by Jacques Burger (@1jacquesburger) This year marks the 20th anniversary of my working in the ad industry.
While I’m not one for standing still — or, even worse, looking back — milestones like these, combined with a midlife crisis (just buy a new car, I’m told; it’s cheaper and less disruptive than a new career or a new spouse), have led me to taking time out on a recent long haul from Sydney to reflect on the highs and the lows to date (which, of course, are of no interest to any reader), and the bits that are juicy and worth a read can definitely not be published. What’s relevant, though, is sharing my view on the extent to which our industry has changed — or perhaps hasn’t.
Speed of culture
A colleague of mine in Australia talks about the need for brands to move at the speed of culture in order to thrive or, at least, survive; I’m sure the same applies to other businesses and industries. Are we moving at this pace as the advertising industry? Consider some of the creative industries adjacent to adland, perhaps, as a measure of how well we are doing.
A brilliant creative director in our UK office tells me that Gucci now launches a new collection every 12 weeks: 90 new looks every 12 weeks. In addition, it has also been opening double-digit new stores globally this year, commissioning 200 renaissance-style paintings depicting the brand, doing colabs with various artists and even launched a real ‘fake’ Gucci range as a tongue-in-cheek response to the whole counterfeit problem — a range that’s now in such high demand that the real fake shirt sells for more than the real real one!
The point is, the brand is moving at lighting pace — more ideas, more activity, more diversity — more creativity, more expressions of it, more freedom and all of it delivered much, much faster.
Are we too precious?
In comparison, our world starts to feel very slow. Are we too precious? Are we too controlling to allow consumers or even the creatives working on these brands a little freedom to give the brands some of their flavours? (Consider how the personal style and approach of a designer like Tom Ford influenced Gucci during his time there.) Are we too protective of the brands that we manage with our clients, are we too scared, do we have too many tools and brand keys/pyramids/ladders and committees holding us back from delivering at the pace that we need to, or are we just too painfully old-fashioned?
My sense is that, when you do only one thing, you end up putting tremendous pressure on just that one thing to shoot the lights out. So you overthink it, you stall, you hold back, you take so long to finally make it happen that, by the time you do, your new idea is already an old idea.
What if we didn’t do one 2019 brand ad? What if we did 20? I can hear the pessimists: where would we find the time? Perhaps if we spent less time worrying and workshopping and reverting and we just ran with stuff, more freely, we could do a lot more, a whole lot quicker. Where would we find the money? Who says it needs to cost more? Let’s invest more behind more ideas and less behind more introspection and interrogation.
Staggering growth
Madness? Not if you look at the staggering growth a business such as Gucci is experiencing at the moment; the till is certainly ringing.
Twenty years in an industry can make one feel old; I don’t want to feel like that. I don’t want to be old-fashioned; I want to be new-fashioned; I want to be more Gucci and have 90 exciting new looks and ideas by the end of this quarter for every one of our clients. Who cares that 10 of them might not work? We’ve got another 80 which are going to work gangbusters, that our customers are going to lap up and make our competitors feel stuck, staid, stodgy. And, because we have 80 brilliant ones, nobody will care about the 10 that missed the mark.
Now this feels like a solution to a midlife crisis worthy of pursuit — who’s with me?
(PS Still buying the car.)
Jacques Burger (@1jacquesburger) is a founding partner of the M&C Saatchi Group in South Africa. He has 20 years’ experience, both locally and internationally, leading agency groups in SA and Australia, and was previously voted one of the 40 most-impressive marketers and comms experts under the age of 40 in Australia.
“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.
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.
The 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.
by Veli Ngubane (@TheNduna) From a water-polo playing strategist to a soloist art director who sang for the pope, a radio co-host making money on YouTube and South Africa’s most-sought-after hip-hop photographer, we went out looking for the youngsters who are gifted and killing it in SA’s creative industries today. They add to the already rich diversity we are discovering — and celebrating — in our industry.
January: Jabulani Sibiya
Lead strategist at Ogilvy & Mather South Africa
A water-polo playing, #TouchZA change-making, fighting-against-the-bland strategist: 24-year-old Jabulani Sibiya (@JabzSibiya) has been calling Joburg home since he took on the lead strategist role on one of South Africa’s most-iconic brands.
Sowetan-born Masego Motsogi (@masegom) is an anomaly in the ad industry: a black woman leading one of the hottest agencies in South Africa. Appointed in February 2018 by Grid Worldwide, this jingle-loving managing director is transforming the industry the best way she knows — by nurturing young creatives into superstars.
Someone who’s led creative at a Vietnam agency, clocked up international awards from Cannes to Clios to Epicas and even sung solo for the pope, Mbuso Ndlovu (@NdlovuMbuso) has strong opinions about influencers, transformation and freelance life.
April: Thithi Nteta
Integrated executive business director FCB Joburg
Training in information design. Doctors as parents. Part of the launch team of Vuzu. A sneaker addiction. These are just some of the soundbytes from our interview with Thithi Nteta (@teeteenteta), now sitting on exco at FCB Joburg.
May: Owethu Makhathini
Digital marketing specialist & freelance writer
Owethu Makhathini (@owethumack) has always been a creative at heart, from wanting to be an actress and watch-this-space multidisciplinary collaborations to running her own creative consultancy.
June: Sibu Mpanza
Digital entrepreneur & co-host at YFM
Content creative Sibu Mpanza (@Sibu_MpanzaSA) shares his dreams of shooting a documentary, how he has made money from YouTube and why he sleeps with a notepad and pen next to his bed.
