Design Annotator: Caps, wooden letters and art fair wrap-up

Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a column featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, curated by publisher Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal).

Finally, our craziest two weeks have come and gone and we can relax again. The end of September seems to be the most creative, yet chaotic, time of the year.

In between The Loerie Awards that brings the advertising world to a standstill, the week after sees the art world come together for the FNB Joburg Art Fair. String in a couple of other events such as Str.Crd and the new Hello Ambassador conference in Pretoria, and you have a recipe for creative decision-making paralysis. Where to go? What to see? Will I make it back in time?

Have no fear, though, we did the dirty work for you. Our new series on the FNB Joburg Art Fair brings you the best work from the Fair in a quick, snappy 60-second video. We also have a collection of reviews of the work that had the most talkability around then. Have a look and let us know what you think.

Then on to other work: we’re also featuring local street-wear brand Swede&CROWE, which have been popping up on heads all around town. The new Cell C TV ad has also sparked some controversial debate on the site — feel free to chime in. And, lastly, if you are looking for a great woodcut logo for your new offices, look no further than Tigermouse.

I have to apologise for my lack of posting here on Marklives but we’re back in action, showing you the creative pulse of South Africa from 10and5.

FNB Joburg Art Fair: 60 works in 60 Seconds

Couldn’t make the FNB Joburg Art Fair? That’s not a problem. We made this video so you can see what was going down. We cut 60 of the pieces we liked the most into a one-minute, easy-to-digest video.

Check out more on the FNB Joburg Art Fair.

Featured: Swede&CROWE

In its own words, Swede&CROWE is “the big bang that happened when a red bearded drummer who has a fascination for street wear & a 6ft7″ man who has the blood of the original milliner running through his veins, decided to stick it to the man & answer the calling to create something that is not only super awesome but damn straight badass.” We couldn’t have said it any better if we tried.

Made in Woodstock: Chapel

Chapel was founded by Caleb Pedersen in 2009 after an unsuccessful search for a good-looking, locally made backpack to use while cycling around Cape Town. The backpack he designed to solve this problem became Chapel’s number-one bestseller, The Rider.

Check out more of the products from Chapel.

Featured: Steve Marais

In addition to being a fashion photographer (who spends his time between Johannesburg and Cape Town), Steve Marais is a founding member and publisher of Gaschette Magazine: the largest independent online fashion magazine in Africa.

Marais’s photographic style ranges from editorial to character portraiture. “Inspired by emotion, attitude and feeling, he takes pride in having hands-on creative direction. By creating bizarre story scenarios subjects have to work through or act out, Steve manages to capture what comes naturally in the moment.”

View more of Steve Marais’s work

Tigermouse Artist Series 2013

Tigermouse is a tailored wooden lettering company started by two graphic designers, Andrew and Marija van Rensburg. Each year, to celebrate the company’s anniversary, they step away from the regular commissions to collaborate with various local artists and create signature Tigermouse pieces. This year, they invited Louis Minnaar, Maria Lebedeva and Paul Senyol to each customise a wooden ampersand with their unique illustration styles.

See more of the lettering created by Tigermouse.

Cell C ‘Believe’ TVC

Mobile networks are in the habit of making big production, big-brand ads for summer. This is the latest from Cell C since last year’s cinematic ‘The Power is in Your Hands’ which got everyone talking. Titled “Believe”, the flying squadron- and firework-featuring commercial was made by Ogilvy Johannesburg and Ola! Films. The TV commercial was shot over six days in Cape Town.

Read the comments on the new Cell C TV Ad.

KIN by Pieter Hugo | Stevenson Gallery

A solo exhibition by Pieter Hugo, titled Kin, is currently on show at the Stevenson. The work is showing across both of Stevenson’s galleries, premiering in Johannesburg and opening two weeks later in Cape Town.

“Kin is a bittersweet perspective on Hugo’s homeland of South Africa. It is a meditation on the ideals of home, both familial and humanistic. It explores the tenuous ties that both bind us to and repel us from others.”

To create this new photographic series, Hugo turned his eye on cramped townships, contested farmlands, and abandoned mining areas over the past eight years. The project alternates between intimate and public spaces, and includes psychologically charged still lives in people’s homes, drifters and the homeless, and his pregnant wife and daughter. Kin emphasises the growing disparity between rich and poor, revealing Hugo’s deeply conflicted feelings about his home.

