African Echo: Of litmus tests, playgrounds & waste collectors

by Taazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) Watching kids on the playground or working together in the classroom may shape your insights in a truly marvelous way. They work together and they make friends or are open to doing so without judgement pretty quickly. Their ability to focus on a given task is strong, and they typically don’t overthink any of it at all. Why is this important?

First we need to digress…

Litmus test

Someone once told me that how a business treats its most-menial supplier or employee outside of a public eye is pretty much the best litmus test for the true moral compass of that business. Albert Einstein famously once said: “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

One might argue the need for morality or even basic human kindness isn’t the purpose of a business, or even why one goes into business. Try as one might to argue it, a healthy (or healthier than healthy) bottom line is the biggest target of any entrepreneur, with other ambitions coming in thereafter. But, in my few years of being in the vocational jungle — and it is very much a jungle — I still can’t get my head around the fact that some see good relationship practice and a healthy business as mutually exclusive.

Don’t get me wrong; there are cut-throat businesses doing just fine in the world, and “good” businesses batting no higher than mediocre. But every life lesson to date points to prioritising relationships with every possible stakeholder, suppliers included.

Business of building relationships

And yet, ask anyone in our industry — marketing and communications — and they will argue it is among the biggest pain points. Of course, I might be biased, for working in public relations inherently tells you to focus on the business of communications and relations, but I would argue everyone, regardless of sector or industry, is also in the business of building relationships.

Suppliers, regulators and others stand to influence one’s business just as much as the employees and clients of a business. Each are to be invested in almost equally, lest the proverbial structure collapse. In this way, we are all, at heart, relationship-builders.

So, back to the kids in the playground …

There’s likely a little bully somewhere and, yet, even the other kids will know that it won’t get them far to behave in the same manner. They are taught, even conditioned, to see that “playing nice” is what will get you ahead. And it doesn’t deter from the need to play cleverly, either.

Acknowledgement & appreciation

So, in the real working world, how are we investing in our relationships? How are we actively working to build better relationships towards better business? I’m not suggesting there’s a single answer or solution, and surely there’s no single silver bullet to get the job done, but perhaps the first step ought to be the simple exercise of working to acknowledge the people or entities who stand to make our efforts better or more successful, and appreciate them for it. We need to recognise where we ought to do more and do better, and begin there. Nomsa can’t win at stuck in the mud if she doesn’t have all the other kids who matter helping and rooting for her, maximising shareholder value.

We’re especially guilty of it in the marketing world, for we see the gaping holes and, often, because we’re living right in there, don’t speak up enough to break free of the “you’re the agency, so just do it” state of things. The best agencies or consultancies, like the best businesses, do their best in collaboration and partnership. We see this just looking at examples of amazing work out there. Working with clients, rather than just for clients, and adding value beyond expectation as a result, and making absolute magic because of it.

So, how do we play ‘nicer’ with the other kids in the sandpit, and why aren’t we doing more of that? It could make for better business, stronger industry, and, at the end of the day, better people and better communicators.

Spell the difference

As Stephen Waddington once put it: “It’s an irony of modern corporate communications that investment in reputation will always get cut short term in favour of maximising shareholder value.” But does it have to be? Whether you’re in the comms space or not, it could spell the difference between being a good but profitable business, or being an amazing and profitable business.

Chances are, as a customer, we’d all prefer to sign up with the latter, no? I’d certainly rather not be helped by a playground bully, or someone who doesn’t appreciate their waste collector, even behind closed doors.

 

Taazima Kala-EssackTaazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) is lead consultant at Hotwire PRC, a public relations consultancy aligned with Botswana-based FCB Wired, one of the agencies in the FCB Africa network. African Echo seeks to unpack markets in Africa, highlight business opportunities and share insights into what works and what rebounds.

“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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The Martini Shot: Proudly (and unashamedly) South African

by Bobby Amm. The Proudly South African campaign was launched in 2001 by government, organised business and labour and community organisations to boost job creation and pride in local goods and services. Although it still exists*, its message has been diluted over the years and the commercial production sector is feeling the effects of the shift away from the active support of local businesses and expertise.

Wave of optimism

Proudly SA was arguably one of the most-successful collaborative campaigns ever launched, and its implementation followed a wave of optimism in the early Mbeki years. The catchy slogan was on everyone’s lips in a concerted effort to grow the nascent SA economy. Eighteen years later, the outlook seems very bleak by comparison. The world (and South Africa) is now a different place entirely, following the rise of globalisation, the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the cynicism that that has since emerged and is fuelled by one political crisis after the next.

Enormous global advertising groups have emerged which now actively seek to keep small independent and locally owned business out of the loop, and clients seem no longer particularly interested if their money will find its way back into the local economy or into the pockets of those who now control the global economy.

If SA is to have a future, they should be interested.

Questioning the status quo

When these matters are raised, the predictable response is that we should embrace the “new way of working”, that we should be less parochial and understand that things have changed. “Just get over it and move on”, we are told. Anyone questioning the status quo is made to be small-minded, whereas the real questions should be:

Have things changed for the better or have they simply changed to better suit the few who are benefitting at the expense of everyone else? Has corporate greed escalated to such a level that the people who once made industries great are now simply seen as expendables? And what about the future? Once our industries have been shelled out, what will remain, if anything?

We would like to see a return of the values of Proudly South African to the local advertising industry.

Concerning

It’s concerning to hear that a new trend for some agencies is to take post-production offshore, rather than supporting the local editors and facilities that have served them so well over the years. Similarly, some agencies are now trying to source foreign directors despite dwindling work opportunities for SA directors, which has seen some of them moving on to new career paths. The livelihood of DOPs, crew, actors and a host of other professionals who’re crucial to the process of making commercials may also be under threat.