July: Tebogo Malope
Now Filmmaker & director at The Star Film Company*
Tebogo Malope (@TebogoMalope) of Bomb is a Cannes Lions, D&AD and SAFTA award-winning filmmaker and the director behind some memorable TVCs, music videos, movies and television series.
August: Nwabisa Mda, Thembe Mahlaba & Bongeka Masango
Pap Culture
In Women’s Month, we showcased Nwabisa Mda (@NwiseWise), Thembe Mahlaba (@_Thembe) and Bongeka Masango (@IAmNotBongi): three phenomenal young women who’re changing how we consume content with an authentic platform that reflects the life and times of youth culture in Africa, in all its glory — Pap Culture (@papculturesa).
September: Kutlwano Ditsele
Founding partner & creative producer of Seriti Films
Kutlwano Ditsele (@thafilmaka), the founding partner and creative producer of Seriti Films, is a born storyteller from Rustenburg who loves music as much as films.
Veli 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 has judged Loeries, Apex and AdFocus. He is the Joburg MD and founding partner of the largest black-owned and -managed full-service agencies in the country, AVATAR. He is also 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.
by Shannon Koor. So, you’re saying that an advertising degree and an advertising job are worlds apart, and that I should prepare to metaphorically jump off a cliff?? Asking for a friend. Oh, and I can work on something for months and the furthest it could get is the recycle bin? Cool, cool. Also, where is this place called “Further” that I’ve been told to push things to?
Hey, fellow young creatives. Let’s talk about it. The first year of advertising is tough. It’s confusing. It’s crazy intimidating and I need you to know that you’re not the only one who’s cried in the bathroom stall and questioned your life choices (more than once a day).
I’m fully aware that I’ve only spent five minutes as a copywriter; nonetheless, I feel a strong urge to share my observations of the faraway, strange and exciting swamp planet that is the advertising industry.
Observation 1: It will be okay
“It’s just advertising, Shannon; we are not surgeons,” my mentor said on one of my many ‘I CAN’T DO THIS’ days. He reminded me that we’re just creative people trying to come up with creative solutions. And if one or two briefs get the better of us because we don’t know how to sell that soap that’s more expensive and less foamy than the rest, IT WILL BE OKAAAAAY.
Guess what? Most seniors don’t want advertising newbies to burn out. They don’t want us to stress like they did. They want us to feel the sunshine on our faces (believe it or not, during the week, too). They want us to go home at 5:30pm (most days). They want our nails to remain unbitten and our back problems to come with menopause and not on our 23rd birthdays. You’d think that hearing this so often would stop me from treating my nails like an Uber Eats delivery or from holding back tears in reviews that really aren’t going THAT badly.
The thing is, anxiety doesn’t have a target market or a strategic platform. It’ll hit you right where it hurts, just because it can. If you can get a handle on it and hit it right back, props to you. If you can’t, please know that you’re not the only one.
Observation 2: Practice makes perfect-ish
When my partner and I went into an ECD meeting with the CEO, we swallowed our words and coughed out our ideas. Five minutes beforehand, we’d discussed how we would talk through our ideas while showing pictures for reference. Cut to us clicking through slides with zero words and plenty of ‘no, you go’ glances exchanged between the two of us. It definitely brought us closer but our expectations of ever being hired at FCB Joburg further than ever. Luckily, that day we were harder on ourselves than the people who chose to keep us at FCB.
Coming up with an idea that’s worth presenting to someone other than your mother is hard. Presenting in a way that proves the idea’s worth presenting in the first place is terrifying.
How do we get better at it? “The more you do it, the better you’ll get.” says every senior I speak to.
So, what you’re saying is that I have to walk through the fire so I don’t get burnt? That’s disconcerting. Unfortunately, in this case, I’ve learnt that the only way out is through.
Observation 3: Fake it until you make it
Ahh radio — a copywriter’s biggest dream and an introvert’s living nightmare, especially when the first voice you EVER direct just happens to be your CEO. Nevertheless, I ‘Hitchcocked’ all over that studio (with helpful whispering from my CD, of course).
“Project an aura of calm and certainty, even if you’re not sure you really know what you’re doing,” says Google. Well, thanks Googs, I’m cured, until I remember that you can direct a voice artist too much OR too little. The wind might be blowing and trees falling down but remain on the tightrope and, whatever you do, DO NOT fall into the burning pit of pointy rocks. Also, no pressure!
Now, despite the fact that I’ve spent a couple hundred words talking about my issues, think of me as the ‘way-less-professional’ agony aunt of advertising. Confused and in a panic? Oh my gosh, me too! We have so much in common and must compare notes.
I’d like to mention that I do love my job, especially the addictive thrill of coming up with an idea that isn’t shit. But, still, this millennial vent felt so comforting. You should try it sometime. Until then, don’t mind me. I’ll be attempting to trek to the elusive and promising land they call ‘Further’.
Shannon Koor is a junior copywriter at FCB Joburg.
“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.
“Modern marketing can’t admit to being magical, because to do so automatically undermines what little credibility it has.” — Stephen Brown (2001: 209)
by Christo van der Westhuizen. The challenge with a feature like this is, in part, definitional: What, actually, is a postmodern brand in a late capitalist society? Is it about being disruptive, constantly testing the boundaries? Or is it about storyscaping, moving beyond the product or service to a more culturally expansive viral adventure, and therefore much harder to define?
In “Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Jameson (1991/1984) asserts that postmodernism in the arts (characterised by pastiche and schizophrenia) comprises the cultural logic of late capitalism. In short, culture in postmodernity has been commodified while commodities have become cultural.
This reversal of roles also highlights the essential difference between postmodernism and postmodernity. Whereas postmodernism — like modernism — is a praxis, a way of doing things to achieve a particular outcome (eg change), postmodernity is the economic or cultural condition of society aftermodernity.