See more of photographs of Pieter Hugo’s new exhibition.

adidas Originals | Run Thru Time | ’80s

adidas Originals | Run Thru Time | 80s from AREA3 on Vimeo.

adidas Originals has launched an exclusive new Run Thru Time range of sneakers from past decades; the ZXZ ADV from the ’80s, the ZX 5000 Response from the ’90s and the Adizeros Adios 2 from the ’00s. For the SA launch of the iconic range (of only 429 pairs), it teamed up with photographer/filmmaker Chris Saunders, well-known for his ability to capture the pulse of SA street culture, to make a trio of short films for the three styles and eras.

See the rest of the creative work from Adidas Run Thru Time campaign.

Snaps from Hello Ambassador 2013

Hello Ambassador, Pretoria’s first creative conference, had its much anticipated debut a few weekends ago and has set the bar high right from the start.

An impressive line-up of speakers took the stage at the State Theatre on Friday and Saturday, covering the topics of digital communication, design, music, cinema, technology, branding, fashion and more.

We were there to capture the spirit of the conference.

— Uno de Waal (@unodewaal) is a social strategist and the publisher of creative showcase 10and5.com.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios — Sandton: A brief history in time

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios (@orestaki) — Sandton: A brief history in time

Known as “Africa’s richest square mile”, if one digs into the history of Sandton, you’ll find that the area has frequently been associated with wealth. Some 400 years ago tribes that watered their livestock in the springs and streams that then populated the area, started an iron smelting economy in the area.

The Sandton Tourism Association keeps a history of this place, and this record states that as little as 120 years ago one of the richest gold fields in the world was discovered in the area now called Sandton. Those of us old enough to remember when this part of the northern suburbs was filled will grassy estates and sandy horse trails will recall why the area was once called ‘the mink and manure belt’.

Today, Sandton is South Africa’s financial powerhouse place and is home to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. You will also find the head offices of companies such as Discovery, Nedbank, Investec, Rand Merchant Bank and the China Construction Bank.

Closely tied

Interestingly enough, the Liberty Group’s history is closely tied to that of Sandton’s, which is why the latest brand-building campaign from the financial brand makes such sense. Liberty is the owner of Sandton City which first opened its doors about a decade and a half after the financial brand was founded by Donald Gordon.

Just as Sandton has grown into a financial powerhouse, so too has Liberty. Today, the brand has assets of some R566 billion under its management, and is no longer just an insurance company but a financial services organisation that offers health, investment and asset management products as well.

By telling the story of Sandton City, the Liberty Group unfolds the journey of its own growth through time. The advertising movie is constructed on a single-take concept, and it is likely this was achieved using 3D animation.

The shot starts with a modern-day night-time framing of Sandton City. As the camera tracks in, the picture pauses, and then rapidly reverses to create a virtual reverse time-lapse of the building of the Sandton City complex.

Great copy

The copy is great. It begins with the statement, “This is the richest square mile in Africa, and the powerhouse of its economy. But it didn’t start that way.”

The strong, male voice-over goes on to talk about how Liberty had to find a way to make its clients’ investments grow, in a growing economy. By founding Sandton City, the company “built a way to grow people’s money in a way no-one had thought possible”. Powerful copy that makes one believe that this was a visionary company, all of four decades ago.

The huge time-span that the story covers convincingly illustrates how its growth was predicated on being able to ‘see the future’ but investing in it and helping it to come to pass.

As the history of Sandton City unfolds in reverse, the voice artist asks:

“Do you know how to make my little today enough for the day I no longer work? Or for the day I’m no longer around? That question, which determines someone’s reality, should never be answered with theory or opinion. So we built the answer. A place we built with more than just concrete and glass. A place we built with knowledge. That got stuck in and built a way to grow people’s money in a way no-one had thought possible. This became the richest square mile in Africa, the powerhouse of its economy. The day knowledge rolled up its sleeves.”

Knowledge is never enough

At the end of the commercial, one’s sight rests on an empty field — supposedly the site of the founding of Sandton City in 1973 — with three men standing around a car and looking at plans. It is a moment of reflection that aptly ties in with the understanding created by the copy that knowledge is never enough. That success can only be assured through the wedding of knowledge and hard work.

