Design Annotator: Fast Cars And Interesting Faces

Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a new 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.

June is always a special month for us at Between 10and5. This month we focus on projects that young people are doing, or projects that involve the youth in some way. I’m really excited to bring you the best of what the next generation of South African creatives are bringing to the table. We also have some great illustration work as always, and a personal favourite of mine is the street photography coming from Durban.

Young South Africa Series

June is known as Youth Month in SA. 10and5 is joining in with our annual series Young South Africa: a month-long look at young locals doing exceptional things in creative fields and the projects that celebrate or document youth culture in our country.

One such one-to-watch is Ryan Heughn Jacobs, a freelance photojournalist working for news outlets across the country and abroad. Based in Cape Town most of the time, Ryan travels to conflict areas covering world news and social issues and bringing back bold imagery captured in the midst of civil wars and uprisings. Ryan’s work is also concerned with the effects of war on a country, its cities and its people.

See the rest of Ryan’s story on 10and5.

Audi A3 Exchange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bWFYimp2Xc&feature=player_embedded

To launch the new Audi A3 Sportback, Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town came up with the Audi A3 Exchange, an opportunity for the public to enter a competition to swop their current car for a new Audi A3.

Entries were made via a microsite. Through voting, the public made the decision whether the final Audi A3 Exchange showdown would take place in Cape Town, Joburg or Durban by tweeting #AudiA3Exchange and #CT, #JHB or #DBN.

Find out more about the Audi A3 Exchange.

Yeah, New York by Gareth Pearson

After a quick work trip to Boston at the end of April, Gareth Pearson decided to sneak in a few extra days to visit NYC. While exploring spring in the city, he filmed what was going on around him to make this video. Titled Yeah, New York, Gareth’s film has reached over 20 000 unanticipated views. He let us know more about the making of it, “I’m really interested in the public life of cities, and there’s plenty of it in New York. I figured I’d shoot some clips here and there while I wandered around the city, with the intention of throwing a little video together for fun, but with no real idea of how it would turn out besides wanting to slow it down. The funny thing is that I didn’t know I had that opening shot of the girl with the umbrella until I went through the clips. It was pure luck that she appeared in the frame. It really was just a fun video to make.” Read more about Gareth Pearsons work.

Update: Bruce Mackay

Bruce Mckay Illustration work for Elle Decor

Known for his incredibly detailed pen & ink illustrations, Cape Town based artist Bruce Mackay has been experimenting with new styles and techniques for recent work ranging from the editorial to the exhibited.

His latest is a night-set series of illustrations titled The Love Between You and I in response to the Attack In Black song. The images were made for Forage Press, an online publication that invites creatives across the globe to produce original and exclusive artwork inspired by music. Bruce says, “I have always felt a sense of longing in Attack In Black’s music. A mix of sadness and anger over loss and a subtle feeling of hope that comes out of it. I’ve interpreted it with a series of drawings that narrate the emotions I get from their music. Lost youth and missing friends and the hope that you might get those things back one day, that things are not lost, that decay can be reversed.”

Look at more of Bruce Mackays illustration work.

FoxP2 x MUTI | Ster Kinekor Posters

FoxP2 and MUTI created these illustrated posters for cinema chain Ster Kinekor. The posters depict famous locations from iconic films as getaway destinations with the pay-off line, “Our big screen takes you there.” The chosen destinations – King Kong’s Skull Island, The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, Avatar’s Pandora and Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings – all received a classic, mid-century travel poster style treatment for the campaign.

Check out the rest of the illustration work FoxP2 and Muti did for Ster Kinekor.

Humans of Durban Photography by Micaela de Freitas

Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s street photography blog, Humans of New York, Humans of Durban is SA’s own look at the characters who make up one of our major cities. The project was started by Micaela de Freitas, who upon returning home to Durban after a year abroad was looking for a way to explore her city and to improve her photography. The ‘Humans of…’ concept was the perfect way for her to interact with the people of her city who she wouldn’t otherwise stop and chat to.

Part of Micaela’s intention for starting the project was to encourage her to carry her camera wherever she goes and to keep photographing every day.

See the rest of the street portraits from Humans of Durban.

– Uno de Waal is the publisher of creative showcase 10and5.com.

– Industry profiles you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Die Burger’s excellent front-page design pushes visual journalism

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) There is one consistently excellent stand-out newspaper when it comes to front-page design among South Africa’s dailies – and that is Die Burger in Cape Town. So my ears pricked up when I read that the title’s chief sub, Johnn-Grant Munro, picked up the Standard Bank Sikuvile journalism award recently for lay-out and design.

