Tag archives: Hermaneutics

Hermaneutics: ‘Blackface’ ad faces international backlash

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Cape Town agency Lowe + Partners and client Cape Town Fish Market has been strongly criticised for using ‘blackface’ in their latest TV commercial. The ad has even been featured on Al-Jazeera who reported that the it had sparked ‘outrage among South Africans.’

In American history especially, ‘blackface’ was used to create stereotyped caricatures of black people. Today it is still sometimes used as social commentary or satire but it is generally considered politically incorrect.

The ad in question references a stereotypical ‘African Dictator’ – with an actor in blackfaceand wearing an Afro – diverting funds into his “expense account.” The ad, which consists of various vignettes, features the same actor also playing a prostitute, a dodgy doctor, porn director and rental agent.

Mvelase Peppetta blogged that he found the ad seriously offensive and suggested lack of transformation in the ad industry might have played a role in the ad getting flighted in the first place. “People far smarter and more experienced in SA’s marketing industry than me have time and again explained how the lack of diversity in our ad industry leads to these kind of horribly offensive and stereotypical ads,” wrote Peppetta.

Hermaneutics: Jobs For Monkeys In Adland

Young and want to land a job in advertising? Join a circus. That is the gist of reader feedback on an Adland.tv story featuring a recruitment campaign by DDB Brussels in which prospective employees need to submit a 6-second Vine gif (hashtag #ddbexpress) in place of a CV.

Ten ‘new’ creatives will make the shortlist and be put together on a train to Cannes. En-route they will need to solve numerous creative briefs, on which they will be judged, and eight will be sent home (dropped off at the various stations en-route – apparently). The two that make it to Cannes will be ‘rewarded by an invitation to join the creative department of DDB.’ That’s not exactly an explicit job offer, hence some of the commentary on the original story referring to internships.

The campaign has been described as a rather demeaning process to land a job. Critics also point out that to enter you need Vine, which only runs on iPhones, and so excludes a fairly large group of potential candidates, including many for whom an iPhone would be out of reach.

Says the Facebook site created for the campaign “Creative Directors are very busy people, and new creatives need to be agile. Combine those two and you get our brand new way of hiring: 6″ recruitment. You have exactly six seconds to convince our Creative Director, Peter Ampe.”

Not too busy to make the train ride and make some kids jump through hoops, or to make the awards festival for that matter, just too busy to look down and at your portfolio. The agency seems to be snorting Cannes, really, counting the award shows they can enter with this ‘creatively lead’ take on recruitment.

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.

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.”

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.

Speed walking, Gazelle lets the geeks rule award shows

by Herman Manson. Award recipients at the 2012 Bookmarks Awards are excellent speed walkers. Following the rules of the evening, they raced in a giant loop around the stage at the Artscape to receive their Pixels.

Hermaneutics: A tale of three award ceremonies

by Herman Manson. It’s like inviting Bucks Fizz to MC a champagne & sparkling wine event. I’m of course talking about flying in MC Hammer to MC the Loerie Awards on Sunday evening, or not, as the case might be.

Ad award success no longer sole arbiter of agency and industry respect

The 2011 Loerie Awards are done and dusted (no pun intended), with Cape Town agencies grabbing three of the top five (first, third and fifth) spots on the official overall ranking table. Two of the three Grands Prix were awarded to Cape-based agencies.

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