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Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – a bank moves forward (by looking back)

MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – a bank moves forward (by looking back)

Banking brands are in a lot of trouble.

In the UK a recent survey on the credibility of banking brands showed that only some 53% of consumers there were willing to trust building societies or banks. The study by online market research agency, YouGov, found that only 63% of those surveyed trusted banks while some 57% trusted building societies. Bigger banking brands were trusted more while smaller brands were trusted less.

Corporate greed had a lot to do with eroding consumer trust in this survey, as did poor management and over- indebting customers. When the survey was released, YouGov’s James McCoy said that trust in the banking sector had to be built over time.

“Consumers place trust in financial firms that are motivated to help and support their customers and can deliver on their promises,” said McCoy. “To build trust financial services firms have to do it by continuously demonstratinghigh-quality customer care and a desire to align the firm’s motivations with those of thecustomer base. There are no quick fixes where trust in concerned.”

As if the trust issue isn’t challenging enough, other dilemmas that financial brands face include disruptions to their business models and the speed at which technology is changing. As the very foundation of banks change, how does one position banking brands favourably for the future?

Standard Bank has answered this conundrum with a very clever campaign that looks backward in order to look forward. The ad features a series of nostalgic footage that speaks to human progress.

There’s shaky black and white camera footage from the Wright brothers’ first flight. That’s followed by industrialist Henry Ford’s first assembly line; women’s suffrage; a smiling Albert Einstein; dancing Charlie Chaplin and outward looking Ghandi.

These and other visuals are edited to a beautifully whimsical song that almost everyone knows called Sh-Boom. The song goes:”Life could be a dream (sh-boom) ; If I could take you up in paradise up above (sh-boom); If you would tell me I’m the only one that you love

Life could be a dream, sweetheart.

The television commercial comes home with video of a young Miriam Makeba jiving and a heart surgeon called Christian Barnard walking off an aircraft. Standard Bank’s ‘Moving Forward’ spot also reminds us of our first democratic elections, SA’s rugby world cup and the 2010 soccer world cup.

What’s intelligent about this ad is that it doesn’t fall into the trap of promising much or trying to predict the future at a time when it is more than impossible. It’s a much needed look into the rear-view mirror. Sometimes it feels like we South Africans are running so hard or are faced with so much, that we forget how far we’ve come – how much has been achieved.

The blue bank has been smart to reposition itself by asking all of us the question: ‘Doesn’t it feel good to move forward?” This, at a time when nostalgia is highly valued. By so doing the commercial movie by Egg Films’ Kim Geldenhuys cleverly reminds viewers that Standard Bank is a bank with a long history, a financial organisation that can be trusted, and that has stood the test of time.A big ‘thumbs up’ goes to ad agency TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris for a commercial that tells the human story of progress, and reminds us how good it feels to move forward.

It is worthwhile mentioning that BlackGinger integrated new actors into stock footage to bring realism to the ad which was edited by Kobus Loots at Upstairs Post, and features deft lip-synching to RobRoy Music’s mash-up of various versions of Sh Boom Sh Boom (Life Could Be A Dream), originally written by The Chords.“With each step forward for humanity, regardless of its scope, one thing remains constant: our joy in celebrating the act itself – that breakthrough moment of progress,” says Geldenhuys in a press released that crossed my desk.

I couldn’t agree more.

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.

The Gate Keeper: Chapter 22 (In which plays are made)

by Andrew Miller TBW 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 boss gets jealous, the Mangaung pot starts to boil and Phil the graphic designer wards off questions, while planning great things…

Chapter 22

In which plays are made

Dear Diary

Well, it’s getting closer. Everyone’s finalising for Mangaung. The only reason I have time today is ’cause they’re all at that Advertising and Leadership in the 21^st Century crock at Sandton. And they’re only at that so they can seed the whole Hip Hop and Rural blah blah blah into the press in time. Still, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit envious. Not that I could or ever would be able to participate, but it would be good to be a fly on the wall somewhere, tucked safe in the corner. Just to see.

As far as I can tell they’ve lumped Tim and Vati together in some kind of mentorship package which will keep both of them far away from any of the action. She should feel slighted – as should he – but really they look like father and daughter going on camping trip together. It’s cute.