Munro won for his “Ongelooflik” front page of Chad le Clos’ Olympic gold in London and the judges said:

Johnn-Grant Munro seized the excitement of the Chad Le Clos Olympics win … by not choosing the picture that dominated other papers, the one of Le Clos shouting in triumph. Instead Munro chose the moment before, an image of Clos in open-mouthed astonishment, to which he added the headline ON-GE-LOOFLIK, a perfect coupling of words to image. Die Burger devoted the entire top of the page to this one image, which ran right over the masthead area, to make for a spectacular front page.

Grubstreet caught up with Munro this week to find out more about how he works, his design philosophy and why Die Burger is such a handsome newspaper.

Grubstreet: You only do lay-out but you’re called chief sub. How does that work?

Johnn-Grant Munro: Well, I’m lucky to only do lay-out. I’m the first chief sub at Die Burger who’s been allowed to only do lay-out but otherwise it’s the same traditional subbing night-office…

Grubstreet: A real hallmark of your front pages is having a great pic high up and behind the masthead. Is this part of a design language you’ve developed for the paper?

Munro: You know, I’m not brown-nosing but (Die Burger editor) Bun Booyens is an editor who really appreciates design and is always looking to innovate. We started talking and working on a few things and this photo-behind-the-masthead thing came about naturally but also because we’d decided we wanted to use the space above the fold optimally and to good effect.

Also, about two years ago (US design consultant) Charles Apple visited us and gave us a small presentation on plugs. I talked to him a lot and, from there, we realised the plugs were probably one of the most important things above the fold. So we try to be innovative and build in a surprise element and variety.

And because we want to use the space to the maximum, if you use that type of big plug behind the masthead, it becomes the main photo and you’ve got a lot more space…

Grubstreet: When you say “plugs” I think my term for them in the subsrooms I’ve worked is “sky boxes” (at the top of a front page with images and teasers for stories inside).

Munro: Ja, that’s right.

Grubstreet: It sounds like, crucially, there’s a lot of conceptualisation with the editor on the front page.

Munro: Definitely…. I start a bit earlier (at 2pm – earlier than most daily chief subs, who tend to start at 4pm) to give me time to conceptualise when necessary… What works well is when I go in at 2pm, I go through everything (on the diary) and try build beautiful plugs. Then I take these to our first meeting (of senior editors and managers) and we will discuss it and Bun will say: “No, let’s rather plug this” or “Work a bit more with this plug” – or someone else will make a suggestion – and we take it from there.

But with big planned front pages (such as the Budget speech, where Die Burger used a Pacman motif), I will work on an idea for about one or two weeks – and continue to show it to Bun and it develops from there.

Grubstreet: The Media24 graphic design team (which are based in Jo’burg but two of the team members are in Cape Town) is very good so that must be a help.

Munro: Yes. I’m not a graphic designer and they are very approachable. Sometimes I just ask them for feedback (on my work) and it helps a lot… I must just add that the night production office – or nagkantoor – also helps a lot with very important aspects, for example, subbing, making sure all the story-telling devices makes sense, checking that all the visual stuff still works from a language point of view.

Grubstreet: To me, the key thing about Die Burger’s front pages is that you commit properly to a look or a picture – and go big and bold.

Munro: Ja, the thing is you mustn’t be scared to just plug one thing in your sky boxes.

The most difficult thing at first was deciding – according to news weight – when to go big with a sky box. So if Oscar shoots Reeva, you decide: “I’m going to go big.”

It’s a case of constant planning and talking about it. There’s no real secret.

Grubstreet: Do you think it’s important to Die Burger’s readers for the paper to look sophisticated?

Munro: I hope so but you know, I read something on (US designer) Mario Garcia’s blog, where he said something like: “Lay-out shouldn’t be noticed. It must just enhance”.

I really believe that’s true.

I think people do notice to some extent. We do get people commenting on our lay-out when we post a low-res of the front page on our Facebook page every day but I do think that mainly we’re there to enhance editorial and sell the paper.

I think people respond positively to good design – or they know it looks nice but they don’t know why. And that’s cool – that’s a job well done from our side. Some thing I must add is that the most important thing was getting everyone on board (in the newsroom) – from journalists to news editors – to think a bit more visually about their stories. What has played a big part is that our news editor (Aldi Schoeman) started pushing that a lot – and the staff started buying into it. So it’s a constant team effort.

Grubstreet: And it’s fun for everyone to think more visually.

Munro: Exactly.

– SA’s leading media commentator, Gill Moodie, offers intelligence on media – old and new. Reprinted from her site Grubstreet.

