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Mark Issue 2: Blueprint (to surviving in ad land during the recession)

Feeling blue? You’re not the only one. Research by comScore Marketer clearly illustrates where most of our minds are by relating growth in search terms to the current economic downturn.

“Coupons” searches up 161%
“Unemployment” searches up 206%
“Discount” searches up 26%
“Mortgage” searches up 72%
“Bankruptcy” searches up 156%
“Foreclosure” searches up 67%
“Unemployment benefits” searches up 247%

The economic crisis is gripping all industries and the publishing and advertising communities are seeing retrenchments and closures. It’s a hard time. It is also time for change. Y&R’s Executive Planning Director Simon Silvester describes recessions as brooms that brush out the old and make space in the world for new ideas. It was time, wouldn’t you say? How long were we going to cling onto the greedy “let’s develop every plot of green we see”, plastic-everything 90s anyhow?

Uncertainty is part of every recession. We don’t know when it will end: we do know we must all find a way of surviving it. Does your boss know retrenchment is out? Innovative salary solutions and redeployment is in, as managers use inexpensive perks to motivate and keep staff during meltdown: just point him or her to pages 8 & 9. And the traditional concept of ‘an industry’ is crumbling away – the perfect opportunity for breaking the rules of marketing and livin’ (page 6 & 7). Maybe the crisis reminds you that life is not balanced if it means only work (pages 10 & 11). Even giving is changing, from how much to who you are and what you do (pages 14 & 15).

It’s good to see good come from bad times. It helps chase the blues away.

Herman Manson

Editor

Txt the people

Mobile marketing is in its infancy as it struggles with usability, measurement and education – yet all bets are it’s going to be big. By Herman Manson

A lot is being said about the potential of mobile phones as a mainstream content and marketing opportunity. The numbers are impressive and, yes, the potential is immense, its supporters dedicated and eloquent and agencies enthusiastic.

But strip away the hype and numerous issues remain. Usability advocate and well-known author Jacob Nielsen, for example, recently described accessing content via the mobile web as “a cringeworthy experience” and compared the Mobile Web in 2009 to the Desktop Web of 1998. He notes an “abysmal success rate”, bad download times, sites not optimised for mobile browsers, design not suited to the medium and the list goes on.

He found that regular sized phones offered horrible usability to users, even smart phones got the thumbs down, and the biggest of the lot – the iPhone and similar – offered only “impoverished usability”.

Researcher Arthur Goldstuck meanwhile found that a mere 4% of Internet users regard the cellphone as their primary means of Internet access, while 11% of users use their cellphone for backup access.

Tracking data on mobile advertising spend in South Africa is scarce and local businesses active in this arena haven’t yet come up with a unified campaign that would educate marketers on where mobile could fit into their marketing strategies.

Yet in spite of the bad reviews, mobile is universally expected to help transform how marketers talk to customers (and how customers talk back). The launch of a new industry body, a local chapter of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), already signifies a new level of growth and maturity for the sector.

Rick Joubert, Executive Head of the Vodacom Mobile Advertising business and founder-Chairman of the MMA in South Africa, says the association was launched to ensure local industry alignment with global best practice, standards and formats and the creation of local standards for inventory types unique to the local market. The MMA also aims to ensure the development of a local measurement and reporting regime relating to the mobile publisher landscape and tracking of brand investment in mobile, as well as to ensure “consolidated and focused evangelism” of the mobile medium and education of brands and agencies.

Joubert estimates that in South Africa roughly R250 million is spent on mobile advertising (Rate Carded Mobile Advertising) annually. No figures exist for the amount spent on mobile marketing as a whole in this country although the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in South Africa estimates that almost half of total direct marketing expenditure is now accounted for by mobile channels.

The opportunities are numerous and brands need to research which are the most appropriate to their target market before launching into the mobile space. Options range from mobile messaging to competitions, ‘click to receive’ email, coupons, videos, download content (like wallpaper) or enter branded mobisites.