The lack of foresight as to how trends like these will ultimately undermine the future of advertising production in SA is concerning indeed, and the time has definitely come for a robust debate on how to better protect and sustain our local industry.

*It now has a website where you can buy SA products online.

 

Bobby AmmBobby Amm is chief executive of the Commercial Producers Association of South Africa (CPA), the trade association of production companies that produce television, cinema and internet commercials for the local and international market. After a brief stint in journalism, she began her career in the industry at the Consultative Committee for the Entertainment Industry in the early 1990s. She first joined the CPA in 1997 but left three years later to join a production company. After finding that she missed the big-picture perspective of the CPA and the interesting issues which continuously perplex the production industry, Bobby returned to the CPA in 2003. She contributes “The Martini Shot” column monthly, covering developments, trends and insights into the commercial production and film services industries in South Africa, to MarkLives.

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Adnalysis: Clients & the case for smaller agencies

by Bogosi Motshegwa (@Thinkerneur) Today, being part of a large agency holding network doesn’t offer what it used to and, for clients, it’s becoming more and more expensive to be so aligned.

Flip side

Not that long ago, global alignment came with stature and credibility, and meant that the agency could deliver with peace of mind and possible access to global thinking. The flip side, however, meant that the local agency had a financial responsibility to a global HQ that might be based in New York or London — a need to showcase a healthy book balance.

This is precisely part of the reason the agency model is broken, because the focus then is on trying to save as much money as possible while extracting as much as possible from human resources. Look at the current wave of agency consolidations by the global networks. Big agencies that have their own heritage, credibility, credentials are being merged to forge new entities. These are decisions that aren’t coming from a position of strength — it feels reactionary.

What do clients need?

  • People who can bring big thinking: you don’t need a huge office or a global network to think big
  • Ideas that can travel globally: great ideas aren’t exclusive to experience or big walls — anybody may produce an idea that can spread and have influence
  • Ideas that can connect and resonate with millions of people, one idea at a time

How do clients get that?

  • Clients need to get out of the system of having only the agency of record doing all the work
  • Clients, brands, marketers and decision-makers need to start opening up to collaborating with people outside of the agency partner circle and networks

Myths

How do ad agencies become big? By winning big clients. All the ad agencies that are big now were once small and became large by virtue of being given a chance. Somebody gave them a shot because they showed big thinking.

  • False: Small agencies don’t have capacity to service clients — only big agencies can and do
  • False: Small agencies aren’t able or will not be able to deliver — big agencies can deliver anything and everything

Reality

  • Big agencies only staff and hire more people once they win big accounts. That’s how they become big. They aren’t big because they’re inherently so; they capacitate themselves once they’re certain of a consistent and substantial income. That’s why, when a big account leaves an agency, inevitably retrenchments follow. Therefore, are big agencies really big if they collapse upon one big client leaving?
  • All departments are understaffed and overworked = stretched capacity = inefficiencies
  • They prioritise or deprioritise based on client billings = the bigger the retainer, the more attention that client is likely to get. The smaller the retainer, the less attention and quality (experience) of resources are likely to be given. Clients that have small budgets are generally given to junior teams.
  • Most agencies are driven by the need to produce award-winning work most of the time and, if the brief doesn’t offer the opportunity to do so, then chances are that clients won’t necessarily have experienced people working on their brands and won’t get the attention they deserve. Being a small client means you either get junior people working on your account or you get less time, possibly resulting in compromised thinking and quality.

Clients need people from outside the big agency network to help them grow their brands/businesses

Most people are always talking about how smaller agencies, especially agencies that are black-owned, hardly get opportunities to showcase their abilities. While this is true, what tends to happen is that this conversation only lives at a political level, where it becomes being about BBE (which many believe neither works nor serves black people).

Perhaps, then, what we need to do is shift the conversation from purely being political to being about unlocking and gaining access to creativity.

Why should clients partner with smaller agencies?

To unlock and gain access to creativity.

Smaller ad agencies or creative shops may not have the heritage, the credentials or the financial muscle like big agencies but that has no bearing on the ability to think and produce. Capacity, as mentioned above, is only dependent and determined by the type of clients or account an agency has. The bigger the client, the bigger the chance and opportunity to be bigger.

The advantage smaller agencies have over big ones is that, while the former need money or income, they aren’t necessarily driven by the bottom line — they’re more driven by the insatiable need to produce and be creative. Big agencies don’t actually have the time to work on client business. No brief, no work. Agencies sell time; ironically, there isn’t enough time inside them. Agencies only work with official briefs but the reality brand-building is that every day is an opportunity to craft and refine strategy and creative thinking.

What clients don’t know is that, while big agencies are waiting for briefs, smaller agencies spend more time thinking about their problems, challenges and how those can be overcome creatively. Because smaller shops don’t have big retainer clients, they spend their time looking for clients and, in the process of looking for clients, they spend a lot of time identifying solutions for those they can approach with big thinking and bold ideas.

Untapped creativity

Apart from BEE and doing the right thing, clients which expose themselves to other ways and forms of thinking and executing have an opportunity to gain access to untapped creativity. Yes, clients, especially local ones, have a responsibility to ensure that local suppliers are given an opportunity to work on their brands — and reduce the amount of money that leaves the country. Apart from that, when clients don’t tap into the local talent, they lose out on creative opportunities, the opportunities of being exposed to thinking that is unbound by systems, convention and politics.

I encourage clients to give small agencies a chance to mull over their brands, free from being bogged down by history and ways of working.

What do clients really need? They need to do what is right for their brands, and they need to think long-term and not necessarily in terms of long-term contracts. A brand is everything it does, and not which agency it is with.