Gerald is picking me up this afternoon. We’re going to Monte Casino for Swan Lake on Ice. I mean, yes, I know, it’s very cheesy and all that but he really loves it and has a different sense of these things to me and I just, actually, want to spend some time with him.

I will admit that I have this feeling though that I don’t want them to see him, like he’s a parent picking me up from school. Silly, but there it is.

Suffice to say I will have my bag packed and will be waiting at reception.

Sizwe watched Tim Broadbent laughing and chatting with the fresh young intern and allowed Himself to grow jealous, even though it was obvious that this was platonic, father / daughter stuff. Still, He was surprised that after all these months not a single one of His efforts had delivered returns. In fact, now that He thought about it, He realised that she never, ever, made eye contact with Him. It was as if she was actively avoiding His very presence.

Still, such was the game. He examined the board members strutting around the Advertising and Leadership in the 21^st Century buffet table, all flapping vainly around the event chicks, and then thought about what lay ahead. The South African skies were crackling with anticipation, at the excitement of the showdown. Msholozi was up against it, but then you never could tell. It was like an extended boxing match. Foreman vs Ali. Tate vs Coetzee. The hype grew day by day and only added to the fizz that now seemed to be ever present at TBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande. In fact, even he had noticed that the little ones had all but stopped working. The commons was really just a mess of conversations and whiffs of dagga and cigarettes and coffee. The conversational level was as high as it had ever been. The conference was still weeks away, but people were waiting.

Yes, He felt the weight of the responsibility, but, let’s face it, these were His moments. This was why He was hired in the first place. It was His time.

He rose from His plush seat like an athlete, and prowled to the podium to warm up.

Back at the TBWSJWBN creative commons the bar had been open for hours, and the agency was gathered in small tipsy clusters, nattering. Simon Shone stood alone at the bar, sipping on an Amstel and waiting for Phil, who had ‘gone for a drive’. The mice were out for the day and while he naturally enjoyed the freedom he couldn’t help but be overcome by a growing resentment that he wasn’t a cat. That he wasn’t holed up in the Sandton Convention Centre getting ready for Mangaung, talking strategy and budget and delivery and all of that wallop.

Phil arrived at his side, bleary eyed and smiling. “Wot up?”

Simon shrugged petulantly. “Same same.”

Silence hung between them. Eventually, Simon spoke. “Tell me,” he said sarcastically, like he didn’t actually want to know at all, “what your girlfriend has to say about her stratospheric rise. I hear they’ve paired her with old turtle neck, Broadbent. That’s quite some moving for an intern.”

“She doesn’t say anything.” Phil answered blankly.

“What? Don’t tell me you two never talk work. You chat knitting? Ping Pong?”

Phil smiled like Ghandi. “Nah. I mean. Work is work. She feels the same as me. Wants to get out. Travel. Go to India. Russia.”

Simon Shone snorted and slugged on his Amstel. Typical hippie s#!t.

Simon could never have guessed at the truth – namely that most Phil / Vati conversation nowadays was of an intensely practical and tactical nature.

Tim Broadbent, Phil the graphic designer and Vatiswa Magubane had actually had more than an entertaining lunch at the Hyde Park Shopping Centre a few weeks back. Accidentally, like that rare, one-in-a-lifetime moment when you find a fifty on the floor of the parking garage, they had stumbled into a strategy: for their lives, for their careers, and for their respective and markedly different personal trajectories.

And now they were putting it into play.

Part 1 -22. Part 23: November 7.
Author: Andrew Miller Illustrator: Lebohang Goge

Apple and Microsoft reveal their new strategic thinking

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) Last Thursday, the world changed – once again.

Microsoft’s launch of Windows 8 was the obvious, expected and long-planned main event. Not quite as expected or planned, Microsoft’s nemesis, Apple, announced its first disappointing financial results in many years.

The irony of this turning of the tables was that, just two days earlier, Apple had made its own biggest product announcement in its history. It had launched the new iPad mini 7.9” tablet, along with a fourth generation iPad, and new versions of its iconic iMac computer, MacBook Pro laptop and Mac mini computer.

Such an extensive upgrade of its range, the launch of a new format and the arrival of the iPad 4 barely six months after the previous version, represented a show of force by Apple. Coming – not coincidentally – two days before the launch of Windows 8, it sent a message that Apple was able to go large any time it wanted, and that it had not lost its touch for producing deeply desirable products.

