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Loeries Announces Move To Johannesburg And Expanded Format

The Loeries – Africa and the Middle East’s most prestigious accolade for the brand communication industry – is moving to Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg after five years in Durban.

Newly appointed CEO of the Loeries, Preetesh Sewraj said, ’With the move to Johannesburg comes the opportunity for change – a change that will bring the Loeries to the economic centre of Africa. This move is not simply about relocating from one city to another, it is an opportunity to bring the entire Africa and Middle East brand communication industry to a city that is a creative hub within the region. Johannesburg is also directly linked to all major cities across the region, which will increase the access to Loeries Creative Week.’

Newly appointed CEO of the Loeries, Preetesh Sewraj.

The move to Johannesburg also brings with it a change to the format and an extended programme. ‘The Loeries is far more than an awards show. It is a platform for the entire advertising, marketing and design community,’ added Sewraj. ‘The seminar has been increased to two days, allowing for more speakers from brands and agencies, with many opportunities for learning and networking,’ said Sewraj. ‘The change of venue city allows us to bring a more diverse programme of experiences, takeovers and pop-ups.’

Dawn Rowlands, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu Aegis Network Sub-Saharan Africa and Loeries board member said, ‘As a member of the Creative Business community, I am delighted to see the Loeries move to Johannesburg. It will ensure the seminars and learning opportunities are a great deal more accessible to young talent and the wider community. Johannesburg is an exciting regional business hub and the event is sure to be more energised in this environment.’

Dawn Rowlands, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu Aegis Network Sub-Saharan Africa, and Loeries board member.

Tseliso Rangaka, Loeries Chairperson says, ‘I’m excited about the decision to migrate the Loeries to Johannesburg because the opportunity to welcome more agencies, brands and the public at large to Loeries Creative Week is too great to ignore. Constitutional Hill is such an inspirational environment, with so much history, and Johannesburg is where Africa’s commercial heart resides. This move will help facilitate greater industry interaction, and will inspire creative thought across our region.’

Tseliso Rangaka, Loeries Chairperson

The 2020 Loeries include an expanded Student Portfolio Day, as many of the tertiary education institutes with which the Loeries works closely are based in Johannesburg and Tshwane. ‘Proximity means more students will be able to attend,’ said Sewraj. ‘There is a real need to attract talent to the industry and a Johannesburg line-up will enable more young talent to recognise the industry as a viable career path.’

‘The changing communication needs of consumers mean that the Loeries truly is the strongest source of insight into how consumer thinking is evolving across the region and what both brands and agencies need to do to ensure that they develop an even deeper understanding of these changing needs,’ added Rangaka.

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LOERIES 
www.loeries.com

King James And The Odd Number Launch Groundswell Agency

Alistair King (King James) Sbu Sitole (The Odd Number), James Barty (King James) and Xola Nouse (The Odd Number).

The Odd Number Group and King James Group announced the launch of a new joint venture agency called Groundswell, a collaborative effort geared to tackle current and future client opportunities.

The new agency signals the two agencies’ intent to form an ongoing and forward-looking partnership and sets up the prospect of specialist agency acquisitions to bolster their joint capabilities. 

The Odd Number CEO, Xola Nouse said, ’We’re building a partnership that will deliver real value to clients. Over the past five years we’ve successfully demonstrated the case for an agency such as ours. As we now set our sights on continued growth and expansion, we’ve found in King James, partners whose business and creative philosophies mirror that of our own – our collective independence and entrepreneurial flair resonates with the clients and markets we serve.’

A sentiment echoed by King James CEO, James Barty said, ‘A coming together of two African born independent businesses that can serve uniquely African opportunities with an innovative approach rings true to us. And while we’re obviously at very different stages in our business lifespan, this new structure sets up a shared long-term vision for both agencies to work towards.’

The two agency brands will continue to operate as standalone agency groups while leveraging the skills and expertise that each company can bring to the other through this partnership, collaborating where possible and teaming up when necessary.

‘We all believe that the future belongs to local, independent agencies that are interested in shaping our country’s creative narrative. We aim to achieve this by finding, nurturing and arming young creative South Africans with the confidence and ability to showcase their work and compete at a global level,’ commented The Odd Number’s CCO Sbu Sitole.