 

Bogosi MotshegwaA former committee member of AMASA, an Advisory Council member of Vega School, a guest speaker and lecturer at Vega, Rosebank College, Red & Yellow and Boston Media House, Bogosi Motshegwa (@Thinkerneur) is currently a brand consultant and the founder of Thinkerneur, a brand consultancy firm, and the co-founder of African Strategy Kollective (ASK), a freelance strategy outfit seeking to add value and craft to strategy departments inside ad agencies. His podcast is called The Cut-Thru, All Things Strategy & Brand Building. He contributes the monthly column, “Adnalysis”, which analyses adland from a strategist’s point of view, to MarkLives.com.

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SA TV Ratings: SABC 1 — primetime top 20 for Dec, Nov 2018

by MarkLives (@marklives) The hottest primetime shows on SABC 1 in South Africa revealed: TV ratings for December and November 2018.

SABC 1 logoSABC 1, December 2018

Top 20 Programmes All Adults 15+
December 2018 Prime Time 5.30pm—10pm
Adults 15+ years U:35679 S:8278

Source: BRCSA December 2018

 Day

Date

From

To

Station

Programme title

Genre

AR

Viewers

Share
Mon 10/12/2018 2030 2059 S1 Uzalo Dram 25.1 8 972 550 68
Tue 11/12/2018 2000 2030 S1 Generations the Legacy Soap 22.2 7 903 536 61.5
Mon 10/12/2018 1829 1858 S1 Skeem Saam Dram 18.2 6 497 416 56.8
Mon 10/12/2018 1859 1929 S1 Zulu News News 10.4 3 694 621 31.7
Thur 20/12/2018 1900 1929 S1 Xhosa News News 10.2 3 630 741 33.1
Mon 31/12/2018 2059 2500 S1 Come Duze 2019 Vari 9.6 3 437 861 46.8
Sat 08/12/2018 1803 2130 S1 Telkom Knockout Cup Baroka Fc vs Orlando Spor 9.4 3 365 156 38.3
Sun 30/12/2018 1929 1959 S1 Ikani Dram 8.9 3 175 422 32.3
Wed 12/12/2018 1930 1959 S1 Mina Nawe Dram 8.5 3 042 304 26.3
Tue 11/12/2018 1801 1830 S1 Nyan Nyan Real 8.5 3 041 454 33.8
Mon 10/12/2018 1929 1959 S1 Rented Family Sitc 8.4 3 009 722 24.7
Tue 11/12/2018 1930 1959 S1 Selimathunzi Vari 8.2 2 907 771 24.2
Sat 29/12/2018 1930 2003 S1 Real Goboza Maga 7.7 2 751 884 27.8
Thur 20/12/2018 1930 2000 S1 Verified Quiz 7.6 2 719 875 24.4
Fri 21/12/2018 1931 1959 S1 Live Amp Musi 7.6 2 717 850 26.8
Wed 12/12/2018 2105 2203 S1 Khumbul’ Ekhaya Maga 7.3 2 605 459 25.7
Sun 30/12/2018 2000 2059 S1 Diamond City Dram 7.1 2 517 868 25.3
Mon 10/12/2018 1800 1828 S1 My First Docu 6.9 2 446 927 26.8
Fri 28/12/2018 1800 1830 S1 The Remix Vari 6.7 2 377 026 28.2
Wed 26/12/2018 1929 1959 S1 Toyi Toyi for Zanele Dram 6.5 2 313 257 23.3

 

SABC 1 logoSABC 1, November 2018

Top 20 Programmes All Adults 15+
November 2018 Prime Time 5.30pm—10pm
Adults 15+ years U:35679 S:8540

Source: BRCSA November 2018

 Day

Date

From

To

Station

Programme title

Genre

AR

Viewers

Share
Thur 08/11/2018 2030 2100 S1 Uzalo Dram 27.24 9 719 901 69.5
Tue 13/11/2018 1959 2029 S1 Generations the Legacy Soap 23.99 8 560 513 62.3
Wed 07/11/2018 1830 1859 S1 Skeem Saam Dram 18.8 6 707 465 58.4
Thur 01/11/2018 1900 1929 S1 Xhosa News News 12.11 4 318 848 35
Wed 14/11/2018 1900 1930 S1 Zulu News News 11.41 4 071 814 32.4
Sun 04/11/2018 1931 2000 S1 Ikani Dram 10.12 3 609 728 31.9
Sat 24/11/2018 1502 1730 S1 Telkom Knockout Cup Kaizer Chiefs vs Orl Spor 9.71 3 463 761 42.2
Tue 20/11/2018 1800 1829 S1 Nyan Nyan Real 9.69 3 457 924 35.3
Wed 07/11/2018 2100 2159 S1 Khumbul’ Ekhaya Maga 9.35 3 334 307 31.2
Wed 07/11/2018 1930 1959 S1 Mina Nawe Dram 9.31 3 319 746 26.1
Fri 09/11/2018 1930 2000 S1 Live Amp Musi 9.12 3 253 577 28.8
Tue 13/11/2018 1930 1959 S1 Selimathunzi Vari 9.09 3 243 787 25.1
Mon 05/11/2018 1929 1959 S1 Rented Family Sitc 8.63 3 078 425 25.3
Thur 01/11/2018 1929 1958 S1 Verified Musi 8.57 3 058 821 24.8
Sat 17/11/2018 1930 1959 S1 Real Goboza Maga 8.54 3 047 394 28
Sun 11/11/2018 2000 2100 S1 Diamond City Dram 8.11 2 891 777 25.6
Sat 10/11/2018 1525 1734 S1 Absa Premiership Mamelodi Sundowns vs Or Spor 7.88 2 809 905 35
Wed 07/11/2018 1800 1829 S1 Reno-Race Vari 7.82 2 790 102 28.8
Sat 10/11/2018 1804 1859 S1 Friends Like These Vari 7.81 2 786 698 32.2
Sat 10/11/2018 1735 1803 S1 Kulcha Kwest Vari 6.86 2 447 201 29.9

In 2016, the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA) 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.