It is an altogether more-attuned perspective than the familiar notion that postmodernity is about being more modern than modernity, ie a chronological construct, and that we have now entered a post-postmodern era. This stands in stark contrast to present-day branding and advertising which aims at preventing products from “looking like the interchangeable commodities they really are” (Manes, 1997: F7).
Today, romancing the target market is what it’s about. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. No tale, no sale. The prolific Irish postmodernist Stephen Brown said as much back in the late 1990s: “Many postmodern advertisements eschew informational appeals — the mainstay of the modern advertising tradition — in favour of imagery, endowing mundane products with magical, mystical, and otherworldly qualities (Brown et al, 1998: 202).” And this has not changed; to the contrary, it has strengthened.
Fact is, in an age of transition when modernism and postmodernism coexist, albeit uneasily, late capitalism without strong, purposeful brands is impossible. The brand as a social and economic construct has never been more important as a key ingredient of economic success, or its converse, than right now.
The problem — and the opportunity — is that the brand construct’s evolution is now happening at an accelerating speed. Kotlerites and other inveterate disciples of modern marketing theory are, without doubt, gasping for air to keep up with what could only be described as postmodern marketing praxis. Staying ahead of the curve has become a futile dream in the era of postmodernity where praxis supersedes marketing methodologies, with the latter informed by catch-up hypothesising and post-mortem academic conjecturing. Nonetheless, modern marketing theories, tenets and axioms will continue to serve budding and practicing marketers well for a long time to come, albeit for the pedagogic sake of acquiring and clarifying the thriving meta-language of this growing field of study.
As Firat et al (1994: 53) observe:
“Marketing and postmodernity are so intertwined that it is no longer possible to treat the two subjects at arm’s length or as peripherally-related topics. If marketing is the master-narrative of postmodernity, as we have argued, then marketing scholarship has to move to the centre of the ongoing discussions of postmodernity in the humanities and the social sciences. Marketing can no longer pretend to be an instrumental discipline that affects consumers and society but has to become reflexive and has to be studied as the sociocultural process that defines postmodern society.”
The question this raises is whether brands are evolving — at a very practical level, and despite theory — to such an extent that one could draw a clear distinction between modern and postmodern brands?
The — evolving — brand era
The brand era, being the third — and current — era of marketing (preceded by product-centrism and customer-centrism) according to Kotler (2010), is essentially premised upon the modernist marketing philosophy that a brand is the representation of a product or service. A shadow of the real. An imitation or simulation. An identifying mark and, by implication, a contrived copy.
The very notion of representation in marketing can partly be traced back to the ancient Norse word “brenna”, meaning to burn, and more specifically the act of farmers marking their livestock to identify ownership. This basic means of differentiation progressively foregrounded the importance of the distinguishing mark, or logo, in marketing theory and praxis.
It is understandable then that, given its obvious importance, the company logo’s signifying ability became a massive focus in brand formulation over time. After all, the logo is the brand’s foremost mark of representation: a visual point of convergence which embodies not only a company’s visual language but indeed its positioning.
Simply put, brands had to look the part and, for that, an aesthetic collaboration with the arts was called for, from designing the logo to creating the brand’s visual language for different forms of representation — eg as collateral, advertising, packaging, point of sale.
But whereas the logo used to be thought of as the brand en tout at the onset of the modern marketing era, the pioneering insights of theorists like David Aaker reduced it to a representation or identifying mark of the actual brand which, in turn, soi-disant, became the legitimate representation of the real product, service or organisation. In fact, so important has the modern brand become that it is no longer primarily a visual identity, but indeed a representation and/or expression of what the product, service or organisation stands for.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak
“Sell the sizzle, not the stake” is probably the best postmodern aphorism in the history of marketing. Yet too often marketers equate the ‘sizzle’ with one or other random emotion that could somehow be attributed to a unique selling proposition (USP), ie the product’s triumph over science, logic and rationality. Today, in true postmodern fashion, emotion supersedes rational considerations and modernism’s celebration of logic and science.
What is more interesting, though, is the intellectual point of convergence between modernism and postmodernism when the particular kind of emotion the brand wishes to elicit (postmodernism) and become known for through storytelling, is directly informed by the brand’s strategic intent (modernism): Volvo is safety. BMW is performance. Starbucks is respite. Calvin Klein is sex. Coronation is trust. Coke is happiness. Apple is different. AVBOB is family. Redefine Properties is people. The list is endless.
Every top brand’s strategy can nowadays be summarised in a single word, ie the positioning referred to by Aaker as “the face of your business strategy”. No longer a mere imitation, simulation or representation of a product, service or organisation, the contemporary brand strategy formulation is decidedly postmodern in nature. It dogmatically posits a moment of pure and unmediated presence — something tangibly ‘there’.
Aligning the marketing strategy with the business strategy used to be the main drive, whereas today, aligning story — and hence, emotion — with positioning has become the holy grail of marketing, and this needs to be evocatively actualised in the contact space.
To cite an example: Positioned as the family brand, AVBOB’s unorthodox focus on poetry was inspired by people’s inability to express their loss in the face of bereavement, and is perfectly aligned with its brand promise: We’re here for you.
Similarly, for Redefine Properties, the irreverent people brand, property is its commodity but people are its business: We’re not landlords. We’re people.
Reversing the roles: The product/service as an imitation of the brand
“It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself.” —Jean Baudrillard (1983)
The main thesis then, namely, that brands are ‘real’, or ‘hyperreal’ to be more precise (as opposed to them being mere imitations of the product or service), is a radical reversal of the traditional modernist sign system ‘product/service/organisation: real’ → ‘branding/marketing/imitation: representation’.
