The Martha Stewart Twitslap (in tweets)

by MarkLives (@marklives) There has been fairly extensive coverage of the substantial delegate walk-out and subsequent ‘twitslap’ Martha Stewart inspired at her Design Indaba conference presentation. While two or three relevant tweets have been circulating in the mainstream medi,a this aims to capture some of the tweets flying through the main auditorium. Twitter did not inspire the great Martha Stewart walk-out but it did capture the mood of the delegates gathered in the auditorium.

Martha Stewart arrives (late and with posse):

@marklives: Martha pitching with whole crew #designindaba
2:01 AM Feb 26th   via web

@AmandaSevasti: Can’t believe Martha Stewart is late. Would think she’s used to having her fingerprints taken by now. #designindaba #MGDI
2:02 AM Feb 26th   via web

The presentation gets underway:

@marklives: Martha talking about her magazines, websites etc etc. #designindaba
2:05 AM Feb 26th   via web

@khayadlanga: Martha Stewart has taken the stage. What? She didn’t say it’s great 2 b in the Motherland? Disappointing #designindaba    2:05 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@JustVus: The Bodyguard starring Martha Stewart and The Big Bald Guy #designindaba
2:06 AM Feb 26th   via UberTwitter

@marklives: Martha still talking about her magazines etc etc etc. Sigh. Like being at a congress for media planners. #designindaba
2:09 AM Feb 26th   via web

@marklives: A Very boring congress for very bored media planners. #designindaba
2:10 AM Feb 26th   via web

@JustVus Instead beating bout the bush wt a sales pitch Martha took a chainsaw to it #designindaba
2:13 AM Feb 26th   via UberTwitter

@AmandaSevasti: This is a sales pitch for her books and magazines. Disappointing. #marthastewart #designindaba #MGDI
2:13 AM Feb 26th via web

News arrives that a walk-out has started in the simulcast room

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba Stewart needs to pick up the pace. She’s boring so far, students chatting, starting to walk out . in droves.
2:11 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@shawnroos: Martha Stewarts shameless trumpet blowing is starting a massive walkout in the simulcast room. #whatnottodoat #designindaba
2:13 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@AmandaSevasti: I don’t care about your TV shows or your twitter followers. The Exit sign is calling me… #marthastewart #designindaba #MGDI
2:16 AM Feb 26th   via web

@marklives: Smother me with a Stenciled Hawaiian Flower Cushion #martha #designindaba
2:16 AM Feb 26th   via web

@shawnroos: designindaba martha this is #designindaba not #designsalespitch.
2:16 AM Feb 26th via TweetDeck

@JustVus Ummm…I think martha got the wrong script #designidaba    2:17 AM Feb 26th   via UberTwitter

Stewart starts flogging her book on Cupcakes, walk-out spreads to main hall and continues through the rest of the presentation. Outside delegates gather around the BizCommunity.com Twitterfall. In the main hall delegates start following Twitter on their cellphones.

@khayadlanga All the cool kids are walking out.
2:18 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@marklives: Main hall walkout at #designindaba #martha Bit shocking.
2:19 AM Feb 26th   via web

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba I need a cupcake! & maybe a few new scatter cushions to recover from Stewart’s presentation
2:20 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@shawnroos: What I’m learning from the Martha Stewart #designindaba walkout: no designer aspires to be a megalomaniac corporate own horn blower.
2:21 AM Feb 26th via TweetDeck

@marklives: Strangle me with some Merry Vintage Linens #martha #designindaba
2:21 AM Feb 26th   via web

@Louise_Marsland: RT @marklives: Main hall walkout at #designindaba #martha Bit shocking. <– ditto in the simulcast student auditorium
2:21 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@shawnroos: Heard the massive #Martha walkout has spread to the main hall #designindaba. Pity cos now she’s actually starting to talk design.
2:24 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@pixelz Martha stewart @ #designindaba: shameless self promotion with very little substance so far.
2:25 AM Feb 26th via mobile web

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba Stewart: she was in the’big house’ 2 long – this egocentric ‘we are the greatest on the other side of the big pond’ is so 80s
2:29 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@marklives: ouch more people leaving #martha #designindaba
2:31 AM Feb 26th   via web

@marklives: Crowds leaving main hall of #designindaba #martha
2:32 AM Feb 26th   via web

@johannescronje: #designindaba still a constant stream of MStewart deserters
2:32 AM Feb 26th via mobile web

