With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.
News of the pregnancy and hospitalisation of Kate Middleton (officially Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge) and the subsequent media scandal around a prank call to the hospital which treated her ensured her name became the fastest rising web search term on Google by South Africans last week.
Also in the news last week was the sentencing of Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye after the musician was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment following a car crash in 2010 which killed four pupils and injured two more.
* Google Trends is intended for general analysis of volume patterns.
* When you see Breakout listed instead of an actual percentage, it means that the search term has experienced a change in growth greater than 5000%.
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.
I love countdowns! Best of this. Worst of that. Richest people. Newsmakers of the Year. Car of the Year. List it and I’ll read that article. So I’m especially thrilled to present to you a countdown of the Top 10 South African covers for 2012 as selected by Mediaslut.
As we move towards the end of the year it is the perfect time to give a round-up of what happened on magazine covers over the past 12 months…
Remember that you can leave a comment to let us know if you agree, or think we totally missed the mark…
Next week: Our Top 10 International magazine covers
Dec 21: The 10 worst magazine covers of 2012!
At first glance there doesn’t seem that much to this cover at all. But when you turn the cover you see a very smart execution by BMW that just works so well and adds a whole new dimension to the front cover. A worthy 10th place for smart thinking and successful execution.
9. NewsNow, 29 March 2012
One of the stronger covers of now deceased NewsNow magazine. Clever image sourcing of President Jacob Zuma and his compound house on fire. Simply designed but very effective all together.
A very proudly South African and proudly Cape Town cover by local design agency Just Design for AdVantage magazine. It includes multiple iconic Cape Town specific images and design-aspects.
If there was an award for best Sports Cover I would award it to Sports Illustrated South Africa for this September 2012 cover. It’s a great concept, play on words/names and the end result is just fantastic.
The shocking pink, the styling, the props used (with the eyes looking back at you) – everything just works on this cover. But what really took it to the next level was that this was a Scratch-and-sniff cover with a Cinnamon smell!
Rolling Stone South Africa did the mother brand proud with this great family portrait of “Zef’s First Family.” The whole package just screams attitude and ‘we just don’t give a flying frikkadel’! It also went viral and landed on dozens of international blogs and music websites .
The British Airways High Life magazine covers have really all been just been world-class the past few months. When I saw this cover for the first time I kept staring at all the detail and intricacy that went into making this cover really come alive.
This is one of those titles/magazines/books/items/works of art that can’t really be explained in words, but has to be seen and touched and experienced to understand the extent of just how smart and unique it all is…
The issue was guest edited by Richard Hart and designed by Disturbance. Where It’s At is the first in a series of limited editions inspired by Design Indaba magazine. When you open the cover it unfolds into a massive map of Africa with the name “Where it’s At” printed on it. When you fold it back, the cut outs spell “HERE”.
At number two is this cover from i Magazine carried by City Press. This cover has so much oomph and gravitas. The simplicity of the black and white (striking) image with blood red text and cover lines that contribute to the message of the story all combines to make a great cover.
And my number one cover for 2012 goes to Getaway magazine and the whole Getaway team. They took Rhino Poaching awareness to a whole new level with their September 2012 issue. They also did something very unique with the Editor’s Letter (You can read more about it all here). The Getaway team has produced amazing covers consistently but this one is the best of the whole year.
– 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
by Herman Manson (@marklives) I’m trying to figure out what the two, ahem, balls attached to the front of the fluffy pink bunny suit could possibly indicate.
“Oh – that was for our Halloween edition. It’s a penis and we put Justin Bieber in it,” says a voice from somewhere to my right.
I’m in the costume room of the only in show in SA that would feature a giant penis sporting the Bieber’s face on air – or as the ZANews website puts it ” the only news show more ghastly than the SABC.” It’s ZANews producer Thierry Cassuto and his teams’ literal take on the boy-man as an over-exposed sex symbol.
ZANews is the satirical puppet show produced online and for TopTV by Cassuto and his team. Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) is a business partner in the venture. The day before this interview ZANews won the ‘Best Editorial Team’ category, amongst others, at the digital industry award show the Bookmarks Awards.
Further on in our impromptu tour of the studio and production facility I read “I kissed a boer and I liked it” written on the white board in the room the writers use to come up with each satirical gem.
“I kissed a boer and I liked it, the taste of his Castle lager, I kissed a boer just to try it, I hope the ANC Youth League won’t mind it,” sings the puppet version of Malema in an episode broadcast a couple of days after my visit.
