Q5: That South African guy in Kiwi adland, Gary Steele [interview]

by Carey Finn (@carey_finn) We spoke to South African-born, acclaimed adman, Gary Steele (@garysteele30), about his new role as executive creative director of DDB New Zealand, and what things are like down there. He served in the same capacity at TBWA\Singapore from April 2016 to April this year.

Q5: Let’s start with the question on everyone’s lips: why the move way down south?
Gary Steele: There’s a simple answer to that. The opportunity to create more of the amazing work that New Zealand is known for creating, plus the opportunity to work with Damon Stapleton [another SA export promoted this month to DDB regional chief creative officer for Australia and New Zealand (AUNZ)— ed-at-large] and the talented team here at DDB. You put those two things together and it was a pretty simple decision to make.

Q5: What do you hope to achieve in your new role at DDB?
GS: Iconic work. I know it’s a clichéd answer but it’s the reason why I do what I do and why I have decided to move to DDB New Zealand. With the talented team here, I know we can create the iconic work that I want to make — work that not only separates us from others in the industry but, more importantly, is the work that helps us carve out spaces for our clients to be more successful.

Q5: Word is that New Zealand’s advertising and marketing industry is one to watch, though it has a few challenges. What’s your take on that — both the potential and the obstacles?
GS: I have been watching New Zealand for quite some time now and it is a very interesting market, filled with innovation and creativity. The way problems are solved here seems to be a little different from the rest of the world. I believe one of the main reasons for this is due to the size of the market, as it is small enough to fail and move on without worrying about it too much. This means the Kiwi attitude of giving it a go and seeing what happens really shines through, and that is the best ingredient you can have when it comes to trying new things and experimenting with new ideas.

Obstacle-wise, I would say would be the very thing that makes it successful is the same thing that is in the way. The size of the market and the ability to scale ideas further than the shores here is harder. Great ideas travel; it’s just they really need to travel a lot further from here.

Q5: What do you expect the biggest adjustment to being, living and working in New Zealand?
GS: The weather, especially after living in a 34°C tropical climate in Asia for the past 11 years. Besides the drop in temperature, the main thing I [have needed] to get into quite quickly [has been] the cultural understandings and sensitivities that I [need] to know before diving in to solve any problems that our clients may be facing.

Q5: It wouldn’t be right to end off without a quick chat about the Safety Journey video you oversaw for Singapore Airlines. Could you tell us how the concept came about, and what your team did to execute it so brilliantly?
GS: The safety video is something I am extremely proud of for a few reasons. First was the way the team made it beautiful with the amazing craft and attention to detail on a script that didn’t have much movement from a legal point of view. The final piece could not have been achieved without the amazing eye of Nicole Ackermann, another South African; she managed to bring this script to life in the most-beautiful way possible.

The second part of why this piece makes me proud is the fact that we were instrumental in creating a working partnership between Singapore Airlines and Singapore Tourism. They had never worked in collaboration before, and it was the success and love for this film that we created that has now sparked a partnership leading to some more amazing work which we will see coming soon.

 

Carey FinnCarey Finn (@carey_finn) is a writer and editor with 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 new regular column “Q5” aims to hone in on strategic insights, analysis and data through punchy interviews with experts in media, marketing and design.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Media Redefined: Why underarm serves don’t win tennis matches

by Martin MacGregor (@MartMacG) The trick to media presentations is articulating what brands are trying to achieve and how they are going to do it. It seems simple but, too often, tactics (the how) are discussed first and strategy (the what) is, at best, retrofitted. The result is normally failed campaigns.

Nadal vs Kyrgios

The Wimbledon final was brilliant, but the best match this year was Rafa Nadal vs Nick Kyrgios. It was a classic. Poster Boy vs Bad Boy. Fifteen-time Major winner vs a huge unfulfilled talent with no majors and a very bad attitude. In the first two sets, it was clear Kyrgios had decided on two tactics to get the better of the Nadal:

  1. Complain to the umpire as much as possible about how long he was taking to serve.
  2. Take advantage of how deep he received a serve and try the legal, but unsportsmanlike, underarm serve.