 

Broadcast Research Council of South AfricaThe Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (the BRC) 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.

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#BigQ2019: Digital means adland must adopt disruptor’s mindset

by Prakash Patel (@PrakashPatel_1) My expectations for 2019 centre on the theme of transformation — transformation of our industry, our skills, our approach, our consumers, our services and, of course, digital transformation.

The changing landscape

Agencies now have real competition from consultancies, which are most definitely encroaching on what was once owned by agencies. Due to digital transformation and the battle to own the customer experience, we have savvy consumers telling us what they want and even owning the brand’s voice. #WordOfMouth is being replaced by #WordByShares and WordByReviews; we have tech giants that now own the largest advertising budgets; we have one-year-old companies that are successfully challenging one-hundred-year-old businesses and disrupting entire industries; we have technological advancement that allows us to do anything from our mobile phones; we have augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) blending into our daily lives and stimulating our senses; and artificial intelligence (AI) driving customer services and engagement for brands.

The impossible has now become possible. The only limitation is our thinking and mindset.

1. Transformation of our industry

It was quoted by the FT that, for the first time since the 2008 recession that sent the advertising industry, like so many others industries, into a downward spiral, advertising’s biggest agencies — WPP, Publicis, Omnicom and Interpublic Group — have all been stalling. Yet over the years, global consultancies such as Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, PWC, KPMG and McKinsey are aggressively growing their share of advertising-wallet and adland by buying up agencies and transforming our industry and the marketing world as we know it.

One of the driving forces is that we had two very different offerings by agencies and consultancies, now colliding in the corridor of C-suite executive offices. This has been motivated by the needs of clients which are now seeking more of an holistic solution around digital disruption and transformation that includes customer centricity and customer experience (CX) at the heart of the solution. This is the ultimate prize both agencies and consultancies want to own.

I think we will see more acquisition — will we even see in 2019 one of the big consultancies not just buying up smaller agencies to bolster its services but an entire global network agency?

2. Transforming from mad men to humble persons

Once the undisputed heroes of marketing and branding from the heydays of mad men pushing one-way messaging, the industry has transformed with the explosion of digital marketing, social media platforms, informed and opinionated consumers with voices; we’re no longer the ones who own the brand or marketing. Consumers do!

Our agency role is to become meaningful again, and business-focused like our consultancy counterparts.

We need to become trusted and valued business transformation partners to our clients in today’s complex digital world. — Prakash Patel

We need to also become more skilled beyond advertising and creativity, and be humbled by the opportunity that lies ahead, to become valued and trusted business partners and experts in the digital age — experts in ensuring that our clients can embrace, innovate, navigate, and transform their business models, products, services and customer experience to become digital-first and not simply their creative advertising or digital marketing partners.

3. Skills

These skills include everything, from digital transformation (from a business perspective), customer experience (nothing is more valuable), through to data (big or small), analytics (insights), enterprise and apps (today’s consumers on the go), product development (think Apple and Uber), technology stacks (think Cloud) and internet of things (IoT — think Amazon), to ensure that our clients can keep up with the evolving digital world and allow them to communicate with today’s consumers in real-time, in the now-moments, who use multiple devices, from anywhere and operate in an omnichannel world that has no lines.

4. Driving innovation

As a member of the advisory board for SWSX Interactive Innovations Awards, I’ve seen examples of innovation and digital disruption in its truest and most-genius of senses, customer experiences that would literally blow your mind — from new products and services solving decades-old problems and educational usage of AI to help Alzheimer’s sufferers through to medical breakthroughs in health and care using AR, or VR to stimulate our senses for travel, and some of the most-advanced AI bots, products and services solving customer experiences at every conceivable level.

None of these is what we would call advertising or marketing. They are innovative solutions to business problems, disrupting an industry by using tech and digital at the heart of the solution. All have with one view: the addition of value to consumers in the new technically enabled, hyper-connected world we live.

5. New approach in the digital age

The truth is, while the world around us is changing at an unprecedented rate, most businesses and agencies are still struggling to keep pace with it, from the inability to change their agency/business model fast enough, legacy processes and measurements on ROI, or misalignment of their services to meet the needs of today’s clients/consumers.

I believe we all should have a disruptor’s mindset and ask ourselves: If we were to start afresh today, with all our learning, with a blank canvas, with no legacy shackles, what would our business or client’s business look like at every level? For me, that is the starting point of the new era in the digital age and the opening question for digital transformation.

It’s not about digital transformation, it’s about business transformation and effectiveness in an ever-changing digital world. — Prakash Patel

We all need to understand and invest in digital transformation, a term that has been used by many to describe anything from digital marketing, ecommerce, go-to-market social media strategy, or a responsive website or app. But these are just by-products and one of many inputs and outputs of digital transformation for a business to become digital-first. That being said, like many terms that are coined, I believe this term should be replaced with “business transformation”, as it’s a business imperative and affects the entire business, internally and externally, from the front office to the back office — sales, IT, HR, people, processes and marketing — see my strategic framework below.

Prakash Patel's #BigQ2019 strategic framework diagrammeSo, let’s expect continued change in our industry, in the value we add, in our approach and mindset, and become more relevant in solving business problems (strategically, creatively and digitally) by creating everlasting customer experiences in today’s digital age, and by looking for ways to define tomorrow today.