Cassuto, who immigrated to South Africa from France in ’98, had wanted to do a show based on the British hit show Spitting Image. SA seemed the perfect place for political satire. “Here you have every shade of good and evil on the political spectrum,” says Cassuto.
Cassuto, who had launched his own production company, Both Worlds Pictures, wanted a collaborator punched into the nuances of South African politics and put in a call to Shapiro, who signed up, and so began the long, long, obstacle strewn road to a pilot episode.
With long, long road, Cassuto means 10 years, and with obstacle strewn, he means mostly the SABC, but also the old school business practices of the uncompetitive local TV industry.
He made it to ‘the top of Auckland Park (SABC HQ)’ three times just to be told by one senior government lackey exec after another that ‘our people are not ready for this.’
It’s an argument Cassuto passionately refutes. He says Spitting Image helped reignite interest and engagement in politics amongst the youth in the UK. Deals with ETV and M-Net also failed to materialise.
In 2009 the SABC finally agreed to finance a pilot episode but then backed out without airing it, trying to destroy the tapes in the process, and pulling an episode off its news actually programme Special Assignment covering ZANews twice, but ZANews had managed to retain IP on the puppets and concept (a point on which, he hints, deals with other broadcasters failed).
The pilot was finally leaked to the Mail & Guardian newspaper which broadcast it via its website. The TV show that never made it to TV became a web hit. Budget airline Kulula, known for its irreverent advertising, stepped in to back a daily web based show. For the next year and half they provided the team with 90% of their income. Then Kulula pulled the plug.
Cassuto crowd funded the business while trying (and failing) to secure new sponsors. “At some point every business is connected to government in corporate SA,” says Thierry. “They are applying self-censorship in a bid to ruffle no feathers.”
Today a large part of its revenue comes from TopTV which picked up the show in late 2011 (and which just went into business rescue) and broadcasts it on Sunday evenings on Top One. The deal with TopTV, and because ZANews owns its own IP, allows the company can claim the Film and TV rebate on production costs from the DTI, helping to make the project sustainable.
The business rescue is a point of concern for Cassuto, but he says the show will go on, in part thanks to support from NGOs like The Open Society Foundation and the Africa Technology and Transparency Initiative prepared to invest in media with social goals, and through a diversified revenue stream including subscriptions, events and even DVDs (before the market for DVDs collapsed).
Looking ahead ZANews is building its online platform out to become a hub for satire in the South African market. The aim is to take the puppet show daily all year round (it currently works on 26 week seasons) and to build an online network which pulls in cartoonists and writers to become a destination for news “that’s news without the depression that usually follows”.
The expanded ZANews Network combines text, video and images beyond those produced by the talented ZANews production and writing team. Columnists include Ndumiso Ncgobo, Chester Missing, Rebecca Davis, Marianne Thamm and Andrew Donaldson. Cassuto hints the team is working on a concept for a radio show.
The company currently employs 14 members of staff by as many as 50 can work on an episode of the puppet show. This includes puppeteers, voice artists, recording crews etc. The writing team consists of Thamm, a widely respected journalist, comedian and stand-up performer Anne Hirsch, journalist Andrew Donaldson as well as Cassuto.
Cassuto hopes South African brands will embrace the new network. “It’s not divisive, it brings people together, we have tens of thousands of people liking us on Facebook, and you won’t find angry comments on our work there,” says Cassuto. “We just don’t believe in holy cows and our show reflects the conversation South Africans are already having amongst themselves.”
ZANews is a uniquely South African product and worthy of support. It’s a multi-platform media site that can push campaigns into all sorts of interesting channels and maybe most importantly South Africans deserve the opportunity to engage on its unique political and social challenges using media that isn’t intimidating, or that lulls the kids to sleep.
And any case – you haven’t made it until you’ve been made into a puppet. And who could deny a comrade that?
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) It is not enough these days for the overfed fat cats of large corporations to make billions of dollars. Now they want to be loved and admired. Here’s some advice for them and for the poor fools who have to implement their delusional PR and social media plans.
1. When will you be loved? Um…never. I know, people just don’t understand how much good you do and what a wonderful company you are. Oh, and your people are the best! Well, guess what? Nobody gives a shit. There are going to be a substantial number of people who think you are a criminal enterprise and that the world would be better off without you. Stop whining and get used to it. It’s the price you pay for being big and successful.
