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Magazine covers we love (to tweet)

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 MediaSlutZA.

INTERNATIONAL

Dinero, La Vanguardia, July 2012

This cover photo really ‘leads’ the eye. Not only is the plug socket in the shape of an “E” very noticeable (and unique), but the clever use of the black and white wires definitely keeps your attention to the main object in the picture.

SF Weekly, 13 July 2012

Very clever use of the Copyright symbol to illustrate a great point (to read the full story, click here). Notice that the SF Weekly logo and the coverlines are also turned around on opposite ends. Reminds me a bit of Spy vs Spy.

The Sunday Times Magazine, 8 July 2012

Twitter. We’ve seen dozens of covers promoting Twitter each trying to punt a new angle.This one also deserves some credit because of the smart, sexy, execution.

LOCAL

Go!, August 2012

In South Africa we don’t have ski-resorts and we often forget Lesotho is right next door. This new Go! cover just screams winter (like no SA cover has done before). It’s fun and this just a stone-throw away.

Advantage, June 2012

By now everyone should know that Cape Town has been named the World Design Capital for 2014. Advantage, an ad industry trade magazine, illustrates and celebrates this beautifully. A piece of art designed by local design agency Just Design it includes various Cape Town icons, images and design-aspects.

– The (for now anonymous) blogger behind MediaSlutZA 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 MediaSlutZA. #MagazinesForTheWin

– Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us @marklives and @mediaslutza
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TechCentral readership climbs to 133 000

by Herman Manson (@marklives) TechCentral, launched in September 2009 by IT journalist Duncan McLeod, has shown steady growth, averaging between 250 000 and 300 000 impressions a month. It has also been profitable from day one thanks to a lean structure put in place by McLeod, who manages the site with one other full time journalist, Craig Wilson, and with Lance Harris in charge of lighter content over weekends.

A string of freelancers make up the rest of the team. McLeod handles sales himself.

McLeod had been at the Financial Mail for twelve years before he jumped ship, and served as technology editor at the time that he left the publication, to which he still contributes a weekly column. Having seen the decline of print in the US, especially on the newspaper front, and seeing the rise in connectivity in South Africa and the relatively low barriers of entry into online publishing, he made the leap and launched TechCentral.

The daily IT business news site caters to his ‘nose for news’ – something the weekly schedule of the previous job didn’t cater for.

Starting with around a 1000 readers the site has been gaining traction and now has a regular unique monthly readership of 133 000. McLeod says his team has been focussed on plugging away generating strong content, and building its readership, and this will continue to be their focus over the short term.

In terms of the ad market, the flow of budget to online media is showing also at TechCentral, and the online market seems to be in better shape than print right now, says McLeod. Social media is also playing an increasingly important role in driving traffic to the site, says McLeod, with Twitter and Facebook in the lead, but with a definite increase in the uptake of Google+ also becoming visible.

Focussed on quality insight and breaking news, TechCentral has become known for quality reporting and analysis in the IT business media, and is probably better than anything you will find in print at this stage. Online its biggest competitor is ITWeb.

McLeod says TechCentral will not follow ITWeb’s expansion drive into covering a broader section of the continent (ITWeb recently launched ITWeb Africa) saying it is a seriously expensive project to undertake, needing as you do correspondents in key markets all across the continent.

Instead TechCentral has been experimenting with rolling out quality content into other niche markets – it currently publishes SportsCentral in a JV with two other partners. No new sites are planned over the short term but next year might see new projects being rolled out.

McLeod says the dearth of IT journalism skills in South Africa is a major issue for the industry it covers. It’s a resource TechCentral is keen to help build, drawing journalism students away from the obvious route in general business or political reporting, in a specialist but economically and socially hugely important field.

Photo credit: Dan Rosenthal

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The Gate Keeper (Chapter 6 In which flames re-kindle)

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 Chairman of the Board ponders a ship jagging into the rocks while ducking love arrows from decades past…

Chapter 6

In which flames re-kindle

Tim Broadbent had run TBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande for two decades and been an active board member for almost the same time. He had been in the ad business for over 45 years and now, in the twilight of his career, the time when he should have been sinking with steady dignity into his Plett mansion and regular early morning golf, he was staring right down the barrel.