Africartoons – politics, anger and LOL

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Editorial cartoons remain a staple in our newspapers. Which should be worrying to cartoonists as said media continues its circulation slide and publishers keep cutting back on content. A small pool of cartoonists work for an even smaller pool of newspaper owners. You can see the possible disadvantages in such a set-up – especially for cartoonists (few places of employment in a declining environment). Editorial cartooning seems like a risky career proposition, overall, unless you are Zapiro.

One day one cartoonist, John Curtis, decided to bring together a collection of cartoons celebrating Nelson Mandela, and publish it online for his 90th birthday. Africartoons was born, and helped establish an informal network between the professional editorial cartoonists in the country, which Curtis says numbers around 30.

Today the website holds a substantial trove of South African cartoons numbering anywhere between 10 – 12 000, with between 200 and 350 cartoons added every month. That is out of a total of approximately 430 strips and cartoons published in SA newspapers each month. Apart from maintaining an important editorial archive, the site has helped open up the digital market to local cartoonists, gives them access to an audience beyond often regional newspapers, and allows for greater networking and collaboration between cartoonists.

It’s improved the business environment for cartoonists, who have become more aware of who holds the rights to their work (them, preferably), and offers an informal platform for support (like when paper The New Age, owned by the controversial Gupta family, dropped cartoonist Jerm, allegedly because his cartoons were not “aligned with the paper’s vision and mission.”)

It also allowed quite a few editorial cartoonists to pop out of the woodwork. While Zapiro remains the most influential cartoonist in the country (and one of the most influential cartoonists in the world today) it has certainly helped raise the profile of other cartoonists as well.

The site has to date been funded by Curtis, who, alongside fellow cartoonist Dr Jack, was recently signed by City Press to produce editorial cartoons as DR JACK & CURTIS for the paper. Curtis had originally used the design studio founded by him and his wife Michelle, digitalJUNGLE, to build and maintain the site, but the agency had scaled back after Michelle’s second pregnancy, so for the moment Curtis is managing most aspects of the site.

At the moment Zapiro’s cartoons are amongst the most popular on the site, but he is closely followed by Yalo (Sifiso Yalo from the Sowetan) and several other Zulu cartoonists. It shows, says Curtis, the appreciation a broad range of South Africans feel towards editorial cartooning.

“In fairness to Zapiro, his own website scoops a lot of Google searches as well as ours,” says Curtis. “Interestingly, Qap’s Mngadi is one of our most searched for cartoonists by name, in spite of the fact that we don’t regularly post the cartoons he draws for the Zulu newspaper Isolezwe. This is because we don’t have the facility to translate them, but our planned new website will offer a language filter so that we can accommodate cartoons in languages other than English without necessarily translating them.”

Mngadi is one of the few South African cartoonists to draw in an African language, notes Curtis. Another is Wilson Mgobhozi (MGOBHOZI, who also draws Zulu cartoons). “There’s a host of very good Afrikaans cartoonists (Media24’s FRED MOUTON, F(rans) ESTERHUYSE, NIËL van VUUREN and also Alastair FINDLAY to mention a few) but there’s a dire need to encourage cartoonists to work in the other languages,” says Curtis. “A prohibiting factor is a lack of publications (printed and digital) to support such work.”

[pullquote]That would enable us to open Africartoons up to the rest of the continent, while allowing readers to decide which cartoons they’d prefer to see.”[/pullquote]

Curtis hopes to pull in many editorial cartoonists from the rest of Africa later this year and is looking to revamp the site to make it easier to browse through regions and languages. Over the past few months Curtis has also focussed on building the Africartoons Facebook fan base and it currently stands at around 14 500 ‘Likes.’ South Africans still dominate as a proportion of its Facebook fans but there is also a strong contingent of people following the site from Mauritius, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Kenya.

Close to 70% of the site audience is male, which Curtis finds quite interesting, especially coupled with the fact that there are so few female editorial cartoonists currently working in the country.

“There’s also a shortage of women cartoonists.” says Curtis. This is a global phenomenon, borne out by the fact that only one third of our Facebook readers are women. In South Africa, only Noseweek’s Stacey Stent (STENT) and DENI BROWN (writer for the MAMA TAXI strip) are the only two women amongst some 30 professionals in our field. Africartoons has initiated a campaign with these two cartoonists which hopes to discover and encourage new female talent.”

Curtis says there is plenty of aggression in editorial cartooning – he tells how one fellow cartoonist once came back from a sabbatical saying how wonderful he felt not ‘having to stab somebody in the back every morning.’