2. Do good things and shut up. It’s fine to speak modestly about the generous things you do, but don’t pound your chest and don’t rub our noses in it. You are expected to do good things. Generosity and community-mindedness are not extra-credit projects, they are your responsibility. Be charitable and generous because they are the right things to do, not because you want bouquets.
3. Put your money where your mouth is. There is a fashion among large corporations and politicians to glorify small business — while they’re stomping all over it. If you really believe in small business, hire them as suppliers. Have an officer whose job it is to identify small companies that can do a better job for you than the big dumb oafs you are currently using. You’ll do a lot more for small businesses by employing them than by your patronizing lip service.
4. Refrain from social media egocentrism. You’d be amazed at how little consumers care about your “philosophy.” I know, your agency has shown you research that proves that consumers want to do business with companies that share their values. This is, to a large degree, a bunch of hooey. Consumers do business with companies that provide them with good products, good service, and good value. End of story. Sure, when you survey them they’ll tell you they prefer companies that are “good, like me.” What do you expect them to say? That they want to do business with creeps and perverts? And whatever you do, don’t talk yourself into the Pepsi narcissism trap.
5. Results by indirection. While you will always be resented and disliked by a certain component of the population, there is a group of people who can be influenced by reason. The best way to influence these people is indirectly. Let them hear about your good works from third parties. Don’t try to force feed your righteousness to them. By not pushing too hard on the virtue button, but by having a strategy that employs discretion and unpretentiousness you may actually get some people to like and appreciate you.
– The Ad Contrarian is Bob Hoffman, ceo of Hoffman/Lewis advertising in San Francisco and St. Louis. Hoffman is the author of The Ad Contrarian and 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. Reprinted from his blog The Ad Contrarian.
MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios– ads that make you feel good about paying tax
At the best of times paying tax is seen as a necessary evil, but when politics is so highly contested – as it is right now – paying tax becomes a highly emotional issue. Locally tax payers are horribly over-burdened and the tsunami of news about government corruption and wasteful expenditure hardly endears those who fill up the state’s coffers to SA’s revenue collection entity.
This is what makes marketing the SARS brand such a massive challenge. Our country’s revenue collections service is among one of the most efficient state departments, but the funds it collects are not being well spent by government which is a major irritation for tax payers.
But City Press editor, Ferial Haffajee, penned the perfect column a couple of weeks ago called ‘Tjatjarag: Sars adverts help soothe nascent taxpayer resentment’, which talked about what a wonderful government organisation SARS is, and how it is even the subject of a Harvard case study.
“The agency is South Africa’s most efficient and innovative, and is always held up as a public-service model,” writes Haffajee. “The effective collection of tax has been a steady story of governance success. Under former tax commissioner Pravin Gordhan, and now under his successor Oupa Magashule, tax compliance has taken the country from a state of high delinquency to one of high compliance.”
If you read a paper called ‘The power of politics: The performance of the South African Revenue Service and some of its implications’, by Laïla Smith of the Centre for Policy Studies, you’ll understand why this is the case. SARS, says Smith, appears to be one of the success stories of post-apartheid government. “In a context in which the failure of the state to elicit citizens’ compliance with public obligations is seen as a central weakness of the new democracy, and in which the efficiency of government is seen by many analysts to be wanting, the statutory tax collecting agency has substantially increased its revenues.”
Like Haffajee, political analysts Dumisani Hlophe and Steven Friedman say SARS’ efficacy is all about good management. SARS “has increased tax collection in South Africa mainly due to improved administration,” say Hlope and Friedman, adding: “Managerial technique has increased efficiency and the use of coercive tactics. Coercion, not negotiation is seen as the key to effective revenue collection.”
In normal product parlance, marketers talk about ‘push’ or ‘pull’ strategies to engage consumer behaviour and to drive sales. In the world of tax collection the customer strategies are equally complex and because tax is usually a grudge payment, marketing these brands usually employs strategies of coercion and persuasion or negotiation, in order to get people to part with their hard earned cash, and deposit them into state coffers.
In South Africa there’s hardly any negotiation, but a whole lot of coercion and persuasion, which Hlope and Friedman explain the need for: “There is no suggestion that increased revenue collection has any link to enhanced citizen confidence in government. The state has not yet established a rapport with the tax paying public or corporate institutions to allow voluntary payment compliance” Hlope and Friedman say.