For a while, he succeeded. Kyrgios won the second set and Nadal admitted afterwards that he became flustered and lost concentration. It was brilliant and compelling viewing, and the crowd loved it. Nadal, however, had a tried-and-tested strategy and was more than mentally tough enough. He stuck to his long-term game plan and the game slowly turned in his favour. When it was all over, it felt like it had never really been in doubt. Nadal knew what he was doing and wore him down in a way that was not immediately obvious.

Kyrgios had some brilliant tactics but the man with the better strategy won.

My first media brief

I still remember my first media brief from a client. I was a fresh graduate, high on the idealistic and intellectual world I had studied in, and certain that I’d be given business problems to solve with smart thinking and ideas. I stared in shock as the client listed the media he wanted to be on, the stations and titles that he felt would work and exactly how much money I could spend on each medium.

I capitulated and did as I was told.

I did soon learn that it was vital to push back at the briefing that my revert might or might not include the proposed tactics. My war against tactic prescriptive briefs has never abated. I like to see every media presentation as telling a story. And, like a good story, it needs a proper set up and overall theme. Too often, I see presentations which jump straight into the tactical detail. A story can’t be understood by only reading a few chapters.

Strategy vs tactics

Why the obsession with trying to separate strategy and tactics? Strategy is defined as “a plan designed to achieve a long-term or overall plan”, tactics as “an action planned to achieve a specific end”. Strategy thinks long-term, tactics short-term.

Every media presentation should lay out both a smart long-term strategy and high-impact, short-term tactics. Smart tactics may certainly make inroads, but underarm serves won’t win a tennis match.

 

Martin MacGregorMartin MacGregor (@MartMacG) is managing director of Connect, an M&C Saatchi Company, with offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Martin has spent 18 years in the industry, and has previously worked at Ogilvy and was MD of MEC Nota Bene in Cape Town. He contributes the monthly “Media Redefined” column, in which he challenges norms in the media space, to MarkLives.com.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Young, Gifted & Killing It: Nomaswazi Phumo

by Veli Ngubane (@TheNduna) This month, we interview the Soweto-born and -raised strategist, Nomaswazi Phumo (@NomaswaziPhumo), who shares with us her routine for solving some complex brand problems through her kickass strategy.

Veli Ngubane: Tell us more about yourself: where did you grow up and what did you want to be when you were growing up?
Nomaswazi Phumo: I call Soweto home; I love that place, shucks! I grew up in Protea North ikasi lama kasi (I said what I said) and also spent a huge chunk of my formative years in Zola 3 at my grandmother’s. Growing up, I’ve always wanted to be in communications and very early on I fell in love with journalism. The dream then was to become a war correspondent; I was always so intrigued at how journalists would remain so composed during critical times (a trait I also possess). Oh ja, and also this one time, I actually wanted to be Miss SA; I was a full-on pageant girl.

VN: Tell us what you do and what does a typical day look like for you?
NP: I am a strategist at M&C Saatchi Abel Johannesburg. My days are never the same and that’s the best part. To give you a very rough picture, it is catching up on current affairs. Thinking, lots of reviews. Thinking, robust conversations in studio (and laughs). Thinking, research, building hot strat decks, more thinking and kicking ass.

VN: What are the core ingredients that make a great strategist?
NP: A great strategist is interested; you have to want to know. It’s also vital that you love solving because it’s simple: we solve business problems. And be a good listener all around, keep your ear on the ground and fall madly in love with the consumer.

VN: There is a buzz word “culture” in referring to the youth market: what is culture and how can brands align with the culture?
NP: For me, culture is who we are; it stems from values and beliefs and people hold their values dear. You cannot tell someone about their culture; that’s invasive. Brands need to engage, observe and navigate; it’s all about the conversations and the journey.