At the same time, however, it revealed chinks in its armour. Crucially, the new 7.9” iPad mini represented the first major new product from Apple in more than a decade that did not lead the market. It was a response to the massive inroads made into its tablet market share by 7” tablets, in particular Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

Before he passed away, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs had insisted Apple would never make a device in that format. But, just sometimes, market forces speak louder than single-minded vision.

The bigger surprise, however, was the pricing of the iPad mini. Given the $249 tag on the Kindle Fire and other competitors, it was assumed the mini would cost the same – and clean up the market. Instead, it was launched at $330 – prompting an instant decline in the Apple share price.

Then, on Thursday night, Apple announced quarterly financial results that disappointed the market – a rare occurrence.

Coming as it did even as Microsoft was unveiling a vast range of machines running Windows 8, it marked the beginning of a new era in computing.

At the South African launch in Johannesburg, one large wall was lined with device after device running Windows 8 in different formats: large and small computers, large and small laptops, tablets, and hybrid devices that can double as a laptop and a tablet.

One device in particular attracted special attention: the Samsung Windows Ativ 10.1” tablet. Aside from being the first Windows tablet from the brand that had presented Apple with its only serious competition in the 10” tablet format, Samsung had previously been the main producer of tablets running Google’s Android operating system.

The device itself was only half the story. It came with a startling announcement: In South Africa, it would initially only be sold by Standard Bank to its customers, at a 16% discount to its R8000 price tag. Microsoft also announced that Standard’s banking app – which had appeared on smartphones and tablets a full year after FNB’s entry into the apps space – woild be the first South African banking app on Windows 8.

If the app was the first step in catching up, the Samsung Ativ represents the second phase in Standard Bank’s efforts. FNB has sold more than 100 000 devices – tablets and smartphones – through offering attractive discounts only to customers. As a customer acquisition exercise among up-and-coming wage earners, it was groundbreaking.

The exclusive deal with Samsung, for the first time, gives Standard Bank a small edge in what will initially be a small niche of the market. It is believed to have pre-ordered 5000 of the devices.

The further significance of the device is that it is in effect a stand-in for the Surface, Microsoft’s own tablet that represents its first direct entry into the computer hardware market. The Surface is only sold through Microsoft branded stores, of which close to 50 have been rolled out in North America. Neither the stores nor the devices are expected in South Africa within in the next year.

While the Surface was conspicuous by its absence at the launch, close to 45 other devices were on display

“That is the kind of choice we are giving,” said Mteto Nyati, country head of Micsosoft South Africa in an interview. “You will have the same operating system but, if you want something completely different from a hardware perspective, you will have something completely different.”

In a rare comment on the competition, Nyati acknowledged that the timing and nature of the Apple event was significant.

“In the past they would never have considered a Microsoft launch and then make a decision around that on timing their own event. What we are beginning to see is that Microsoft is becoming more relevant in the consumer space, our products are now much more competitive, and we have carved a new space.”

Of course, Apple is not going away. Its devices remain iconic and market leaders. The Core Group in South Africa has negotiated pricing that allows it to sell the devices at near-equivalents of US prices. That tends to leave the rival products overpriced.

Clearly, Microsoft and its partners will need to pay careful attention to pricing. Meanwhile, they are meeting users’ need for products that can be used for both work and play, in the office and on the road.

Windows 8 is Microsoft’s comeback, and the its timing could not have been better.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.

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Tenders and Pitches – a Guide for Marketers & Agencies

by Odette van der Haar It is no secret that tenders and pitches are an integral part of the advertising and communications profession. For clients, the tender and pitch process is vital in selecting an agency partner and for agencies, new business acquisition is paramount for survival.

Given the importance and frequency of tenders and pitches in the advertising and communications sector, the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) put in place a set of rules for tenders and pitches that aims to assist both clients and agencies mitigate risk, save costs, promote transformation and ultimately ensure a fair and equitable pitch process. These rules are contained in a Code of Conduct that governs tenders and pitches in the sector and provides clients with an easy, robust means to selecting an agency partner whilst simultaneously protects all the parties against unfair, exploitary and unreasonably competitive pitch processes as well as infringement of copyright and/or intellectual property.

The Code of Conduct was put in place by the ACA and its membership agencies, in collaboration with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Government Communication and Information Services (GCIS) and National Treasury. It details a fair process to be implemented during tenders and pitches and does not contravene any legislation or supply chain management process.