The advertisement does well for the Liberty brand, because it conveys a feeling of trust and longevity — exactly what you want from a financial brand, particularly if you’re looking at it to invest in your future.

The agency responsible for this visual feast and bold statement is FoxP2 , which has been well established in Cape Town for some time now. But the Johannesburg offices only opened in March this year, and the shop is being creatively and independently lead by Grant Jacobsen. [Read “FoxP2 Johannesburg open for business”.]

Given the calibre of work this agency is producing, I’d keep an eye out for it. Like Sandton and Liberty, it is highly likely it’ll go good places.

— Ad of the Week is published on MarkLives every Wednesday. See past selections here. Oresti Patricios (@orestaki) is 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 us know about it at info@ornicogroup.co.za.

AdForum Worldwide Summit: Grey back in SA soon, Maxus could follow

by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) NEW YORK CITY: Day 1 of the AdForum Worldwide Summit is always a big day, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it is often the only time the consultants have seen each other in a 12-month period and there is always a lot to catch up on. For many of us, we have made real friends as a result of this summit and it always good to see friends.

Secondly, on Day 1, we have a lot of energy and spirits are high. This year is no exception, especially as we are meeting with or hearing from all five of the marketing-communications holding companies.

MediaCom

But Monday, 7 October 2013, it first was to MediaCom, which impressed us with its business focus and “a shared belief that everything is connected” with three excellent case studies:

Gillette and body grooming in Latin America
Nerf, a toy gun in Germany, and
Coca-Cola content development.

The big question with media agencies is where do they start and end, as increasingly our observation is that they are more and more involved in content. MediaCom commented that it wants to continue to collaborate and assist with content development but that the role belongs to the creative agencies. We will see.

Grey

Second up was Grey, which has experienced a remarkable renaissance under the stewardship of Jim Heekin in the past three years. A veteran of the industry, Heekin pulls no punches and has surrounded himself with a brilliant team.

It has focused on its internal culture — a long neglected area within advertising agencies traditionally — and the positive results are proving to be very worthwhile regarding client business, creative effectiveness and profitability.

We wait for Grey to re-open in Johannesburg and are assured that it will not be long before this happens. Meantime, it is chalking up successes in other areas and countries and breaking new ground from a virtual perspective.

Shopper marketing

Shopper marketing was the subject for the afternoon and we met — three speed dates — with three separate companies. The content of the presentations was rich and varied, and proved to me that we need to focus on helping our clients find suitable companies, not only agencies, which will assist them with this vital part of the marketing spectrum. Lots more to talk about here.

Maxus

We met with Maxus, a media agency and part of Group M, in the late afternoon. It is a relative newcomer in the media space and the fastest-growing media agency with significant global business, taking pride in the fact that it is part of a global network of local agencies.

It had a refreshing and uncomplicated approach to media and the courage to have two global clients, S C Johnson and Barclays, attend the session and describe what it is like to work with Maxus. It would be great to have it open up in South Africa — plans are afoot.

Huge

Finally we met with Huge, a creative digital agency born in Brooklyn and now with offices in London and Shanghai, as well as six offices in the US alone. With significant clients and part of IPG, it is an agency to watch.

And, so, to bed before another full day tomorrow. Agenda below — we cannot be late for Sir Martin.

Preview of Day 2 on Tuesday

9am-10.15am: Breakfast with Sir Martin Sorrell, via video, on WPP
Group M CEO Dominic Proctor (update) at JWT
10.45am-1.45pm: Lunch with Y&R Brands CEO David Sable at 3 Columbus Circle
2pm-3pm: Consultants roundtable — agency Compensation policies moderated by Gerry Preece, at Y&R
3.30pm-5pm: MRY founder and CEO Matt Britton
6pm: Wunderman CEO Daniel Morel at the Museum of Art & Design
Dinner: Hosted by Wunderman at the Museum of Art & Design

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at #adforumsummit

Best
Johanna
@jomcdowell

Currently MD of the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS), Johanna McDowell has been in marketing and advertising since 1974, with experience both on the agency and client side of the fence. She held directorships in South African and British ad agencies until being appointed MD of Grey Phillips Advertising in 1988; and built Integrated Communications, a PR-driven marketing communications company that went from zero base in 1991 to an R8-million-fee turnover by December 2004.