If branding is what you require, research by US based Harris Interactive showed users will be willing to view ads on their mobiles in return for incentives such as free music downloads and minutes or discount coupons, provided they are relevant to the end user, and the subscriber remains in control of what they get and how they are profiled. More than 60% of those polled preferred ads to be delivered as text messages.

Mobisites themselves are very popular at the moment, but the number of visitors compared to the number of cellular users out there falls short of being spectacular. Two sites doing relatively well (it is early days, after all!) are SuperSport, developed by Yonder Media, which in January 2009 saw nearly one million pages to 74 000 unique visitors, and Soccer-Laduma which served a whopping 1.5 million pages to 85 000 unique visitors. The big operator portals, however, like that of Vodafone in South Africa, serve up to three million unique users per month.

Marketers should take care to approach mobile with a firm strategy in mind – this really is new ‘media’ – and you don’t want to land on the wrong side of customer expectations. Prakash Patel, Draftfcb South Africa’s Head of Digital & Interactive, offers this sound advice when it come to mobile marketing: don’t complicate it and be aware of how your target audience engage with their phones. It’s going to be their call, not yours.

Top 10 mobile sites accessed in South Africa (# of unique users)

1. facebook.com
2. google.com
3. wikipedia.org
4. gamejump.com
5. yahoo.com
6. my.opera.com
7. mxit.co.za
8. youtube.com
9. webmail.co.za
10. waptrick.com

Source: Opera.com

– Herman Manson is the editor of MarkLives.com. Follow him on Twitter.
– Originally commissioned for Tony Koenderman’s AdReview, published with Finweek, May 1, 2009.

Tom of Finlands heads down South…

Tom of Finland, one of the newest perfumes by Etat Libre d’Orange, is making its debut in South Africa. Ogilvy Johannesburg is the appointed agency. The Tom of Finland perfume pays tribute to the fetish artist of the same name notable for his stylized homoerotic art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture.

Launch events for Tom of Finland were held at several gay bars and the product will retail through Metropolitan Cosmetics outlets in Hyde Park, Sandton City and Melrose Arch. Ogilvy also has been tasked to introduce other perfumes in the Etat Libre d’Orange range – Jasmin et Cigarette (Jasmin and Cigarette) and Putain de Palaces (Hotel Slut).

The International campaign is quite something – Trendhunter calls the campaign extremely funny and naughty and “created by the twisted minds at Ogilvy ad agency in Paris.”

Revealed: What South Africans think about the ad industry

Revealed: What South Africans think about the ad industry. By Neil Higgs, Director: Innovation and Development at TNS Research Surveys.

A recent column showed that, in the US, two-thirds of people feel that ad agencies have some responsibility for the current worldwide economic crisis by causing people to buy things they could not afford. The American Association of Advertising Agencies feels that ad agencies should do a better job or advertising themselves and that perceptions of the industry tend to be negative for so many people.

How about here in South Africa? Two surveys conducted amongst 2 000 metro adults and by 880 people online by TNS Research Surveys in early September 2008 and released late last year at The Annual Ad Conference hosted by advertising and marketing commentator Jeremy Maggs looked at some of these issues.

Whilst people are slightly negative about advertising in general, the industry itself receives a mixed reception:

• 34% of the online sample say that the ad industry is not to be trusted and 35% in September last year felt that advertising puts too much pressure on people to buy.
• 55% feel that the industry is glamorous but only a third know the names of quite few ad agencies.

In overall terms, 47% of the metro sample IS positive towards advertising (19% extremely so), 17% are quite negative (6% extremely so – they will certainly speak up if they find an ad offensive) with 36% in the ambivalent to mildly negative box – these are people with some positive associations with advertising but also with some serious reservations. The most positive people are black, younger, in Gauteng (especially Soweto), LSM 5 to 7, with a tendency towards Tswana and Sotho speakers. Conversely, the more negative groups skew towards whites (especially males) and Indians/Asians, older people, LSMs 9 and 10, those who have at least some university education and English speakers.

Whilst advertising is felt to brighten lives, provide entertainment and provide useful information, notable proportions of people feel there is too much sex in advertising, that advertising often damages values and beliefs and that advertising that simply makes unsubstantiated performance and quality claims cannot be trusted. It is no longer good enough simply to claim to be “the best”, “the quickest”, with “the best service”. People in today’s highly connected world look elsewhere for confirmation.