Just like Derrida in “Of Grammatology” (1997/1974: 6-18) contends that writing is not a mere (‘phonetic’) supplement, mediation or deferment of speech, one could argue that brands are not a mere supplement, mediation or deferment of the real (the product, service or organisation).
Whereas the modern brand is both an imitation and representation of the real (product, service or organisation), the postmodern brand is exactly the opposite in the sense that it influences, informs and dictates the (organisation’s) approach to products, service and customers. The implied rationale is that the brand becomes the object of desire: the one which is imitated, and not the product or service. The postmodern brand’s job is to position the product/service. The product/service has to remain true to that positioning.
To cite an example, consider how effortlessly vastly disparate products and services converge in master brands like Virgin (an airline, spa business, balloon flights, banking, etc), enabling horizontal extension that otherwise, without the branded house architecture, would have been considered schizophrenic in modern marketing terms.
in Jean Baudrillard’s critical dissemination of the intertwined concepts of imitation, mimesis, simulation and simulacrum (1983a, 1983b, 1988 & 1998), he contends that, in the collapse of reality into hyperrealism, preferably on the basis of another reproductive medium like advertising, the real is volatilised from one medium to another. More than representing a product or service, the so-called real, the postmodern brand promotes the consumers’ relationship with the science and artform that represents the renovation of experience.
Schizophrenia & pastiche: Juxtaposition of opposites
The collapse of traditional boundaries is another key feature of postmodernism. To draw a line between, say, psychology and sociology, or media studies, journalism, marketing and philosophy, is no longer desirable. Pastiche has replaced parody, and a rapidly evolving form of eclecticism marks the transition from modern(ist) branding and marketing to postmodern(ist) branding and marketing.
The postmodern habit of juxtaposing “anything with anything else” (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995: 255), no matter how induced, typically introduces an accepted form of binary discontinuity which breaks down category barriers like male/female, future/past and production/consumption. When these abstractions are recast as difference (e. creativity = entertainment), the merger of opposites results in hybrid offspring that break down category barriers such as property/people (Redefine Properties), funerals/poetry (AVBOB), and farmers/small patches of land (Nisboere).
Stephen Brown (1990: 212) writes:
“In so far as juxtapositions are a condition of the postmodern world, the expectation of a clear and comprehensible outcome no longer obtains. Whereas the modernist New Critics presumed eventual clarification of ambiguous pairings and the structuralists presumed eventual reconciliation of binaries, post-structuralists accept disjuncture, inconsistency, and irreconcilable opposites.”
Is branding a modern institution in a postmodern world?
Whereas production is the dominant scheme of the industrial era, simulation is the reigning scheme of the current phase that is controlled by the code (Baudrillard, 1994: 83). But it is the co-existence of overlapped production and simulation in popular culture that begs the question: Is branding, and advertising, a modern institution in a postmodern world? Baudrillard frames the overlap as a form of tension.
Brown (1990: 213) asserts that this tension extends to branding and advertising, where the information-driven model (the dominant modernist paradigm) rubs up against the imagery-driven model of the postmodernists.
Old-school business methodologies, ranging from McCarthy’s 4 Ps and Borden’s marketing mix to Theodore Levitt’s customer-centric perspectives on positioning and segmentation, have become mere pieces of a rather puzzling puzzle for those who used to draw a line so boldly between business, marketing and creativity/the arts. Simply put, the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone, to draw on Smuts’ notion of holism.
These widely accepted explanations of marketing fundamentals — which culminated in the publication of popular textbooks like Kotler and Keller’s copious “Marketing Management” in 1997 — have been crucial for marketing’s recognition as an academic discipline. It would even be plausible to argue that these theories, tenets and axioms will continue to serve budding and practicing marketers well for a long time to come, albeit for the pedagogic sake of acquiring and clarifying the thriving meta-language of this growing field of study.
Ultimately, modernist or postmodernist, present-day marketers’ objectives are no different from their predecessors, namely, to make a sale and become part of the customer’s life. The challenge, today, is however vastly different, namely, being heard above the noise and clutter while trying to pin down an ever-increasing illusive customer who lives in the decidedly fragmented omnichannel.
In this philosophical wasteland, marketers must learn to become masters of ambivalence and juxtaposition. In moving on from storytelling to storyscaping — where the hyperreal replaces the difference between reality and illusion — we have to become comfortable with the disturbing thought that, as Brown (2001: 209) mused: @Modern marketing can’t admit to being magical, because to do so automatically undermines what little credibility it has.@
The ongoing debate about the postmodern brand — about its politics, about the claims it makes, about representation and power — carries on in the work of prominent postmodernists such as Stephen Brown, who will tell you that postmodern marketing has been around for a long time but is only now being accepted into the business school’s science-or-bust mindset, which is gradually breaking down to make room for a new vocabulary. It is about time, and the arts may assist in this challenging task. After all, storytelling postmodern brands and consumers are cohabitating each other’s mind in ways that are new and diffused and uncontainable. What they are and what they want for themselves is a culture in which brands and meaning, wound together with clockwork precision, live in the ether.
References
Aaker, David A. 2010/1996. Building Strong Brands. London, Sydney, New York & Toronto: Pocket Books.
Aaker, David A. & Joachimsthaler, Erich. 2009/2000. Brand Leadership. London, Sydney, New York, Toronto: Pocket Books.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulation and Simulacra. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1983a. Simulations. New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1983b. ‘The Procession of Simulacra.’ In Wallis, B. Ed. New York/Boston: New Museum of Contemporary Art/Godine.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. The Ecstasy of Communication. New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1998. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: Sage.