VN: What are brands doing right in their pursuit to win over the youth?
NP: Brands are certainly trying but is it enough? Now that’s the real question. As it stands, there are a lot of boxes being ticked by brands — not enough bold moves — it still all feels, looks and is safe. The youth audience is very audacious; brands definitely need to stretch themselves and not just strive to get it ‘right’ — they need to kill it.

VN: How can the creative industry attract and keep more black female creatives?
NP: The attraction is not the problem. Trust me, we are interested; we are available; we are capable. Just hire us! When it comes to keeping black female creatives, representation matters. Having someone that looks like me at the top who deserves to be there because they’re actually dope and consistently show up should also not be discounted.

VN: Why do you think the advertising industry is struggling to transform and what do you think should be done to fast-track transformation in the advertising and events industry?
NP: First, the advertising industry needs to stop treating diversity and transformation as a trend. There are too many conversations around transformation in our industry and very little action. If this is a cause we all believe in, then let us rally the troops — let’s get something going — we have a responsibility to be part of the change. I mean, we do this for brands every single day, anyway.

VN: How does the future of advertising look like?
NP: So bright, it’s very exciting. The narrative is changing; such bold, deliberate and provocative work is starting to come out. I’m here for it. All of it.

VN: What advice would you give someone completing their high-school education this year and looking to follow a career in the creative industry?
NP: Be interested. Always ask why. Read anything and everything.

VN: What do you feel is missing in the creative industry today?
NP: Definitely the Heart. A lot of people are in the industry because they just are: very little passion, too much of everything else. You have to love this creative industry, especially on the days it doesn’t love you back.

VN: Where and when do you have your best ideas?
NP: Mostly in bed in the [mornings]; this will explain the permanent eyebags. Akulalwa (there’s no time for sleep).

VN: If you had a superpower, what would you want it to be?
NP: I’d love to be able to fly. I’m an observer (basically, a people-watcher) — imagine being able to observe at aeriel view. An actual dream.

VN: Tell us something about yourself not generally known?
NP: I sing really well; I’m a mean second alto.

VN: What exciting projects are you working on at the moment?
NP: Working on something really special you’ll know soon.

 

Veli NgubaneVeli Ngubane (@TheNduna) entered the world of advertising with a passion after completing his BSocSci (law, politics and economics) at UCT and a post-graduate marketing diploma at Red & Yellow, where he’s currently advisory board chairman. He also sits on the IAB’s Transformation & Education Council, is a DMA board member and Loeries, APEX, Pendoring, Bookmarks and AdFocus. He is the group MD of AVATAR and co-founder of M&N Brands, which is building an African network of agencies to rival the global giants. In his monthly column “Young, Gifted & Killing It”, he profiles award-winning, kick-ass black creative talent in South Africa.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Gestalt: Coopetition vs attrition — it’s about the customer!

by Leeya Hendricks (@LeeyaHendricks) Increasingly fierce competition forces companies to become more creative and flexible in giving customers exactly what they demand — and to perform better and faster than your biggest competition.

A major recent announcement by my organisation brought an extreme form of customer-centricity home to me: the need for competitive partnerships when it’s in the best interests of the customer. When we launched a joint solution and collaborative partnership with a long-standing competitor, we did so to gain competitive advantage over a larger competitor and rival. It’s not simply a response to the power of competition; more importantly, it recognises the power of the customer to take their business elsewhere.

More, better, faster

Creating a partnership with customers (and, yes, even competitors) will help keep your organisation focused on making good decisions and enable you to harness the power and drive to overcome the ups and downs we’ve come to expect today.

In short, partnering with both competitors and customers is your firm’s chance to better anticipate what your customers need, even before they know it.

Leading the charge

It’s important to reconnect with the fact that only corporate leaders have the means and influence to change an organisation’s make-up, design new strategies and steer it in a new direction. Therefore, it’s vital that leaders be in regular and direct contact with customers (and remain aware of the need to identify possible competitive partnerships).