Contained in the Code are five simple rules that when adhered to are beneficial to clients and agencies – they are:

The number of agencies shortlisted should not exceed five – whether or not an incumbent agency is involved and whether or not an open or closed tender process is being followed. By requesting strategic and creative work for all the participating agencies, without shortlisting the agencies inhibits transformation, is unreasonably competitive, wasteful, expensive and prejudices smaller agencies who may not have available the same resource to invest in the costs of providing such work especially when competing against larger or international agencies. Furthermore, by having more than five agencies compete against each other for final evaluation, without a shortlisting process becomes a “lotto” as agencies will have little chance of winning the business given the sheer number of participants in the tender process and this when the cumulative investment from agencies can amount to millions of rands.

Benefit to clients: Having five agencies shortlisted provides an opportunity to have a variety of agencies for final evaluation/comparison, including large, medium, small and possibly “wildcard” agencies.

Benefit to agencies: Each agency, if one of five will be afforded at least 20% chance of winning the business justifying their investment in the pitch process which can amount to hundreds of thousands of rands especially when agencies are required to provide strategic and/or creative work for evaluation during a tender process.

Sufficient time must be afforded to agencies for preparation of their submissions – at least fifteen working days (three weeks) is required.

Benefit to clients: Affording agencies fifteen working days provides sufficient time for agencies to do the necessary research about the client and the client’s business ahead of their final presentations as this research information will assist clients in evaluating whether or not the agencies have a basic understanding of the respective client’s business.

Benefit to agencies: Participating agencies can take the time to gain a basic understanding of the client’s business and in so doing, showcase themselves for final evaluation during the pitch process.

Only credentials and case studies should be submitted and/or presented by agencies during pitches. It is very costly for agencies to provide clients with strategic and/or creative work during pitches and requesting such work places smaller agencies at a disadvantage when competing against larger agencies as smaller agencies may not have available the same resources. Furthermore, Pitching with strategic and creative work is not allowed when a client’s budget is less than R10million because the costs of new business acquisition cannot be recouped by agencies.

Benefit to clients: Clients save costs as no pitch fees are to be paid when credentials and case studies are required. Asking agencies to come up with strategies and concepts for creative during pitch processes is expensive as agencies incur hard/third party costs and clients incur pitch fees which are offset against the hard costs/third party costs incurred by agencies as a result of meeting the client’s requirements for strategic and/or creative work. Furthermore, the strategic and creative work provided by agencies for evaluation during pitches will be based on desktop research of the client’s business and not in-depth knowledge and understanding which is essential when crafting a sound strategy and supporting creative. By asking agencies for their credentials and case studies of recently, successfully executed and paid for work that is similar in nature to the scope of work required by the client, provides clients with an opportunity to mitigate risk and evaluate agencies based on what the agencies have already successfully done with resources they already have – concrete evidence of an agency’s ability.

Benefit to agencies: Providing case studies is significantly less expensive for agencies yet still affords agencies with the opportunity to showcase what they are able to deliver to/for the client. Moreover, agencies can demonstrate how they generated a return on investment for the spend/budget utilised through their case studies.

A pitch fee of at least R50,000 (fifty thousand rand) excluding VAT is to be paid to each unsuccessful agency when agencies are briefed to provide strategic and/or creative work.

Benefit to clients: Paying the unsuccessful agencies the required pitch fees aids in levelling the playing field for small and large agencies to compete equally ensuring a fair pitch process. It also demonstrates to agencies that the client understands how agencies work and portrays respect to agencies for the value of their work and contribution to the client’s business.

Benefit to agencies: Agencies are able to recoup some of the hard costs incurred as a result of creating the strategic and/or creative work required by the client for the pitch process. Smaller agencies are afforded an opportunity to compete equally and equitably against larger agencies.

Agencies intellectual property created during pitches is protected and retained by the agencies unless paid for.

Note that the pitch fee does not under any circumstances entitle clients to the agencies’ intellectual property – this fee is offset against the hard costs incurred by agencies during the pitch process. Clients who wish to use the agencies ideas must pay the agencies separately for their intellectual property as agencies’ intellectual property is protected under Copyright law.