“The political process tends to outweigh the ‘social contract’. From this perspective the legitimacy of the tax regime cannot be assumed and needs to include both persuasion and coercion.’ Because of the lack of confidence tax payers has in government, the push to get tax payers to pay is tough, and needs to deliver a power-packed punch.
Making an ad for SARS must be one of the most complex and difficult briefs and ad agency can face, but hot off the Receiver’s ‘Everyone can be good at tax’campaign, which cajoles citizens to get online and do the right thing, comes the ‘Touching lives’ campaign.
It is a diverse and emotionally loaded series of advertisements that use realism – real people and real stories – to strike exactly the right positioning. ‘Celebrating life’ reminds us all of the dramatic rescues by the SADF when a tropical storm called Dando raged over the Lowveld, and left people stranded, wondering how they would survive.
‘A second chance’ tells the story of Lynette October who grew up on the Cape Flats and who fell into the wrong crowd. “I had gangster friends and got addicted to drugs,” she says. “Eventually I lost my job. And my mother, who was looking after my child, told me to never put a foot in her house again.”
But October went into rehab, cleaned up her act, and moved to Lephalale in Limpopo to find a construction job at the local power station. “One day I got a call. A lady told me I had been accepted. I was so excited, I just said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I wasn’t listening to what she was saying – I had to call her back.”
October went into training with 700 other apprentices, in an initiative that was funded by tax payers. Now for the first time in years, October has a salary, supports her daughter and can even send money home to her mom. “I would like to thank the taxpayer for contributing to my life, for getting me to where I am, for giving me this opportunity to upgrade myself and build my future,” says October.
Other ads in the campaign include ‘Walking Tall’ the story about how Junior Mohlabi received a government grant to buy a mothballed shoe factory and turned it into a runaway success; ‘Dreaming Big’ which is the tale of how Modjadji Ramphelo (a remarkable student from rural Tzaneen) got a bursary from government to go to university; and ‘Positively Alive’ where Elsie Bogatswe tells of how she survived AIDS with the help of ARV treatment and went to become an HIV/AIDS counsellor in her community of Vosloosrus. All these adverts feature the real people at the centre of each story.
Yes, paying tax is a grudge activity, more so when you read about all the corruption and wasted government funds. But isn’t it great to learn about how your hard earned Rands are changing lives and growing this country? Well done to SARS and its advertising agency Draftfcb Johannesburg for reminding us about how great this country truly is.
Ad of the Week is published on MarkLives every Wednesday. Seepast selections here. Oresti Patricios is the CEO of brand and reputation analysis company Ornico.
by Andrew MillerTBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande is an agency in crisis. Their ‘basket of boutique services’ strategy has bombed. Only a massive new project can keep the doors open – all eyes are now on the corporate tent at Mangaung. Far in the background, an emergency replacement executive PA with decades of experience makes important decisions. Interns rise, board members take unexpected steps and things begin to change…
The trap is sprung, the consultant reacts accordingly and deals are made in the Mangaung corporate tent...
Chapter 27
In which ends are reached
Mangaung was fizzing like, like, well… actually Vati couldn’t even put a word to it. Mangaung was fizzing, full stop. The hum of power, influence and deals was thick in the air, mixing easily with the fumes coughed up by of a thousand BMWs, Mercedes and a multitude more black four wheel drives. The blue lights flickered and the sirens burped in short, sharp, instructive bursts.
It, truly, was on.
Tim Broadbent, for his part, was equally struck by the thing. He had never, as rich and influential as he was, encountered such a raw wave of it. And really, it was the sheer force of numbers that did it. Around the black grills and blue lights swarmed, like an invasive, alien species, the biggest horde of service providers ever to assemble in Southern Africa. The packs of communication consultants, security guards, journalists, freelance media whores, runners, fixers, chauffeurs, and advisors ran thicker on the ground than Wildebeest in annual transit.
Tim Broadbent felt overwhelmed, and sudden flickers of doubt about exactly what it was he was doing began coursing through his gut. He marched confidently through the hotel lobby, however. He was too experienced a player to let inner turmoil get to the surface. En route, he dialled through to his contact at the SABC, who he knew to also be skirting the outer edges of the city. “Cindy, listen,” he blustered. “In two days. Saturday morning in fact. 10:00am. I’ll be holding a press conference. Not a small conference. A big one. Tell your friends. Bring guests. It will be worth it, I swear.”