After graduating in marketing and business studies, Johanna’s experience spanned large corporates, including UK and SA banking, manufacturing and retail, along with a 15-year stint in two of the largest ad agencies in SA and in a medium-sized agency in the UK. As such, she is well-placed to offer commentary on marketing and advertising from a local and international perspective. Follow her on Twitter at @jomcdowell.

Adlip: Most powerful road safety ad created by a non-advertising guy…

Since its release, ‘Embrace Life’ has exploded around the world with its positive message encouraging people to wear their seat belts. The “always wear a seatbelt” ad quickly became a worldwide viral smash, gathering over 11.8 million views on YouTube alone in t10 months, along with international wins.

See more at Adlip.

Africa Style: Inspiration from an unlikely contender

by Masingita Mazibuko So, I’m stuck in slow-moving traffic when a minibus taxi tears past, missing my car by the smallest of margins, then screeches to a halt … before calmly and remarkably sedately reversing around me to pick up a customer hailing it down. It is not appropriate to pen down the thoughts that engulfed my mind at that specific moment. Relating this near-collision experience to a friend later, the discussion about the taxi industry took an unlikely turn.

One could argue that the minibus taxi is an evil necessity in South Africa, given our scarcity of public transportation. However, when one considers the yellow cabs in New York, the black cabbies in London or the mutatas in Kenya, it is obvious that the taxi as a form of transportation has endured for years, regardless of undulating economic conditions.

In fact, taxis feature in our songs and movies – there was Zola Budd in the 1980s by Brenda Fassie, and the iconic movie Taxi with Robert De Niro in the 1970s was remade in the 1990s, starring Queen Lafitah.

Pushing all prejudices and preconceived ideas of the minibus-taxi industry aside, what lessons can we learn? Often, insight and inspiration lie in unexpected areas. Here is an alternative perspective:

People are critical assets in any service industry.

For a taxi owner, taxi drivers could be classified as outstanding employees — those who are willing to go the extra mile to ensure they deliver and meet the needs of the customer base.

The job — getting commuters from point A to B, often picking them up wherever and whenever, and then dropping them off right at their doorstep — is a demanding one. As an employee, the taxi driver is resilient, taking on the chin abuse and disdain inflicted by fellow motorists. He’s always on the job, from sunrise to sunset, to deliver income for the owner.

An employee who goes the extra mile, relentlessly, is a critical aspect in service marketing.

A second consideration is the adopted communication system that informs the industry.

The taxi industry has managed to inculcate a communication system between seller and customer. I refer here to the hand signals which – if you are a virgin taxi commuter — could land you at the wrong destination; the fact that, if you pay with a large denomination note, you will be frowned upon by fellow passengers — the norm of paying by ‘row-forwarding’ the money to the driver. Additionally, the drivers tend to form close relationships with the commuters, intimately knowing their commuting habits.

A number of adopted cues facilitate these activities between seller and customer.

The industry has managed to create a defined service experience and customer knowledge. It is purely experiential and underpins the service-space per se.

Most importantly, this industry is defined by the wise saying that “customer is king”.

I recall two personal incidences that demonstrate this.

One was riding a mutata in Mombasa. With no real understanding of the local language, a friend and I told the conductor the name of our hotel. Knowing we were not local, he ensured we caught the right connecting mutata that would get us to our hotel.

The second was in Johannesburg, where I found myself stuck in the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge ring, unable to get to Pretoria. After much effort, I stopped parallel to a taxi driver to explain my predicament, and it was by following this taxi driver through the back roads of Gauteng that I got to Centurion.

How great to be a service that renders itself indispensable!

— Masingita Mazibuko, marketing director at Unilever, contributes the monthly “Africa Style” column to MarkLives.com. The views expressed within this column are entirely her own.

Grubstreet: The media and Joost: “We don’t always get it right”

by Gill Moodie (@grubstreetSA) It must surely be South Africa’s longest-running celebrity story: Joost van der Westhuizen and the great highs and lows of his extraordinary life.

Back in the news again

Back in the news again recently with an exposé of his “healer” and news that he is fighting to stop the publication of a book (he has since lost the case – ed) by former Rapport celebrity reporter Gavin Prins about his life, Van der Westhuizen has fascinated the South African public for more than decade — and certainly helped the sales of magazines such as Huisgenoot and Afrikaans papers such as Rapport.