Jerm (cartoonist Jeremy Nell) is singled out by Curtis for his drive in opening new markets for editorial cartooning in South Africa. Not only is he a fully digital cartoonist (software replaces paper and ink) but he is also focussed on producing work for digital platforms. Primedia owned Eye Witness News (EWN) has signed him on to produce cartoons for its website – which is then discussed on Primedia’s talk radio stations. He is also producing work for technology news site TechCentral.

Curtis hopes that monetising the site will ensure its long term sustainability, but finding sponsors for sites considered ‘political’ have proven problematic in South Africa in the past (tenders beat free speech nearly every time – Ed). He’s looking for sponsorship by foundations supportive of free speech as well as commercial relationships. The discourse created by editorial cartoonists is an important one – losing it translation as news and opinion shifts online is unthinkable.

– Industry news you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Sport magazines getting creative with cover designs

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.

INTERNATIONAL

Thursday Magazine (Times of Oman), 30 May 2013

Thursday Magazine is the weekend supplement of the daily newspaper Times of Oman (Confusing, right?). I only found out later (via CoverJunkie.com) that the weekend fals on a Thursday and Friday (and not Saturday and Sunday) in the Middle Eastern countries like Oman. I love the bold cover, bold cover lines, and beautiful yet simple masthead/logo at the bottom.

Magazine, No. 11, Volume 2, 2013

Is she naked? What’s underneath? Well, when you peel-off the red-banner (masthead, logo, coverlines all in one) you will see that she’s actually wearing a beautiful dress. When you’re finished being disappointed that she’s not naked, you can put back the red-banner, anywhere on the cover. That’s right, you can peel it off, and put it back again as many times as you like. I think this is really awesome, and can think of a few magazines in South Africa who should investigate something like this! I remember Wallpaper*, with their October 2009 cover doing something similar, but on a much bigger scale. The whole cover image could be peeled back to reveal a very naked model. And then you could put it back again.

Field covers since launch

A while ago I introduced you to the amazing and beautiful Field magazine, with its cool logo, design, issue number displays, and coverlines (plotted like a game plan…). I thought I’d show you some of their recent covers to show that they haven’t lost the game plan…

Metropoli, 24 May 2013

Metropoli consistantly publishes amazing covers, this time they’re playing on the trend that we constantly have our smart phones out (at concerns, speeches, celebrations, tragic events…), and in the smart phones, they’ve displayed the coverlines.

LOCAL

VISI 66

We are listing the cover more for the ‘concept’ – there is more to it than you might think at first glance. It is once again ingenious, and needs to be shown to the world! You can view exactly what you can/should do with this cover, right here.

SA Rugby, June 2013

SA Rugby has really kicked themselves into a whole new realm with their covers. Lately I’m seeing more and more location shots and really strong cover concepts coming through, with some great design. Who knew that Rugby Players (who might not be the prettiest men in the world…) could look so cool?

– 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 might fail, but most importantly, 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 @marklives and @mediaslut
Sign up for our free newsletter!

Shelf Life: Cameraland unveils new picture, new look for Hungry Lion

Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.

Design Partnership roars; a new creative hub in the Mother city; Nike gets technical with soccer; and an update on the latest tobacco legislation.

Hungry Lion roars in SA

There’s a new franchise ready to roar in the South African market. While having launched already in 1997 in Southern Africa, the Hungry Lion franchise has kept a low profile. Design Partnership is set to change that with a rebrand to “deliver stand-out pavement appeal” and lure new customers.

Hungry Lion, part of Shoprite Holdings, has a network of more than 150 stores in eight countries in Southern Africa and is currently rolling out new stores in Zambia, Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Its food focus is on fried chicken.

Along with the plans for the new stores and its positioning in the market cemented, Hungry Lion franchisor Adrian Basson, thought it was time for the brand to find its voice and shout about its 100% homegrown South African offerings.

This is exactly what Design Partnership hoped to achieve with its daringly bright red and yellow colouring that brings to life the eye-catching new Hungry Lion logo, created by M&C Saatchi.

All exterior detail was stripped to a very monochromatic and brightly lit red and yellow to attract attention and increase footfall. This was then blended with softer and warmer interior lighting and timber finishes to balance the strong yellow and red colours and create a harmonious scheme, explains Callie van der Merwe, CEO of Design Partnership.

Design Partnership created the new design identity against a backdrop of strict lead times due to a highly aggressive rollout strategy – Hungry Lion plans to revamp and open approximately 200 stores within the next two years in order to gain market share.

Cameraland unveils new picture

The landmark Cameraland building in Long Street has been revamped and repurposed as a destination for “creative individuals”. There’s a coffee shop and a rooftop terrace that gives patrons a birds-eye view of the city, as well as a view of the latest techno gadgets.

