Q5: Bhekani Bright Ndebele on making space for women’s sport [interview]

by Carey Finn (@carey_finn) Bhekani Bright Ndebele, Sports Mvt director and head of content, tells us why his digital sports media and entertainment agency is focused on women in sport.

Sports Mvt logoQ5: First, tell us your story: what drew you to the world of sport, and women’s sport in particular?
Bhekani Bright Ndebele: It’s quite interesting how everything came together. Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a football coach or sports physiologist. In matric, when my parents asked me what I wanted to study, I said sports science — and they said I should choose something else. I ended up studying BIS Information Science at the University of Pretoria, and it changed my perspective about the digital information world.

In 2017, I started blogging about sport — [mainly] women’s sport, because I wanted to be known for my knowledge in a specific niche. People on Twitter started liking what I was writing about. But blogging was just a hobby at the time. A few months [into it], I approached a friend (Thabo Sengwayo, now the strategic director at Sports Mvt), to design a logo for what I then called Sports Movement. He said that he saw great potential in what I was doing, especially the focus on women’s sport, and that he would help me realise its potential if I made him an equal partner in the business. I agreed, and Sports Mvt was born.

Q5: You’re passionate about coverage of women’s sport. How would you score the current state of affairs in South Africa? In which areas should we be looking to improve?
BBN: What I can say is that there is potential for women’s sport in South Africa to be at its peak. Judging from our work, it seems to be [well received] by the general public and, if everything [was] well executed by the sport federations, it [could] grow exponentially, because women’s sport is inspiring.

We should be looking at improving digital presence, social media presence, information accessibility and the execution of digital projects related to women’s sport, while sponsorship should come as a cherry on top of the ongoing work that has been produced.

Despite having to dig deeper into yearly budgets, the lockdown has brought about innovative ideas, such as the rise of virtual participation, to increase the ROI for sports sponsorship. An example of this is the recent launch of the SPAR Women’s Virtual Challenge. Participants from in and around South Africa can participate in the virtual challenge set to take place on 26 September. This is a replacement for the [regular] SPAR Women’s Challenge due to the covid-19 pandemic. It will give passionate runners a platform to come together, while SPAR Grand Prix maximises their social media usage and strengthens their digital presence.

Q5: Tell us more about Sport Mvt: what is the scope of your work, and where do you want it to go?
BBN: Sports Mvt aims to address the critical barriers that have restricted the exposure of sportswomen in South Africa. These barriers, such as socio-cultural and economic ideologies, have given people the perception that sport is a masculine activity. Myths, such as “sport is a potential impairment to female fertility”, is a psychological barrier for many women, and neglects the fact that physical activity in itself has plenty of benefits.

Other than changing legislation within the sports landscape to address these barriers, we believe that, in this digital age, the creation of engaging content and a strong brand presence will enable sportswomen, or women in sports as a whole, to get more exposure, and encourage more women to participate in sport. Although this is a global issue, we have seen ways in which we, with the help of South African sport federations and other sporting organisations, can bring about change.

Our work is digitally focused. The services provided to clients range from content creation to social media strategy and personal brand development for athletes (including male athletes), and advisory services. The vision? We see ourselves [becoming] a multi-award-winning digital sports media and entertainment agency. The awards we aim for are The Loeries, Cannes Lions and Sport Industry Awards. But, more importantly, we want to play a huge role in the digital development of South African sports and athletes alike.

Q5: What have one-to-two highlights been to date for Sport Mvt?
BBN: Our top two highlights are:

  1. Working with the amazing Moonira Ramathula (vice president of the Gauteng Sport Confederation and Futballing Girls founder) for two successive years (2018 and 2019) in the execution of the Ekurhuleni Women in Sports Awards, as a social media partner.
  2. The growth of our social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, which focuses exclusively on the coverage of women in sport, as well as the positive feedback we receive for our Woman in the Spotlight feature. This is where we look at women who are excelling in the sport industry, from physios to marketing and sponsorship managers, as well as agency owners, just to name a few.

Q5: You mentioned that one of your focus areas is personal brands for athletes. What are the two most-important things to keep in mind when building a personal brand for a sports person? How can these be applied for people looking to build their own brand outside of the sport scene?
Identity and consistency of your messaging or tone are the most-important things to keep in mind. These [should] be applied in [such] a way that you are able to sound genuine, tell a story, create a positive image of yourself and let other people [share] your story.

Regarding a sportsperson specifically, one needs to understand the sheer amount of financial, professional and personal gains they can attain due to how sports and other industries, such as marketing and advertising, have integrated to give athletes opportunities to better themselves on and off the pitch.

See also

 

Carey FinnCarey Finn (@carey_finn) is a writer and editor with over a decade and a half of industry experience, having covered everything from ethical sushi in Japan to the technicalities of roofing, agriculture, medical stuff and more. She’s also taught English and journalism, and dabbled in various other communications ventures along the way, including risk reporting. As a contributing writer to MarkLives.com, her regular column “Q5” hones in on strategic insights, analysis and data through punchy interviews with inspiring professionals in diverse fields.

 

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#Transformers: Gender inequality haunts business SA

by Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) While women are increasingly finding better representation in political leadership, economic transformation across the board has stalled.

Until debt tear us apart“Transformers Transform 2020” is a special series produced by MarkLives and HumanInsight and sponsored by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), running Jun–Sep 2020. Together with Lebogang Tshetlo, we’ll be profiling remarkable local #Transformers every other Friday until September, featuring Tshetlo’s photography. The objective of this an independently managed, journalism-driven research project is to explore and map new paths for brands and marketers to transform, adapt and build resilience while the world adapts to covid-19 and its resultant social, political and economic toll.

Do you know what percentage of women head Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies in South Africa? Come on. Hazard a guess. If your answer was way below 10%, you’d be right.

PwC on gender pay gap

PricewaterhouseCoopers has a report just out, “Executive directors: practices and remuneration trends report 2020”, that details pay gaps and spells out the diversity of South Africa’s listed companies. It makes for disappointing reading, particularly if you self-identify as a woman. Or if you’re black, coloured or Asian.