Brown, Stephen. 2001. Marketing: The Retro Revolution. SAGE Publications. London.
Brown, Stephen, Doherty, Anne Marie & Clarke, Bill. 1998 (Eds). Romancing the Market. Routledge: London.
Derrida, Jacques. 1997/1974. Of Grammatology. Translated. Gayatri Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Firat, A.F. & and Venkatesh, A. 1995. ‘Liberatory postmodernism and the reenchantment of consumption’, Journal of Consumer Research: 22, 239 — 67.
Jameson, Frederic. 1991/1984. Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London, New York: Verso.
Kotler, Philip. 2010. Marketing 3.0: From Customers to the Human Spirit. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Kotler, Philip & Keller, Kevin Lane. 2009. Marketing Management. 13th London: Pearson Education International.
Manes, S. 1997. ‘In picking a computer, speed is not of the essence.’ The New York Times (9 December): F-7.
Murray, Chris. 2009 (Ed.). The Marketing Gurus: Lessons From the Best Marketing Books of All Time. London: Atlantic Books.
Trout, Jack & Rivkin, Steve. 2009. ‘Differentiate or Die.’ In: Murray, Chris. Ed.: London: Atlantic Books.
2018 edition now available!
Christo van der Westhuizen (D Lit et Phil, Unisa) is the managing director of BRAND et al, and founder of the et al group of marketing companies. He has lectured in marketing, media studies and literary theory at a number of tertiary institutions, was acting head of media studies at the University of the North until 2000, and acted as principal of the Open Window Graduate School of Visual Communication in 2013. He specialises in brand strategy and is currently doing research on postmodern brand development towards a second doctorate.
Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct)’s weekly analysis of media design from South Africa and around the world:
Online: Existing While Black is a HuffPost microsite featuring shared experiences from African Americans who’ve been exposed to racial discrimination
Commercial print: Printed Pageshonours the pioneering heritage that the Bauhaus maintained throughout its 14-year existence and continues to this day
Iconic: Simplicissimus was a satirical weekly with strong-democratic and anti-authoritarian views towards both the extreme left and right in Germany, supported by important avant-garde artists and writers of the time
Independent print: Wat Binne Isis a photographic journal, complimented by Afrikaans poetry, detailing the complex history of South Africa in relation to Afrikanerdom
Printed Pages (UK), autumn/winter issue, December 2018
A biannual compendium of the most-impressive work featured on It’s Nice That, Printed Pages is edited and designed by the It’s Nice That Magazine team in celebration of print. The latest autumn/winter 2018 issue is a curated selection of the finest creative efforts from the past six months, while also delving into the Bauhaus archives a century after the school was established, concurrent to Pentagram’s rebrand of the Bauhaus Archiv. The cover, and a Bauhaus-inspired poster inside, are designed by Sascha Lobe (a partner at Pentagram) and honors the pioneering heritage that the Bauhaus maintained throughout its 14-year existence, which continues to this day.
This issue has three covers signified by three colours, updated from the original Bauhaus branding colours (the primaries blue, red, and yellow). Featured on this cover are 42 of the 600 glyphs from Pentagram’s new identity system for the Bauhaus Archiv. Also inside are a print by photographer KangHee Kim, five postcards using featured work, and an It’s Nice That sticker.
Cape Town-based artist and designer, Hanno van Zyl, has had a busy year completing at least three publications with his name listed as designer. Of note is Wat Binne Is (“that which is inside”), which is the result of a longstanding collaborative project between photographer Wikus de Wet and Jaco van der Merwe, who wrote Afrikaans prose in response to the images about contemporary Afrikanerdom. The content of the publication is subversive, to say the least, balanced by its succinct layout and overall design aesthetic. As an independently produced book, the printing costs needed to be crowdfunded, and was made possible after a successful Thundafund campaign.
In-between De Wet’s photographs and Van der Merwe’s lines of prose lies uncharted territory, blind spots that shine new light on the uncomfortable scars of SA’s complicated history. This history remains the matrix for the present, and we continue to see ourselves in uncomfortable times. It’s a matrix further communicated through Van Zyl’s impressive editorial design skills, making the book a calendar of sorts, where our destructive past blends into the promise of a thunderstorm on the horizon.
Due to long-standing racial prejudices. the ability to simply exist remains a luxury for many black people in America today. Continually stopped by roadside law enforcement and with ever-present disturbances in historic African American communities, black people in the US have had to and still continue to go to extremes to claim their civil rights and equality.
This situation is obviously not new, and in response HuffPost has created a microsite featuring shared experiences from black readers who’ve been exposed to racial discrimination. Detailing the angst of continually having their existence interrogated, this site is a tiny compilation of countless similar stories that stress the social injustices that black people must live through every day in America.
HuffPost updates this site with new stories regularly, keeping readers aware of the plight of many black people in the US today. Aside from its moving testimonials, the microsite is incredibly well designed, with intuitive layout and navigational elements, an interactive and dynamic layout, and with choice typography and excellent art direction. It highlights how design can be a powerful tool for change, and that sites of this calibre don’t have to look like a government report from the mid ’90s.
A popular periodical based in Munich, particularly during the inter-world war period, Simplicissimus was a German satirical weekly that actively presented a strong-democratic, anti-authoritarian front towards both the extreme left and right, particularly towards the German Weimar Republic (where the Bauhaus, mentioned earlier, ironically found its roots). Founded in 1896, the magazine got its name from the 1668 picaresque novel by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, titled “Simplicius Simplicissimus” (“Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch” in German). It quickly became a forum for controversial socioeconomic and historico-political subject matter, garnering a following for its subversive content and brash graphic presentation, supported by illustration and other avant-garde visuals.
