Shane de Lange’s weekly analysis of media design — both past and present, print and online — from South Africa and around the world.
Tag archives: interview
Design Indaba 2013: Oscar Diaz on our innate understanding of objects
By Herman Manson (@marklives) Design Indaba 2013 London based product designer Oscar Diaz (@OscarDiazStudio) has made a name for himself thanks to his innovative and creative work in on a broad range of products and services including furniture, shop window installations (see Alphabet shoes for Terra Plana below) and limited edition objects like his widely lauded RGB vases.
Diaz studied design at the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Bordeaux in France and took an MA in product design at the Royal College of Art in London. Diaz has worked in Japan and the UK.
This week Diaz is in Cape Town to give a talk at the annual Design Indaba Conference (running from Feb 27 – March 1). We tracked him down before his arrival to ask him what draws him to product design.
MarkLives: You started studying fine art but ended up with a Master’s in Product Design at the Royal College of Art in London. What about product design grabbed you?
Diaz: I discovered that people have an innate understanding of objects that they don’t necessarily have when it comes to art. Art is much more hermetic and needs a bit of knowledge to be appreciated.
It was the accessibility of design, which made me want to change field.
EXCLUSIVE: M&C Saatchi set to launch new Africa agency
by Herman Manson (@marklives) M&C Saatchi is preparing to launch a new Africa agency. The venture, provisionally called M&C Saatchi Abel Africa, will see new affiliate offices launched or acquired in Nigeria and Kenya.
The London based M&C Saatchi group will then have an on the ground precise in East, West and Southern Africa. It already has offices in Cape M&C SaatchiTown and Johannesburg through M&C Saatchi Abel.
Moray MacLennan, worldwide chief executive of M&C Saatchi, revealed that the new agency will be driven from the M&C Saatchi Abel office in Cape Town, which is in the process of recruiting an executive to lead the initiative.
The South African business is the fastest growing in the M&C Saatchi network and has grown from a staff component of 63 at his last visit to South Africa in August 2011 to over 150 today. Revenue (note: not billings) has passed the R80 million mark and its been winning business including Edgars Department Stores and Nedbank’s below-the-line account.
MacLennan says the local agency has been more successful than expected. It made a loss in its first year, turned a small profit in 2011 and is expected to do well in 2012. While margins are still substantially lower than in the European business he expects it will keep building to around 15%. Fast growth often translates into the use of more freelancers at a greater cost than permanent staff which impacts negatively on margins, says MacLennan.
In its Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2012 the group reported like-for-like revenues up 146% to £2.8m in the ME and Africa region and a profit of £330k.
On animosity by parts of the local industry aimed at the South African agency MacLennan shrugs and says M&C Saatchi used to be booed in London – its means you are making an impact and scaring the competition.
Thorsten Heins interview Pt 2: Secrets of BlackBerry 10
In the second part of this interview, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins tells Arthur Goldstuck about competing with Apple, how the BlackBerry’s notorious freezes have been overcome, and reveals the company’s secret weapon.
Thorsten Heins interview Pt 1: BlackBerry in Africa
In this interview RIM CEO Thorsten Heins tells us why BlackBerry 10 will restore faith among both consumers and investors and what makes the African market special..
Thorsten Heins, Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry makers Research in Motion, was in Johannesburg last month to meet with mobile [GoldstuckHeins] network operators and introduce them to the BlackBerry 10 devices that will be launched in the first quarter of 2013. In the only interview he gave in South Africa, he spoke frankly with MarkLives columnist and Gadget editor-in-chief Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) about the challenges facing RIM.
Arthur Goldstuck: South Africans right now are still very loyal to BlackBerry and brand momentum is still growing. But at the same time, a lot of people are saying, ‘What is going to happen to us BlackBerry users?’ It comes down to the American market, where Blackberry has imploded. The feeling is that, what happens in America, will ultimately happen here. How does Blackberry plan to recapture the American market and therefore re-instill confidence in markets like South Africa and the rest of the developing markets?
Thorsten Heins: First and foremost, we appreciate the strong commitment of our customers to us in South Africa. This is a very, very successful market. It is a clear number one market for us, but not the only one. We have Indonesia where we are number one in smartphones. In the Philippines, I don’t know how many quarters consecutively we have been number one in smartphones. So there’s a broader business base than just in South Africa that we can appreciate. This is a customer base that carries us through to the transition to BlackBerry 10 right now.
The United States is very different. The US was very much driven by a tectonic shift to full touch screens devices among consumers and to LTE (4G connectivity) in a very short time frame in the enterprise space. All the marketing money from the carriers is going to 4G. All the major promotions: all the bus stops have a 4G sign on it. That is why we have lost and are still losing market share. But it is slowing down.
There are two routes to recapturing that market. Firstly, we are working on our installed user base. So far the upgrade ratio from BB 5 and BB 6 devices to BlackBerry 7 has increased from 8% BB 7 enterprise penetration to 22% in the last two quarters, which is really very significant.
The second thing is to get Blackberry 10 into the market and make sure it fulfills all users’ requirements, such as the full LTE experience. And there will be a touch version of it. But then we must also set BlackBerry 10 apart in terms of the user experience. So it’s not just competing on spec terms, not just competing on radio technology terms. We will go back to the market and we will, on top of that, compete on a new user paradigm that we are introducing with BlackBerry 10.
AG: Do you have a launch date yet?
TH: Last week, when we met with Verizon, they publicly stated, so its not a secret, that they will be launching Blackberry 10 in the first quarter of 2013. I would be very, very optimistic that other US carriers will follow suit.
We have a firm date when we will hit their labs for lab testing. As with every carrier, they have different cycle times for the testing cycle to get ready for first customer shipments. We’re working with the carriers on these launch dates, but it for sure will be in the first quarter 2013.
Magazine covers we love (this week)!
MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them. By media blogger MediaSlutZA.
Tablets leaking ad dollars to mobile from ‘Net – BuzzCity CEO
BuzzCity is a global mobile advertising network focused on emerging markets. In Africa this Singapore-based company, in which media giant Naspers owns a stake, does substantial business in South Africa (where it also has a sales office), Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. It also sees significant growth in mobile traffic in African markets north of the Sahara.
Look beyond digital campaigns to long-term goals – Antti Kupila
This year Antti Kupila (@akupila), the technical director at Sid Lee in Amsterdam, was invited as an international representative on the panel judging advertising entries. He spoke to us about the standards of SA work, emerging trends in digital marketing and the lack of a global reputation in our digital sector.
M&C Saatchi Abel gets thumbs up from Moray MacLennan
M&C Saatchi Abel is buzzing. The agency, which launched in early 2010 with no clients signed up front but a powerful management team, has grown to more than 63 staffers working with 29 client organisations. It just won the account for Geely – the Chinese auto manufacturer that also owns Volvo. The agency recently took another floor in the block in Cape Town where it is headquartered.
Vodacom name will stay for at least another five years
by Herman Manson. Discussions on rebranding Vodacom have been happening since the world’s biggest telecom brand, Vodafone, announced it would take a majority (65%) share in late 2008, in line with its global practice for majority shareholdings to trade under its corporate branding.