A photography display winds its way up the refurbished staircase to the coffee shop, photographic studio and rooftop terrace. The various areas in the building are being positioned for creative conversations, meetings, training sessions and all types of gatherings.

Gary Shap, Cameraland’s CEO, has introduced ‘Be Inspired’ evenings to bring the creative community together for inspiring and motivating talks. And pssst… don’t tell anyone else, but they’ve got about the only free parking in the centre of Cape Town!

Nike plays away

Nike has unveiled its new home and away team outfits for FC Barcelona for the 2013/14 season. The “combination of the club’s renowned tradition with their modern and progressive approach” sees the traditional red and blue stripes returning for the home kit with a modern fade stripe on the sleeves. The away shirt has a yellow-ribbed crew neck with red trim, amplifying the design of the home shirt. The jersey also features a vibrant yellow V-neck collar to represent the Catalan flag, the Senyera, which is also fully integrated in to the back of the collar. Inside the back of the neck is a woven label featuring the club’s motto “Mesqueun Club” (More than a Club).

The kit is made of fabric weighing just 150 grams – 23% lighter than previous Nike kits. The fabric is also integrated with Nike Dri-FIT technology to draw sweat away from the body to keep players cool and dry!

Prohibiting tobacco trademarks unconstitutional

Here’s an update on a story we carried a few months ago on Shelf Life about proposed new tobacco legislation.

Legislation to prohibit the use of trademarks on tobacco products is unconstitutional and will make no contribution to discouraging smoking. This is the view of Prof Owen Dean of the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University (SU). Dean said many countries, including South Africa, intend to adopt legislation restricting or prohibiting the use of logos on cigarette packs, while only allowing brand names or product names depicted in a plain manner, to be displayed. As regards South Africa, he argued that such legislation infringes both sections 25(1) and (2) of the Constitution because it will bring about an arbitrary deprivation of property, in the form of trademarks, and indeed an expropriation of such property.

– 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 Marsland has written about the FMCG, media, marketing and advertising industry for 18 years of her 25 year media 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 co-founder and Publishing Editor of SA’s newly launched industry trendwatching portal, TREND. at www.trendlives.info, in partnership with MarkLives.com.

– Industry profiles you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Native Advertising: Traditional Advertising Online

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), San Francisco Bay Mashable recently asked the question, “Is Native Advertising Just Another Term For Good Advertising?” The answer is no, not quite.

From what I can tell, native advertising is a horrible and misleading term that is being used to describe something that may actually turn out to be a good idea — the application of traditional advertising principles to online advertising. Let me explain.

Native advertising represents the marketing industry finally starting to grasp that consumers do not want to interact with banner ads, do not want to have conversations with brands, and do not want to have relationships with marketers.

[pullquote]Online advertising was supposed to be interactive. It was supposed to rescue us from having to force people into looking at our ads. Consumers were going to want to interact with us, they were going to want to have conversations with marketers, they were going to want to have relationships with brands.[/pullquote]

It was all fantasies and delusions based on naive interpretations of consumer behavior by people who had a whole lot of ideological commitment to the web, and very little experience with real world marketing.

Now we’ve learned that, for the most part, consumers want no part of interacting with online advertising. What we are calling “native advertising” is a recent reaction to this realization and to the very disappointing history of online advertising, particularly banner advertising.

Nobody seems quite sure what they mean by native advertising. But I think I know what they mean. They don’t know it yet, but they mean using traditional advertising strategy on the web.

They mean that if you insert advertising into an appealing environment and you make the advertising entertaining or beautiful or interesting, you’re more likely to attract some attention from consumers. Which is the exact premise on which traditional advertising is built.

What is TV advertising about? It is about finding the most appealing programming and inserting into that programming messages that are either entertaining or interesting or beautiful.

It is still early days for this realization, and marketers don’t quite know yet what they’ve realized. They think they have to trick people into seeing their advertising by pretending it’s part of the content.

They don’t yet understand that the effectiveness of “native advertising” — just like all other forms of advertising — is going to be proportional to how interesting, entertaining or beautiful they can make it.

Native advertising may represent the first stage of the marketing and advertising industry growing up and coming to terms with the fact that the best hope for online advertising is not pie-in-the-sky nonsense about conversations and relationships.

It is taking the traditional principles of interrupting and grabbing attention, and applying them to the web.

– The Ad Contrarian is Bob Hoffman, is the author of The Ad Contrarian and 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. Reprinted from his blog The Ad Contrarian.