The ACA, is often asked why clients and agencies should abide by the Code especially since times are tough economically – clients don’t have the budget for pitch fees and agencies are hungry for new business. The reasons are, quite simply, because times are tough, the Code should be adhered to. Clients cannot afford to make mistakes when selecting an agency partner and agencies cannot afford to pitch themselves out of business. The Code assists in mitigating those risks and it promotes cost saving for both clients and agencies.

How?

By asking agencies to provide case studies of recent, successfully implemented and paid for work that is similar in nature to the client’s Scope of Work provides an accurate means of assessing an agency’s ability to do the work required because tried and tested work, methodology, ideas are presented not to mention how the agency has tracked and measured the success of their work to generate a return on the client’s spend. Using case studies is also cost effective for agencies as such case studies should be available to support their credentials anyway. By briefing agencies to come up with ideas and/or concepts for a tender evaluation is wasteful and expensive for agencies given the resource cost incurred on the part of agencies when producing the required ideas and/or concepts and the fact that those ideas and/or concepts are rarely ever used because those concepts and/or ideas are based on desktop research and not an in-depth understanding of the client’s business. For clients, pitch fees are incurred which eats into the client’s marketing budget.

Adherence to the Code really provides all the parties involved in a tender and pitch process with a favourable, mutually beneficial – win-win and robust process that ultimately enhances any supply chain management process and relationship between clients and agencies.

And, it goes without saying that the relationship between a client and agency is critical in order for the team to work constructively, productively, successfully and of course profitably together. When the tender and pitch process is wrong, chances of sourcing the right agency partner are slim. Remember: rubbish in, rubbish out.

– Odette van der Haar (nee Roper) is the CEO of the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) which is the recognised industry body of the advertising and communications profession in South Africa.

Crowdsourced recruitment hits adland as Hiring Bounty teams up with MarkLives

Agencies and marketing departments now have access to innovative crowd sourcing recruitment platform Hiring Bounty through its partnership agreement with MarkLives.com Careers.

Hiring Bounty taps into networks of friends to bypass recruitment agents and crowd-source candidates for positions in the marketing and technology industries. The sites gives a cut of the recruitment ‘bounty’ set by employers to those recommending successful candidates as well as the candidates themselves.

It incentivises friends who already know the skill sets of one another as well as important considerations such as culture fit and personality to recommend friends for jobs. It also incentivises candidates to throw their hat into the ring, since there is a cash pay-out for both themselves and their friends, should theirs be the successful application.

The service has already successfully landed hard to find candidates for companies such as Woolworths, Urbian and World Wide Creative.

MarkLives was the first to report the news of the recruitment start-up in June, and is pleased to be associated with a category disruptor. We believe agencies will turn to this new initiative as the search for talented digital savvy individuals intensifies. Here Greg Schneider, MD of Hiring Bounty, describes the business model and some of the success it’s achieved since its launch.

Greg Schneider, MD of Hiring Bounty Crowdsourcing recruitment represents an enormous leap forward in an often out dated traditional recruitment industry. With a massive reduction in costs to clients, a significant improvement in the quality of candidates and the speed at which the position can be filled Crowdsourced recruitment is forging a new path for the otherwise stale recruitment industry.

Hiring Bounty is a crowdsourced recruitment platform – an African first. It is a platform which allows individuals to get paid to recommend their friends, ex-colleagues and business contacts for positions listed on the site. Levering the network effect, Hiring Bounty employs Crowdsourcing to connect the right individual with the right jobs. This is something which existing recruitment model often fails to achieve.

Crowdsourcing isn’t a new principle and has been in operation for more than a just few years. The first recorded usage was in 1714 where the British Government offered a prize for any scientist who was able to reliably determine longitude while at sea. An enormous prize of £20 000 was offered to the winner and hundreds of ideas were submitted. Similarly, the first Oxford English Directory (later called Concise Dictionary) was the output of crowdsourcing where 800 volunteers submitted words and definitions for the first publication.

The practice of crowdsourcing has come a very long way since its (not so) humble beginnings almost three hundred years ago. Many businesses have some component of crowdsourcing build into their mechanic – Google, Amazon, Dell and Wikipedia are all excellent examples. At its core crowdsourcing is the practice of “outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people” (Wikipedia). This process can occur both online and offline. The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined group of people (the general public) rather than a specific body, such as paid employees. Through this distributed nature of the work a far larger group of individuals are incentivised (be it financial, social or cognitive) to perform a particular task.