The report, which analyses executive pay among JSE-listed companies from 1 May 2019 to 29 February 2020, shows that “Black African, Coloured and Indian/Asian representation at CEO level” was a paltry 14%. If you think that’s bad, only 6% of CEOs are women — during the survey period, the JSE only had 19 female CEOs, although more have been promoted subsequently. The pay gap between men and women is bigger at more-established companies, the report says, but drops marginally in the small-cap sector. The pay gap at large-cap companies was 45%. At medium-cap firms, the gap was 36%, while at small-caps this dropped slightly to 24%.

This new report confirms what the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 revealed late last year: “None of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, and nor likely will many of our children.” The sobering finding is that, while women are increasingly finding better representation in political leadership, economic transformation across the board has stalled. The WEF says that, the way things are going, “gender parity will not be attained for 99.5 years”.

Global level

At a global level, the WEF reports that one of the biggest challenges is closing the gap in emerging roles that will play a key role in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). The WEF reports that, in “cloud computing, just 12% of professionals are women. Similarly, in engineering and Data and AI, the numbers are 15% and 26% respectively.”

What this report doesn’t show is that women suffer most when it comes to unemployment and hourly wages, too. This is despite the huge contribution that women make to the South African economy.

“We should take a step back and ask ourselves why there is a gender pay gap. [It] reflects a continuing devaluation of labour by women, that starts with the unpaid labour that women perform in the home,” says Prof Christi van der Westhuizen, Nelson Mandela University Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD) associate professor.

Prof Christi van der Westhuizen
Prof Christi van der Westhuizen

“Double burden under lockdown”

Van der Westhuizen says, for most women, a second shift of caring for children, men and the elderly kicks in when female workers arrive home at a day’s end. “We have seen this exposed again with the covid-19 pandemic, as women are shown to be the ones carrying this double burden under lockdown.”

The award-winning political columnist and author reveals the underlying story that normalises this disparity and socialises this by knitting it into our collective fabric of live experience — this is how inequality becomes a mainstay. “The first function of paying women less for work outside the home serves as a constant reminder that their ‘correct’ place is in the home, and that in a ‘perfect’ world they would be preoccupied with bearing and rearing children. The second function of the gender pay gap is to reinforce the idea that women are inferior to men, particularly in capabilities of strategic thinking to advance business, and that they add less value and therefore do not deserve to earn as much as men.”

According to Van der Westhuizen, these two functions depend on the outdated idea that women are ‘made’ to reproduce offspring, and that their physiological makeup also interferes with their intellectual capacity, making them less suited for high-functioning jobs and more suited to routine care work.

“Prop up patriarchy”

“The third function of the gender pay gap is to literally ensure that women have less capital at their disposal,” she says. “Women’s socioeconomic dependency on men has been a primary plank in maintaining men’s domination. Now that feminist struggles have brought many societies to the point where women can work, also in highly paid jobs, the gender pay gap ensures that they still gain less material benefit from working than men do. Therefore, the gender pay gap functions to prop up patriarchy. Because the gender pay gap, along with low levels of women’s representation, are particularly stark in big companies, these man-made barriers also show how entrenched patriarchy and sexism remain in the upper echelons of society among the middle class and economic elites.”

When asked what should be done about the gender pay gap, she says the answer is systematic campaigning — that includes exposure and boycotting of companies which continue to treat women as secondary human beings — is what’s required to bring about change.

What’s clear is that the novel coronavirus pandemic has pulled back a veil that’s revealed the systemic injustices in our economies yet, at the same time, has delivered a golden opportunity for driving greater diversity and change. In a rallying call for more female leadership in The New York Times, Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the first woman to have held the position of deputy president of SA, is calling for an enforceable decision making so that gender transformation is enshrined in law.

Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Call to end to male dominance

In a recent piece headlined “Key to an inclusive recovery? Put women in decision-making roles”, Mlambo-Ngcuka calls for an end to male dominance. “We actually need to engage men. And as much as we do not have enough men who stand up for women’s rights, we have seen a critical mass of men who are willing to use their power and authority to make decisions that promote gender equality,” the United Nations under-secretary-general and UN Women executive director states, adding, “This is the time for them now to do everything they can to bring about change.”

“Frankly, we need to use the crisis to make decisions that can be enforced, that can be enshrined in laws and in policies, that can be implemented. And we need to provide both carrots and sticks for people who are responsible for overseeing those decisions to do the work,” she writes.

But it’s the “why” that’s most haunting. The pay gap is one of many inequalities women face locally in a system that actively prejudices females. What does this do to them?

“The biggest effect is that women are more likely to be poor, which is borne out by the figures. At the intersection with race and geographical location, this worsens even more. Of the + 16m citizens living in the rural areas in SA, most are classified as poor, and most are women. The patriarchal aim of keeping women impoverished, or at least with less-economic means, serves the same aim as gender-based violence: namely to keep women dependent on men and therefore to prevent them from becoming autonomous individuals who can make decisions about their lives to also realise their own full potential, rather than being caught up with ensuring others’ wellbeing.”

How to bring about change?

When asked by the NYT how to build a better world, post-covid-19, Mlambo-Ngcuka responded: “I will go with the leadership. Let us try and position women in strategic leadership so they’re inside the rooms where decisions are being made, and trust them to make the right decisions for all of us. Let’s just get them inside that door.”

See also

 

Charlie MathewsAs an entrepreneur, Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) has worked in growth teams with Naspers, Microsoft, and Tutuka.com (the global prepaid card company). Mathews has also successfully founded and exited two marketing companies. Published in Rolling Stone magazine, Guardian UK, and SA’s Greatest Entrepreneurs, edited by Moky Makura, Mathews wrote for Daily Maverick during the title’s legendary startup era. Today, Mathews is the founder and CEO of HumanInsight, a research, insights and learning company that helps brands better understand, and serve — humans.

 

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The covid-19 burden of responsibility #coronavirusSA

by Wayne Naidoo (@WNaidoo) Now that we’re at lockdown level 2, the responsibility weighs heavily on everyone in our industry to ensure we implement every possible measure to ensure safety for our staff, suppliers and customers.

