Tag archives: by Herman Manson

Hermaneutics: Awards or education? Guess which one agencies pick.

Yup. That didn’t take two seconds did it? You want to move on up in adland you better land a couple of awards. Who needs multi-skilled, educated self-starters anyways.

David Nobay, Creative Chairman at Droga5 in Sydney, last year told delegates at the Loeries seminar that modern award shows are oversimplifying what is considered ‘creative.’ And I quote: “Awarding winning work has become a matter of looking at a piece of work and having an immediate reaction (on the judges’ part) to it before moving to the next piece.” And while most businesses are running in maintenance mode, and need solutions that cater to this, award-winning creative has become all about the new.

Radar – now within range

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Radar has had its offices in the midst of a construction site for just over a year. It’s an easy allegory to describe the agency, which has been working hard to reinvent itself following the departure of three of its four partners just over a year and a half ago.

In 2006, four friends (Baphumze Msengana, Tricia Snowball, Karen Meyer and Jason Ray) left Ogilvy to launch Under the Radar (UTR) a specialist below the line agency. They had, says Ray, the last of the four left at the agency, believed that it was time to launch a new kind of agency that backed away from its reliance on traditional media, and had been in advanced talks with WPP, through Ogilvy, to back them. They got as far as looking for premises, but final approval just never arrived, so they departed and set up on their own.

Ray, who was Head of New Business at Ogilvy before helping launch UTR, says he knew the start-up agency would be OK when Old Mutual gave him an access card to Mutual Park at his going away party. The agency had signed Old Mutual as one of its founding clients.

UTR would live by three core rules, still in place today, says Ray. They would only work with clients they liked, they would avoid communication layering so that the client would always deal with the most senior person on the job, and accessibility and a focus on quality time will mean real agility inside the agency.

Under the Radar had been just that, operating under the radar from most of the advertising and marketing industry, but this is set to change. Ray has bought out his three partners, amicably, he says (one is rejoining agency as a staff member), and has evolved its full service communications offering. The agency has been rebranded as Radar.

Mixed reviews for online launch of news brand eNCA

by Herman Manson (@marklives) eNCA, the South African based satellite news channel, recently launched a beta version of their website promising “an immersive experience for users”.

eNCA should be a much bigger news brand in the South African media market than it is. Its reach is limited to subscribers to MultiChoice’s DStv platform (and more recently the SKY digital satellite platform in the United Kingdom) although it also syndicates news content to free-to-air channel e.tv. The rebranding from eNews to eNCA in late 2012 means the brand is also still new to consumers.

While it dominates satellite news and its viewership figures is nothing to sneeze at, as a news brand it can and should be much stronger. A multi-channel approach is required to build any media brand today, and with revenue under pressure, the stakes for this business could not be higher.

Remgro, which owns a substantial stake in the eNCA holding company, Sabido, said in its unaudited results for the six months ended 31 December 2012 that advertising sales on e.tv and eNCA were “under pressure during the period under review but programming and operating costs remained stable.”

To address this, Remgro announced in a SENS statement that “the focus of the group for the forthcoming months is the ongoing development of a multi-channel strategy to enhance its competitiveness across a multiplicity of platforms and provide opportunities for new revenue streams. This includes the launch of e.tv Online and eNCA Online in the first half of 2013.”

There is obviously a lot at stake for the larger eNCA brand in pulling off the successful launch of eNCA.com

But reviews thus far have been mixed, at best. “Creating a new online home for eNews Channel Africa could have presented the news brand with a great opportunity to differentiate itself from the public broadcaster, but unfortunately an outdated look and cluttered execution just makes it look like more of the same,” says journalist and media commentator Mandy de Waal. “Fonts aside, the SABC and ENCA news sites are much of a muchness.”

EXCLUSIVE: Top ECD leaves Ford Europe, joins one year old South African agency

by Herman Manson (@marklives) In a stunning coup for OFyt (Old Friends Young Talent) the agency, just over one year old, has announced that it has lured Greg Burke back to South Africa as ECD of its new Johannesburg office. Burke has been creative partner for O&M London’s Ford business since 2005 (as Executive Creative Director of Blue Hive London – the WPP agency that handles Ford in Europe). OFyt last week announced that it has won the Kia Motors South Africa account and that it will be run out of Johannesburg.