One in six people say they “hate” ads and there is quite a strong feeling – six out of ten – that ads aimed at vulnerable people need regulation with 88% of the online sample saying that ads aimed at children specifically should be regulated. The most common complaints revolve around there being too many boring ads around (55%) as well as ads being too repetitive. Ads that are untrue, long, senseless and intrusive are some of the other main complaints.

Almost everyone (80%) feels that it is important for brands to advertise themselves, so it seems that the advertising industry taken as a whole still has a good future, but it may be that its face will change: 61% trust the opinions of family and friends more than they trust advertising and a quarter of the sample prefer the internet over conventional advertising for information about products and services.

So where does this leave us?

Today, people are more advertising and marketing savvy – no longer do people see advertising as authoritative as they did in 1976 when television finally arrived here. They are no longer passive absorbers of advertising. People engage more directly with brands in today’ interconnected world and are more likely than ever before to call brands to account, particularly where corporate governance and social responsibility are involved.

Fragmentation of the media plus increasing brand choice plus an increase in the search for identity and self with rising globalisation are leading to what is being termed the tribalisation of society and the increasing impact of networks. Never before have marketers and advertisers had less control over their brand reputations, a trend not likely to diminish.

It will be those marketers and ad agencies that understand this trend that will survive – but it will be those ad agencies that understand that this trend also applies to themselves that will truly shine. Two things need to happen:

• The industry could do more to promote itself.
• But first, it needs to understand people’s attitudes to advertising generally. Our studies show that advertising needs to be clever, well-made, not anodyne, not boring and talk-worthy where appropriate. Stark claims no longer hack it. If an ad is to be edgy and controversial, do so with intent (knowing the likely consequences) and adroitly. The image of the industry is coloured by the ads it produces.

Expect greater involvement from people than ever before.

— Neil Higgs is Director: Innovation and Development at TNS Research Surveys. For more details on the surveys as well as a full technical report, please contact Neil on 011-778-7500 or 082-376-6312 or visit TNS Research Surveys at www.tnsresearchsurveys.co.za

Windows 7 Review: Windows as it should be?

On April 30 Microsoft unveiled the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) – the final Beta version of the upcoming release of its new operating system – to the developer community. Yesterday (5 May) it went live to the public. The initial Beta released in January has been polished, updated and improved. Microsoft have also included new functionality, namely XP mode, which uses Virtualisation to run older XP programmes natively in Windows 7, promising 100% XP compatibility. Will this release be the one to finally set aside Windows XP (and kill off Vista)? STEVEN AMBROSE of online magazine GADGET blows his download data cap again, downloads all the bits, and puts Windows 7 RC to the test.

Windows 7 from the get go has shown that it is a seriously good replacement for the controversial Windows Vista operating system. As reviewed in Gadget in January, the initial beta was the best beta release that I have tried from Microsoft. most hardware and software worked from the start, and the operating system lost the treacly feel of Vista, on most hardware. Almost 5 months of hard work and millions of feedback messages later, Microsoft feel that they have almost got to the point where Windows 7 is ready for release. The significance of this is, with 90 % of the world’s computers running a version of Microsoft operating software, and many corporate users still running Windows XP, which is almost 9 years old, Microsoft has to deliver.

I downloaded both the X86 32 bit version, for older computers, and the X64 version for newer 64 bit computers, and installed both on various machines. There is one major proviso; you cannot upgrade the original Beta to this version; you have to do a clean install. The downside of this is all the programmes and settings you had installed, will have to be redone. Microsoft has enforced this restriction as much of the base code and drivers have changed from the initial Beta release. On my main HP Laptop, the 64 bit install took 20 minutes to complete and, apart from some new backgrounds and a more polished look and feel, very little appeared to have changed.

New interfaces, new functionality

Once I began to reinstall all my various applications, the differences became apparent. All my hardware installed correctly first time, and no additional drivers were needed to get the computer up and running. All my programmes, including certain older accounting packages, installed with no fuss. Only the Nokia phone suite needed to be installed in compatibility mode for Vista, but the operating system itself recommended that I did this, and from that point there was no problem.