Hasn’t gone anywhere

As I look around our agency (and if I ignore the socially distanced workspaces and staff all wearing masks), it feels almost like business as usual. Briefs are rolling in, clients are demanding, staff banter is at its best and we’re all back to fairly normal routines again. The irony is that the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t gone anywhere.

While the restrictions of our level 5 lockdown were hugely prohibitive in terms of business, it made our decision-making process that much easier, since much of the responsibility fell onto Uncle Cyril. We simply weren’t allowed to do anything and we made do within the restrictions and came up with alternative ways of working. Under level 2, however, it seems that all rules have flown out the window and the onus now lies on us to make the hard choices: “Do we?” or “Don’t we?” and, if we do, how do we go about doing so safely and responsibly without endangering anyone involved?

The overall perception is that coronavirus fatigue has set in and everyone seems to have left their masks hanging on their rearview mirror while once again quaffing wine at restaurants and cycling in packs with gay abandon. And I completely get it — I, too, am sick of running with my mask on, not being able to attend a large event and basically not having much fun. Yet, while our personal choices are largely our own, our choices in business and as an industry have far-reaching and possibly fatal consequences.

Foreseeable future

Yes, let’s definitely get business going again — our industry and our economy are in dire need of it — but there needs to be a massive sense of responsibility that goes along with it. It simply can’t be business as usual, certainly not for the foreseeable future.

It’s going to involve much patience and accommodation, a great deal of creative thinking and planning and, possibly, a chunk of capital outlay. Most importantly, however, we’re going to need a truckload of empathy to accommodate our staff members who’re anxious and many of whom may have been personally impacted.

Our roles as leaders have never been more challenging but, now more than ever, our people are looking to us to lead. With so much uncertainty and so much conflicting information, we can do our absolute best and still not know if we’ve done the right thing. One minute we’re doing things a certain way and, out of nowhere, something completely derails our efforts. It certainly takes a toll on our confidence but, perhaps, the best quality we can embody through all this is a level of flexibility to cope with the unpredictability and a sense of humour to distract us from the mess.

Everyone must play a part

At the same time, it’s not just up to the leaders to keep things going — everyone has to play a part and take ownership of their role in moving our industry forward. Now isn’t the time to sit back and be judgmental and demoralising. Now’s the time to show support, and to be encouraging.

While we might have envisaged this to be a short-term adjustment, all signs seem to point to a much-longer term and that means we have no choice but to take it seriously and dig deep.

Let’s opt for maximum safety and ensure that our staff is able to feel safe at work. Because being back in the workplace is proving to be fundamental in improving morale, boosting motivation and reinvigorating thinking. Whether it’s online castings, significantly smaller crews and Zoom meetings until we’re all Zoomed out, we can’t become complacent and we can’t put our staff, suppliers or anyone that we deal with at risk. There can be no shortcuts, nor can we skimp on costs — choose the option that brings with it the least amount of risk. And, if you can’t mitigate the risk, don’t do it.

Best interests

We also need to provide our teams with a safe, non-judgmental manner in which to voice their concerns.

Those who don’t feel their safety is a priority need to be able to speak up without fearing for their jobs or their happiness. Make sure there are open channels of communication before your staff resort to contacting the Department of Health to tell them how unsafe they feel. People are rightfully worried about their health and wellbeing and it’s our job to show them that we have their best interests at heart.

We all want this hideous pandemic to end; we’re all bored to death of the endless barrage of bad news and statistics; and we all want to start living our lives again. But the virus really doesn’t care if we’re bored with it at all.

See also

 

Wayne NaidooWayne Naidoo (@WNaidoo) is the founder and CEO of DUKE. He is currently chairperson once again of the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) South Africa and was runner-up for MarkLives #AgencyLeaders2018 Most Admired Ad Agency Boss in Cape Town. .

This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.

 

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#NotSoOrdinary: In omnia paratus

by Taazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) I don’t speak Latin, nor do I have any desire to learn what many may say is a dead language. However, for someone with a true obsession with modern-day vernacular and languages, this is a phrase I love more than a person really ought to… love Latin phrases. It’s embarrassing, really.

Of course, I’m choosing to ignore I first heard it some 15 years ago in a slightly too-wholesome family show by Warner Brothers (show name omitted for fear of judgement). Said show featured the phrase bandied about by spoilt rich kids in a nonsensical secret society amongst the Yale elite as they leapt off high rises in ballgowns and umbrellas; but I digress.

Ignite

In omnia paratus (“prepared in all things: ready for anything”) is one of those carpe diem turns of phrase that somehow manages to ignite a sense of fiery passion, even if only because it sounds so mystically foreign.

It’s about living for the moment in many ways, throwing caution to the wind and simply taking a leap of faith (or a slightly calculated risk, if that’s your fancy) as and when needed. An example of an arguably dead language or not, it has a very real bearing on all of us today — largely because of its notable lack of application, literally and figuratively so.

United in the strangest of circumstances only a global pandemic can bring, individuals, families and businesses now spend every waking day watching almost helplessly as covid-19 continues waging its own veritable war on the world. Reports are also coming in of cases of the bubonic plague and a potentially new pandemic of even greater respiratory distress challenges in China, and our news now resembles that horrid rowing scene from Ben-Hur. Enter the leaping with umbrellas, in the wholly proverbial sense of course.

Creative sectors

Creative sectors the world over are among the hardest hit (among, not singularly so) and markets such as Botswana that don’t manifest the creative sector’s potential as a veritable engine of the economym or at the very least commercialised and commoditised in the most sustainable of ways, are among the hardest of the hardest hit.

Communications budgets have been cut with a painful and blunt guillotine; the ability to hold physical engagements and activations feels near-obsolete; and people are reevaluating entire communications and marketing strategies for the foreseeable future. And yet filling our daily arsenal of vocabulary are “unprecedented times”, “new normal”, “business unusual” and “thinking outside the box”. Aren’t we tired of such tired perspectives? For a sector fighting for its existence, there has to be some greater and more-demonstrable proof in the proverbial pudding of our agility and ruthless will to survive and thrive than simply stating so.