Burke spent 30 years in the South African advertising industry – mostly at Ogilvy/RS-TM – where he worked on VW (remember the David Kramer campaign for VW Bus?). Other accounts he has worked on as ECD at Ogilvy Cape Town included Carling Black Label, BP, Shell, WWF, Old Mutual, NSRI, Woolworths and Castrol.

OFyt currently employs 36 people. It expects to employ 12-14 people in Johannesburg once the office has been fully set up.

OFyt was launched last year by Jono Shubitz, a former ECD of Ogilvy Cape Town and chairman of OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Interactive SA; Gary Leih, a former group MD of Ogilvy South Africa, co-founder of ad agency The White House, chairman and CEO of Ogilvy Group UK and an Ogilvy Worldwide board director; and Paul Newman who, after a career in banking at Barclays in London and with Banque Nationale de Paris, served as marketing director at Nationwide before launching his own ad agency Amperzand.

Agile, collaborative agency backed by Quirk Group

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Clients are becoming more frustrated with agencies, especially as agencies grow to become corporates with all the inflexibility and structural issues that entails. As client problems require quicker turn-around, greater flexibility and innovation, their agencies are becoming less likely to fulfil these requirements.

Designed to counter these issues are Kathryn Sharfman’s new agency, Fast and Remarkable. Quirk Group backs the agency in which Sharfman is a shareholder.

Fast and Remarkable officially launched October 1st. The agency brings together teams of experienced freelancers under the project management skills of Sharfman. Sharfman’s husband, Las Madurasinghe, with a background in investment banking, is also involved in the business.

The agency is focussing on digital projects and offerings include strategy, production and media. Focus will be on quick turn-around times, essential in the digital environment, as well as top quality (i.e. remarkable) work and pulling together a network of well vetted and deeply skilled individuals.

Digital has a fairly low barrier to entry, Sharfman notes, and Fast & Remarkable is set up so clients can easily access high-level digital skills and experience. It’s that experience which offers agile solutions to client problems, says Sharfman.

Sharfman says the new agency taps into the collaborative work model with its strong focus on people and maximising their individual contributions for the benefit of clients.

Hermaneutics: In digital, associations are losing relevance

In the early to mid-1990’s the commercial internet was just grabbing a toehold in South Africa. In ’96/’97 I was still one of only a handful of journalists covering ‘new media’ in this country. I was classed a ‘tech journalist’ even though I didn’t know anything about gadgets. You see people who worked on/with/through the internet were easy to silo (at that point as ‘tech’).

Then digital went all Big Baboon House on every industry you can imagine. No more silos. If you work in media, part of your job is working on/with/through the internet. Ditto for advertising, marketing and a host of other industries.

This brings us to an interesting point. If you are an association created for people functioning in the digital silo, in a time when (dear senior big agency management please place your hands before your eyes – just for a moment) the digital silo is bust, just how relevant are you?

It seems to be one of the questions facing the Digital Media & Marketing Association (DMMA) – an association focussed ‘on growing and sustaining a vibrant and profitable digital industry within South Africa.’ Its members consist of a bunch of publishers and agencies that value their digital capacity and skills, and often have a digital legacy, but are no longer necessarily digital pure plays.

DMMA board denies governance crisis

by Herman Manson. The DMMA earlier this year announced a new management structure that saw an elected exco replaced by an appointed steering committee. However, it had neglected to update its constitution, which requires a 75% vote in support by members, before doing so.

Media laughs on April Fools

by Herman Manson (@marklives) April 1, a day in which the mainstream media plays tricks on readers by publishing/broadcasting stories that ranges from the plausible but untrue to the improbable, and disguises fiction as news, is always an interesting alternative measure of media zeitgeist. Of course, post WMD and the Iraq war and Rupert Murdoch’s incarnation of The Galactic Empire, the more cynical amongst us could be excused for feeling many news days offer little more than Ground Hog Day meeting April Fools.

So what are on the media’s radar this year? Oscar Pistorius and North Korea, increasingly desperate measures by the treasury to dig into your pocket as the political class empty out the cookie jar and technology and its impact on language/habits/life all made an appearance. Julius Malema, deposed from his soapbox and stripped of his assets, was less fun to make fun off, although Times Live gave it a shot.

Here are some April Fools highlights from around the web.

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