@pixelz #designindaba listening to martha talk about her new paint line is as exciting as watching it dry!
2:35 AM Feb 26th via mobile web

@AmandaSevasti: So many things #martha could have spoken about – her humble beginnings, making everyday decor accessible… what a waste #designindaba #MGDI
2:36 AM Feb 26th via web

@marklives: ‘Here I am in my living room with little Sharky on my lap’ (sharky is a dog) #designindaba #martha
2:36 AM Feb 26th   via web

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba Stewart sell glitter. Quote of the day: ‘the bloggers are CRAZY about glitter’ #carcrash
2:39 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@marklives: God people are taking out their cellphones to follow the Twitter buzz #martha #designindaba
2:38 AM Feb 26th   via web

@JadeDsantos: Apparently #Martha Stewart’s hashtag went from being Design orientated to the world 1st twitter comedy! #designindaba #martha
2:39 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba She has a GLITTER ROOM ‘that’s where they have all the fun in our offices & PAINT BY NUMBERS IN GLITTER. Agonised laughter
2:40 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@AmandaSevasti: I thought glitter was just a Mariah Carey thing. #martha #designindaba #MGDI
2:41 AM Feb 26th   via web

@marklives: Lights dimmed for video – lots of people making their escape #martha #designindaba    2:42 AM Feb 26th   via web

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba Stewart: ‘Jay Leno loved my glitter project’. People are openly laughing at her. This is SOOO EMBARRASING #cringe
2:43 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@AmandaSevasti: And then God created Martha. And he saw that it was cupcake. #designindaba #MGDI    3:46 AM Feb 26th   via Echofon

@johannescronje: #designindaba Mad rush of people still escaping from the Martha show
2:42 AM Feb 26th via mobile web

@johannescronje:Martha Stewart has just been “Twitterslapped” #designindaba
2:44 AM Feb 26th via mobile web

@Louise_Marsland: Clearly not a glittering moment for #martha or #designindaba, but best comedy show I’ve seen in a long time. Sorry for you if you left!
2:49 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@marklives: People left in main hall giggling as they follow #martha #designindaba twees    2:50 AM Feb 26th   via web

@pixelz: #designindaba martha stewart just sucked all the inspiration that i’ve gathered right out of my brain.
3:16 AM Feb 26th   via mobile web

It’s a wrap

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba MC: ‘What Dr Craig Venter is to the human genome, Martha Stewart is to paint chips’… nuff said. Need a cupcake now.
2:51 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@Louise_Marsland: #designindaba & quips about #martha stewart’s awful presentation continue thru all speakers: ‘pse don’t put gold on yr pork’ (5.5 design)    5:12 AM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@brauteseth @MyNews24 you mean #marthaescape in 140 characters? Martha talks glitter. Dog. Oak floors. Global Empire. Crowds walk out. #designindaba
1:05 PM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

@terrylevin: martha Stewart inadvertently becomes star of first twitcom #designindaba    1:54 PM Feb 26th   via TweetDeck

The accountable ad agency

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Mike Abel never blinks. Literally. Or at least he didn’t through this interview, the two of us and Chief Creative Partner Peter Badenhorst stuffed into a corner table at the Loading Bay Café, a coffee shop below the new M&C Saatchi Abel offices in De Waterkant, the former gay quarter of Cape Town, now trendily mainstream.

For two guys who have helped direct and drive some very mainstream brands to success their talk is decidedly alternative. Not in the ‘fuck-is-my-favourite-word sense’ (though it might well their favourite word) but rather in their take on the ad agency they want to build. For them advertising is all about – wait for it – accountability.

The accountable ad agency. Sounds a bit like designer beer, airline food or business ethics doesn’t it. You’d think a new oxymoron has just seen the Wiki. But wait, they are serious, and to prove it they are devising metrics that will form part of every brief to measure both clients’ return on investment and determinants of success.

Badenhorst says that ad agencies have always been a force unto themselves. They compare themselves with other ad agencies, rank themselves though industry awards and have had little incentive to look beyond the rather narrow parameters of their own industry to notice business is changing. “We have been doing the wrong thing exceedingly well,” says Badenhorst, “rather than fulfilling clients’ business requirements.”

Abel adds that he wants to build an agency of depth and capability. He believes the economic recession means that M&C Saatchi Abels’ skills sets are more valuable to business than during better economic times when less is at stake and profits come more easily.

Zeyad Davids, another of the partners in the business, later tells me that within large corporations there is now a growing and already significant focus on measuring the impact of marketing expenditure, beyond the typical, but broad ‘awareness’ measure. He should know having run the digital marketing and CRM strategy team for Deloitte.