Next up, it’s important to realise that the more you do for customers to differentiate yourself from the competition, the harder it is to find the line that separates you from them.

You are, in fact, integrating yourself into your customer’s operations and becoming virtually integral to their success.

Virtual integration: how does it work?

Many companies, notably manufacturers, strive to become virtual companies today, owning only the brand and the customer and no industry-specific capital assets to the ultimate benefit of every member of this extended supply chain.

Virtual integration forces a move from the ‘built-in’ vertical integration of traditional manufacturers — where supplier-customer relationships are arms-length and adversarial — to an environment based on closer relationships and ‘negotiated sourcing’.

Here, non-core activities are outsourced by the manufacturer and collaborative partnerships with the customer are normal, creating an ecosystem where customers co-create and see the results and benefits of offerings.

Calculated risk & reward

Ultimately, the objective is to ensure your customers get the best value from your offering, and if partnering with them (or your competitor to go up against a rival) will achieve the best outcomes for your customers, then taking a calculated and innovative strategic risk is the way to go!

 

Leeya HendricksLeeya Hendricks (@LeeyaHendricks) is a designated chartered marketer, global marketing strategist, digital driver and a Women in Tech leader. She holds a BA degree in fine arts, a BA honours degree in brand marketing management, an MBA in business management and is completing her PhD in management sciences, focusing on the customer and business transformation. She is now director of customer first marketing at ORACLE UKI, responsible for driving customer success through customer advocacy, and building strategic partnerships focused on emerging technology and the changed customers’ buying behaviour. Leeya contributes the monthly column “Gestalt”, about putting customers first for sustainable business success, to MarkLives.

MarkLives logo— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

#AgencyFocus: HKLM on building a pan-African agency

by Sabrina Forbes. The idea to build a pan-African agency was conceived in Lagos, over a beer, by its four founding partners, explains Jonathan Houston, HKLM Connect GM. With offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Gaborone, Lagos, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and Accra, Houston believes HKLM has truly in-depth knowledge of what it takes to work on the continent. Currently, approximately 50% of the agency’s clients is outside South Africa.

Jonathan Houston
Jonathan Houston, HKLM Connect GM

Pan-African

“That’s quite telling in our journey,” he says, “that the agency [idea] was conceived out[side] of SA, which I think has led to a lot of what our growth has been and our focus on being pan-African and working around the continent. I think we can put that down to a couple of things. We tend to be quite brave and pioneering and entrepreneurial in the way that we do things. We’re not scared to go and understand how business is done in Nigeria, in Kenya etc… We’re continually investing in our African journey. We’re spending a lot of time consciously being in various African markets and focusing on driving our growth in this new realm.”

While there are still people who view Africa as one homogenous market, this obviously isn’t the case. Not only is each country fundamentally different to the next, the subsets within each country (and within a city) make understanding the markets much trickier.

Warns Houston, “If you try and take a SA mindset there, you will fail. It fundamentally will not work. Not only for the reasons of ‘we don’t want to be colonised in business’ in terms of anything but our way of doing things is just so different. You can’t go there with a super [western world], super SA mindset of clock-watching.” In SA, if you have a meeting at 2pm and you’re not there by 2.10pm, there’s no way you’re getting the business. In Lagos, your meeting may be for 2pm but your clients will see you when they’re ready to see you. If that means they’re only ready at 6pm, you’d better still be there.

HKLM portfolio
Go to HKLM’s portfolio.

Intricate cultural elements

Understanding the intricate cultural elements of each market has been a fundamental reason that HKLM has experienced the success it has in both East and West Africa. Another is being capable of moving with the ebbs and flows of clients’ businesses and accepting that something more important will always come up when you least expect it. He also points out that sending a presentation or a proposal via email is rarely acceptable; you have to physically be there, presenting it in person.