– Industry profiles you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Africa Annual – our Influential, Must Follow Twitter List

Ornico and MarkLives have teamed up to present our first ‘The Africa Annual‘, a compilation of some of Africa’s remarkable stories and resources for businesses; and media, marketing and branding enthusiasts. This is our list of influential, must follow individuals for perspective on and insight into the continent.

The Influential, Must Follow Twitter List:

Olumide Abimbola @loomnie – economic anthropologist, blogger, consultant and editor.

Gillian Parker @gillianparker3 – Journalist covering West Africa | The Economist | TIME | Africa Report

US Embassy Pretoria @USEmbPretoria – United States Diplomatic Mission to South Africa

Clayson Monyela @ClaysonMonyela – SA’s head of Public Diplomacy. BrandSA Board Member.

Justice Malala @justicemalala – Political commentator, media entrepreneur

Patrick Smith @patrick_africa – Editor-in-Chief of Africa Confidential.

S. Andrew Musoke @UGzSolution – Chief Strategy Officer – truIT Uganda Ltd.

Lydia Polgreen, NYT @lpolgreen – New York Times Johannesburg Bureau Chief.

africatechie @africatechie – African Tech Entrepreneur. Tweet about technology in Africa.

Bate Felix @BateEtah – Dakar – based West & Central Africa Correspondent for Reuters News.

Mike Smith @MikeSmith_AFP – AFP’s bureau chief for Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.

Peter Martell @petermartell – AFP News Editor, East Africa and Indian Ocean.

Riyaad Minty @Riy – Head of Social Media @ Al Jazeera.

Elsie S. Kanza @eskanza – Director, Head of Africa at WEF.

– Industry news you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Savanna, now more can-venient.

MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Savanna, now more can-venient.

We have come to expect a certain kind of dry, wry humour from Savanna, the cider company. The catch-phrase, ‘It’s dry, but you can drink it’ lent itself to various dry-but-funny/punny barroom scenarios, usually featuring Barry Hilton as the dead-pan bartender, Larry. (‘Do you know your monkey stole my Savanna?’ ‘No, but if you hum it, I’ll play it.’)

Now the scenario gets sillier, but no less funny. Savanna steps out of the bar and into an offbeat fantasy world, courtesy of slightly cheesy blue-screen effects and a charisma-laden presenter: an afro-topped dude with an infectious enthusiasm for the new canned cider beverage. Because yes, Savanna is now available in cans – and that’s the simple message of this ad.

Humour has always been the mainstay of this brand’s personality, whether it’s a print ad that gives you your ‘R&B singer stage name’ or a Facebook competition that sends a group of buddies to tour the world’s most bizarre pubs.

Even though it is made using Granny Smith apples, Savanna has embraced the lemon, and a lemony-yellow colour as a distinctive and very recognisable brand element. This is due to the tradition—allegedly started by Cape Town barman Dale Raines of La Med—of serving the cider with a lemon-wedge in the neck of the bottle.

But let’s get back to commercial – a yellow-themed office with its yellow-suited dude. If the character looks familiar, the reason is because we’ve met him before – when Savanna launched the (larger) 500ml bottle. He was ‘Mr Bigg’ complaining about everything getting small – cell-phones, food, even dogs. “Make it bigger!” he shouted into an oversized telephone receiver.

This time the hero of this Savanna ad has a different complaint. “What’s up with all this negativity?” he asks; “People saying ‘You can’t do this, and you can’t do that.’ Well, here at Savanna, ‘can’t’ is a four-letter word. Which is why we’ve launched Savanna… in a can!”

Yes – it’s a cringe worthy corny line, but the execution is so spot on that it all kinda works. Here it’s the charismatic performance of the presenter, combined with the just-this-side-of-tacky special effects that bring an irresistible giggle. I watched the ad more than a few times, and each time couldn’t resist laughing.

“It’s lighter!” declares our hero, suspended from a yellow hang-glider. “It’s tougher!” he exclaims, on the back of a horse with cowboys racing behind him. “And it’s more versatile!” he shouts delightedly, skiing down a hill (in a yellow jumpsuit).

Cans, we are told, are more ‘can-venient’, because you can enjoy your Savanna anywhere. Each of these scenarios features our smiling hero, superimposed on a moving background. The blue-screen effect is just on the edge of ‘fake’ – so clearly this was not a big-budget production. Which goes to show that a good idea trumps a big budget every time, especially when it comes to comedy.

Since its launch in 1996, Savanna has grown to become the world’s third-largest cider in the world, after mother-ship Distell’s Hunters. The world’s no. 1 is UK’s Strongbow, which is distributed internationally by Heineken, and had a few decades head-start in this splintered market.