The worst of it was that none of the idiots who masqueraded as creative business people had the blindest idea of what was actually going on. TBWSJWBN was jagging into the rocks like an old Chinese oil tanker and no one even realised it, let alone cared.

The problems had begun with digital. Didn’t they always.

It sounded like a great idea, the expansion past advertising into the delivery of a basket of boutique communications services customised to the client’s unique strategic and operational requirements, but the reality was that they had pissed millions against the wall setting up a division of teenagers running Facebook pages and blowing the budget on Google ads. The other boutique services in the basket, despite the ongoing reassurances of that consultant guy who may or may not have been shuffling in the background with Nonhlanhla, were unable to pick up the slack. Now that the double dip recession had turned into a nation wide race to pull all creative and communications in-house, TBWSJWBN was left with two month’s salaries in the bank and nothing in reserve.

If that little brat they called a CEO didn’t manage to pull a barrel of instant cash at Mangaung, it was tickets.

And then there was Mama E. Tim slurped heavily on his coffee and grew even more pissed off. He had worked with Melinda Ensworthy when they were both in their late forties and and it had been an emotionally draining and operationally futile exercise. Not only did she have a nasty coke habit, she also had a deadbeat graphic designer as a husband and absolutely no idea of what she was really talking about. Imagine his surprise, then, when popping in to make sure the little sh#!t CEO was at least coming to the office, he should run smack into the gargantuan form of Mama E. Worst of all, she seemed to have bestowed that ridiculous nick name on herself, as she let slip to him via a series of bizarrely clumsy nods and winks. He had yet to get to the bottom of her presence at TBW Smith Jones Wallace Broadbent and Ndimande, but if this ship really was going down, he could think of no worse fate than hitting the bottom with her by his side.

Tim Broadbent, Chairman of the Board, dropped a hundred Rand note on the restaurant table, hoisted his almost-retired old body from the table and went to work.

Dear Diary

You won’t believe who I ran into yesterday! Tim Broadbent! Now Tim and I, well we go way back, back to when it was was just TBW Smith and Jones, and I can tell you, and only you really, that we very nearly… well, it was exceptionally close and the vibes were ever present. Were it not for my commitment to Gerald and generally honest nature, anything could have happened. I remember a few office parties where things got seriously silly and up close and well, I might be wrong, it could just be old age, but I would be lying if I didn’t say there wasn’t still a bit of lingering atmosphere when he arrived yesterday. The first look doesn’t lie, and he looked like you could have knocked him over with a feather.

More later!

Part 1 -5. Part 7: July 18th.
Author: Andrew Miller Illustrator: Lebohang Goge

Finding answers, but not in focus groups

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Already as an advertising grad trainee at O&M in London Craig Irving realised he had little understanding of people outside his office environment. Who were these people he was thinking up campaigns to sell stuff to?

Hitting the streets with first a voice recorder and later a video camera he began finding out. His rebellion against conventional qualitative research methods created a nice little profit centre at O&M, and when he wasn’t offered his share, he picked up and launched his own business, the Consumer Insights Agency (c.i.a).

Brands like Unilever, Diageo, brandhouse, Coca-Cola, FNB, Woolworths, PEP, Old Mutual and Pick n Pay have all found benefit in using the agency, which has grown to a team of 20, to gain real insight into the people who buy their products, all around Africa.

The business is about real people talking to real people (as opposed to people talking down to real people). Cameramen, sound engineers, cultural guides, fancy hotels and smart rental cars and not part of the modus-operandi at the c.i.a.

Instead when one of their researchers go into the field, and often it is still Irving himself or Darrel Wratten, who the joined in ’98 with a PhD. in Religious Studies, it’s with a single video recorder in hand.

Consumer Insight Agency staff stays in scruffy hotels in the suburbs where the people they need to talk to actually live. They dress down, park themselves where the locals congregate, often at a local cafe, and usually don’t ask the first question.

Their philosophy is perfectly captured in a quote that appears on their website. “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world,” it reads. Irving says they interpret reality rather than ‘market research.’