The overall feel of the operating system has improved substantially from the last release. It felt even snappier than before, and was markedly faster in loading the operating system and programmes. As this version, with some bug fixes, will in all probability be released as final, the increase in smoothness and speed was very significant, and most welcome. The overall use of memory has also decreased. I installed the 32 bit version on an old IBM ThinkPad T22, now 10 years old, with 768 Meg of Ram, and it was very good. The operating system found all the hardware, ran with no problem, and the memory usage never went over 60%, even with Office 2007 running.

In XP mode

One of the significant new features of this release is the XP mode, which is not included in the actual operating system, but can be downloaded from Microsoft and installed on all versions except Windows 7 Basic and Home. XP mode makes use of Microsoft Virtual PC seamlessly to run XP applications in Windows 7. All is not as simple as it seems, as there are a number of key prerequisites before you can use this feature. Firstly you need 2GB RAM, which is not a big deal as Vista needed 2GB RAM just to run effectively. You also need to have a recent Intel or AMD processor that has hardware virtualisation built into the processor. In my experience most processors that are 2 years old or newer, with the exception of Intel Celerons, have this feature. The Beta includes a free version of XP service Pack 3. The instillation was simple and, once completed, a fully integrated version of XP will run in Windows 7. The integration was impressive with files being written and opened directly from your document folders. Once the initial load was completed, the XP system hibernates, rather than shuts down, so subsequent start ups of the operating system or applications loaded into the virtual XP machine are fast. Programmes installed into the Virtual XP machine appear on the Windows 7 menu bar, just like any other program, and open up in a seamless window without the XP desktop.

Fun new wallpaper

The integration and seamless nature of this virtualised XP compatibility solution is very good, and in most respects will allow custom or legacy software, that will not run natively on Windows 7, to run properly. For many large companies this will remove the need to downgrade new machines to XP, as all new machines will come with Windows7 preloaded when it is released. One area of concern is that the virtual XP is XP in all its glory, with all the issues around security remaining, and you will need to install and maintain antivirus software on the virtual machine, if you allow that machine to access the internet, which is the default setting.

Once again I am very impressed with the smoothness and responsiveness of Windows 7. The release candidate has further polished an already good operating system. The new interface is easier to get used to and more intuitive to use than the Vista interface and many people who did not upgrade from Windows XP will really have no problem adapting fairly quickly. The hardware requirements are officially the same as for Windows Vista, but in my experience on netbooks and very old laptops, Windows 7 works well – in fact in some respects even better that Windows XP, as all the latest drivers and settings, which had to be installed on XP, are part of the operating system.

Another new feature is that of remote media streaming over the internet. This is one feature we may not get to enjoy in South Africa until our data caps increase significantly. This new feature will allow you to access your music on your computer anywhere in the world via the Internet.

Microsoft have been very strategic with this version of Windows, they have allowed a very wide beta test release. This Release Candidate will remain valid until June 2010, which is a long time for trial software. Microsoft have also announced that the general release of the Release candidate will be available for an extended time, unlike the Beta 1 release, and product keys will be freely available.

From my experience, Windows 7 will be the best operating system released by Microsoft to date. It will in all probability work with almost all hardware, new and old, and bring security and features right up to date. I would not hesitate to upgrade once the final version is released. If you are not comfortable upgrading your existing machine to pre-release software, try it out on a spare if you can. You will not be disappointed.

Reprinted from Gadget with permission. Follow them on Twitter!

Lucky the three legged Cheetah launch the Golf 6

Ogilvy Cape Town has come up with a wonderful ad for the launch of the Golf 6 that is bound to end up being one of our favourate ads for the year.

The team flew up to Namibia, which has the world’s largest wild cheetah population, and found with a woman called Marlice van Vuuren who rehabilitates wild animals, including cheetahs at her game farm near Windhoek. She drove a three-legged cheetah that she was rehabilitating around in her bakkie. The Golf 6 found its launch star. Its director was Henry-Alex Rubin, an Oscar-nominated documentary director now directing commercials.