Arthur Harris veered suddenly off course. In fact, if he was honest, he would admit that he actually stumbled. He had been trotting around with Tim Broadbent for weeks now, making sure that signs of incipient insanity remained just that. He had run the old buzzard through more interviews and retrospectives and highlights and case study sessions with simpering little journos than most could cope with, and while the geezer wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute, he had gave no obvious signs of sinister or lunatic intentions.
Until now.
That call was, quite obviously, not only meant for the journalist’s attention. He was meant to hear it too. Arthur Harris stopped to tie his shoelace on the plush red carpet of the hotel lobby and composed himself. There was no way someone like Broadbent would act in as calculating a fashion without something serious in the works. He thought for a few seconds more, then turned back to find Nonhlanhla.
Vati waited for Tim at the bar. It was like a Mat Damon movie. He arrived. They stood casually together and ordered cokes while their hearts thumped wildly beneath thrilled rib cages. The die had been cast. Harris had reacted as planned. The ball was officially in play.
Tim shot the breeze with his young mentee as casually as he could, steering the conversation regularly to her favourite subject: Phil the graphic designer’s poetry, a theme which linked endlessly to wider ideas like the meaning of life, the notion of touring India, the trouble with consumerism, the futility of occupying Wall Street… Of course inside Tim was screaming and jumping. This was more fun than… well, than anything he had worked on before.
Later that night Vati sat quietly on the outskirts of the corporate tent, like a good girl should. She had caught a few glimpses of Him during the early part of the evening and it was satisfying to note that the welts on his cheek were still very much in evidence. For His part, he ignored her carefully and completely. Now she sat on the edge of a world she knew she would never enter, stuck, temporarily thank God, with the events underlings: the stern black-suited security guards, the drivers and the maids and the barmen out smoking.
If she looked carefully she could see the actual people inside, although the preponderance of black clothing made it difficult to ascertain exactly who was who, or what was going on. Deals were being made, of course. That was the whole point of the corporate tent. But what deals? And to whose benefit? She would never know.
Once or twice she caught the tiniest bit of Tim’s eye, and he winked.
Then, much later, well past midnight in fact, Sizwe walked out of the tent at speed, whooped extremely loudly and gave the air three major fist pumps.
by Mike Abel, MD, M&C Saatchi Abel As the world moves toward new ways of reaching and touching consumers, this month, I’ve decided to look at one of the “old” ways of communicating a brand’s proposition – and understanding its role currently and looking ahead.
Without question, the best “tag-line” I’ve read in years is, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”
But why is it so brilliant and what can we learn from it?
Here are 4 powerful ways in which the line works:
1. A socially defendable position: “I never really bought it for myself. It is something that I can pass on to my kid”. Thereby negating the excesses that may be associated with shelving out over R200 000 for a watch.
2. Creating a sense of legacy (heirloom): How many items can one buy which are personal and intimate – and last long enough to be passed on? Granny’s jewelry and candlesticks, art and now this particular brand of watch. A bit of immortality that means I won’t be forgotten.
3. Quality: Not only will this watch serve you well but it is so brilliantly made that it will honorably serve future generations too.
4. Love for one’s kids: I love my kid so much and although I’m wearing it now, they’ll get extra pleasure from it because a) It’s their dad’s old watch b) It brings back many memories of our times together and it will be a thing of classic beauty when they inherit it.
There have been very few tag-lines written that can so powerfully own this emotional (extrinsic) as well as tangible (intrinsic) high-ground.
A great tag-line should also become a powerful rallying call within an organisation as it talks to the very ethos of the company. In Patek Phillipe’s instance, the watchmakers and sales staff aren’t manufacturers of watches at all; they’re now the purveyors of heirlooms, memories and legacy. They’ve elevated themselves above the category and tap into an enduring human truth.
Other incredible lines that own human truths are Nike’s “Just Do It” – it’s about the triumph of the human spirit and beating your best, Adidas’ “Impossible is Nothing” – which naturally celebrates the breaking of records and aversion rules and then of course, Apple’s iconic “Think Different” celebrates the inventor, the maverick, the “square peg in the round hole”. These pay-off lines echo the very ethos of the organisation. They’re the central organising thought for the brand and its vision.
In the automotive space some tag-lines became big promises to the consumer. Toyota confidently stated “Everything Keeps Going Right”, BMW offered “Sheer Driving Pleasure”, Mercedes claimed that it was “Engineered Like No Other Car in the World” and when VW was suffering quality issues in the 80’s “Isn’t that what you’d expect from Volkswagen” became the rallying call and promise at every level, be it the factory or dealership – that you’d get a very reliable, high quality product, backed up with excellent after sales service.