Supported by prominent avant-garde circles and intended to be a culturally focused, literary oriented periodical, the magazine’s list of contributors — including writers, artists, illustrators and the like — was a veritable checklist of important cultural exponents for the time, including: Hermann Hesse, Robert Walser, Heinrich Mann, Bruno Paul, Rudolf Wilke, George Grosz, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen and John Heartfield, to name a few. Its special brand of audacious political content, mixed with a bold graphic style typical of early modernism, has placed it on the cultural map to this very day.
Simplicissimus suppressed its satirical tone when Germany entered World War I, in support of the war effort. Afterwards, the magazine’s editors were in a difficult position, particularly regarding issues related to the Weimar Republic. Based on this history, the title’s mission later became a resistance against the emergence of National Socialism and anti-Semitism, which would come to fruition with the Nazi Party. The magazine was muzzled in 1933 by the Nazis and, with the onset of World War II, it had to adopt a slanted foreign and domestic perspective. The editor at the time, Thomas Theodor Heine, was Jewish and had to flee into exile. Truth became an alternative fact and its representation of what was happening in Germany at the time became distorted. By September 1944, Simplicissimus had to close its doors, oddly due to severe paper shortages caused by the war, returning from obscurity a decade later in 1954. It continued publishing, slowly degrading in form and quality, until it eventually shut 1967.
Shane 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.
by Rohan Reddy. Inspired by a story he heard about Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a person’s religion and income were evident by the street on which they lived, “Where the Streets Have No Name” was written by Irish rock legend, U2’s Bono, on an airsickness bag while on a humanitarian visit to Ethiopia. Loosely, the song muses about a world where there aren’t such divisions, a place where “the streets have no name”.
That was 1985. A lot has changed in the 33 years since. That old image of Ethiopia as a famine-infested wasteland has been replaced by an Ethiopia that is booming and, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is the fastest-growing economy in Africa — home to one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world. Yet, Bono’s dream of all art still resonates within me though.
But this article isn’t about Bono, or Ethiopia for that matter. It’s about the truly astonishing pace that all of Africa is changing at, and that this pace should be documented. And one of the best ways to do this is through the art of street photography — to be an observer of the streets.
Take the road less travelled
Many reading this story will probably live in middle-to-upper class suburban houses, complexes and apartments of Africa’s major cities. We most likely drive to work and back in our own cars, and rarely venture into the CBDs and bustling streets of the cities we call home. We force ourselves into isolation, purposefully avoiding the hustle and bustle of the streets in favour of the fancy restaurants, shopping malls and online retailers. So, we are thus lulled into a contrived sense of convenience and security.
Meanwhile, the rest of the population of urban Africa live quite a different experience. It’s on the streets of our cities where the vast majority of life and trade happen. It’s energetic, frenetic, dusty, soggy, noisy, sometimes terrifying, and constantly changing.
It’s this pace of change that stuns me, especially if I’ve revisited a city over a few years.
I’m fortunate enough to have visited 15 of Africa’s 54 countries, the majority as a Pan-African creative director, the others as a tourist, and I’ve lived and worked in two other African countries apart from South Africa, the land of my birth.
When time from work or vacationing permits, I roam the streets, observing people going about their lives. If I see something interesting, or different to my world view, I snap it. This voyeuristic tendency has gotten me into trouble more than once — especially as, in some countries, people are naturally averse to being photographed. Sometimes the best way to get the shot is just to ask permission. More often than not, the answer is yes.
Tips to bring out your inner street photographer
There are two things I don’t travel without: my passport and my pocket camera (which these days tends to be my iPhone). Pocket cameras are good for two reasons: they don’t draw too much attention and they are pocketable, which means you can slip them away till your next photo-op reveals itself. Discretion is key to taking street shots in Africa; always keep your eyes peeled for great opportunities. A good rule of thumb is not to photograph policemen, soldiers, residences of presidents and politicians, or military buildings and infrastructure. You could get arrested in some countries, or asked to hand over your phone or camera’s storage card, if caught. Selfies sometimes draw too much attention, so be fabulous with caution. And, of course, be wary of pickpockets.
What I find most interesting is the constant change of fashion, food, transport, mobile tech and commodities — and how South African brands account for a sizeable percentage of merchandise for sale in many markets. Cash is being quickly replaced by mobile money, with which you can pretty much buy anything these days. Also, the influence of the Asian giants such as China and India can be seen weaving its way into every kind of product sold on the streets. It’s unstoppable!
Don’t be a tourist; be an observer
Robert Capa, a legendary photojournalist, once said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Capa wasn’t advocating the use of zoom lenses; he was telling us to physically get closer — to become more involved and intimate with our subjects.
So, I encourage you to do the same on your travels through the continent. Observe. Lose the fear. Get intimate. Photograph the streets, the markets, the people, and share it on social media for the world to see. Africa has passion, energy, adventure and culture. Ok, I admit it, I’m addicted to Africa. There, I said it.
Rohan Reddy (IG: @rofotoqoto_) is a passionate African, deeply patriotic about the continent of his birth. He is the recently appointed head of creative for FCB Connect at FCB Africa, with responsibility for curating the creative product of the group’s affiliate agencies in Africa, particularly for clients and brands with a global footprint or a presence in markets across the continent. Highly respected as both a leader and a creative, Rohan has 24 years’ experience working on some of the world’s biggest brands at agencies in several African countries. 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.
by MarkLives (@marklives) Our weekly wrap of the latest market and consumer research:
SA private labels worth R49bn
2019 media predictions
#1 reason for buyers talking to sales teams
Private labels continue to grow in SA
Private label products in South Africa now equate to R49.3bn annually, commanding a 21.1% share of the South African retail sector, up from 20% in 2017 and ahead of branded product growth in the country. This is according to the latest 2018 Nielsen report, “State of Private Label in South Africa”. [Cheryl Hunter]
The private label research — products sold exclusively by a specific retailer or chain of stores, including store brands — covered 155 categories, within eight supergroups and across a range of leading local retail groups within SA.