Wratten, who has worked throughout Africa including Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, the DRC, Ethiopia and Tanzania, amongst others, says often the locals would step up to them, and ask them what they are busy working on in the area, explanations follow, and as often as not, a conversation. The agency isn’t interested in a set list of questions, and often don’t interview more than 35 people per project, immersing themselves instead in “reality before we try to segment this thing,” according to Wratten. By day three they usually have the insight they require, based on information volunteered to them rather than responses based on a bunch of leading questions.

“We empower people to tell their stories,” says Wratten. “People don’t have to submit to our world order.”

Irving says in research it’s easy for the weight of methodology to make one lose any sense of reality. The task of the c.i.a, as Irving sees it, is to take the message from the people they interview and knead it into a corporate context understandable to their business clients.

Their findings are often used to fine-tune product development, says Wratten, and in the tone and language brands use to engage with the market.

This unconventional (but seemingly very effective) research approach translates as well into developed economies as it does in emerging markets. In 2008 the team was credited with revealing insight that lead to a Cannes Gold Lion win for an Australian TV commercial for Schweppes.

Irving says it’s amazing to see what the corporate world doesn’t see. He calls on business leaders to suspend their own views and send out scouts to see the world as it really is.

It’s something ad agencies have (fairly consistently) been failing to do. Irving points out that agencies should be hungry for the knowledge his team can provide, but hardly ever pushes resources into on the ground research, leaving clients to feed the funnel of knowledge. In its 15 years in business the c.i.a has only ever worked with two ad agencies, namely JWT and Ogilvy.

The irony is that it’s knowledge that plays to a core strenght of many ad agencies, for their research suggests TV remains one of the best ways to reach consumers falling into LSM 7 and below, with half the country sitting down to watch Generations each evening.

All photos courtesy the Consumer Insights Agency.
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Rebuilding business trust in ad land

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Arctic Circle, the maverick Cape Town agency run by Reghard Goussard, positions itself as a navigator in the changing economic and social contract brands are facing.

This under the radar agency famously featured in an AdVantage magazine profile in which “I almost lost all my 19/20 clients” became “I lost 19 of my 20 clients.” Goussard jokes that he is “good but not that good.” In any case the agency continues to reinvent itself, transforming from a

design to an advertising and then a brand agency. Today it’s a business solution focussed agency with creative and production as value adds, says Goussard.

Goussard says even within the industry he is positioned as a business man rather than an ad guy, focussing on the business procedures of building a brand, and employing multi-skilled individuals with backgrounds in business rather than traditional agency people. Goussard says the role of his agency has evolved to a point where it is getting paid to source and translate market intelligence rather than just create ads.

He also believes in an approach which focuses on taking business objectives and translating it into a marketing function – something that allows him greater latitude when approaching company CEOs with proposals. Goussard says he can’t remember the last time he’s met anybody who has bought a product just because they’ve seen an ad, that design has become a commodity, and that his focus on business transformation is how his agency retains relevance.

Arctic Circle offers a 360° brand solution through close collaboration with sector specialists – including Native in the digital arena.

New clients are challenged to focus thinking on what its key stakeholder, the community in which it operates, require, and how it engages with them. The agency then spends two weeks gathering intelligence on the brand and competitor brands, coming up with strategic insights which they then workshop with the client, where they also identify the kind of budget required to meet their business objectives.

Goussard feels that the communication environment is changing so rapidly that few clients have managed to keep pace, and on the whole, they are struggling to come up with briefs relevant to this new environment, or budgets that can solve their problems. Arctic Circle helps them translate their requirements through the research it undertakes into briefs and budgets. Solutions need to be business minded and consumer focussed, says Goussard.

Arctic Circle employs 26 people, with revenue hovering around R10 million over the past three years, a number Goussard expects to jump to R25 million in the next financial year, if his plans for the agency comes to fruition.

Goussard believes in taking a longer view, both in terms of his own business and those of his clients, but believes the results are worth it.

Its current client list includes the CTICC and Anglo Platinum amongst others. Arctic Circle recently gained some social media traction for a campaign for Expo18, a golfing expo held at the Coca-Cola dome in Johannesburg, in which a young guy came out to his rugby mad farther as ‘a golfer.’ It also created the ‘What is good money?‘ campaign for Futuregrowth.

Goussard says the ad industry have lost its credibility and that the recent Cell C pitching fiasco showed how little respect it really has in corporate circles. His aim is to build an agency business owners can trust again by delivering on business objectives rather than just advertising as much of the industry still practices.