In the recruitment industry this provides enormous advantages – especially compared to the traditional recruitment agency model. In the traditional model a job spec is sent to a recruitment agency, they then assign an individual to source CVs, that individual then invests some amount of time in finding appropriate candidates. It is this large time investment and associated overheads that forces traditional recruitment agencies to charge 17-25% of the annual salary of the employee.

In crowdsourced recruitment the single recruiter is replaced by a large distributed network of individuals who look on your behalf. Almost everybody knows somebody who could fit just about any role. Moreover, they understand the specific drivers of those individuals and the sorts of businesses which would appeal to them.

As the potential employer you set the cost and individuals who are willing to perform the task at that price will do so. Through crowdsourcing it’s possible to reach further into the group of potential employees using the social contracts between individuals to ensure that only relevant individuals are put forward for the position.

Hiring Bounty is walking a fresh path and is achieving great successes in a very short time. In the words of Mike Perk, MD of World Wide Creative, “It’s so nice to have a refreshingly new approach to recruitment. Using the community to source our latest employee was a breeze and the quality that came through was excellent. We’ll certainly be using Hiring Bounty again in the future – it’s a no brainer for us.”

Similarly brands such as Famous Brands and Urbian have successfully found “hard to find” positions for their business. Gary Willmott, Director at Urbianhad the following to say about his successful hire through Hiring Bounty. “Recruiters typically provide high volumes of low quality CVs. Hiring Bounty is refreshingly different – the very first CV we received ended up being the person we hired, it couldn’t be simpler. Best of all we didn’t have to sift through hundreds of CVs and waste our time and the efficiency to get the job posting up took literally minutes.”

Visit MarkLives Careers to find jobs, candidates as well as a little cash incentive, at http://careers.marklives.com/

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

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.

Last week saw the release of the iPad Mini as well as Windows 8. Guess which brand caught more shine amongst South Africans!

Last of brands making the listing of fast rising searches last week including Gumtree, PSL, ABSA, BA, Dischem, Incredible Connection (thanks to the iPad Mini?), Mango and Netbank (Nedbank?).

Fast rising searches

ipad mini	+550%
windows 8	+130%
gumtree johannesburg	+90%
psl	+80%
www.absa.co.za	+50%
british airways	+40%
dischem	+40%
incredible connection	+40%
mango airlines	+40%
netbank	+40%

Top 10 search terms

1. facebook
2. login facebook
3. youtube
4. google
5. gumtree
6. gmail
7. weather
8. fnb
9. news
10. yahoo
11. absa
12. mail
13. games
14. game
15. love
16. standard bank
17. music
18. news24
19. maps
20. www.facebook.com
21. nedbank
22. yahoo mail
23. sars
24. twitter
25. whatsapp

(For past data click here)

* 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%.

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The Bookmarks promises to grow up

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Bookmarks Awards, the digital focussed awards evening, promises to be a much more settled affair this year, according to Bookmarks chairperson Nikki Cockcroft (@nikkicockcroft). In recent years the awards evening itself was better known for the general rebelliousness of its audience than for its role in showcasing stand-out work in the digital industry.

Entry levels have hit a record number, up to 590 this year from 453 in 2011, 400 in 2010, 229 in 2009 and 120 in 2008 – its launch year. The shortlist for the evening’s awards shows a mix of large and small, specialist and mainstream agencies. It sees agencies like The Jupiter Drawing Room, Ogilvy, 140 BBDO, Ireland Davenport, M&C Saatchi Abel, Machine, Joe Public and King James compete with digital experts like Quirk, Hellocomputer (recently acquired by Draftfcb), Prezence, Gloo and Native.

Cockcroft says she was especially pleased to see growth in the integrated campaign and social media categories this year.

The make the shortlist entries need to score 65% or more in the collated judging results. The number of entries that made the grade this year grew from just under 50% last year to 65% this year.

Cockcroft believes this indicates the increased quality of digital and integrated campaigns and is due in part to the discussion on what would qualify as a successful campaign moving from after the campaign to its inception stages. ROI and measurable results are becoming a real part of the advertising communication conversation.

The one category that turned out to be a bit disappointing in the number of entries received and the quality of many of the submissions was the mobile category, says Cockcroft, who says agencies are talking up mobile but seems to be falling short on delivery.