Enough “new normal” and on with the show, I say — in omnia paratus. Communications consultancies in the UK have, for example, begun flirting with the idea of a four-day work week. Managed responsibly and with clear and well-articulated purpose, the results have been overwhelmingly positive, as the four-day week sees increased productivity balanced by greater peace of mind, mindfulness time and unwinding over the extra free day provided. Working from home, in fact across industries, equally sees opportunities to do more with less.

Productivity boost or drain

The jury remains out for many, locally, on whether working from home presents a productivity boost or a productivity drain and yet, once again, our friends across the oceans have been practicing this for years before the current pandemic, albeit with varied levels of success — yet success, nonetheless.

In his 2017 “Go Ahead, Tell Your Boss You Are Working From Home” TEDx Stanford talk, Nicholas Bloom unpacked more on a study conducted to gauge the effectiveness of working from home on productivity.

Bloom helped design a study where 500 employees were divided into two groups: a control group who continued working at the office; a group of volunteers working from home, each in a private room at home; job security for at least the next six months; and reliable broadband access. The two-year study showed a notable productivity boost, equivalent to a full day’s work. Those working from home cited increased concentration; employee attrition decreased by 50%; shorter breaks and fewer sick days were observed; there was less time off; and US$2 000 per employee was saved on rent by reducing the amount of office space. Feeling somewhat isolated was also noted, although with many an option to address this.

“Shattered”

Similarly, according to Forbes in May 2020, “Work life balance has been shattered for many, but savvy employees are putting the pieces back together in innovative and surprising ways. According to survey data compiled from 100 million data points across 30,000 users, …team members are making the most out of their home office.” Telephone calls are up 230%, email is up 57% and chat is up 9%, the study found.

While I’m not suggesting we continue to shut shop and send everyone home, there’s something to be said for demonstrating true agility and readiness for mobilising when the circumstances warrant it — ready for anything, nimble enough to make it work and committed enough to plan ahead, with innovation at the very core of all that we do, can do and should do.

A great example is that of Rwanda. The report, Creative Industries in Rwanda: Digital Paths to Global Markets, highlights a number of inspirational case studies on how small-, medium- and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in Rwanda’s music and film sectors are selling digitally to a global market, finding new routes to consumers and overcoming challenges to show agility in action. According to the study, “The digital revolution has vastly expanded the frontiers of the creative industries, turning it into a sector that generates $2.25 trillion of revenues globally. This is comparable to the gross domestic product of Brazil or India.”

“Remarkable agility”

Further, the World Economic Forum notes: “Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, organisations around the globe have demonstrated remarkable agility, changing business models literally overnight: setting up remote-work arrangements; offshoring entire business processes to less-affected geographies; initiating multi-company cooperation to redeploy furloughed employees across sectors. In each situation, the urgency for results prevailed over traditional bureaucratic responses.”

The unity and humanity are without question. The world has, for the most part, come together in the most heartwarming of manners.

However, is this enough without any real action to safeguard our creative sector futures? How confidently can we say the same for our own markets as Rwanda or those in Europe and the US? Covid-19 or not, are we agile enough, determined enough and equipped enough?

Culture of strategic ‘doing’

As with anything, there’s room for improvement, no doubt, and we’re likely not too far off from changing our current reality and our ability to adapt better. Perhaps it’s just a more daring and action-led approach we need to inculcate: a culture of strategic ‘doing.’ If for no other reason than bravery and boldness stand to breed innovation, we need to get doing.

Survival of the fittest is very much in play and, verbomania aside, an in omnia paratus state of mind ought to feature much more on our daily tongues, our ways of thinking, and how we act to change the current status quo.

Grab an umbrella, and leap!

See also

 

Taazima Kala-EssackTaazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) is lead consultant at Botswana’s oldest and largest PR consultancy and FCB Wired affiliate, Hotwire PRC. She draws inspiration for her regular Marklives.com column from her observations of brands and how and what they communicate. She has a firm “question everything” philosophy, believes in challenging the status quo and celebrating the #NotSoOrdinary.

This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.

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#WritersBlock: There’s a scammer in my inbox

by Tiffany Markman (@tiffanymarkman) The covid-19 pandemic, a nationwide booze ban (somewhat lifted now), five-degree Joburg mornings, and a massive influx of ‘offers’ from multilevel marketers, forex/bitcoin scammers, and plain ol’ pyramid schemers… It’s all been too much. Here’s how you tell, from their first message, whether that friendly person in your inbox or DMs might be a skelm:

#1. They try to build rapport through a sense of shared struggle

“Given the uncertainties we’re all facing, are you willing to explore digital business opportunities and possibilities?”
“Great connecting with you! How has your business been affected in this crazy time?”
“How’s your business doing during the pandemic?”
“How have you found that covid-19 has affected your work or your business?”

#2. They pretend to know what you’re into

“Hi dearest, hope you’re doing well! I was looking at your profile and felt called to message you. Are you interested in earning a part time or full time income?”
“I love your profile and your posts! I believe there’s an opportunity for us to work together. Let me know when you’re free for a Zoom call?”

#3. They use the phrase “open to hearing more” or “open to chatting”

“How’s business on your side? Would you be open to hearing more about an exciting opportunity, to see if it would be a good fit?”
“Let me know if you are open to chatting about possibilities in digital marketing.”
“I don’t know if this would interest you, but I can help you earn a part time or full time income from home. Wondering if you might be open to additional opportunities to earn money?”

#4. They’re vague about their offer/idea

“Thanks for connecting. One of the reasons I made contact with you is, I am expanding a business and I think there could be some synergy for us to do something together.”
“I play in the trading space, and I’m contacting you for business purposes.”
“I would be more than happy to help you build yourself and your income all the way.”

#5. They talk about how well they’re doing

“Getting straight to the point: with everything that’s going on, I’ve been extremely focused and productive with my home-based business. Curious if you might be interested in additional opportunities to earn money from home?”
“With what’s going on right now, I’m being super-productive, so if you want to make some money from home, I can show you exactly how to do it!”

*These are all real. They all arrived in the last 16 weeks. The specific ‘opportunities’, which are never mentioned upfront, turned out to be online shopping (Amway AKA Network 21), nutritional supplements (Herbalife), essential oils (Young Living, doTERRA), skincare (Jeunesse, LumiSpa, Nu Skin), and forex/bitcoin trading.