Creatives: Henry-Alex Rubin (Director) .Prabashan Pather and Michael Lees-Rolfe (Art Directors), Sanjiv Mistry (Copywriter)

Election boost for SA Twitter news feeds

Heightened interest in news around the recent general elections seems to have boosted the fortunes of a number of South African news organisations on Twitter. The SA Twitter News Ranking for May 2009 shows healthy growth for MyNews24 with the addition of 697 new followers and nearly a doubling of followers for TheTimes thanks to its successful elections news site and Twitter feed. All the sites in the Index grew their subscriber numbers and both News24 and the Daily Dispatch jumped four positions on their rivals. ITWeb joined Twitter as well and should see steady growth if it puts some effort into promoting its Twitter feed on its landing page. The SABC hasn’t updated its feed since March but remain on the index in an effort to shame them back into action. Is there place for an Afrikaans news feed on Twitter? Rapport still doesn’t seem to think so. Personally Mark suspects there is – who will grab the niche?

[TABLE=8]

See April 2009 data update. See March 2009 data update. See February 2009 data update. See January 2009 data update. See December 2008 data update. Follow MarkLives on Twitter @marklives or on the @CABNetwork

If you find other news organisations online let me know so I can add them to the list. (Stats as of May 5, 2009)

UPDATE MAY 7: We seem to have a data error regarding the number of followers and updates for The Sowetan. We will provide the correct information with our next update. Figures as of May 7, 2009:

Followers: 157 Updates: 569. Correct number of Upadates on May 5th (calculated backwards): 540

JZ sex pistol

IF THE TSHIRT FITS WEAR IT is a new South African t-shirt label that promises to focus on amusing social and political observations. Get them at Big Blue, Boom Boom Boom, Kitsch+Kool or Sowearto! The range is designed by Bradley Kirshenbaum of LoveJozi fame. One of the designs spoof the famous Sex Pistols t-shirt featuring the Queen and the words ‘God save the Queen.’ It features the face of Jacob Zuma with the words ‘God save the constitution.’

Rebranding the advertising industry

Consumers believe ad agencies should accept at least some responsibility for the current worldwide economic crisis and the credit crunch. Creative directors will soon be giving bankers and lawyers a run for their money it seems. Are you surprised? Don’t be.

The Harris Poll, a nationwide survey of 2,220 U.S. adults by Harris Interactive found that 66% of Americans believe advertising agencies have at least some responsibility for the current economic crisis because they caused people to buy things they couldn’t afford. Consumers across the age spectrum are blaming agencies – 75% of those older than 55 felt advertising agencies have at least some responsibility for the crisis, as does 60% of 18-34 year olds.

No wonder then that the American Association of Advertising Agencies is saying that the industry needs to do a better job of advertising itself, according to The New York Times. The paper quotes the association’s president and chief executive, Nancy Hill, as saying that “our business is still fighting for more respect in the public sphere. The common perception of our business in the United States continues to be so negative for so many people.”

Ad agencies have never shied away from representing controversial industries or clients, money is money after all, and nobody is going to call them to account. Times are changing and consumers are becoming more demanding, more aware and more insistent on good corporate citizenship. One day they will hold brands responsible for the ad agencies they choose but for now they are holding agencies responsible for the clients they pick and the advertising they produce.

It should make every advertising executive sit up and re-examine how they do business.

In South Africa, with few exceptions, agencies don’t bother investing in their own brands, and there is no co-ordinated approach to tackling public perception about an industry that engage with consumers on a daily basis and in virtually every aspect of their lives. Other than the annual awards/booze up the ad biz hasn’t really made the news. That is about to change. Take note.

Defrosting your brand during the recession

A recession acts as a full-stop in the consumer’s psyche. Simon Silvester, author of AAAGH!: A Deep Recession Changes Everything, talks to Herman Manson about how brands should approach consumers during a recession.

Simon Silvester

Recessions are brooms sweeping away the old and making space for new ideas. And it just swept Simon Silvester, Head of Planning at ad agency Y&R, into the foreground with the publication of his book, AAAGH!: A Deep Recession Changes Everything, about how brands should approach the world-wide economic crisis.

