chief Chris Roper could gauge from the website’s stats that the appetite for Mandela coverage never dissipated throughout the week. Incredibly for December — which is traditionally a low traffic month in SA — the M&G’s website netted 1.3-million unique users compared with the other monster month of 2013: February, when the storm of the Oscar Pistorius murder brought in 1.1-million uniques.
The Mail & Guardian, a weekly that comes out Fridays, had the toughest set of circumstances on the night of Mandela’s death as it goes to bed at 6pm every Thursday. It was too late to recall the trucks so they put two newspapers out the next day. All the staff came back to work that night at midnight, Roper said, and did an entirely new paper. They changed the first 16 pages and it was finished by 4am.
“It got very confusing to manage that (two different editions) in terms of the customers but, of course, we had to do it,” says Roper.
The M&G pushed its day-to-day coverage to its website, which also involved a massive Mandela tribute site built two years ago and containing everything the paper had ever written about Mandela.
“The big challenge was differentiating ourselves from the noise and part of how we did that was having a long history of coverage that was already digitised — and there was a lot of it. (In print) we went the “looking-forward” route: how it would affect the elections coming up.”
The Sunday papers had a very tricky job that week because the saturation of coverage meant it was very hard to come up with something special on the two Sundays during the mourning period.
Rapport editor Waldimar Pelser told Grubstreet that he had thrown out a lot of prepared copy, cutting them from 20 broadsheet pages to about 10.
“In June, we had a discussion about what kind of piece we wanted for Nelson Mandela’s death. What I wanted was a piece like Nancy Gibbs wrote for Time magazine on the 9/11 attack. She wrote this incredibly emotional piece about what it meant for the US and what it did not mean, and tried to put her finger on the pulse of nation that had gone through massive trauma. We wanted someone who could stand back a bit and really assess the state of the nation and speak to Afrikaans people in particular.”
Rapport asked 80-year-old author PG du Plessis to write the piece and he turned in 1 600 words.
Says Pelser: “What he said — and we extracted this for our cover — was: ‘We locked him up. The Afrikaner locked him up because we were afraid and yet he did not hate — therefore, we should also not hate’.”
There was no headline and this extract was overlaid on a powerful picture of mourners outside Mandela’s Houghton home that wrapped around the entire paper. (The lead inside the paper was also about Mandela’s death.)
The paper did 10 to 12 special pages of Mandela — with Du Plessis’s piece in the middle as a spread — and the rest of the paper was hard news.
“We were happy with our prepared coverage but there wasn’t too much of it, which is very important,” Pelser says. “And for the hard news, there was just enough – we took care to add non-Mandela news also to that week’s newspaper…
“It was such a special week and I don’t think we would have done it differently. There are not many moments like this. We were very proud and that front page moved me to tears.”
South Africa’s leading media commentator Gill Moodie (@grubstreetSA) offers intelligence on media, old and new. Reprinted from her site Grubstreet.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
by Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) Data, sustainability, privacy, “omni channel’ retailing — the list of trends and predictions goes on and on. If you are anything like me, you will be, by now, automatically filing away those emails that claim to know what to look out for, tap into and build onto in 2014.
By the time 31 January sneaks around, we are overloaded with the multiple iterations of the marketing world’s predictions for 2014. So what is worth remembering? And which parts of these reports might be useful to our retail landscape in SA?
Here in Africa
While “immersive retail” is absolutely on its way, it won’t arrive this year. Window displays will, on the whole, stay analogue (and, indeed, ‘behind bars’) for a long time yet.
People will continue to shop much, much more in a store than they will online. There tends to be little-to-no-interaction between the two here. Omni-channel retailing is not our reality. Yet.
Cellphone payments are still restricted (although cash sending and cardless ATM transactions are growing fast) and data costs hinder many of the e–tail and price comparison apps that are taking the rest of the world by storm. Our shopper is, very rarely, ‘connected’.
Couponing is still new and daunting to most grocery shoppers, (but showing phenomenal results when truly tailored to the South African mindset) and ‘everyday low pricing’ is yet to really grab the shoppers’ store choices and behavioural patterns.
‘Personalisation’ will be accessible to the seriously premium concept-store shopper — think Nike, Bobbi Brown, Converse — (and, of course, Coca-Cola drinkers as they search for their own-named bottle) but on the whole we are still in a retail world that is trying to lure the shoppers in in the first place, let alone personalise design for them once they are there!
And, finally, that heavily written about concept of showrooming? Nope. showrooming, in my opinion, is also not yet a trend any of our retailers need to be too concerned about in 2014.
With the recognition that our SA retail picture is slightly more zigzag round the edges, and harder to articulate in a smart buzzword, we need to look harder for the ‘trends’ that will help us sell this year.
Our retailers are innovating fast and choice is expanding daily; the level of customisation to the SA shopper is at times staggering (think cigarettes sold by the single unit, glass bottles that you can return for a deposit or single-wrapped nappies from Huggies) and our approach to customer service and in-store service can be well beyond that of the rest of the world.
A fast-moving and exciting landscape we have, but I believe there is work to be done in the year ahead. We need to discover our own trends affecting purchase and not assume that adapting the global model will work.
So, if I were going to write my three top ‘trends’, it would be, however, in favour of avoiding the ‘T’ word altogether. I shall instead pick out three provocative suggestions that are worthy of thought in 2014:
The Barber ‘shop’ model has got it right (and is worth copying!) — nationwide, community-based, independent and entirely tailored to its shoppers. The amalgamation of style, masculinity and community is perfectly balanced with the service it is selling. The pricing is fair, loyalty is decades-long and the entertainment ‘in store’ augments the service offering (hip hop music, FIFA games playing, ‘designer’ style for sale). Brands have pride of place in displays, and a whole new occasion for shopping and consuming is created. Study these stores and learn. There is many a social phenomenon hidden within, and an opportunity to sell anything from fame and fortune to a ‘quart’ of Carling Black Label, if considered carefully.
Community shopping is on the up — the likes of the Neighbourgoods market are certainly not only for the premium shopper. Whether you’re in Meadowlands, Langa or Khayelitsha, the outdoor community-shopping experience is coming to a township near you in a big way in 2014. The spirit of entrepreneurialism and ‘local love’ are two of those global trends that you will see on SA soil as shoppers start looking for more than the traditional grocery goods sold nearby and directly from the proprietor. Fashion, style, décor, foodie culture and innovation will all be reaching shoppers’ hands well before they reach the mall, and those brands that can make inroads across the two will win long-term.
Convenience is king. — informal retail visits still outweigh formal visits 5-to-1. If it’s nearby and near home, it will sell. While Coca-Cola, Unilever, Lucky Star and South African Breweries are getting it right, there are gaping holes on the shelves of these retailers where brands are missing 85% of the shopping market. More and more clients are realising the need to ‘crack’ the eKasi and Spaza market, and this year there will be a demand for insight and deep understanding of how brands are bought and sold here. Just because it’s not in a Shoprite trolley, doesn’t mean it’s not selling.
So, here’s to a year of full baskets, and the innovative campaigns that drive them — and here’s to a year that proves that, just because it’s not a ‘global learning’, doesn’t mean it’s not worth a fortune, worth following, and worth the risk of trying something new.
Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) followed her passion and experience in the consumer, retail and shopper space from regional roles in Europe and Asia, to South African shores in 2010. Having led global brands through the line for Procter & Gamble, and two of London and Hong Kong’s top agencies, her background gives her an international perspective to add to her depth of SA understanding. She serves as strategic director and a partner at 34 Group. Mimi contributes the monthly “The Sell” column concerning shopper marketing to MarkLives.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!
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.