Only one of these signals*? Not necessarily worrisome. More than one? RIDE LIKE THE WIND, BULLSEYE!

Now, why wouldn’t you get involved?

Aside from versions of the phrases “business opportunity”, “part- or full-time income”, “open to chatting”, and “a good fit”, what these messages have in common is that they came to me from people who want to part me with my money and redirect it — to themselves. This is multilevel marketing, also known as network or vector marketing, and Amway and Herbalife are its evil king and queen.

As you can probably tell, I’m not objective when it comes to MLMs. Amway is why.

This monolith managed to get its own people into the US political system to pass bills — tucked innocuously into others — which legalised its business model. Several loopholes were put in place to evade the federal definition of a pyramid scheme, and the phenomenon has now spread across the world, but very compelling research shows that almost no-one who signs up for an MLM ever makes a profit. Except for the upper 0.1%.

Most of the money paid by an MLM company goes to top-of-the-network promoters, at the expense of new distributors, who tend to try out an MLM programme but eventually quit. So MLM distributors are really just sales reps who get big titles as they move up the pyramid.

If you don’t believe me, here’s John Oliver.

Other language to look for

Because I’m a language person, I dug up the “True Motivational Statements for Each Personality Type” from a well-known-on-the-inside Amway resource, to show you what may come next if the MLMer in your DMs gets past your first line of defence:

  • If you’re a ‘D personality type’, you’re known for being dominant, strong, task-orientated, and decisive. In this case, the MLMer will use “positive phrases” to appeal to your specific personality, to show that they understand what matters to you. They might say, “I can tell it’s important for you to be in control of your life, isn’t it?”
  • The ‘I personality type’ is social, friendly and not often detail-orientated. So, the MLMer might say, “I can tell you really enjoy being around good people, don’t you?”
  • If you’re identified as an ‘S personality type’, you’re people-oriented but reserved, very concerned with stability and with a strong aversion to risk. The MLMer might say, “It’s important to you to be involved with people who care about people, is that right?”
  • And, if you’re a ‘C personality type’ who’s detail- and task-oriented, and likely to respond to a conservative, patient approach, you’ll hear, “If you were going to involve yourself in something, you’d want it to be legal, moral and ethical, wouldn’t you?”

But, no matter which personality type you have, any objections that you raise may be treated to the “Feel, Felt, Found” response:

  • “I understand how you feel about this investment opportunity. These days you have to be careful with every rand you spend.”
  • “I felt exactly the same way.” Or “I work with so many people who felt the same way at first.”
  • “What these people found is that moving forward actually saved them money and hassle, and none of them ever regretted their decision to invest in themselves. Let me show you some of their feedback. How does that sound?”

Now, why do I share this stuff? Because, just like vaccines train your immune system to recognise a live virus by exposing it to the dead, manky remains of one, I’m hoping that this little language lesson inoculates you against the bite of the next scammer in your inbox.

See also

Tiffany Markman

Tiffany Markman contributes the regular column, “#WritersBlock”, to MarkLives.com. In it, you’ll find writing-and communication-related raves, rants and the occasional reality check. Tiffany’s a corporate copywriter, writing trainer and keynote speaker who’s worked with over 400 top brands in the last 15 years but she’s most proud of knowing the true meaning of the verb “revert”. She loves art and black coffee. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.

 

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The next bold step in PR #coronavirusSA

by Lebo Madiba (@Lebonator) Now, more than ever, a new PR agency model is needed as a platform to conceptualise and deliver cohesive campaigns that will guarantee both impact and value. And agility in communications can only be delivered through agility in structure. Command-and-control models that depend on centralised management embedded in slow-moving bureaucracies just can’t deliver on radically altered client needs and fundamentally changed consumer habits.

The world is a very different place today than it was even a short six months ago. The covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we live, work and interact and, especially, the way we communicate. Consumer expectations and behaviours are changing rapidly — in a way never seen before — and businesses are under intense pressure to adapt in order to survive.

PR agencies are similarly under duress to change their operating models and, in particular, to use digital platforms to differentiate brands within an entirely new operating environment. At the heart of this is the need to connect with consumers at an authentic level while still delivering value and tangible ROI. Are traditional PR agency models up to the task or is a new kind of agile, responsive and value-driven model required?

New ways of engaging a new kind of customer

As the nature of customer engagements shift, PR needs to be acutely responsive and uniquely innovative. In an entirely different socioeconomic landscape, its task is nothing short of having to develop new ways of engaging and retaining customers whose needs and behaviours have changed fundamentally, probably for good. This shift means that the role of PR in the marketing mix is being re-evaluated and redefined. Practitioners are no longer simply regarded as messengers. Their value as engagers and influencers, who’re able to nurture meaningful relationships with customers and measure the value of that engagement in a dynamic way, is now well-recognised.

With the C-suite’s priority now being to retain customers and secure their loyalty, marketing and communications spend is also being re-evaluated, with leaner budgets being expected to deliver on an expanded and more complex set of goals. This calls for PR to be more integrated with sales, marketing and CRM to drive positive growth.

Creating long-term customer value

So, as businesses shift from crisis to recovery — and eventually adapt to the ‘new economy’ — PR has an essential role to play in turning trusted customer relationships into long-term business value by entering into a space that tracks not only customer satisfaction but also digital engagement and lifetime customer value. This means nothing more or less than building a single view of the customer for brand owners.

The post-covid-19 PR agency needs to be integrated and flexible. Focused on craft and delivery, it needs to be quick to respond to changing circumstances and, especially, to be cost-effective and results-driven.

A new kind of PR agency model

Within this context, there’s a growing need for independent, owner-managed agencies that are as invested in the success of a client’s business as the client is. As important, with budgets as lean as they are, is that clients need the assurance that their spend will be used to create value and not to sustain the bureaucracy of a large network agency.

The covid-19 crisis has made clients keenly aware of the value of leaner, more-responsive and -invested teams that may be constituted as appropriate for each project from highly skilled and experienced talent pools. They need agencies that feel their pain and share their goals, and which offer both dedicated teams and senior consultancy as part of the standard offering.