According to Houston, the success of HKLM in Nigeria is the cornerstone of where and how it has grown outside SA. It believes that doing well is based on long-term relationships, not simply transactional connections. Also, having people on the ground is important as they literally speak the language of the region; finding a partner in every market has been an invaluable way HKLM has managed to keep up with changes when it hasn’t itself been present.

The agency has had equal success in Ethiopia by meeting with people and understanding their needs. “[But an] Ethiopian solution is not an East African solution; it’s an Ethiopian solution. The same for Rwanda — it’s got to be fit for their specific country, their specific need, and their specific purpose,” says Houston.

HKLM team 2019

Three pillars

HKLM started as a core branding business offering strategy, design, and communications and, over the years, has layered that with different offerings. Currently, the agency is made up of three pillars:

  1. HKLM Exchange — integrated reporting
  2. HKLM Connect —branding and marketing services
  3. HKLM Ideas —3D branding and architecture

Its current journey is to push clients to understand what the future of branding looks like as technological advancements in internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) are changing the way branding needs to be done.

While branding has always been more strategic and “five-years-down-the-line-focused”, timelines are getting closer and the world is changing faster than ever before, so how are companies reacting to remain relevant? “We’re pushing to understand how can we align brands quicker with the change when this change is not coming from the inside [but] the outside. It’s an interesting place to play in. It’s uncomfortable, not only for clients but for us as well, because our history has always been [that] we get traditional brand[ing] and now there’s this new world and new way of thinking,” he says.

Favourite work

MUA rebrand by HKLM MUA rebrand by HKLM
When asked what current work he’s most proud of, Houston picks Mauritius Union Assurance. The multi-country project saw it having to reintroduce the insurance company into its existing markets in Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, where the company name had been changed to Phoenix. The client needed a strategy to help unify its brands across the market and position it to grow into more African countries, as well as aligning all existing products and services under one brand umbrella. Because each country had its own style and nationalistic sense of pride, the HKLM team had to find a way to position the company away from being Mauritian; it finally decided on the holding company’s acronym and renamed all four markets to MUA.

The longest relationship in the HKLM client stable is its 14-year journey with Nedbank. Houston shares that the relationship is incredibly important to the agency and has loved to witness how the agency and brand have grown together over the years. It is currently working on positioning Nedbank as a truly pan-African bank.

HKLM logo
hklmgroup.com

  • Office locations: Joburg, Cape Town, Gaborone, Lagos, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Accra
  • Revenue band: R70–80m
  • Staff count: : 22 (with a large ecosystem of contractors)
  • Key clients: Nedbank, Exxaro, University of Johannesburg, Anglo American, Glencore, Tswalu, Singita, Glo, Conoil
  • Services: Brand strategy & design, information design, communication strategy & design, advertising, investor relations, internal brand engagement, change management, experiential branding

See also

 

Sabrina Forbes“#Agency/BrandFocus” is an ongoing weekly series updating the market on ad agency performance, including business performance, innovation, initiatives, the work, awards and people.

Sabrina Forbes (IG) is an experienced writer covering the food, health, lifestyle, beverage, marketing and media industries. She runs her own full-stack web/app development and digital-first content creation company. For more, go to moonwrench.com. She is a contributing writer to MarkLives.com.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Five tips for effective performance marketing on Facebook

by Sky Littlefield. Facebook has become a marketing playground, where nary a scroll can be done without seeing an advert. What with every business out there trying to get their content seen as the biggest, brightest fish in the sea, you need to apply a few techniques to ensure you’re reaching the right people.

Know who your target market is

Data is at the forefront of any marketing campaign, and it helps your brand to understand which audiences you’re reaching where and when. If you’re new to performance marketing, the easiest way to gather audience data is by using a pixel which you can install on your website, and which will work for both Facebook and Instagram.

You have the option to track page views, standard events, and custom events. Each of these allows you to build an audience that you can then plug into your campaigns for the desired effect. For example, a standard event may be created from website users who have added a product to their basket; you may then turn this into a custom event by creating a parameter for “without purchase”. If someone has added a product to their basket, they’re already high-intent users, so now it’s up to your digital marketing team to ensure they complete the sale. Let’s call this person “user one”.