Savanna’s marketing has focussed largely on the ‘quirkiness’ of the brand: the iconic stumpy bottle, with its clear glass, very much in the tradition of the pale Mexican beers that competed with the lagers and ales of the world in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. When Savanna was launched, the trend of drinking beer from a bottle had just begun to catch on in the States, as up ‘til then, the can had been king. This, along with the lemon-wedge, became part of the charm, the tradition that grew around the brand.

Well, it’s hard to see how one is going to be able to jam a lemon-wedge into the new can, but then again, this is all new territory for Savanna, so let’s see if the more ‘can-venient’ packaging helps sales for this iconic brand.

Savanna (and Draftfcb) proves once again that humour – if well done – can be a powerful way to promote a brand’s personality. Tell me – who doesn’t love a wry smile or a good belly laugh?

Think your ad should be Ad of the Week? Send us a tweet with the link!

Ad of the Week archive

Ad of the Week is published on MarkLives every Wednesday. See past selections here.
Oresti Patricios is the CEO of brand and reputation analysis company Ornico.

– Industry profiles you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Design Annotator: New Creative Spaces and Illustration Work

Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a new 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.

Some great new creative work spaces and places to chill out have popped up. It’s inspiring to know that not everyone subscribes to boring, grey office spaces. We look at Durban based illustrator Wesley van Eeden in contrast his work with that of Andrés Pallavicini. Finally, be sure to check out more info from Portfolio Night – something that I hope will definitely become a fixture on the creative calendar.

Instant Grass gets a new office space

Angie Batis teamed up with Nicholas Christowitz to design the Instant Grass Joburg office.

Instant Grass is a consumer collaboration agency whose core Joburg team is 6 people but who works with networks of consumers, meaning their office needs to be able to accommodate as many as 30 people on certain days. As a solution the duo had hexagon stools made that together work as a honeycomb-patterned coffee table but provide temporary seating if taken apart.

Browse more of the new Instant Grass Offices.

Windhoek Pure Beer Society Space

The fictional Windhoek Pure Beer Society where the latest Windhoek TV ads are set has been reimagined in real life bars and taverns. Headed up by The Jupiter Drawing Room, the extension of the TV campaign has seen existing venues in Centurion and Mamelodi become Windhoek Pure Beer Society HQs. A further 18 are planned to launch around the country during the remainder of the year.

View more images of the new Windhoek Pure Beer Society space.

Portfolio Night Wrap-up

Dozens of students braved the cold and attended the first ever Portfolio Night event to present their work in the hopes of making their first mark on the industry. The night followed the same structure as speed dating, where each young creative got the chance to present their portfolio to a different creative director in each of the three 15 minute rounds.

Check out this gallery over on Facebook for more pics of the night.

Abstract Stories Exhibition

Abstract Stories opens at /A WORD OF ART this week. The exhibition is a group show by renowned local and international artists.

Wesley van Eeden opens Resoborg

Durban-based freelance illustrator Wesley van Eeden’s brand new website officially launched today at www.resoborg.com.

Having over 8 years experience in the creative industry, Wesley’s portfolio spans a vast array of work ranging from murals like at the MyCiTi bus stop in Gardens to illustrative work for corporate clients like Nedbank, to art exhibitions.

Wesley says that as a studio Resoborg’s focus will be on supplying illustration and graphic solutions to advertising agencies and clients around South Africa as well as the globe. It will also be a place for his personal exhibition work that helps develop the commerical client-driven work that he does.

View more of Wesley’s illustration portfolio.

Andrés Pallavicini Illustrator and graphic designer

We first featured Andrés Pallavicini while he was mid-way through his grad year studying information design at TUKS in Pretoria. Since graduating he has been working at a motion graphics studio in Johannesburg and doing a lot of personal illustration work as an outlet for his creative ideas.

The images here give us a look into Andrés’s mind and make up two new illustrated series he made for fun and exploration. He says, “These are two new series I’ve been working on over the past two months or so, experimenting with a new approach focusing more on design principles in illustration than predominantly illustrative ones. They are both based around a particular colour palette, and make use of flat vector illustrations done in Illustrator.

Have a look at more of Andrés’s illustration work.

– Uno de Waal is the publisher of creative showcase 10and5.com.

– Industry profiles you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!

Green Sky Thinking: Sustainability myths to live by

by Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) Navigating the ‘green’ or ‘ethical’ aisle in any supermarket is no mean feat. Ongoing research means new and often conflicting information that makes trying to ‘do the right thing’ is confusing at best, and just plain off-putting at worst.