With this in mind, it will be difficult for traditional PR agency models to be retrofitted into the new world we suddenly find ourselves in, especially as their methodologies may be making it difficult for them to be responsive and innovative. Clients are ready for a new way of doing business that suits the times, having recognised that the traditional PR model of building, pricing and providing a service is misaligned with the need for rapid and articulate innovation.

PR agency of the future

The PR agency of the future will be fundamentally invested in helping clients recover from the covid-19 shock and in returning to stability and growth. To do this, they need agencies that can deliver genuine integration in pursuit of shared goals — integration that will combine the discipline of a strategic approach with innovation and agile execution. This new kind of relationship will be driven by a partnership mindset, with the agency being a value provider rather than simply a service provider.

See also

Lebo MadibaLebo Madiba (@Lebonator) is a strategic communications expert, a content maverick, a brand builder, a technology enthusiast and a PR maven. She has spent the last few years as CMO of Etion, a digital technology company, and as managing partner of Ogilvy PR and Influence. She is now reincarnating herself to bring a blend of her 20-year journey in PR, digital, brand and marketing and entrepreneurship into a new generation data-led agency that integrates PR and marketing: PR Powerhouse (@PRPowerhouse).

“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.

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Watched #coronavirusSA: Top 10 TV shows deciphered — Jul 2020

by Richard Lord (@rlord182) During July 2020, many more South Africans were able to go about their daily business —out-of-home media owners tell me that traffic levels climbed to 80% of what they were before lockdown began back in March. So, the highs of television viewing that we saw in April and May have come and have gone.

When various lockdown amendments were announced by our president towards the end of July, some 4.3m South Africans tuned in to watch his address on SABC 2. This was enough to give it a top 10 ranking of most-viewed programmes among all TV viewers in South Africa.

Nielsen South Africa covid-19 lockdown tv highs 1000x561

Source: Nelson iPort

Top 10: Main market

With consumer time spent viewing TV having dropped off so dramatically, what’s been happening with actual audiences? Let’s find out…

LSM 4–7 Top shows for Jul 2020 Channel Audience
Uzalo SABC 1 9 101 218
Generations: The Legacy SABC 1 7 655 935
Skeem Saam SABC 1 7 126 805
Scandal e.tv 4 852 882
isiZulu News SABC 1 4 558 968
Xhosa News SABC 1 4 213 302
S’gud S’naysi SABC 1 4 039 676
Rhythm City e.tv 3 999 011
Nyan Nyan SABC 1 3 973 147
Muvhango SABC 2 3 804 661

There has been very little change in the top 10 programmes watched by the main market in July when compared to June. Only two changes:

  1. Rhythm City on e.tv leapfrogged Nyan Nyan to claim spot no. 8
  2. Muvhango on SABC 2 returned to the top 10 at the expense of Makoti on SABC 1

The only real change is the continued downward trend of the actual audience figures. We started to see how audiences began to drop off when Level 4 and then Level 3 lockdowns were introduced, and we’re seeing the continued further erosion of audiences. Let’s look at the top three programmes which demonstrates this trend nicely:

  Mar 2020 Apr 2020 May 2020 Jun 2020 Jul 2020
Uzalo 9 486 146 11 382 535 11 302 538 9 590 008 9 101 218
Generations 7 829 601 9 671 777 9 148 977 8 473 225 7 655 935
Skeem Saam 5 784 067 8 788 444 8 914 540 8 128 294 7 126 805
Average 7 699 938 9 947 585 9 788 685 8 730 509 7 961 319

April saw the peak of the lockdown audience among LSM 4-7. However, we’ve seen a steady decline every month since. The Uzalo audience, for example, dropped by 5% in the past month, and has declined by 20% since the peak in April.

Top 10: High-income earners

The top 10 among the LSM 8–10 audience has been more volatile, although we’re starting to see it settle down into a familiar pattern now, too.

LSM 8–10 top 10 shows for Jul 2020 Channel Audience
Uzalo SABC 1 1 231 727
Skeem Saam SABC 1 1 045 306
Generations: The Legacy SABC 1 866 065
The Queen Mzansi Magic 765 653
The President’s Address to the Nation SABC 2 727 614
Gomora Mzansi Magic 642 380
Scandal e.tv 636 252
isiZulu News SABC 1 615 371
Nyan Nyan SABC 1 575 577
isiXhosa News SABC 1 565 747

Yet again we see the dominance of SABC 1, even among high-income earners. If this continues to surprise you, just remember that Sandton is not South Africa! Only four programmes in the top 10 were NOT on SABC 1. Mzansi Magic continues to be the only DStv channel to make the top 10. e.tv is back down to just one programme (Scandal) in the top 10.

As with the main market, audience decline continues to be a noticeable trend since the easing of lockdown restrictions…

  Mar 2020 Apr 2020 May 2020 Jun 2020 Jul 2020
Uzalo 1 133 361 1 444 715 1 511 289 1 268 365 1 231 727
Generations 833 858 1 094 402 1 087 749 932 049 866 065
Skeem Saam 887 852 1 262 802 1 359 156 1 231 012 1 045 306
Average 951 690 1 267 306 1 319 398 1 143 809 1 047 699

The average audience of the top three programmes watched by LSM 8–10 has dropped by 8.5% in the past month, and declined by 20.5% since the peak in May.

Out of interest, the best-performing show on M-Net in the month of July was Carte Blanche, with an LSM 8-10 audience of 189 613 viewers. But is Carte Blanche a worthwhile media buy if you’re targeting an LSM 8–10 audience? Let’s do the maths…

CPP

The cost of a 30-second spot in Carte Blanche in July was R60 000 (rate card, no discounts). The 189k viewers equates to 1.74 rating points. This gives Carte Blanche an eye-watering CPP of R34 526 (a CPP is the cost to buy one rating point, and it enables us to compare the relative cost of two different shows). Let’s compare this with Uzalo, which we’ve shown reached 1 231 727 people in July. The 30-second cost for a spot in Uzalo was R206 870 (again, rate card rate, no discounts). The 1.2m viewers equates to 11.26 rating points. This means that the CPP for LSM 8–10 in Uzalo in July was R18 374 — comparatively half the cost to buy the same audience. So, which show is best for advertising to people in LSM 8–10? Of course, there are many factors to consider such as programme environment, audience aspiration, wastage etc. But all things being equal, and based on cost alone, couple with the actual number of people in LSM 8–10 that you can speak to, the answer seems pretty clear!