Choose the correct budget and spend method

When you’re setting up your campaign, it’s easy to click on “lifetime budget” under ad sets, because this method allows your campaign to run with very little engagement required from you. However, this is not ideal for performance marketing. Your campaigns should always be set to “daily budget”, as this allows for granular control and optimal spend with the option to increase or decrease budget, depending on performance.

But, with Facebook’s recent change to move budget to campaign level, you may still make use of the above method with more control than “lifetime budgets”.

How should you determine your budget?

Let’s say you want 300 product sales from your marketing drive. What is the step before making the sale? It is most likely generating leads. If your predicted conversion rate is 30%, that would mean you need about 1 000 leads to hit the goal of 300 sales.

How big of an audience do I need to reach on Facebook to gather 1 000 leads? Data shows that it is likely that 99% of your target audience will be on Facebook at least once over a period of 90 days. Let’s then assume you will be looking at an average frequency of 10–15 displays per lead, which means you should aim to hit a total ad impression count of 10 000–15 000 (leads x frequency).

Now that you have a target ad impression count, you’ll be able to estimate how much these ad impressions are going to cost you.

Make sure your objective is in line with your business goals

The campaign objective is perhaps the most-important choice you may make for your business because there isn’t any point in running a reach campaign if your ultimate goal is to send people to your website to make a purchase.

Drill down to exactly what you want to achieve; is it awareness, signups, or sales? For the purpose of performance, let’s choose sales. You’ll need to have your pixel and custom conversions, or events, installed correctly to ensure accurate tracking and reporting. With your campaign set up for conversions, Facebook will deliver your ads to the people within your audience who are most likely to make a purchase, be it today or in a week. Don’t forget to check that your conversion window is set to your specifications so your conversions are tracked, and you can report back on your campaign success.

Know your Facebook campaign objectives

  • Brand awareness: This campaign objective is a good option if you’d like more people to find out about your brand. You can also use this objective to drive more traffic to your website.
  • Reach: Use this objective if your goal is to reach the maximum number of audience members repeatedly over a shorter period of time. This could be a good option when promoting limited-time offers or when creating remarketing campaigns.
  • Traffic: Select this objective when your goal is to lead people to your website or blog, and there aren’t specific actions you wish them to take.
  • Post engagement: With this objective, Facebook will show your ads to people who are’re most likely to like, share, and comment on your post at the lowest-possible cost.
  • Video views: These ads are great for targeting cold audiences as they’re engaging and help to increase brand awareness.
  • Lead generation: Select this option if you’re interested in creating Facebook “Lead Ads” and getting people to give you their contact details in exchange for downloadable content. Instead of sending users to your website, a lead form pops up which allows you to collect information such as names, emails, phone numbers, etc directly on Facebook.
  • Messages: This is Facebook’s newest campaign objective and it’s optimised to have your audiences start a conversation with your Facebook page. “Message” ads may be effectively used to increase awareness as well as make sales, RSVP to events, and many other goals you may have.
  • Conversions: This is Facebook’s most popular campaign objective as it’s optimised to deliver new leads or purchases. “Conversion” ads are aimed to increase sales, signups, purchases or other desired actions on your website.

Split your ad sets into targeting segments so you know what’s working

To reach ‘user one’, you need to ensure their almost-purchase doesn’t leave their minds. To do this, you split their interests into two ad sets; one is set up on the custom add-to-cart event created, and one is created via page views to deliver similar products.

By allowing these two ad sets to compete against each other, you’ll soon see which one has better-performing targeting. This allows your budget to be put to better use, and will drive user one to complete their purchase, and perhaps even buy a similar product.