The future is bright.
The future is digital-first.

See also

 

MarkLives logo What are the industry expectations for the marketing and advertising industry in 2019? Kicking off our “Big Q” column for the year, a panel of key agency and marketing executives discusses the macro environment, budgets, changes in messaging, movement in the industry and any consumer and communication trends they’ll be looking out for in the year ahead.

Prakash Patel (@PrakashPatel_1), a seasoned strategist and data-driven digital marketer, is managing director of Fogg Cape Town. Previously, he was CEO of Prezence and chief digital officer of FCB/Mesh. Prior to moving to SA, Prakash spent over 18 years at some of the world’s largest and independent data and digital agencies in the UK. Now he is trying to keep up with tomorrow today and helping brands add value in the #TraDigital era.

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John Davenport: Tips from the trenches of advertising

by John Davenport (@johndavenport72) Extreme advertising 101. Here’s some advice from someone who’s been in advertising a while.

1. Have your client’s back

This one is first, as I think it’s the most important: have your client’s back. I think this is the most-vital piece of advice I can give you. Really. Really really.

Advertising is (much as certain people pretend that it isn’t) a business. You can’t (unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing pro-active work for the Society for the Protection of Blind Dogs with Diabetes) make work without a client.

Your clients work under intense pressure. Their jobs are tough. I couldn’t do them. I’d end up crying under my steel-and-chrome desk for 5–6 hours a day. At least. So, make their lives easier, not harder. They won’t forget that, when they were in a corner and under pressure, you were there to help.

If you have your client’s back, they will have yours. And everyone’s life will be better.

2. Don’t chase the money

Don’t ever chase the money. This is equally true for someone like me, who’s been doing this for quite some time, as it is for you.

We all want to have long careers. Whenever we make a decision based on money (and we all do this sometimes and are tempted to do it a LOT of the time, because money is really, really lovely) we in some way damage our long-term career.

This is because we are getting paid more because the job is an unpleasant job, where you end up producing bad work. Life just works this way. We PAY to go to the movies or to go on holiday because it is FUN. We GET paid to give a hairy person a massage or to empty bedpans, because doing so is unpleasant.

So, chasing the money means that we end up doing bad work, and that’s bad. Trust me, I’ve done it (although not until I was 35) and it’s a bad idea.

3. Don’t be a dick

This is easy to say and much harder to do. But the reality is that we work long hours in advertising and working long hours with dickheads is unpleasant; trust me, I’ve checked.

So, try to be nice. Which is hard. We are all secretly prima donnas.

4. Benefit of the doubt

Give each other the benefit of the doubt. Everyone you’ll work with is an ordinary human being (except for the three or four who are clearly lizard-aliens) and thus inherently a bit insecure. It’s VERY easy to imagine that the reason someone didn’t say hello or didn’t like your idea or didn’t sell your work is because they are a) evil b) hate you c) are one of the lizard-aliens mentioned earlier.

We tend to immediately leap to the most fear-based explanation for what happened. However, the reality is that there’s probably a perfectly simple explanation for what happened, and that explanation is unlikely to be that they hold a deep-seated personal grudge against us. They probably didn’t say hello because they’re shy, didn’t like our idea because it isn’t a very good idea and didn’t sell the work because, no matter how hard they tried, the client just wouldn’t buy it.

5. The smartest person you can find

When you are choosing a job (should you be lucky enough to have a choice), always take the one that you think will give you the most opportunity to spend time with the smartest person you can find. Try and find a job where you will be reporting to, and overseen by, someone who you respect and admire.

We can’t learn things from people unless they’re smarter than us. I was lucky enough to spend a ton of time with people like John Hunt, Mike Schalit and Mark Fisher. I learned more during every minute I spent with them than I did studying.

And, once you’ve got that job, fight for their time. Bash down the door. Stay late so that you can grab them before they go home. Trust me, they’ll be happy to share what they know. They’ll be happy to help you craft your proactive ideas. Happy to make your work better.

You can help them, too. As we get more senior in agencies, we spend less and less time involved in interesting creative work and more time in meetings. By staying late or getting in early so you can grab 10 minutes of their time, you are helping them spend time doing the fun stuff. They’ll be grateful. I promise. They really will. Although, occasionally, they’ll mask that gratitude by telling you to f*ck off and leave them alone.

6. Choose your battles

We need to fight to make good work. All of us, account management and creative. But it’s stupidity to pretend that EVERY brief is an opportunity to win the shiniest shiny. Lion Pencil. Some jobs just need to done quickly and neatly. If you fight too much, either a) you will lose your job b) the agency will lose the client. The opportunities for great work often lurk in the corners, under the stairs or in the cupboard where the stationery is kept and the weird person in production lives during the week.

FIND those opportunities. When it is a small project that isn’t under the intense scrutiny of the all-seeing exco, your client is far more likely to be courageous and back a brave idea. Plus they’ll be grateful that you’ve put in the time.

And this sort of project tends to have a lot more time available than the brochure that needs to be printed by Wednesday morning. Client will NOT appreciate you trying to turn that brochure into a virtual reality web-streamed interactive award-winning thingy.

7. Technology is not an idea

No matter what new tech the clever tech people come up with, our industry will always need ideas. It’s ideas that capture people’s imaginations. Technology will never replace ideas, just like a fish will never replace a bicycle.

I admit that last sentence is a bit odd. But I quite like it for some reason.

8. Have your client’s back

The one is so important that I am repeating it — have your client’s back. I think this is the most-vital piece of advice I can give you. Really. Really really.

Advertising is (much as certain people pretend that it isn’t) a business. You can’t (unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing pro-active work for the Society for the Protection of Blind Dogs with Diabetes) make work without a client.