Says Gareth Paterson, Nielsen South Africa retail lead, “Recent years have shown an upward trend in the private label category, with improving consumer perceptions around their quality and value, driven by a greater focus from retailers to develop value for money offerings resulting in increased innovation and differentiation within this space.”
Overall, the top private label category remains long-life milk, with fresh chicken in second place. One of the biggest movers has been prepared foods, which has jumped from no. 12 to the third position, in line with a big move in SA towards convenience options and the desire to reduce food-preparation times.
“We are seeing previously smaller supergroups in private label like baby care, personal care and confectionary achieving double digit growth, which is well ahead of branded product growth,” he adds.
Currently, 55% of sales come from LSM 7-10 but the growth driver in 2018 has been the middle LSMs, which have contributed approximately 30% of sales: “Lower LSMs have also shown that they are now willing to try private label within certain staple categories like maize, compared to years gone by, when trusted brands were preferred and making the switch was not an option,” says Paterson.
Looking ahead, the expectation is that private label will continue to carve out a healthy share of retail sales within the next five years, with SA poised to benefit from a growing middle class and urbanisation and increasing modern trade access.
Kantar has released its perspective of the major trends that will shape the media landscape for brand owners, agencies and media platforms in 2019. [Cheryl Hunter]
Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) will resolve the integrated online/offline return on marketing investment dilemma
Voice technology will break through in creative planning and the marketing mix
Chinese leadership in social media and social media analytics will be ‘fast-followed’ by the west
The emergence of the ‘branded experience network’ will transform media management in to ‘internet of everything’ management
Brands will start to take the portrayal of women in advertising seriously
Amazon will emerge from the advertising world ‘shadows’ to make the duopoly a triopoly
Vertical video will lead the way in creativity
The big screen will make a comeback, bigger and better than before
Attitudinal insights, combined with predictive modelling, will make programmatic buying more agile and accurate
Influencer marketing strategies will pivot to prioritise credibility ahead of reach
GDPR compliance will drive more sophistication in brand data strategies
Augmented reality (AR) will start to shape both the consumer journey and customer experience.
• Download the full report at Kantar (registration required).
by Mark Eardley. “The influence of a strong brand increased by 37% since last year and is the No. 1 factor cited by decision makers when choosing to engage with sales.” If you’re a B2B marketer, that will be music to your ears. Strong brands trigger sales. Not only that, when companies are deciding what they’re going to buy and who they’ll buy it from, brand influence is getting even stronger.
Fairly obviously, the report goes on to say that a strong brand needs to be backed up by a strong sales team. The brand might open the ‘doors of consideration’ but once opened — and to move deals forwards — here’s what buying-decision influencers say they expect from sales people:
96%: a clear understanding of their business needs, and of their role (94%)
93%: sharing content that’s relevant to their role
93%: providing personalised communications
92%: targeting the appropriate people at their company for initial discussions
Switching from what buyers’ want to what sales professional must do, the report emphasises that winning decision-influencers’ trust is vitally important — and it’s a two-way street: “Without trust, fewer deals close. Sales professionals rank trust as the No. 1 factor in closing deals (40%) — above ROI and price — and 51% of decision makers rank trust as the top factor they desire in a salesperson.”
On the subject of closing deals, in comparison to their peers, top performers (who exceed targets by at least 25%) see a combination of sales-enabling technologies as either “very important” or “important”.
Conducted in the US, the survey covered 507 professionals who primarily work in B2B sales, plus 502 business decision-makers who have influence over B2B purchasing decisions. The report offers relevant insights for both sales and marketing, and encourages the two disciplines to collaborate more closely to achieve their shared goals. In itself, that’s a really sound idea.
Mark’s mark out of ten (is it worth reading?): 8/10
How long: 30 mins
“Market Research Wrap” offers readers a weekly overview and critique of the latest market and industry research.
Cheryl 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.
Mark Eardley (@mdeardley) advises B2B companies on how to govern their marketing to attract and retain profitable customers; several of his clients have grown to become market leaders. His monthly “Back2Basics” column covers how B2B companies and their agencies should manage their marketing.
by Martin MacGregor (@MartMacG) I’m writing this at 11.30pm, the day before Black Friday. Normally I would be fast asleep, but I’m biding time as I wait to do some frenzied online shopping after 12. Even a year ago, I would have dismissed the possibility of this strange behaviour. But here I am, struggling to keep my eyes open. My behaviour has most definitely changed.
Biggest marketing challenge
The biggest challenge any marketing activity has to do is to get consumers to change behaviour. At brief stage, this always feels like an insurmountable obstacle. Yet our behaviour is changing all the time, in strange and unthought of ways.
This is no different when it comes to media consumption and, if I just look at myself over the last year and the small shifts I’ve made, the change has been substantial. This really has been the tipping-point year, and there’s no going back.
An obvious move has been the DStv switch-off and Netflix switch-on. I live in a sports-mad household so I still have both, but cracks are really starting to show in the sports rights market. The DStv monopoly will end; it’s just about the “when”.