While remarketing to your higher-intent users will be your main drive, don’t forget about your prospecting audience. This audience will consist of new users and lookalike audiences, who will fall into very similar segments as user one. And, since we know user one is already interested in your products, these lookalikes will be similar and more open to purchasing.

Test different creatives against each other

What works better: stills, gifs, or videos? This is a fairly broad question and the answer will depend on who you’re targeting and what you’re selling. As a general rule of thumb, try to use motion wherever possible; videos and gifs grab attention far quicker than stills do.

Let’s use footwear as an example. If your aim is to sell a pair of hiking shoes, make use of creatives showing the different applications of the shoes: mountain climbing in the Drakensberg, easy hiking in Cape Town, and a standard fitness shot in Joburg should provide enough iterations to appeal to each specific user. Even better, when you’re allowing the platform to run these ads against each other, they will automatically be optimised to the best performing, ensuring your most-successful ad is the most seen.

Always keep in mind that performance marketing is all about your audience data, as this data is what allows you to deliver your ads to the right people. Marketing is no longer about spraying and praying, but rather about casting a few very specific lines into a very big ocean.

 

Skye LittlefieldSkye Littlefield is the social specialist at Hoorah Digital Consultancy. She specialises in paid social media strategies and campaign implementation.

“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.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

SA TV Ratings: SABC 3 — primetime top 20 for May 2019

by MarkLives (@marklives) The hottest primetime shows on SABC 3 in South Africa revealed: TV ratings for May 2019.

SABC 3 logoSABC 3, May 2019

Top 20 Programmes All Adults 15+
May Prime Time 5.30pm—10pm
Adults 15+ years U:35737 S:8500

Source: BRCSA May 2019

Day

Date

From

To

Station

Programme title

Genre

AR

Viewers

Share
Fri 24/05/2019 1900 1929 S3 Isidingo:the Need Soap 2.58 925 431 7
Sun 12/05/2019 1836 1929 S3 Safari Live Docu 2.23 796 257 7
Sun 12/05/2019 1801 1835 S3 Premier League Wrap Spor 2.12 755 246 7.4
Thur 30/05/2019 1200 1916 S3 Icc Cricket World Cup 2019 England vs So Spor 1.95 699 405 9.1
Sun 12/05/2019 1600 1800 S3 English Premier League Brighton vs Manch Spor 1.85 661 119 8.1
Sat 18/05/2019 1747 2010 S3 Fa Cup:Manchester City vs Watford Spor 1.34 477 187 4.2
Sat 25/05/2019 1759 1901 S3 Top Billing Maga 1.29 461 671 4.2
Mon 20/05/2019 1930 2014 S3 Survivor:Kaoh Rong Real 1.15 412 009 3
Sun 19/05/2019 1729 1829 S3 Mela Maga 1.11 395 953 4.2
Sat 04/05/2019 1900 1956 S3 Who Wants to be a Millionaire Real 1.09 388 506 3.5
Sat 11/05/2019 2100 2129 S3 News News 1 356 232 4.1
Sun 26/05/2019 1930 2024 S3 The Traffickers Docu 0.98 352 597 3
Sat 11/05/2019 2130 2319 S3 Race to Witch Mountain Movi 0.93 332 352 6.1
Sat 18/05/2019 1730 1744 S3 Fa Cup Build and Wrap up 2019 Spor 0.89 319 067 3.7
Wed 01/05/2019 1930 2027 S3 Don’t Tell the Bride Maga 0.89 316 570 2.4
Sun 05/05/2019 1930 2022 S3 Knight Life with Gladys Real 0.88 314 242 2.7
Thur 23/05/2019 1630 1730 S3 Afternoon Express Maga 0.86 306 467 4.2
Thur 09/05/2019 1730 1758 S3 Election Special News 0.85 304 788 3.3
Wed 01/05/2019 2132 2226 S3 Navy Ncis Dram 0.81 289 357 3.8
Thur 30/05/2019 1916 1929 S3 Music Musi 0.79 283 173 2.1

 

Broadcast Research Council of South AfricaThe Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA) is a non-profit, industry body that was incorporated in 2015 to cater to the audience research needs of the radio and television industry in South Africa. In 2016, it changed its policy about giving away TAMS and now only monthly reports, highlighting the top 20 or 30 primetime shows on several popular channels, are available.