Your clients work under intense pressure. Their jobs are tough. I couldn’t do them. I’d end up crying under my steel-and-chrome desk for 5–6 hours a day. At least. So, make their lives easier, not harder. They won’t forget that, when they were in a corner and under pressure, you were there to help.

If you have your client’s back, they will have yours. And everyone’s life will be better.

 

John DavenportJohn Davenport (@johndavenport72) is chief creative officer at Havas South Africa after starting and spending 14 years at Ireland/Davenport. In his spare time, he is attempting to finish a masters degree and writes for the Huffington Post, the Mail & Guardian and (very occasionally) TIME. He also runs the Instagram account for a 1000-year-old Ethiopian Coptic church built in a cave.

“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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Media Design: Top 5 international mag covers 2018

by Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) Many points from my last two columns — 2018 in review and Top 5 South African covers of 2018 — are mirrored in this week’s selection of the best international print covers of 2018. In contrast to the top five local covers, there seems to be a clear support base for independent publishing internationally, with each publication contributing its own brand of experimental editorial design.

Recalling last week’s sentiments, quality crafting, good taste, excellent form, conceptual acumen, layered narrative and exceptional execution are some of the qualities that influenced this Top 5 International list. As opposed to many facets of the local publishing industry, or any of the creative industries in South Africa, the overall goal globally appears to be strongly in favour of the production of culture, and not the blind consumption of it.

As was the case in my selection last week, consistency and diversity of quality production are important, alongside a healthy balance between craft and concept, substance and style, surface and depth.

  • Ordinary used historic approaches to conceptual art practices to deliver extraordinary stories about extremely ordinary, everyday objects
  • A Profound Waste of Time made gaming culture uber-cool, supported by the tasteful and curated application of world-class illustration
  • McSweeney’s recalled one’s inner child with lucky packet-inspired experimental packaging and eccentric editorial design
  • Fukt revived the pivotal connection between the power of words and the presence of consciousness, in a world dictated to by anti-intellectualism and the overconsumption of culture
  • Same Old called upon the pioneering efforts of canonical graphic designer, David Carson, providing a lesson in timeless visual communication through the sport of skateboarding

Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us at @Marklives and @shanenilfunct.
Pinterest icon Want to view all the covers at a glance? See our Pinterest board!

#1. Ordinary (Netherlands), issue #7, November 2018

Ordinary Magazine, print and online, issue 7, November 2018 plus Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917 and Rene Magritte This is not a pipe 1929

The confluence of art, craft, discourse and design is positively a cultural ‘royal flush’. Ordinary magazine has succinctly created one such confluence, recalling the cultural leap that Marcel Duchamp took with a readymade urinal in 1917, in his pioneering conceptual artwork titled “Fountain”.

Each issue of this quarterly has a theme dedicated to an object from everyday life, with the seventh issue focusing on the not-so-humble straw. A subtle parody of Rene Magritte’s 1929 painting, “La Trahison des Images” (The Treachery of Images), which states “ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“this is not a pipe”) under an image of a pipe, a straw performs as a small pipe on this cover. A silent protest, this is an actual straw, and the fact is straws are mostly made from plastic, and plastic accounts for a lot of waste today, contributing hugely to the pollution of our oceans and severely affecting the creatures that live in them.

The formal, philosophical, aesthetic, ethical and conceptual engagement that every ordinary object gets from Ordinary magazine is far from ordinary. A happy marriage of surface and substance indeed — and synergy across different media, with a well-presented website to boot.

 

#2. A Profound Waste Of Time (UK), July 2018

A Profound Waste of Time collage

Defying stereotypes about the gaming industry, the inaugural issue of A Profound Waste Of Time (APWOT) showed that gaming has successfully transitioned from the doldrums of geekdom into the open world of cool. APWOT is a self-funded magazine, the product of an effective Kickstarter campaign, printed in a regular edition and a limited special edition (sporting a unique glow-in-the-dark cover).

With completely sold-out first edition, APWOT is a testament to how culturally influential independent publishing can be. The magazine successfully promotes the gaming industry and discourse surrounding gaming culture, elevating the production of games to the level of art and design, particularly in the context of storytelling and immersive experiences.

The cover is illustrated by celebrated London-based illustrator, Dan Mumford, famous for work he has done for Disney, Sony, CBS and many more. The magazine’s one-page scrollable website is also worth mentioning for its simplicity in design and style, substantiating the tasteful sensibility of the print publication.

 

#3. McSweeney’s (US), issue 53, September 2018

McSweeney's, issue 53, September 2018

McSweeney’s quarterly is a creative platform that promotes contemporary writing and drives awareness of new and relevant authors across various kinds of media, notably through the use of print and online platforms.

Designed with conceptual playfulness, issue #53 of McSweeney’s magazine is reminiscent of a children’s lucky packet, with its bespoke Ziploc-style packaging, and eccentric selection of surfaces used to print on.

Eight party balloons are perhaps the most-striking feature of this cover, which need to be blown-up for one to read the stories that are printed on them. The vinyl-bound hardcover is also a quality piece of magazine craft, illustrated by a yet-uncredited illustrator.

 

#4. Fukt (Germany), issue 17, October 2018

Fukt, print with AR and online, issue 17, 2018

Issue #17 of Fukt, themed “The Words Issue”, is composed of various ‘written drawings’ which reminds one of the conceptual, language-based, work of SA artist, Willem Boshoff, and the work of American conceptual artist, John Baldessari, before him.

The cover was designed by Ariane Spanier, hailing back to the concrete poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and Guillaume Apolinaire, and literally comes alive with the use of augmented reality (AR).