Today a lot of these lines have disappeared and been replaced by trite adspeak, “bumf” and jargon. I never saw or understood “Joy” as a brand truth for BMW. It is too “naff” for the brand and felt rightfully, like an imported line rather than one that would resonate with its local drivers and acolytes.
The only German translation I have seen work locally is “Vorsprung Durch Technik”. It is again, a promise and rallying call throughout the Audi organisation – that all their vehicles represent “Progress Through Technology” – and today Audi is the second-largest selling luxury car brand globally. “Vorsprung Durch Technik” remains the brand’s mantra. It works even better in the original German, where “Vorsprung” means both “progress” and “advantage”.
Red Bull’s “Gives You Wings” was taken to the nth degree recently with Felix Baumgartner’s jumping from the edge of space. It is new age communication at its finest. Content, experiential, social media and PR rolled into over 45 minutes of Primetime SKY news! Let alone the weeks of anticipation and build up.
A pay-off line at its best is the very core of the brand’s proposition, the company’s essence and the consumer promise. It’s the enduring truth and religion. When it’s simply a “tag-line” it’s meaningless wallpaper that goes unnoticed. When it’s the fulcrum, it becomes the last stand between product parity and differentiated greatness.
Reprinted from the blog of Mike Abel. Stay up to date with our weekly mailer. Subscribe here. It’s free!
With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.
Riaan Cruywagen’s last news bulletin drew more interest amongst South Africans than the arrival of Lady Gaga for her safari, concerts and accompanying protests. Our weekly list of fast rising web search terms on Google by South Africans show searches for Cruywagen jumped 650% while searches for Lady Gaga jumped 400%.
* Google Trends is intended for general analysis of volume patterns.
* When you see Breakout listed instead of an actual percentage, it means that the search term has experienced a change in growth greater than 5000%.
Industry news you will make time for. Subscribe here. It’s free!
by Herman Manson (@marklives) As soon as news got out that Media24 was closing down its content marketing arm* Gillian Loos, then an Associate Publisher there, got a call out of the blue from one Lize Sadie.
Sadie, with a background in media herself, had heard good things about Loos from a friend who worked at Pixelink24, and wondered if any clients might follow Loos once Media24 had wound up the business.
Loos took some time to think it over, but in the end a persistent Sadie won out, and their content marketing business, Contentum, is the result.
It helped that Sadie’s hunch about client side was correct – Standard Bank – one of the clients Loos managed at Pixelink24, gave the duo their first project and became a founding client.
Loos says there is space for smaller content marketing agencies in the market. Most companies use multiple agencies in any case and as content requirements grow thanks to online and mobile take-up she doesn’t see why content specialists should not also have a seat at the table.
Sadie says that Contentum, Latin for content, will offer a more strategic approach to content than most freelancers are able to do. Both Sadie and Loos have experience in publishing and marketing enabling them to align branded story telling with business and marketing fundamentals.
They will work with a number of preferred suppliers where clients need a broader tech, production or design solution. Their focus is digital content since this is where they believe most opportunity is to be found.
The challenge at the moment is to convince clients that their real content requirements and their current output don’t match. They have found that many businesses employ a digital manager tasked with maintaining their brand online but that these managers are being overwhelmed by the content requirements of social media channels and customer expectations as competitors build more content rich media channels.
Contentum hopes to serve alongside existing digital content managers and assist them in meeting brands’ content requirements. And not just any content, but content aligned to the strategic requirements of brands, and that also offers real value to digital channel/site visitors.
* Update 1012/12/03:
In an earlier version of this story we said Loos worked at Pixelink24. Loos was an Associate publisher at Media24’s Custom Publishing Division which had bought PixelInk two years prior.
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.
I haven’t heard of, or seen this title before, but I love the subtle indented logo and simple design on the cover. The whole issue just looks covetable to me.
It’s a well-known fact that Facebook and Twitter is playing an important and on-going role in protests and uprisings. Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover illustrates this perfectly with some smart design elements.
The mystery of the cover and subtle vision of Clint Eastwood is what grabbed my attention. It’s also something completely new for a title like Esquire.
This beautiful image is on the cover of the December editions of Interview in Germany and Russia. I’m sure that it will cause a bit of an uproar in certain countries (well one specifically). A collector’s issue.
– 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