Van der Westhuizen was a celebrity sportsman long before he married Afrikaans pop star Amor Vittone in 2002 as he was a key part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup winning team that surprised the world.

He was the Bok who took down the much feared Jonah Lomu in the final and he went on to distinguish himself in many subsequent Bok Tests and Blue Bulls matches, retiring from international rugby in 2003 as a record cap holder.

Courted media attention

So when Van der Westhuizen married Vittone, they were the “Posh and Becks” of South Africa and the couple courted media attention, inviting Huisgenoot into their lives and home for countless celebrity spreads.

Then in 2009, Rapport and Heat magazine broke the sensational story that Van der Westhuizen had been caught on video snorting cocaine and engaging in sex play with a former stripper. At first he denied it, then later admitted it and then he apologised.

Amid the fall out, he lost his job as a commentator on SuperSport and his marriage fell apart.

Tragedy struck

Van der Westhuizen could easily have dropped off the front pages after this except that tragedy struck: he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease.

His brave fight over the past few years against the degenerative, incurable illness has earned him sympathy from an even wider audience, beyond the rugby fans and followers of the Afrikaans celebrity scene.

Even so, the relationship between Van der Westhuizen and the news-reading public is a complex one, says Pieter du Toit, news editor of Beeld, that necessitates that the paper thinks carefully about how it presents stories about him.

Readership response

“When we exposed the ‘doctor’ (for being a quack) recently, we got quite a lot of flak from our readers that we were taking away Joost’s last hope,” Du Toit told Grubstreet. “But on the second day that we wrote about this guy not having a qualification and that he’s actually a panel beater from the Strand (in Cape Town) there was a change. Our readership said: ‘Good on you for exposing this guy, who is taking Joost for a ride’.

“It’s very interesting. Sometimes people don’t want Joost and Amor on the front page and they get tired of it. And they let us know. They ask: ‘Are we becoming a tabloid?’

“We were very, very careful not to portray Joost in a negative light (in the most recent story)…

Some parallels with Pistorius

“There are some parallels with Oscar (Pistorius). They are both successful sports people. They have partners who are successful in their own right. From a news point of view, it has the perfect mix. With Oscar, there was a shooting on Valentine’s Day. With Joost, he was caught on camera with a stripper doing drugs off her one buttock cheek.”

Rapport editor Waldimar Pelser points out that the South African public’s fascination with Joost and Amor is not a media creation as many celebrities become so, precisely because they are adept at wooing the media for their own ends.

Even so, a story about Van der Westhuizen has to be sensational – such as the sex and drug video (in 2009, before Pelser’s editorship) – to really boost sales.

“Real suspense”

“That (sex video) story was fantastically intriguing because of the denial (by Joost). There was real suspense because it wasn’t clear from Day One – when Rapport broke the story – whether he was lying. Everyone was waiting to see who would budge first. It was like a game of chicken.

“The news value there was very clear,” says Pelser, who is a former news editor of Beeld. “And it was that you cannot lie. Honesty is not something that you expect of some people. You expect it of everybody… And if you’re going to capitalise on an adoring public’s trust in you – and make money off that through sponsorships, etc., then you must be willing to be subjected to critical scrutiny.”

Du Toit says: “People do have a fascination with pretty people — with successful people — and even more so when they stumble.

“As responsibly as we can”

“People are sympathetic to Van der Westhuizen and we have a duty to cover him in the final stages of his life as responsibly as we can. Our readers want us to be sensitive but they also want to know how it’s going with Joost (and his health) so it’s a very fine line for us to tread as a newspaper… And you don’t always get it right. You do it on a case-by-case basis.”

Pelser says: “There is a great amount of residual sympathy for Joost because he screwed up and then apologised – and because he was a star and then fell ill.

“We know that we will pay a price if we are seen to ever be unfair to him,” says Pelser. “And, of course, we do not believe that the single most damaging thing to him was (the sex video story) in Rapport — we don’t apologise for that because we didn’t do the damage. He did the damage.

“Gratuitous reporting a ‘no'”

“Gratuitous reporting on Joost and gratuitous probing of his private life is a ‘no’. The threshold needs to be quite high and our readers will punish us if they sense that we are abusing him. Just like in every other case — but even more so with Joost.”