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Magazine (paper sculpture) covers we love

INTERNATIONAL

Los InRockuptibles, July 2012

Interesting cover for this French magazine about music, movies and books, but I guess that if you want have a cover story about “Drogas” (which I presume is ‘weed’), you’re going to struggle to find a Getty Image that portrays the story properly (especially if you want to include a family)… I thought this was a fun, quirky, and smart way of illustrating the main story.

GRANTA, Issue 119

I thought that this was an very clever way of illustrating the question of a “Broken Britain” using an object that many people associate with the UK (a cup of tea…).

Zupi, Issue 29

This Portueguese magazine is really creative and reminds me of something local agency The President would do. They play around with every cover and turn it into something unique. When I saw the cover above it immediately reminded me of the new High Life cover that really impressed me (see below)

LOCAL

British Airways High Life, July 2012

The British Airways High Life magazine covers are just world-class (also featured previously on MarkLives). When I saw this cover I loved the the detail and intricacy that went into making this cover come alive. It’s designed by South African artist (and Paper Sculpture specialist) Hazel Buchan. If you’re keen on this type of art, be sure to see the rest here. I take my hat off to South African publications that take a risk and promote South African artistsin such a striking way.

Brand reinvention: What Windows 8 means for Microsoft (and computing)

Debate swirling around Microsoft’s proposed Surface tablet misses the point about the significance of Windows 8, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

It’s almost a mantra in the computer business that you write off Microsoft at your peril. The company’s Windows operating system runs most of the world’s computers, it has tens of billions of dollars in the bank, and its Office software sets the standard for productivity tools in the working world.

Yet, it remains fashionable to predict its demise or declare it is unable to innovate and is about to be supplanted by Google or Apple.

That summed up the response to Microsoft’s announcement last month that it would release its own tablet computer, to be called the Surface. Its most striking feature is a thin, touch-sensitive cover that folds out into a keyboard, with a built-in trackpad. It will run the new Windows 8 operating system, in two configurations: a lower-end version called Windows RT, and the business-oriented Windows Pro.

The most striking feature of Windows 8, in turn, is that it provides a tablet-style look and feel, while allowing the user to dip under the surface into the traditional Windows desktop. In short, it provides both the entertainment – or “consumption” – appeal of tablets, and the productivity – or “creation” – of traditional computers.

The announcement of the Surface was met with howls of both delight and derision. The market was more divided on whether a Microsoft device was a good idea or not than on the potential quality of the device. If this was Microsoft’s answer to the tablet revolution, said many critics, the company was in serious trouble. Which just proves that many critics remain unable to separate their perspective from what is fashionable to believe.

Here is a different “truth”: the Surface does not matter. Not because it is or isn’t a great device. Rather, it’s because it is merely an example of what is possible with Windows 8. If you want to understand the direction of the Windows operating system and of Microsoft’s tablet strategy, you need to look beyond the Surface.

At last week’s TechEd Europe 2012 conference hosted by Microsoft in Amsterdam, the Surface was not even mentioned. A lengthy keynote address by corporate vice president Antoine Leblond included demonstrations of Windows 8 capabilities on other devices, but not a word about Microsoft’s own tablet. A subsequent full-day media event under the banner “Exploring Windows 8” did not touch the Surface.

Rather, both events included something far more significant: demonstrations of Windows 8 running on a current Asus tablet and a Samsung Series 7 Slate computer – a device much like a tablet, but with a larger screen and the power of a normal computer.

The principal program manager of the Windows 8 User Experience Team, Chaitanya Sareen, started off his demonstration of the Slate while seated on a couch. Gradually, he moved over to a desk, where he slipped it into a small computer dock, and began operating it via a wireless keyboard – without missing a beat in showing off the capabilities of the device.

Windows 8 allows for a wide variety of finger gestures on tablets, from swiping a finger across the edges for bringing up controls and commands to tapping for performing an action to the Apple-pioneered pinch or stretch gesture for zooming. Significantly, in Windows 8, every one of these gestures has a mouse as well as a keyboard equivalent movement or command.