This year brands could submit work produced in-house into the awards. KPMG, Primedia Broadcasting and FNB all made the shortlist and interest in the event is expected to grow from companies keeping their social and digital strategies close to home.

The Creative Circle doesn’t count Bookmarks wins towards its point system, something anecdotal evidence suggests has impacted on entry levels at the Pendoring Awards which faces a similar issue. According to Cockcroft the Bookmarks Awards engages with the Creative Circle, but feel a focus on creative points misses the point of the awards which is driven by not only creativity but also use of technology, innovation and results. “Times have changed,” says Cockcroft, “and the industry is moving on and away from creativity as the primary focus for measuring success.”

The event itself will take place on the 1st of November 2012 at the Artscape Theatre, with the after-party hosted at Trinity nightclub. Previous events had plenty of standing room but this year attendees will be seated. Cockcroft promises the after party will allow for plenty of socialising.

The Bookmarks and its organisers the DMMA is looking to expand its footprint into East and West Africa next year with interest from trade bodies in Kenya and Nigeria specifically looking encouraging. The Award show has done a lot to raise interest and awareness of South Africa’s digitally work and it is hoped expanding the award into other parts of the continent will stimulate those markets as well.

Book your tickets for the Bokkmarks Awards event here. http://www.thebookmarks.co.za/
Don’t forget the Jozi and Cape Town workshops organised around event – entry is only R450.

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Magazine covers we love

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

Frankie, November / December 2012

I’m in love with the colours, objects, textures, creativity…just everything! I’m hoping to get my hands on a physical copy to see/feel if they might have added texture to the cover that would make it feel real.

The New York Times Style Magazine, Fall 2012

The New York Times Style Magazines do similar conceptual covers regularly, and I’m seeing more and more paper artwork pop-up (remember the Highlife South Africa cover with the paper-lion?), but this one this is something special! It’s designed by Dutch artist Ingrid Siliakus and took her nearly two weeks to finish! You can read more here.

BeautyInc

As far as covers go showcasing a feature on hair, this one takes the prize! It’s the attention to detail, the strong colours, smart use of coverlines, and the very subtle pieces of hair cuttings on her face… hair-raising amazing.

LOCAL

GQ Style South Africa, Volume 2, 2012

It’s the 2^nd issue of South Africa’s very own GQ Style edition with a very stern looking Oscar Pistorius on the cover. You can have him, and the new issue, for (a little bit too expensive?) R69.95. The styling, colours, and typography-use is world-class, and worth a mention.

(I thought they airbrushed the poor man to within an inch of his life and that the jacket made him look like a pimp. But then I freely admit to knowing nothing about fashion. – Ed)

Zig Zag, November / December 2012

At first I just thought something doesn’t look right, and didn’t think twice about it. Then my eye caught the small writing in the corner “what’s wrong with this picture?”. “What is wrong?”, I asked myself. Only later realizing what’s happening below it all, and why the called it “The Zag guide to Going Green”… See if you can spot it.

– 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
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Google Is Blackmail

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) The way I see it, Google is a brilliantly executed extortion racket.

The key concept to understand is that Google makes its money through misdirection.

They get nothing for directing you to the most accurate search result. They get paid to artfully direct you away from the most accurate search result.

Natural (free) search takes you to the most likely thing you’re searching for, according to their algorithms. Paid search takes you to the person who was willing to pay the most for the term you are searching. It is misdirection.

They are very clever about this. If the misdirection is too obvious or egregious, you’ll lose confidence in them and search elsewhere. They walk a fine line, and are careful about just how much misdirection is acceptable.

Of course, they would disagree. They would tell you that natural search is “search” and paid search is “advertising.” That may be technically true, but from a consumer’s point of view it is essentially a distinction without a difference.

Here’s where the blackmail comes in.

Let’s say you own a Ford dealership. When someone in your area Googles “Ford” or “Focus” or “F-150” naturally you’d expect your dealership to pop up pretty close to the top in the results.

But it might not. If a Chevy dealer in your neighborhood bid on the term “F-150” and you didn’t, his listing would appear in the paid search area of the page on top of yours. His link might misdirect a searcher to an offer on a Silverado. So someone shopping for a Ford truck winds up looking at an ad for a Chevy truck.

What’s the consequence of this? You need to protect your turf. So you wind up paying for the term “F-150” that should rightfully be yours.