— South Africa’s leading media commentator Gill Moodie (@grubstreetSA) offers intelligence on media, old and new. Reprinted from her site Grubstreet.

AdForum Worldwide Summit: What’s on the NYC schedule

by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) NEW YORK CITY: On Saturday, I arrived in the Big Apple for the 2013 AdForum Worldwide Summit New York City, 6-11 October, a “by-invitation-only” programme for agency search and management consultants and global agency CEOs. Our role is to listen, ask questions and keep ourselves informed about what the agencies are doing to identify and embrace new trends, to give feedback and to bring our news back to our home countries to share with our clients and agencies there.

The week coming up is probably the fullest agenda that I’ve seen since I first came on one of these summits some six years ago!

We are seeing all of the holding company CEOs, either in person or via video conference, as the big issue under debate this year is the Ominicom/Publicis merger and what the industry thinks about it and broader implications.

The other big theme this week is shopper marketing – the last mile. Very topical, and our quest is to discover what agencies are doing about it.

Agenda preview

On Sunday, after a few hours of leisure and time to look at New York (and catch up on some work, as well), we met in the evening at the hotel with all of the consultants so that AdForum could preview the week with us.

Day 1 on Monday — always the first of a stimulating five days of discussion and this will be no different — looks like this:

8am: Meeting at hotel with AdForum and the 40 other consultants coming in from all over the world
9.15am: Breakfast session with MediaCom CEO Sash Savic at MediaCom
11.15am-1.15pm: Lunch with Grey Group Worldwide CEO Jim Heekin
1.45-2.30pm: A perspective on shopper marketing with Aidan Tracey, president of Acosta Mosaic Group
2.30-3pm: Panel discussion on shopper marketing: agency reviews
3.15-3.45pm: Mars CEO Ken Barnett
3.45-4.15pm: Creative Realities International CEO Paul Price
4.15-6.15pm: Maxus CEO Lindsay Pattison
7pm: Dinner hosted by Huge CEO Aaron Shapiro

And we will be finished (literally) by about 10pm — that’s a 14-hour working day, from start to finish! I’ll make sure to do my summary of the day before I fall into bed on Monday night.

Ideal spot

The position of our hotel, between 5^thand 6^thAvenues on 38^th Street, makes it the ideal spot to start each day of meetings at ad agencies. AdForum always tries to select hotels which represent the new trends in New York, and the Refinery is no exception. A new hotel created in New York’s garment district, it has been renovated from the old Colony Arcade Skyscraper. It is brand new and surrounded by small interesting shops and diners, the shops often being in the garment and accessories trade – heaven!

Autumn is also only just starting in New York; it has enjoyed a late summer and New Yorkers are still in summer clothing and all looking quite relaxed. The government shutdown does not appear to be affecting daily New York life, although it is early days.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at #adforumsummit

Best
Johanna
@jomcdowell

PS Arriving in New York on Saturday morning after a 17-hour flight was, as always, an exhilarating experience. Kennedy Airport was at its most efficient (whereas last year they were on a go-slow), and more than 300 passengers went through immigration (finger prints et al) within 40 minutes of landing. Impressive.

— Currently MD of the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS), Johanna McDowell has been in marketing and advertising since 1974, with experience both on the agency and client side of the fence. She held directorships in South African and British ad agencies until being appointed MD of Grey Phillips Advertising in 1988; and built Integrated Communications, a PR-driven marketing communications company that went from zero base in 1991 to an R8-million-fee turnover by December 2004.

Animation studio grabs international work, accolades

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Luma Creative Studios was launched in 2001 as a character animation agency just following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, after which Paul Meyer, Jason Cullen and Jacques Venter had all been retrenched. “We were artists who learned how to do business,” says Meyer of the experience.

Today, Luma Creative Studios is wholly owned and managed by Meyer and Gerhard Painter, who joined Luma about a year after its launch. Following a boom and a bust, the business is once again stable and its management team are dreaming bigger than ever.

Their journey has taken them and the agency through various partnerships and different business units, from commercials to gaming, and now finally back to a consolidated business, partners bought out and some units spun off or integrated into the main business.

Company grew quickly

At first the company grew quickly — Meyer says it doubled in size every year for the first five years of its existence. It launched a gaming division in 2006 (more on that later) and invested in creating its own animated series Bun&Bunee (a series of one-minute 3D animated shorts featuring bunny brothers Bun and Bunee), a project that plays an important role in the future plans of Luma.