While the media at TechEd Europe remained voraciously hungry for the new Microsoft device, many were oblivious to the fact that they were being shown a bigger and more important picture: existing devices are ready for Windows 8, and the computer does not have to be reinvented to accommodate it.

So scratch the Surface off the list of devices that you are awaiting for evidence that Microsoft is still in the game.

Can it rival the iPad? The fact is, that’s the wrong question. Windows 8 is far bigger than that. When the final version is released in October, it may just redefine what is fashionable to believe.

* 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.

EXCLUSIVE: Hellocomputer – “we’ll continue to fight the fight from the inside”

by Herman Manson (@marklives)Draftfcb acquired award-winning independent digital agency Hellocomputer earlier today. MarkLives talks to David Moffat, Managing Director at Hellocomputer, about the future of his agency within the Draftfcb South Africa Group (also see our interview with Draftfcb CEO John Dixon).

MarkLives: Why did you choose Draftfcb as a new corporate parent?
Moffat: Hellocomputer has been approached by most of the leading advertising networks. This possibility resonated with for a number of reasons: it’s an esteemed group with an impressive track record creatively and in terms of business performance, a culture and value structure we subscribe to, enviable clients and a management team we admire. Draftfcb has also demonstrated its belief in digital by investing in its own digital agency Mesh Interactive. We look forward to being part of a group that has built many of South Africa’s most loved brands.

MarkLives: How will this deal affect Hellocomputer clients and staff?
Moffat: We already share common clients (for example Vodacom) who will benefit immediately from a truly integrated way of working. Our broader client base has the benefit of a digital agency with greater scale in terms of infrastructure and staff complement, a broader technology offering and a deeper skill set. We are a step closer to realizing our ambition to become a world-class interactive agency, which will benefit our clients in terms of strategy, creative production, technical acumen, social and emerging media prowess.

A key feature of the deal for us was that we will continue to trade as a specialist digital agency and that our identity, culture and values will be retained. Our business has always been driven by the talented people in our organisation. While we are destined to be a bigger agency our drive remains to be the best. The spirit of entrepreneurism, the pursuit of excellence and the exploration of what is possible where creativity meets technology remains our core mission. Our team will continue to participate in the success that we collectively achieve at Hellocomputer.

MarkLives: You have been critical of legacy structural issues at ‘traditional’ ad agencies. How will this impact on how Hellocomputer does business now that it is part of just such an agency?
Moffat: This acquisition is a clear statement of intent by Draftfcb that their future features truly integrated communication. From our side we’ll continue to fight the fight from the inside to ensure that the marketing mix harnesses the possibilities inherent in digital!

MarkLives: What do you believe made Hellocomputer an attractive fit for Draftfcb?
Moffat: Hellocomputer has consistently affirmed its ability to create forward thinking solutions that are sublimely crafted and results orientated. We have sustained our position as a top ranked agency for several years. We hold a similar creative and cultural ethos and subscribe to a common value set.

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EXCLUSIVE: Draftfcb acquires Hellocomputer

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Draftfcb has acquired independent digital agency Hellocomputer. The move follows widespread industry speculation that the two parties were about to announce a deal. A letter to clients went out this afternoon at 15h00 while staff was informed at about 15h30.

Hello Computer was launched in 2005 by its ECD Mark Tomlinson. Draftfcb’s digital arm Mesh Interactive will fold into Hellocomputer taking the agency to a total of 80 people in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The Hello Computer name has also changed format to Hellocomputer. The size of the deal has not been made public.

MarkLives asked John Dixon, CEO at Draftfcb South Africa, what the deals means for his agency.

MarkLives: Please explain the strategic thinking behind the purchase of Hellocomputer?
John Dixon: Draftfcb was an early adopter when it came to having a digital offering – as way back as the early 2000s. Our latest incarnation, Mesh Interactive, has grown into a strong, medium size agency employing over 40 people.

However, from our point of view, the last two years have seen the digital channel really take off amongst our client base and there is now real and sustained demand for digital amongst both our Johannesburg and Cape Town clients.

The Hellocomputer deal gives us an immediate footprint in two cities and we scale up from two mid-sized agencies to a large one immediately.

Hellocomputer’s reputation as South Africa’s most creative digital agency as well as a shared vision for the future of digital communications was the motivation behind the deal.