Time-shifted consumption
More interesting has been more time-shifted radio consumption through podcasts. I’m a big Eusibius MacKaiser fan as I find his arguments compelling, even though I disagree often. His interviews are fascinating but, as they happen while I’m work, I can rarely listen to them. I follow him on Twitter, though, and he conveniently pins his standout podcast of his interview of the day on his Twitter profile. This means that, in the afternoon traffic, I’m able to enjoy the radio I want to listen to.
Behaviour changes more often than not are linked to ease. If something is on offer that makes it easier, the behaviour will change.
Technology is driving solutions which make things easier, whether it’s shopping or listening to the radio. And lower and lower data costs, especially in South African, means media-consumption behaviour changes are spreading across the population.
Newspapers
This is first year I can say I haven’t read a newspaper. There’s nothing easy about buying, holding or reading newsprint, not to mention that the content is out of date. Globally, only two kinds on newspapers are surviving:
Newspapers that absolutely meet the needs of a big, commuter city resident. In London, the freshly printed Evening Standard is handed to you as you enter any tube station on the way home. It’s the right size, content is from the day but, most importantly, it’s an easy, convenient read after a day of staring at a screen.
Newspapers that have such high credible, quality analysis that, without reading them, there’s a real sense of having missed out. Only the New York Times, Washington Post and a handful of others can claim this space.
I curate my own ‘newspaper’ by following a wide range of journalists and content hubs that can give me all the views I need. It’s easy and allows me to form my own opinion.
Challenge for 2019
My media-consumption behaviour changes this year are fundamental and there’s no going back. This challenge for brands in 2019 is how they are going to really deal with a very, very different media landscape — they’ll definitely no longer be able to hide in comfortable, old media.
Martin 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.
by Charlie Stewart (@CStewart_ZA) The web is broken. And its founder, Tim Berners-Lee, wants us all to do our part to fix it.
Announcing his vision for a “Contract for the Web” at Web Summit, the world’s largest tech conference which took place in Lisbon in early November 2018, Berners-Lee’s keynote overshadowed speeches from the likes of Tony Blair, Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann and Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter.
The talk resonated at an event that was supposed to celebrate the glorious future of the internet but was dominated by the series of scandals engulfing Facebook and broader concerns that GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) has grown too powerful.
Fixing the internet
A decade ago, Berners-Lee was adamant that his invention should not be policed but, reflecting on recent developments including abuses of personal data, click-bait, trolling, fake news, the proliferation of dodgy ad inventory and censorship, he’s changed his mind.
Postulating that the web is at a tipping point (next year it’s projected that half the world’s population will be online), he believes that our privacy merits proper protection to make sure that those of us already using the internet are given the web we deserve and that those who are still to come online are provided with a safer and more-trustworthy environment than the one that’s currently served up.
His campaign seeks to persuade governments, companies and individuals to sign a treaty that will ultimately defend a free and open internet. For the time being, the ‘contract for the web’ is light on detail and really only represents a core set of principles, but it’s is expected to be formalised by May 2019 in time to mark the 30th anniversary of the web.
The intent, according to World Wide Web CEO, Adrian Lovett, is to package the principles into something that the UN or the G7 can adopt. The trickledown effect will then mandate that members of these organisations are then held accountable for sticking to the agreement.
The contract has already received a number of high-profile endorsement, with the likes of the French government, Internet Sans Frontieres, Google and Facebook coming on board. But, according to the Financial Times (subscription required to read), Amazon has chosen not to sign up as of yet.
Break up GAFA
Berners-Lee has been vocal in his criticism of GAFA’s power and has called for the tech giants to be broken up unless consumer trends in internet consumption change or competitors emerge to weaken their power.
He’s also expressed concern at the increased frequency with which national governments are closing down the internet — accessnow.org reports that 81 reported shutdowns occurred between January and June this year, with most taking place in Asia and Africa (parts of Cameroon were offline for 230 days between January 2017 and March 2018).
Web inequalities
His Web Foundation recently found that, while nearly half the world’s inhabitants are online, the growth of internet access around the world has slowed dramatically from 19% in 2007 to less than 6% last year.
Troublingly, this slowdown is impacting those in greatest need of internet access and is likely to further exacerbate the gulf between the haves and the have-nots (research from University of California, Berkeley suggests that a 10% rise in broadband access contributes a 1.35% increase in GDP in developing countries).
A report in the Guardian indicates that African women are the most affected and, if the trend continues, will be ‘pushed to the margins of society’.
While Berners-Lee pretty much stole the show at Web Summit, around 1 200 other speakers presented to an audience of 70 000+ delegates. I’m sure there was tons of interesting content — those with time on their hands over the holidays may check the Summit’s official YouTube channel where hundreds of the decks are available — but, to my mind, it’s incumbent on all of us, and particularly those of us living on this glorious continent, to join the World Wide Web Foundation’s mission to make the internet a better, more equitable and more accessible place. You may sign up to the contract for the web here.
Charlie Stewart (@CStewart_ZA) is CEO of Rogerwilco, a multi-award-winning independent digital agency best known for its expertise with Drupal, SEO and content marketing. A Scot by birth, he moved to South Africa in the early 2000s in his quest to support a winning rugby team — a search he’s reluctantly forsaken. Together with Mark Eardley, he co-authored Business to Business Marketing: A Step by Step Guide, (Penguin Random House, 2016) and may be found on LinkedIn. Charlie contributes the monthly “Clicks ‘n Tricks” column, which looks at how brands are using digital channels to engage their customers, to MarkLives.
Jacques Burger (@1jacquesburger) is a founding partner of the M&C Saatchi Group in South Africa. He has 20 years’ experience, both locally and internationally, leading agency groups in SA and Australia, and was previously voted one of the 40 most-impressive marketers and comms experts under the age of 40 in Australia.