At its peak, the commercials business employed close to 40 people before it had a close encounter with bust in 2010, following the onset of the global financial crisis. It retrenched 14 people at the time.

The gaming division Luma Arcade, launched in 2006, recently closed down its South African business because it was unprofitable, says Meyer, and Luma Creative Studio no longer holds a stake in the business (Meyer and Painter still have a 50% share in the US entity), which maintains a dev team in Johannesburg but is now managed from the US. It had initially sold a stake in the Arcade business to US partners in 2010.

An expensive exercise

Building a games developer business in South Africa was an expensive exercise, admits Meyer, who adds that he and Painter has always preferred to learn by experimenting on their own steam, making mistakes and owning it either way.

But back to the current business, which is well-positioned in the commercials market, says Painter, pointing to recent projects done for, among others, Ford, DStv, Yogi Sip, Simba, Mini, Cremora and a host of other well-known brands. It is increasingly attracting international work as the Rand continues its decline and it can prove value to global brands.

“We are not as cheap as India or China,” says Painter, “but the quality of the work we produce in South Africa is on par with international standards.” Using local animation agencies can cut as much as 30% of international productions budgets.

Under pressure

Locally, animation budgets — especially in the commercials space — have been under pressure as agencies and clients are less keen to invest in really high-value production. This means some 60% its revenue is now coming from international clients, says Meyer. That said, the agency doesn’t want to lose its relevance to the local market.

The company is also investing in its own product IP and content. It will be refocusing the Bun&Bunee property into a character fashion brand (think Hello Kitty) and is already working on a multilevel merchandising programme (including greeting cards, stationery and clothing) to achieve this.

Meyer explains it well: “We distinguish between the series and the brand/property. We specifically are separating the two. Retailers were getting stuck on the idea that the merchandising should be tied in somehow to the series. That meant that if the series was not showing in their territory or was in-between screening cycles, retailers would reject the brand in favor of a top-five brand.

“Perennial character fashion brand”

“By positioning Bun&Bunee as a perennial character fashion brand to the retailers, they ‘get it’. They can easily identify it as a brand ‘like’ Hello Kitty, which relies on its own intrinsic visual appeal and not merely on a co-promotional tie-in to a tv series or film. That way, retailers and consumers buy the merchandise due to its outright cool factor and not because its currently trending.”

Also heightening the profile of the agency is the work it did on the documentary 2 Wings Many Prayers, made by Lloyd Ross, that tells the story of two men who designed and built a single engine, two-seater aeroplane and flew it around the world in 40 days. The film recently won the Best Adventure and Best African Production awards at this year’s Wild Talk Africa Film Festival.

Luma created a sequence of visual effects shots of the aeroplane flying through a storm (see video below). The project was done for passion and the technical challenges it posed, rather than money, says Meyer.

Impressive feat

Showing just how impressive a feat it is that the studio accomplished, at a recent showing in the States, one audience member asked the director how they shot the scenes of the plane flying through the storm. Ross, taking a linear route, commented that it was shot in a dark warehouse with a hose (for the rain) and an ark welder to produce the thunderstorm.

Of course, that skipped the real answer, which involved an animation team in a studio in South Africa. Meyer, picturing the face of the audience member on hearing the original answer, just keeps laughing.

MagLove: The De Kat cover retailers don’t want you to see

MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought-out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them. By media blogger MediaSlut.

See our archive of previous MagLove cover selections

INTERNATIONAL

Aucklandia Magazine (Launch Issue)

I first thought that Aucklandia Magazine is a community magazine for Auckland, New Zealand. It turns out that it’s a free digital magazine (you can download it here via iTunes) with “semi-regular explorations of Auckland City, its people and their eccentricities through the lens of street photography”. Reading this, makes it even more exciting, and the cover even more special to me. And I think this is a concept that will work brilliantly in Cape Town, by Cape Town photographers, about Capetonians…

Variety, 1 October 2013

Annually, Variery produces a Power of Women issue that celebrates women who “use their clout to raise money and awareness for worthy causes and charities”. And this year, they don’t only have a great list, but all five of the covers are each stunning in their own right. The five chosen celebrities are Nicole Kidman, Amy Pascal, Amy Poehler, Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington.