“Understanding that no two clients are identical, part of my role will be to apply a proprietary thought process whereby we work with our clients to define up-front a scorecard of success measures based on the tangible business outcomes they need our work to achieve,” says Davids (OK, just remember the guy worked for Deloitte). “The success of our strategy and campaign execution will then be measured against this scorecard irrespective of the channels we use to reach the market. Our tool takes into account, actual shift in sales volume, primary research, response channel activity, web metrics and other customer benchmarks.”

The agency currently employees seventeen people and Abel says he will spend the time before their first clients sign on training his staff. He isn’t interested in scrambling to fill key positions only when a client is already on board. He promises to be generous in growing talent. He sees M&C Saatchi as a collaboration of minds rather than sets of egos. He claims to be fielding CV’s from numerous creatives, even managing directors sharing the founding teams vision of what an agency should be about – namely growing the clients’ market share.

So far the new agency has no clients signed up and Abel denies that he had any clients up his sleeve before he launched the agency. He expects it to take three to six months before business starts rolling his way. He claims to have the financial backing to weather this period without a problem. Between the lines it’s clear that Abel, Badenhorst and the rest of the team are confident of a positive reception from former clients. Ogilvy may rightly give pause for thought. They know us, he says, and we have had amazing client relationships in the past. The agency, says Abel, is capturing the imagination of many in the industry, and as many marketers, with its ‘no bullshit’ attitude.

I ask Abel how the South African agency environment compares with that of Australia where he served a stint as the CEO of the M&C Saatchi Group Australia. Abel says that while on the surface there are many similarities the best advice he received on going over was from somebody how told him that South African’s play to win and Australians play not to lose. South Africa has a frontier economy while in Australia they play it safer. He found it creatively conservative with agency people scared to stand out for fear of being taken down – tall poppy syndrome is alive and well in Australia. That said business organisations expected a clear ROI from their agency, more so than in South Africa.

Marketing decisions are also taken at CEO level in Australia and pitches were made to both the CEO and the marketing director. Digital is core to any marketers thinking in Australia and not simply a division within the larger marketing process. The notion of a digital stand-alone agency is obsolete. “Digital is no longer the future,” says Abel. “It is now.”

He came back for personal reasons – his wife was unhappy in Australia – and while he learned a lot in Australia he believes South African management already plays on a global stage. “They couldn’t teach me anything about managing an ad agency,” Abel says.

We head up to the M&C Saatchi Abel offices upstairs. Basically it’s still a construction site with computer terminals clustered in the centre of the open office space. Three of the four corner offices are still incomplete. The views are spectacular. I realise that all through the interview I never once thought that the no bullshit agency might be bullshit. Frankly the ad industry cannot afford it to be. Business models need to evolve and to innovate or the industry will become unsustainable. If M&C Saatchi Abel walks the talk it will bring renewed energy to an industry increasingly isolated from reality behind awards shows won by ‘pro-active work.’

M&C Saatchi Abel – www.mcsaatchiabel.co.za

Biometric security introduced to Design Indaba

This year Design Indaba is introducing a biometric security system that will see delegates fingerprinted when they collect their access tags in order to prevent multiple use of single tickets. On Bizcommunity.com I ask Design Indaba some questions…

Nando’s poking fun at 2010 campaign

Advertising  agency Cross Colours and Nando’s created a direct spoof of the ‘I was there’ radio spot for 2010. The Nando’s radio spot features a diverse group of South Africans reminiscing about their various ‘life changing’ moments in a Nando’s store, all against background music that is sneakily similar to the 2010 campaign.

Ogilvy Go really loves Mike Abel

The folks at Ogilvy Go must really love Mike Abel. They still list him on their contact page (from the link click on Ogilvy Go), even after he left for his stint as CEO of M&C Saatchi Australia, and in spite of his subsequent return to launch his new agency M&C Saatchi Abel. We suspect the page will be updated shortly – this screenshot was taken at around 14:00 on Monday, February 15, 2010.

SMEs struggle fighting illegitimate trade mark infringement claims

Legal blog Afro-IP recently took a closer look at the difficulties faced by small companies in defending trade mark infringement claims. Is there a case for the introduction of legislation against unlawful trade mark infringement threats? The issue is of such import and relevance to our industry that MarkLives decided to reprint the post.