 

See also

 

Richard Lord

 

Richard Lord (@rlord182) is media and operations director at Meta Media, South Africa’s newest media agency and part of the IPG global network and Nahana Communications Group of specialist agencies. With over 20 years’ experience in the media industry and having worked for FCB, UM in London, and The MediaShop, he’s spent most of his career with IPG. Richard contributes the monthly “Watched” column, which analyses monthly TV audience viewership figures in South Africa, to MarkLives.com.

 

This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines and become a MarkLives Member, too, to ensure continued coverage.

The Power Report: Cyber risk as much about comms as IT #coronavirusSA

by Megan Power (@Power_Report) I was a bit smug when alerted to Microsoft Teams’ pre-set video backdrops, or custom backgrounds, which could replace mine when using video. I didn’t need that, of course; I had the real deal. That was until a colleague who specialises in cyber risk burst my bubble.

When covid-19 forced us onto video work-calls from home, I wasn’t entirely ready for the personal intrusion. But my home study certainly was. Repainted in a moody teal, complete with full bookshelves lending a distinct “learned air”, it became the envy of a good few colleagues in early lockdown.

Insight for phishing

It turns out I’d be far better off using an impersonal and generic white-walled office image courtesy of Microsoft. If not, and should my virtual meeting be hacked, I was warned, the interests reflected in my choice of books could give the attacker insight into what subject — from architecture to sailing, wildlife to jazz — I’d likely relate and respond to in any phishing type communication.

It was a sobering reminder that, of all the business vulnerabilities covid-19 has exposed, cyber risk is one of the biggest. With so many of us having been moved suddenly into remote work-from-home set-ups, accessing company servers en masse from myriad locations on phones, tablets and laptops, the parameters of organisations’ once tightly controlled security nets have become dangerously loose. It’s not like we were in a good position to begin with, either; South Africa already has the third-highest number of cybercrime victims in the world. Further afield, a new global survey conducted in April and May 2020 by the US-based Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has revealed 81% of respondents have already seen an increase in cyberfraud, with 93% expecting it to increase over the next 12 months.

Ongoing risk management in a constantly changing environment is not something to leave to IT, board members and cyber security experts alone. Central as they are, a critical part of cyber resilience is incident response management — to manage and protect reputation after an attack — and this has to be strategically led by the likes of marketing directors, reputation chiefs, and communication heads. They’re the ones who will face the wrath of angry consumers and have to salvage devastating brand damage if sensitive personal data is compromised.

Team effort

Responsibility for cyber risk management has to be a team effort; certainly on a practical level, creating silos in any organisation isn’t smart. What happens when the head of IT with sole knowledge of passwords and codes gets knocked over by the proverbial bus, and nobody else is able to access the office server? I know of two such incidents in the last three months alone where that bus was covid-19; at least one of those important passwords went to the grave.

I’m also aware of at least two cases of ransomware in SA in recent weeks. In such attacks, file-encrypting malware, known as ransomware, infects computers, after which victims are blackmailed into paying a ransom to get access back. In this recent case, hackers used Zoom to infiltrate a victim’s cellphone, got into their laptop and then accessed their company’s servers. In another case, individual sports trackers belonging to a group of C-suite athletes were hacked in a single attack.

Ironically, sport and fitness tech giant, Garmin, was hit by a global outage in a suspected ransomware attack just a few weeks later. Closer to home in June, a breach at private hospital group, Life Healthcare, forced it to switch to manual processing systems after a hacking attack. This followed an Interpol statement in April warning governments and hospitals that attacks have been escalating during covid-19.

Not much better

Last year wasn’t much better. In October 2019, the City of Johannesburg reported a breach of its network and shut down its website and all e-services, hours after receiving a bitcoin ransom note from a group called the Shadow Kill Hackers. The hack reportedly happened at the same time that several local banks reported internet problems believed to be related to cyberattacks. According to an Accenture report in May 2020, victims last year included a SA energy supplier, a pre-paid electricity provider, and one of the country’s largest internet service providers.

It may not always be malicious; sometimes it’s human error that leads to a breach, or a third-party breach that compromises a company’s customer data or systems. Either way, incident response strategy — thrashed out with communications, legal, cybersecurity and compliance teams — should be in place in anticipation of a breach, complete with internal and external first response drafts and statements, including fact sheets, anticipated stakeholder questions and, if needed, the setting up of a special “dark section” on the website which may be activated if a crisis hits. This keeps an organisation in control of its own narrative and serves as a designated platform for regular public updates. If such preparations highlight gaps in processes and safeguards, all the better. This plan may be handled internally with the right leadership but businesses may also make use of specialists in crisis readiness.

Nowhere to hide

If this all sounds like too much effort, consider that when the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) is in full force in a year from now, there’ll be nowhere to hide. Not only will companies have to put measures in place to handle all personal information according to prescribed rules, but they’ll have to ensure such data is properly protected from unauthorised access and loss. Following a breach, organisations will no longer have the luxury of time to get their house in order before word gets out. The act obliges companies to inform the Information Regulator immediately of a breach, as well as consumers whose data may have been impacted. Add to this the European Union’s already in-force data privacy legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which affects all SA companies offering goods or services within the EU or to EU residents and citizens.

If GDPR and POPI aren’t enough to jolt complacent organisations into action, the more-immediate and escalating covid-19 cyber threats certainly should. Especially as businesses across SA scramble to fast-track crucial digitisation in the wake of an indefinite lockdown.

See also

Megan Power

Megan Power (@Power_Report) has nearly 30 years’ experience working in South African media, including investigative journalism and news editing; she now runs Power LAB, a strategic communications and customer experience agency focusing on customer journey audits, crisis readiness and brand reputation. Megan’s consumer column, The Power Report, ran weekly in the Sunday Times for six years and has now found a new home on MarkLives.