Hercules Universal, Autumn/Winter 2013-2014

The latest cover of HU (with its sleek notebook-design) immediately drew my attention, and after seeing its previous covers and what it has to offer, I’ll definitely be looking out for it when I’ll be travelling again!

LOCAL

De Kat, September/October 2013

De Kat has definitely produced a cover that will get people talking… Not just about the topic of ‘genetically modified food’, but also about Elsabé Zietsman appearing completely naked… So naked, that no retailers wanted to accept the issue on their shelves. The only retailer who sees the bigger picture is Exclusive Books. It’s a bold cover, and I think it came together brilliantly.

TASTE, October 2013

Last week, House and Leisure’s 20^th Birthday issue made our list of favourite covers, and this week we have another birthday magazine: Woolworths TASTE is turning 10-years-old and has also created a Collector’s Edition, with this oh-so-messy but oh-so-good cake and cover. You’ll see in the picture below that all the black text is actually gold foiling on the printed copies.

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 South African magazines fail but, most importantly, also when they succeed. If you’re looking for a library about South African magazines and news, your one-stop pitstop is MediaSlut. #MagazinesForTheWin

Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us at @marklives and @mediaslut

Media Future: Acer opens new front in tech wars

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) A partnership with Intel may help give Acer an edge in bringing educational technology to Africa.

Amid rumours of a possible merger with close rival Asus, the world’s third largest laptop computer maker, Acer, this week opened two new battlefronts in its campaign to remain a market leader.

At a media event in Amsterdam, the Taiwan-based company announced a partnership with chip-maker Intel to bring educational software to notebooks and laptops, reinforcing existing educational initiatives. At the same time, it will roll-out a new strategy for winning business clients.

“It will take us a couple of years; we don’t want to do it overnight,” acknowledges Jakob Olsen, vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) of Acer’s commercial division. “We do small and medium business very well, we’re strong in government and education. But I don’t think Acer can take over the enterprise market immediately.”

There is a distinct difference between the approach being taken to each of these markets.

For the enterprise, Acer hopes to convince customers with a vision-based approach comprising two pillars: brand relevance and value creation. The former is about having the widest possible range of products and the broadest possible channel presence. Acer has made a good start. In the EMEA region, it has more than 60 000 resellers.

Ironically, this approach is almost precisely the same as the one taken by Samsung to take a dominant position in the smartphone market: “When I have a new product, I want to sell it,” says Olsen. “We can’t afford to stagger launches. We’re not a large organisation. If I can launch one product in 70 Countries, that’s easier for me.

Samsung uses its vast supply chain and local relationships to allow for near-simultaneous global launches. Acer has to focus on efficiency.

“For us it goes back to the supply chain, the ability to bring product to market. When you run a consumer business like Acer, you must respond fast. My marketing and resellers are different in EMEA, but in how I bring it to market, there is no difference.”

The opposite is true for smartphones. Acer has almost no presence in this market in Africa.

“The phone is a different animal,” says Olsen. “We don’t have a strategy not to sell it there, but we’re very dependent on the telcos for distribution. Our strategy is very simple to take a product to market. If someone wants to sell it, we will supply it.”

The educational market has fewer barriers, but offers no standard approach either. Tablet pioneer Apple has successful positioned itself as a leader in educational software, while Samsung has won praise for its solar-powered container classrooms.

Acer offers a free teaching tool called the Acer Classroom Manager, which can be downloaded from the Acer website. It can be used to manage activity by children using a wide range of devices in the same classroom. While it has gained wide use and acclaim, it hasn’t given Acer thought leadership in this area.

The company hopes to change that with its partnership with Intel Education Software (IES), which includes a hardware component.

“These products are designed to withstand the rigors of the education environment by offering dependability, security, and a long battery life,” says Acer. “The IES suite helps students to foster 21st century skills, such as communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and digital literacy.”

IES applications include Kno Textbooks, an interactive e-Reader designed specifically for education; Lab Camera, a camera-based science exploration application; SPARKvue, a data analysis application that collects data from internal and external sensors; and Media Camera, a multi-media application that enables students to capture and edit pictures and video.

If these kinds of tools take off in education on this continent, both Acer and Africa will be winners.

— Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. He is a consulting editor to MarkLives and our media tech columnist. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.