A recession acts as a full-stop in the consumers’ psyche, says Silvester, and consumers suddenly become more conservative in their buying decisions, preferring to play it safe. That means you should tone down, and stay inside the box, right? Wrong. Silvester believes that because that is what everybody else is doing, taking calculated risks makes your brand much more visible than it would have before. Now is not a time to cut ad budgets – it’s time to spend on innovation.

Companies become frozen during recessions; in fact, they become dysfunctional, says Silvester, as the bean counters step in to take control of every aspect of the business. Suddenly, innovation, budgets, job openings – everything – are frozen. At the same time as media costs drop, your competitors go into similar hibernation, and consumers lose all confidence in the market, brands become boring and undynamic. This is exactly the time brands need to step up and show confidence and innovation (and not just in pricing). The firms that already know what they are about, and are pretty lean to start off with, will grab this opportunity to redefine their market with both hands.

The crisis is global. Silvester notes the housing market in London is particularly weak now that all those rich Russians aren’t that rich anymore, and Spain’s property market falling, at least in part because the market for holiday rentals has collapsed as the Brits are staying home in their negative-equity homes. South Africa is also feeling the impact.

Silvester takes quite a bit of time to talk to financial institutions, partly because they have been the catalyst of the financial crisis and the subsequent recession, and because this is where consumers have most to lose (savings, retirement funds, homes and cars through repossessions).

When losing large sums of money, investors grieve in stages, says Silvester, starting with denial. Losses remain on paper, unreal, something yet to be faced. Next comes anger. Silvester believes much of the world is still in this phase, as indicated by the aggression shown financial institutions in Europe and the US, with politicians and the media piling in on corporate excess.

In any case, anger fits standard consumer mentality, and we don’t accept any part of the blame (even though it takes two to tango). Silvester says consumers have gone passive-aggressive – business can’t put a foot wrong or they’ll meet a backlash.

Bargaining is the next phase of the recession when investors and consumers will attempt to salvage what they can and look for alternatives. Anybody noticed that Financial Mail marked no-frills bank Capitec’s shares as ‘buy’? Step four is the big sulk, when consumers prefer staying at home, and the party people pack away their dancing shoes. Finally, there’s acceptance, when investors look at their financial position without reference to past losses, indicating the worst is over. Rather depressingly, he notes that during the 1929 meltdown the acceptance phase didn’t happen until the 1940s!

Silvester sees a number of key changes occurring during the current crisis. Digital technology offers opportunities to gain an edge in the market and becomes more important as analogue media starts to fade. Your media department would have noticed titles dropping out of publication – you’ll need to rethink your media planning in the year ahead. Brands, aware of costs, will sharpen targeting. The Internet offers opportunity in demassification of consumer tastes and products offering opportunities for smaller enterprises.

Black is back, writes Silvester in AAAGH!, as it was during the recessions of the early 80s and 90s. “Expect unrealistic dreams of wealth to gain social currency,” writes Silvester, as people like a bit of glitz in recessions. The recession will drive many people to seek out discounts, resulting in entire product categories becoming commoditized.

Financial service providers now need to rebuild trust with their consumers from a base of zero.

In his book Silvester provides some guidelines to financial services that are also relevant to the other industries. He says accept it’s not business as usual – it won’t ever quite be again. Go back to explaining the basics, as people are re-educating themselves from scratch. Reduce complexity, keep innovating, offer greater education to customers on the products you sell, and don’t demand too much numeracy. “It comes as a surprise to most people that if a stock rises by one hundred percent and then falls by fifty, they have not made any money.”

Finally, Silvester offers business one key piece of advice. “In recessions, consumerres are above all anxious, confused and unhappy. Brands that recognize this can prosper.”

WIN one of ten signed copies of AAAGH!: A Deep Recession Changes Everything by Simon Silvester. Simply email us with you name and address details and put the title’s name in the subject line to stand a chance of winning one of ten signed copies. UPDATE: COMPETITION CLOSED. THANK YOU.