We already share a number of clients, and they will feel the effect of a more integrated way of working immediately.

MarkLives: To what extent will Hellocomputer be integrated into Draftfcb and will the brand be retained?
Dixon: The Hellocomputer brand will be retained and Mesh will take on this identity with immediate effect.

A key reason for our interest is the strong culture that exists within Hellocomputer and the company will therefore continue to trade as a specialist digital agency, but within the Draftfcb family.

Hellocomputer will however be strongly integrated into the Draftfcb strategic and creative process and to assist this, will ultimately be housed within its own separate wing of both the Draftfcb Johannesburg and Cape Town offices.

MarkLives: What is the value of the transaction and will there remain any minority shareholders left after the purchase?
Dixon: Company rules prohibit us from disclosing the financial details of the transaction unfortunately, but IPG South Africa (Pty) Ltd will own 100% of the entity.

MarkLives: Will the management of Hello Computer be maintained as is?
Dixon: Indeed. The executive management is one of the key reasons for doing the deal from our point of view. They will report directly into the Exco of Draftfcb South Africa.

MarkLives: How will buying a digital agency outside of Draftfcb contribute to creating a digitally adept culture within Draftfcb, or is this not the purpose of this specific deal?
Dixon: Draftfcb South Africa has for a long time invested in making our agency more digitally-savvy. It is impossible to produce integrated communication without a consideration for web and mobile. That said, the digital landscape is evolving so rapidly that we need to constantly invest in education and in driving a digital culture.

We have experimented with incorporating digital within the traditional agency, but prefer at this stage to honour advertising and digital as specialist offerings and to work hard at how we collaborate on specific tasks. This will in all probability change in the medium term.

MarkLives: How will the purchase of Hello Computer impact the staff and revenue figures of Draftfcb in South Africa in both the short and the longer term?
Dixon: Again, I can’t disclose numbers but the new Hellocomputer will immediately have over 80 people nationally and will be in the top five digital agencies in the country by size.

Draftfcb South Africa is a subsidiary of the NYSE-listed Interpublic Group (IPG).

– DraftFCB Company News Office
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Drop the banner ad niched local online media brands told

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The great global online media brands such as MSN, Yahoo!, Google and Facebook are well represented in the South African market, either through locally owned sales partners, through JVs with local media companies or through a local subsidiary.

Their big numbers mean they get a lot of attention, as does a series of established home grown online brands, like iafrica.com, ITWeb, and Moneyweb. But what of the young guns, the content start-ups, the independents making do without well resourced sales teams?

Sites like Mahala, the pre-eminent online youth mag in South Africa, 10and5.com, SA’s leading creative portfolio site, or ZA News, which hosts the Zapiro created show no local TV station would touch?

Greg Mason saw a niche that holds a number of pitfalls, not least media planners’ single minded (time saving) obsession with big numbers, but also opportunity.

Mason Media, his one man sales business, represents eleven South African online media brands, including the three mentioned above. Most of these sites averages 20 000 unique users and serves somewhere between 70 – 200 000 impressions a month.

Mason sells and manages their ad space for them, in return for a commission, freeing up management/content teams to do what they do best, run an online content site. Mason aims to help these site owners monetise their products so as to enable to them to continue pushing out unique, quality South African content.

For advertisers, says Mason, the attraction lies in the engagement these sites enjoy from their readers, which goes well beyond Webmail logins, and the connection and conversation they help facilitate.

For the most part sales go through ad agencies, says Mason, as the size of ad deals on these sites rarely encourages senior level brand managers to engage. Sponsorships are a more likely route for engagement with brands directly and is something Mason will be pushing, in close collaboration with his eleven publishers, going forward.

As it stands run of the mill banner advertising doesn’t bring in more than R25000 a month on sites averaging a 100 000 impressions a month, says Mason. That is obviously not enough to float a content site. That said, interest in the brands he represents has picked up dramatically over the past year, and revenue generated since March has already surpassed his sales figures for last year.

Mason warns smaller publishers not to compromise their editorial integrity and urges them to stay true to their journalistic purpose, saying its key to maintain your existing audience (advice any blogger would do well to take to heart).

He also calls on brand owners to recognise the power of audience support for local media brands, and to support local sites and the content they produce, content truly relevant to South Africans.

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