Afro Leo has recently come across several articles (see here and here) appealing about the difficulties faced by small companies in defending trade mark infringement claims. Soulsa failed to take an iffy decision on appeal because of cost and suffered a name change, Orange Ink used the press and found themselves agreeing to a restrictive use agreement (a positive outcome from their point of view) and the other, Bodtrade 54, were so elated in defending an opposition in the UK by Virgin Enterprises that they have claimed it as a “David and Goliath” type victory. Does this make a case for the introduction of legislation against unlawful trade mark infringement threats (as in the UK) or is it really a case that South African companies, especially SMEs, are either naive about brand protection or are simply chancers prepared to take the risk?

Trade mark litigation in RSA is often about aggressive letters of demand with so many “thereofs”, “wherefores”, “mutatis mutandi”, “inter alias” and broad claims of “unfair advantage”, “detriment”, “undesirables” and “infringement” that companies capitulate in the dense wordage without properly defending the case. In reality they should consult a lawyer but often do not. Some realise that these letters, if ill-conceived, are excellent material for the likes of Noseweek (who get copies quite frequently) and others enter their own defence. Costs, without a doubt, are a factor – few income statements of SMEs even have a provision for this type of expense even though, on a worldwide level, the relative cost of trade mark litigation in RSA is surprisingly cheap. The result is that lawyers will continue to send aggressive letters with broad claims and why should they not do so? They are effective. It is also very unlikely that “unlawful threats” provisions will be introduced and the disapproving words of the SCA in recent decisions are unlikely to change the way in which trade mark litigation is conducted.

The SMEs, of course, are also brand owners with the advantages of local legislation available to them. Few though invest in filings and even fewer in cheap pre-clearance searches before choosing trade marks. Not all SMEs are chancers; many are looking to create their business as cost effectively as possible and most are ignorant of the importance of brand protection which is actually an opportunity for lawyers seeking new clients, for CIPRO seeking higher trade mark filings and for the SAIIPL – one acronym that sadly, very few SMEs even know about.

– Thanks to Mary-Ellen Field for the Forbes article.

– Posted By Darren Olivier to Afro-IP – African intellectual property law, practice and policies on 2/09/2010 04:31:00 AM

FNB, PayPal caught with their pants down

It seems likely that PayPal will finally arrive on South African shores in April thanks to the efforts of FNB. News leaked through a Moneyweb reader comment and was quickly picked up by Twitter users and then by members of the media (who mostly missed the original reader comment on Moneyweb, including, surprisingly, Moneyweb itself).

With PayPal you can shop online without having to reveal your credit card details, and SMMEs use it to great effect on the ecommerce front. It was a definite disadvantage for small South African businesses that local consumers did not have access to the system.

According to Times Live FNB is yet to confirm its proposed tie-up with PayPal. Declining to comment usually serves as a form of confirmation in my experience. The fact that FNB doesn’t seem to have a PR strategy to deal with the leak doesn’t speak well of their communications team though.

If a story breaks before you were ready for it to be public knowledge you can either try to manage or steer the message or through your arms up in the air and scream at the roof. FNB seemed to opt for the latter.

PayPal, being a global player, would surely do better. I contacted the PayPal media office to request confirmation on news that they would be launching in South Africa. While courteous the essence of their reply read as follows: “At this time, I don’t have further information to share with you about PayPal in South Africa.”

So nobody is steering the message at this stage. In PR world it’s a mess.

Update: FNB confirms talks with PayPal to Moneyweb. [Edited on Feb 10, 2010, at 18:09]

Helen Zille hits below the belt

Talk about cheap politicking. The DA must be taking notes from those megawatt bullshitters over at the ANCYL. The media, with some help from the DA, decided that to produce a kid Jacob Zuma had to have had unprotected sex. Hate to break this to you but sometimes condoms break. It happens. Unless Helen Zille, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, happens to be a webcam buddy with either of the two people involved I suspect it is unlikely she should know what really went down. So to speak.

Yet she categorically states that “President Jacob Zuma’s behaviour directly contradicts the government’s campaign against multiple sexual partners, and the inherent AIDS risk in having unprotected sex.” She conveniently brings up the rape charges from which Zuma was acquitted in a court of law. So far I haven’t noticed anybody in the media calling her on this issue. We happily jumped the band wagon and as it stands most of the country now believe Zuma has unprotected sex with everything in a skirt while in fact nobody can be certain that that is the case.

Shame on Zille for jumping to conclusions that suit her politically when clearly her statement cannot be collaborated. And on the media for republishing it without at least calling on her to back up her claims.

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