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

CCO Pete Case to leave Ogilvy at end of year

by MarkLives (@marklives) Pete Case, Ogilvy South Africa chief creative officer, has resigned and will be leaving the agency at the end of 2019. Case merged the digital agency he founded, Gloo, with Ogilvy in 2014.

Ogilvy logo“There’s never a right time to leave Ogilvy,” says Case in a statement issued by Ogilvy SA. “It’s a great place to work — with amazing people and a wonderful spread of clients. But, after 30 years in advertising, I’ve decided it’s time to take a break and get involved in something new. I leave the creative product in the hugely capable hands of Tseliso Rangaka and Matt Barnes, alongside a deeply talented management team — so I have no doubt that the foundations that we’ve created together will stay strong.

“Signal of strength”

“Our recent business wins are a signal of the strength in our team, our portfolio of work and our offering. I’m most proud of two things in my time here. Firstly, seeing so many great people grow, and secondly being part of so much amazing work that’s worked. Our Grand Prix at APEX last week underlines this. The Ogilvy belief in work that is highly creative, while also having a strong commercial impact, is embedded deep in the veins of our teams here. This will remain a strong differentiator that drives the business from strength to strength.”

Case has been part of Ogilvy’s global 15-member Worldwide Creative Council and, during his time at the SA agency, it has won four Grands Prix at Cannes and five consecutive Grands Prix at Loeries.

 

MarkLives logo— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Dear Radio: Fresh content could land you in trouble

by Paulo Dias (@therealptp) We all know there is a small but vocal number of people waiting for everyone from any walk of life to say the wrong thing and, in radio, this is becoming especially damaging.

“Vanillafication”

My colleagues and I often talk about the “vanillafication” of radio content. We’ve all heard it. It’s ok, pleasant; everyone kind of likes it — but you won’t remember it five minutes from now. What makes this lack of flavor in the majority of radio content surprising is that presenters today are being placed in slots because of their ability to create engaging content on a number of platforms, not just their radio shows.

Perhaps their knowledge of social platforms is the reason for their being so cagey because they’re closer than ever to the exact audience waiting to pounce on anything that veers left of their own opinions.

By now we all know the DJ Fresh situation but the whole series of events that led to his losing his job was sparked by his trying to push interesting content. What followed and its merits aren’t what I want to debate but should Fresh rather have run through a song back announce, weather and time check to ensure job security?

Absolutely not.

Job on the line

He owes his audience more than that but, at this point in time, the minute controversy is sparked, you’re now literally putting your job on the line. If a leading presenter can be sacrificed for sparking diverse content, what are youngsters getting into the game thinking right now?

Fresh will be ok but anyone doing a graveyard shift, who’s had an off-centre content idea recently, probably quickly shelved it for a “what’s trending” Twitter feature.

If something offensive is said by a presenter, by all means, there needs to be repercussions but a precedent is being set. Everyone wants to push the boundaries but if the boundaries are being narrowed, it’s not leaving room to innovate and experiment. The result will turn people away from the medium.

Boring

Now what’s worse: losing a few listeners because they can’t appreciate that you have an opinion?

Or losing listeners because you’re boring?

 

Paulo DiasPaulo Dias (@therealptp) is the head of creative integration at Ultimate Media. He works closely with the programming teams at leading radio stations to help implement commercial messaging into their existing formats. He contributes the regular column, “Dear Radio”, looking at the changing radio landscape in South Africa, to MarkLives.com

— Sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify.biz headlines, emailed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

Online CPD Courses Psychology Online CPD Courses Marketing analytics software Marketing analytics software for small business Business management software Business accounting software Gearbox repair company Makeup artist