“Do I buy fruit that is local and seasonal, or unseasonal bananas that are transported a great distance, but fairly traded?” And of course the ultimate question: “What do I fancy eating for supper?”

The answer to this sometimes means a ready-made meal that’s delicious, quick, easy and satisfying, which at that very moment seems way more important than all previous questions or the copious amount of unrecyclable packaging you’ll be throwing in the bin later.

[pullquote]“I’m not an ethical consumer, I’m just someone trying to consume more ethically”[/pullquote]

In 2008, Treehugger featured a wonderful quote that read: “I’m not an ethical consumer, I’m just someone trying to consume more ethically” and whilst the conversation has changed from ethical to green to sustainable, this still pretty much sums it up.

Sustainability is not the reason to buy, but simply another reason to buy. In other words, it’s just another variable to be added into the decision-making matrix alongside price, quality, utility, availability and so on – all of which are then weighed up according to the context of our lives, for example: it’s the end of the month and money is tight; I want the best quality for my baby; or sometimes just, because I feel like it.

Let’s face it, it’s complicated, but debunking some popular myths can help make things simpler:

# 1 Sustainability is a luxury not everyone can afford

This is acutely more apparent for those living in South Africa. We are one of the most unequal societies in the world, making it easy to dismiss paying a premium for sustainable products as beyond the reality of the majority of the population. There is truth in this myth, but it’s only a small part of the picture. And if anything, rising food prices and food security should make us even more aware of the issues.

The view that sustainability is expensive is a short-term perspective, and one that is true when you already have an unsustainable system in place. In other words, there is an upfront cost involved to switch to a more sustainable technology, for example to change to solar heating or replace the gas guzzler in the garage, but once the system has been replaced with a more sustainable option, it is naturally more efficient and results in long-term savings.

The truth is sustainability and economic efficiencies go hand in hand, but unfortunately this is often easier for corporates to realise than for individuals.

[pullquote]The truth is sustainability and economic efficiencies go hand in hand, but unfortunately this is often easier for corporates to realise than for individuals.[/pullquote]

In 2011, UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) reported a net benefit of over £70 million as a result of their ‘Plan A’ sustainability initiatives (and compared with £50 million in the previous year). More energy efficient stores and distribution centres saw a saving of £13.5m. Using less fuel saved £2m, hanger recycling and reuse saved £1m, and packaging reductions saved £11m. These savings more than outweighed any investments M&S made in ‘Plan A’ projects and the surplus monies were re-invested into the business.

# 2 Sustainability means a sacrifice in lifestyle

By its nature, living sustainably means doing more with less, but we should interpret this as ‘living smart’ rather than lowering our standard of living. As mentioned above, sustainability is not a differentiator or the reason to buy, but simply another reason to buy. The average consumer is not prepared to make significant (down) shifts in lifestyle, but rather want what they’ve always had, with the added benefit of sustainability built-in. They’re looking for clever, win-win scenarios such as smart new technologies that will save them money and be more environmentally effective.

Author, environmentalist and entrepreneur, Paul Hawken says that “once we start to organise ourselves and innovate within that mindset, the breakthroughs are extraordinary”, and last month’s column on Design Indaba bears testimony to this. Paul talks to innovation at the heart of sustainable living as a powerful economic engine, and believes that “addressing climate change is the biggest job creation program there is”.

# 3 Sustainable consumption can save the world

Around the globe, sustainable consumption is being punted as the new way of shopping. But whilst encouraging people to live by their values not to mention moving from an individual to a more collective mindset has inherent value, it fails to address the root problem – an against-all-odds pursuit of economic growth.

[pullquote]Around the globe, sustainable consumption is being punted as the new way of shopping. But whilst encouraging people to live by their values not to mention moving from an individual to a more collective mindset has inherent value, it fails to address the root problem – an against-all-odds pursuit of economic growth.[/pullquote]

In Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff Part 2, she talks about needing to shift the weight of responsibility from consumers’ shoulders back to manufacturers, producers and governments. Annie says that going green “distracts us from identifying and demanding change from the real drivers of environmental decline”, and urges viewers to “put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world”.

This is not to discredit sustainable consumption, but rather acknowledges just how difficult it can be (like swimming upstream). She calls for “a new economy that puts safe products, happy people and a healthy planet first”. Changing the priorities of our economy will make doing the right thing easier for all.

Y&R strategy director Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) has 17 years of experience in strategic planning, together with specific credentials in sustainability communications, social marketing, corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing. She contributes the monthly “Green Sky Thinking” column on sustainability issues to MarkLives.