This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines and become a MarkLives Member, too, to ensure continued coverage.

#CircData: ABC Q2 2020 plagued by non-submissions

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The covid-19-related hard lockdown in March 2020 and the resultant, ongoing economic crisis have severely impacted the media industry broadly but print media faces a particularly tough environment — borne out in a large number of non-submissions to the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa, which certifies circulation data for print media. As a result, MarkLives is unable to publish our usual comprehensive analysis of ABC Q2 2020 circ data.

Only approximately one-third of ABC member publications submitted circ data for the period April–June 2020. This is due to the ABC board allowing publishers the option not to submit circulation data if their circulation has been materially impacted by the crisis. The board will be making a decision regarding the “normal”/compulsory submission of data from the next period (July–September 2020).

Newspapers

Not a single daily, weekly or weekend newspaper reported any numbers at all (not one!).

Magazines

Notable magazine titles failing to submit any Q2 2020 data included Financial Mail, Noseweek, Popular Mechanics, Stuff, Bike SA, Car, Caravan & Outdoor Life/Kamp & Karavaan, Driven Magazine, SA4x4, Compleat Golfer, SA Flyer, SA Rugby, Getaway and TravelIdeas, among others.

Titles that have been discontinued, according to the ABC submission, include Habitat, REAL|life Magazine, Leisure Wheels and Your Baby*.

When Associated Media closed in May 2020, it took Cosmopolitan South Africa, House & Leisure, Good Housekeeping South Africa and Women on Wheels with it. A few days later, Caxton announced the closure of titles such as Bona, Country Life, Essentials, Food & Home, Garden & Home, People, Rooi Rose, Vrouekeur, Woman & Home and Your Family. At the time, it noted that the titles might be on the market if outside parties put offers on the table. A couple of months later, in July, Media24 also announced the closure of Move!, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Bicycling and Runner’s World. DRUM went digital-only.

Total submitted circulation numbers for magazine fell from 3 028 784 in Q2 2019 to only 1 938 267. In the woman’s general category, figures declined from 568 794 copies to a reported 231 410. Travel, tourism and hospitality fell from 268 579 to 140 967 reported copies. Motoring fell from 169 255 to zero reported copies.

  • The publisher of Landbouweekblad Boerekos confirms that the title has not been discontinued in spite of the ABC data capture indicating that it did. The ABC listing should have stated ‘delisted’ rather than ‘discontinued’. As a precaution we also removed other Media24 brand extensions from the list including Kuier Combo, Sarie Woon and Sarie Bruid.

See also

Herman Manson 2017Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com.

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#Transformers: Bank invests in hope for brand transformation [video]

by Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) Financial services brands struggle to corner the market on consumer trust or to maintain any real, lasting consumer relevance because of service issues and the lingering effect of the global banking crisis. This is why Thulani Sibeko, Standard Bank chief marketing officer, has a challenging task. Sibeko heads a team that’s transformed the consumer bank’s brand positioning from “Moving forward” to “It can be”.

Until debt tear us apart“Transformers Transform 2020” is a special series produced by MarkLives and HumanInsight and sponsored by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), running Jun–Sep 2020. Together with Lebogang Tshetlo, we’ll be profiling remarkable local #Transformers every other Friday until September, featuring Tshetlo’s photography. The objective of this an independently managed, journalism-driven research project is to explore and map new paths for brands and marketers to transform, adapt and build resilience while the world adapts to covid-19 and its resultant social, political and economic toll.

Brand transformation

In this video interview*, Sibeko talks about:

  • Insights that drove the brand transformation
  • Standard Bank’s role on the continent as an African brand
  • How employee innovations fuel trust and brand loyalty
  • How experience is what really sets banking brands apart

Banks in Africa should be worried. Take a look at The Brand Africa 100, a consumer-led survey that benchmarks brand preferences across the continent, and you’ll notice that financial services brands don’t place in the leaderboards.

The 2020 Brand Africa 100
Global fashion and technology brands dominate The Brand Africa 100, a consumer-driven index that ranks the continent’s top brands. But financial service brands don’t feature. Click to enlarge.

Global brands such as Nike and Adidas have clearly won hearts and minds in Africa, as have Samsung, Apple, MTN, LG and Vodafone, because technology is the big enabler. This means that banks such as Standard Bank have to work incredibly hard to win customer favour.

“Centre of the discussion”

“People and businesses are looking for a brand to believe in them, inspire them, and journey with them,” Sibeko says. “They want a bank that can help them realise their ambitions — personally or as businesses and which always puts them at the centre of the discussion.”

What bodes well for the bank is that the effort is less superficial positioning and more a foundational change. The brand work comes off the back of internal dialogue, research and innovating Standard Bank’s relationship with its employees and customers — the real focus of true transformation.

After the economic crisis that followed the novel coronavirus lockdown, Standard Bank offered customers an instalment holiday and joined efforts to bring relief to small businesses, and enable easier access to enable online trade. Internally, Sibeko says the bank invested in technology to ensure connectivity for staff and enabled better working conditions for employees with children who needed to work and parent.

Internal

The big transformation has been internal. In March 2019, digitisation and a branch scale-down saw the bank move to retrench well over 1 000 staff members. Today, the bank enjoys increasing favour with employees. “As recently as two weeks ago, we conducted a survey asking our people how they’ve experienced their own organisation in the time of covid,” he says. “I’m pleased to say that a huge majority of our people played back very positive sentiments, affirming that the wellness of our employees was not just lip-service.”

See also

*Note: This interview has been edited for publication to focus on brand transformation only; content not relevant to this subject has been cut.

Charlie MathewsAs an entrepreneur, Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) has worked in growth teams with Naspers, Microsoft, and Tutuka.com (the global prepaid card company). Mathews has also successfully founded and exited two marketing companies. Published in Rolling Stone magazine, Guardian UK, and SA’s Greatest Entrepreneurs, edited by Moky Makura, Mathews wrote for Daily Maverick during the title’s legendary startup era. Today, Mathews is the founder and CEO of HumanInsight, a research, insights and learning company that helps brands better understand, and serve — humans.

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