They get you to pay for what’s yours by the implicit threat of selling it to someone else. It’s blackmail, and it’s brilliant.

– 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.

In the undeclared war between printed and digital media, there are many dates that will live on in infamy

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) In the undeclared war between printed and digital media, there are many dates that will live on in infamy.

28 October 2008: The Christian Science Monitor closes its daily print edition.

13 March 2012: The end of the Encylopaedia Britannica as a set of printed volumes.

And 18 October 2012: Newsweek announces it will cease publication of its weekly magazine, and become a digital-only publication.

The announcement last Thursday sent shock waves through the print media industry, representing a capitulation to the inexorable rise of digital media. Newsweek said it would lay off a portion of its staff, and those who remain will produce a paid-for online magazine called Newsweek Global. It will continue to exist alongside Newsweek’s online sister publication, the startlingly inappropriately titled The Daily Beast.

In an interview with the New York Times, editor-in-chief Tina Brown confessed: “You cannot actually change an era of enormous disruptive innovation. No one single person can reverse that trend. You can’t turn back what is an inexorable trend.”

Who knew?

Of course, that applied equally a few months before, when Brown had insisted Newsweek would not abandon print. The pattern is familiar the world over, where executives who had cut their teeth on print refuse to accept the demise of declining publications, only to give in weeks or months later.

In South Africa, that time frame will be years later, but we have been seeing the same disconnect from reality. Most publishers don’t want digital and most editors don’t understand digital.

For now, they are able to get away with keeping the blinkers on. The rise of wildly popular mass-market publications along with numerous niche publications gives comfort, and print is not visibly on the decline.

But it is a mistake to think this proves our market is different. All it proves is that our market is on a different rise-and-fall curve, but the difference is in time rather than in market structure.

The cracks are showing. The argument that you cannot guarantee the “same quality” online as you can in print publications collapses spectacularly in the face of a woeful decline in quality of most printed newspapers over the past decade.

The dramatic shift in the phone market – next year more than half of the 10-million phones sold in South Africa will be smartphones – means that a ready audience is emerging for consuming content on a handheld device. That is both the threat and the opportunity for mass-market publications.

Print still has a role. Indeed, many roles. Digital may be more effective at storing, presenting and linking vast amounts of reports, analysis and background, but print still remains better at packaging such content into a cohesive product.

Print is also better at generating revenue in big chunks, compared to the per-view and per-click models of most digital advertising. But therein, too, lies the inevitable demise of print.

A fascinating analysis published last month in TheMedia magazine, by MediaShop director Trish Guilford and Mike Leahy of Media Inflation Watch, shows no real decline in print from 2002 to 2012 if one looks at overall circulation.

However, lurking beneath that hale and hearty exterior lies a sick patient. The numbers are kept up by a rising number of niche publications and disruptive new entrants.

Here is the reality: South Africa’s 24 major publications that have been around for the past decade showed a decline in total sales from 3,36-million to 2,5-million in 10 years.

Cover price revenue also suggests good health, but also hides a nasty prognosis. In 2002, the total revenue based on cover price and sales of these 24 publications was R26,7-million. By 2012, it had climbed to R40,7-million – a handy 53% climb. However, the total cover prices of these publications had exactly doubled over the same period.

There are two simple reasons publishers would prefer to look for scapegoats or rail against the “new media” way of doing things.

Firstly, they cannot generate the same advertising revenues from the same number of users looking at the same content. The price structure for online advertising – in particular banner ads – is incredibly low compared to that of print adverts.

Secondly, publishers hate the idea of giving away content for “free”. The truth is, as has often been argued in these columns, readers never did pay for the content. The cover price could do little more than cover the cost of packaging – i.e. print and distribution. The high costs of news gathering and content creation could only be covered by advertising.

Guilford and Leahy’s analysis confirms this uncomfortable truth. In 2011, R10-billion was spent on print advertising in South Africa, according to The MediaShop. Compare that to R40-million in print purchases of the top 24 publications by consumers, and we instantly see the big lie of free content.

You can sell packaged content that represents a clear value proposition. You cannot sell content that has no perceived value in isolation of the package.

Publishers and editors have no choice but to educate themselves about new media, new ways of integrating print with digital media, and new ways of selling advertising. That way, when their days of infamy arrive, instead of shock waves, they will encounter mere ripples.

The choice is theirs.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.

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