An appreciation of well-written, meaningful words presented in an artful way is needed now more than ever, and this issue certainly does so with some heavy-hitters, including Ed Ruscha’s word drawings, and Sol LeWitt’s notorious instructions on how to properly execute his drawings. Other important contributors include designer Paula Scher, artist Roni Horn, and poet Henri Chopin, among many others.

 

#5. Same Old (UK), issue 24, March 2018

Same Old Magazine, issue 24, March 2018

As this magazine’s name suggests, time may go by with change as the only constant, but some things are surprisingly timeless. There are two things in this regard: the sport of skateboarding and the grunge-design aesthetic pioneered during the ’90s. As an indie publication, Same Old brings out the timeless qualities that skateboarding has somehow maintained, with generations of young people crafting their lives around the sport and, in turn, defining their adult years in the ‘same old fashion’.

The cover for issue #24 featured work by iconic graphic designer, David Carson, known for his considered approach to the grunge movement. Often spoken about in the same breath as Raygun magazine, Carson democratised the face of graphic design in popular culture, turning typography into an expressive discipline. His well-known use of interference, fragmentation and disturbance deconstructs a familiar scene on this cover: a heavily populated desktop, glitchy and messy, accented by screen burn and pixilation. It’s a poetic merger of digital and analogue (print) world.

Conceptually sturdy, the cover visuals carry a nostalgic, quasi-retro narrative in a relatable manner while preserving a sense of experimentalism and the cultural dynamic innate to skateboarding.

 

 

Shane de LangeShane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) is a designer, writer, and educator currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, working in the fields of communication design and digital media. He works from Gilgamesh, a small design studio. Connect with him on Pinterest and Instagram.

Media Design, formerly Cover Stories and MagLove, is a regular slot deconstructing media cover design, both past and present.

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#BigQ2019: Infobesity & visual tsunamis

by Boniswa Pezisa (@BoniswaPezisa) Let’s talk about the macro environment and emerging trends.

Budgets

As the world economies continue to be under pressure, marketing budgets will be under squeeze, especially for those marketers and entities who do not believe in marketing-led growth.

Given the perceived budget challenges, marketers and their advertisers will need to partner and both own the integrated approach in order to leverage and amortise every cent of the budget.

Big ideas that are campaign-able and can stretch across various channels will be the winners.

Technological advancement

This is a triple-edge-sword for marketers because, in some areas, they’ll have to lead consumer take-up and embracement of tech in order to stay ahead and relevant. At the same time, innovating at the bottom end offers great opportunities for African-made relevant solutions

The challenge is to make tech part of the marketing solutions, not an afterthought. This is exciting and it will stretch our creativity.

At the same time, tech will continue to drive consumerism, given the power of mobile and the technological applications that enable consumers to drum up their activism. Therefore, reputation managers will continue to grow in the sector.

Messaging

Given the plethora of communication platforms and channels, singlemindedness in messaging will continue to be critical.

Infobesity and visual tsunamis will continue to drown mediocre strategies and communications; therefore, breakthrough ideas will be the winners. However, channel relevance will be even more crucial to break through the wall of mediocrity.

Purpose

As a country with enormous socioeconomic challenges, purpose-driven brands and purpose-driven marketing initiatives will stand a better chance in building brand affinity and long-term brand growth.

Brands and marketing strategies that have their fingers on the pulse of the double-edge sword of info-consumption fatigue and time-starved consumers by offering escapism are likely to be embraced by this busy-bee cohort.

Diversification & collaboration

We will also begin to see the emergent of diversified offerings and collaborative opportunities of the creative sector.

See also

 

MarkLives logo What are the industry expectations for the marketing and advertising industry in 2019? Kicking off our “Big Q” column for the year, a panel of key agency and marketing executives discusses the macro environment, budgets, changes in messaging, movement in the industry and any consumer and communication trends they’ll be looking out for in the year ahead.

Boniswa Pezisa (@BoniswaPezisa) is the group CEO of BBDO South Africa, and a past board chairperson for both Loeries and the Association for Advertising and Communication (ACA). Giving brands a social currency is her raison d’être and she has worked in most business sectors except mining. She has also been a client twice.

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#BigQ2019: The myth of being time‑poor

by Lani Carstens (@lani_carstens) It’s a commonly held, and fairly valid, belief that consumers are time-poor, inundated with messaging on multiple platforms and have limited attention spans. Whether marketing to CEOs or millennials, we anticipate that consumers probably give our content three or four seconds before moving on to a second or third screen. So, as marketers and content creators, surely we need to only serve up snackable content that is easy to digest? Not so.

Podcast consumption up

Research shows that collectively we are Generation Box-Set, Binge-Watch and Hour-long Podcasts. Podcast consumption, incidentally, is up 50% in South Africa, off a relatively low base. In the UK, 23% of the population are listening to podcasts at least once a month (source: Acast), while ad networks claim 90% completion rates.

However, while we will make the time to engage with what interests us, we do have a filter for anything that is intrusive and irrelevant. Poor content, or annoying ads that pop up when you have chosen to watch something on YouTube, are simply being ‘scanned out’, essentially rendering your advertising invisible. I know that when I see the prompt “Skip ad in six seconds….” I simply close my eyes and count to 10 before resuming what I was watching. Why should I engage with a product I’ve not chosen to see? How annoying to be interrupted.

Engaging with business decision makers

Like everyone else, today’s business decision-makers (BDMs) have extraordinary access to high-value information from a growing multitude of credible sources, but 71% reckon most branded content is boring, expected and repetitive. So, while they will try branded thought-leadership articles, if they’re not expertly written or are even remotely lacklustre, they won’t engage with that content again.

Recent TGI research in the UK (Q2 2018) shows that BDMs actually over-index on all media (print, social, video and podcasts) and are twice as likely than the average person to read for at least six hours a week.

Return of long-form content

Consumers do make time to engage with specialist content and are happy to exchange time for value, provided the content is worth the investment. According to Mintel (2018), time spent watching long-form content on mobile (more than 20 minutes) has skyrocketed. Despite the smaller screen, consumer engagement is double with longer stories (1 000 + words) compared to short-form stories.

Long-form content also gets more social shares —staggeringly so. Buzzsumo and MozHubspot studied a million pieces of content and saw the average number of shares for articles of 3 000 words or more is double that of articles with less than 1 000 words. Similarly, research shows that longer videos outperform short videos on YouTube, and 33% of total view time on YouTube may be attributed to long-form video.

Branded thought-leadership

Branded thought-leadership articles have also been seen to drive sales. When this content is of an extremely high standard, it provides a platform that truly engages, turning customers into advocates for your brand.

There will always be space for snackable content, appropriately placed, but it largely depends on the subject matter (beauty, food tutorials, etc) and the audience it is geared to… hence blanket statements about short content and gnat-like concentration spans are no longer relevant.

See also

 

MarkLives logo What are the industry expectations for the marketing and advertising industry in 2019? Kicking off our “Big Q” column for the year, a panel of key agency and marketing executives discusses the macro environment, budgets, changes in messaging, movement in the industry and any consumer and communication trends they’ll be looking out for in the year ahead.

Lani Carstens (@lani_carstens) joined John Brown Media South Africa as group managing director in September 2010. Before that, she spent three years in Shanghai, China, on secondment by Naspers as group business director, where she helped launch a number of lifestyle titles. She oversees John Brown’s operations in SA and is an executive board member of the international John Brown Media Group. 

— One subscription form, three newsletters: sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify headlines; The Interlocker, our new monthly comms-focused mailer; and Brands & Branding, launching soon!

Market Research Wrap: The art of contextualising global trends

by MarkLives (@marklives) Our weekly wrap of the latest market and consumer research:

  • 2019 global trends
  • Search diversifies

Interpreting global trends

Euromonitor logo BrandMapp logoEuromonitor’s report on the 10 Global Consumer Trends for 2019 outlines 10 major trends, and is intended to provide insight into changing consumer values and priorities and explore how consumer behaviour is shifting and causing disruption for business globally. Brandon de Kock, WhyFive insights director, shows us how to apply these to the South African context.

In short, there are three megatrends that flavour the consumer environment: the ever-increasing impact of technology; changing social norms; and increasing awareness of our responsibility to protect the planet. According to De Kock, in the South African context, we have to understand that our socio-economic landscape is simply too contoured for these kinds of trends to be overlaid without circumspection.

First, ‘generational’ ideas such as “age agnosticism” and “loner living” manifest very differently in our country compared with the developed world, explains De Kock — the 2018/2019 BrandMapp survey shows 30% of our population is under 15 and less than 10% over 60. Compare that with, for instance, Germany where 28% of the population is over 60 and just 14% is under 15.

He also points out the issues, such as plummeting education standards, souring ideas such as “everyone’s an expert”. It’s hard to be an expert if you don’t actually understand the tweet or the Facebook post. While concepts such as “back to basics”, “conscious consumerism” and “finding my JOMO” are certainly blueprints for understanding the behavior of the 30% of South Africans who live in top-end and middle-class households, he continues, when it comes to the other 70% (17m of whom are living on social grants) it’s hard to imagine they’d be worrying about plastic bags on an empty stomach.

Similarly, being “digitally together” isn’t really a priority if you’re struggling to pull together R10 for a top-up airtime voucher — and operating in one of the most-expensive data countries in the world, says De Kock.

In summary, for those who focus on understanding the upper end of the market for whom consumer insights like these are vital, these trends are really important to understand. But keep in mind that they are the privilege of the sophisticated consumer, not the mass market.

  • Read a teaser here and register to download the full report at Euromonitor.

 

Voice drives new brand strategies

WARC 2019 logoWARC has released its Marketer’s Toolkit 2019, which concludes that voice technology, improved measurement and the dominance of Amazon as an ad platform are driving growth and change in search marketing. [Cheryl Hunter]

Comments Alex Brownsell, WARC senior editor media, “The disruptive power of Amazon, the switch to conversational-style language, and the growth of voice and visual technology are converging to drive the biggest change to search behaviour since the first software began mapping the web a quarter of a century ago.”

Advertising spend for paid search has trebled over the past decade. Brands are especially enthused by the potential for voice search. Some 29% of clients taking part in the Toolkit survey (based on a survey of more than 800 client marketers and agency executives around the world) cited voice as the emerging technology they most expect to be important in 2019, an increase of 12 percentage points on the result from a year ago.

When asked about the application of voice technology in marketing plans, 40% selected voice-optimised search, ahead of content (25%), commerce (20%) and advertising (11%). There is also a growing realisation that search can now play a valuable role in delivering brand experience and inspiration.

Visual search — defined as anything using an image, rather than text to search — is also growing, facilitated by smartphones. It’s already changing the search landscape, particularly among younger audiences, leading to a shorter path to purchase for brands.

  • Register to download a report sample or buy the full report at WARC.

 

This weekly “Market Research Wrap” column offers readers a weekly overview and critique of the latest market and industry research.

Cheryl HunterCheryl Hunter (@cherylhunter) has written for the South African media, marketing and advertising industries for more than 15 years. A former editor of M&M in Independent Newspapers and contributor to Bizcommunity, AdFocus, AdReview and the Ad Annual, she has also produced for various television networks and currently consults on communication strategy and media liaison.

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