‘We’ve long admired the entrepreneurial spirit of The Odd Number, but more than anything we identify as kindred creative spirits. Our shared creative ethos and our personal ambitions for our respective companies has been critical to our meeting of minds,’ added King James CCO, Alistair King. Sitole, Nouse, King and Barty will sit as equal shareholders on the board of Groundswell.

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KING JAMES GROUP
+27112150000
enquiries@kingjames.co.za
www.kingjames.co.za
THE ODD NUMBER
www.theoddnumber.co.za

Basics That Every Marketing Budget Should Cover

Marketing Consultant and Founder of Firejuice, Bernard Jansen, says a piece of the puzzle that is often neglected by business owners quick to criticise marketing performance is a marketing plan. 

The marketing plan should describe the desired results expected from marketing activities and how these ties into overall sales targets. Only now can the marketing budget be set. A plan informs the budget and allows you to do what is called ‘zero-based budgeting’, meaning you to build the budget from the ground up based on what’s needed to achieve the goals. This is very different to simply allocating a budget based on a percentage of turnover or ‘last year plus inflation’.

First, let’s get one thing straight, as a business owner you can’t complain about marketing not delivering results if you haven’t kept to your end of the bargain and allocated a budget. The marketing budget sets the rules of the game – it makes it possible to measure – to some degree of accuracy – that magical number called ‘return on investment’. Everyone wants ROI on marketing spend, yet few know what they plan to invest, i.e. a marketing budget.

Although a zero-based approach is recommended, there are a few basics that every budget should cover:
• A management component, because you can’t simply switch on the marketing taps; someone needs to project manage the process for you.
• A brand-building component to ensure the brand looks good wherever it appears. Graphic design, interior design and corporate signage and stationery fall into this category.
• A communications component, which is the part everyone thinks about first and includes digital marketing, events and conferences and various types of traditional media such as magazine advertising and PR.

Ultimately, what everyone wants from their marketing spend, is sales. But a sale is only the last step of a successful marketing campaign. Before the sale, the prospective buyer must show interest, and before that, be aware of what’s on offer. It is the classic concept of the marketing (or purchase) funnel, and one should measure your success at each step of the funnel – not just at the end when the sale occurs.

Carefully tracking each phase of the marketing funnel, as set out in a marketing plan, allows you to gradually fine-tune your marketing. Are you successfully generating awareness? Is that translating into interest? Do those translate into a trial (or a meeting) and then only, a sale?

A marketing plan, with a marketing funnel breakdown and associated zero-based budget, and setting clear objectives at each stage of the marketing funnel, as captured in a marketing plan, means your marketing department will be run in a professional manner. Marketing can’t be treated in a less professional manner than the rest.

The stakes are just as high, if not higher. If marketing fails, the business will ultimately fail. Think about it: without marketing, there is no sales funnel, meaning each sale is handled on a sample of one basis. You grow one sale at a time, almost randomly, instead of having a growth engine producing the sale, and the next one, and the next one. Don’t you want to spend money on an engine like that? Growth should not be random. It is the reason why you need a marketing budget with a marketing plan for the coming year.

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FIREJUICE
bernard@firejuice.co.za
www.firejuice.co.za

New Influencer Platform Released

HumanzTV by Humanz aims to release new daily content via its social pages ‘by influencers, for influencers’ to provide answers to questions ranging from how one creates great content or grows one’s audience, to dealing with trolls or online predators.

HumanzTV is a platform for influencers, content creators, agencies and marketers to share news, tips and advice on the growing field of influencer marketing. The launch was announced by Pearl Thusi on her Instagram and Twitter pages earlier this month. Thusi is an investor in Humanz and part of its board of advisors.

‘When it comes to influencer marketing content, the focus is almost always on marketers. There is very little content about the actual influencer experience. Yet, there are so many questions. Given how big and active our global network is, it made sense for us to launch what is probably the first publisher by influencers for influencers,’ Thusi said.

‘What you are seeing today is just the beginning,’ said Pierre Cassuto, global CMO for Humanz. ‘We will be releasing an update to our app over the next couple of weeks, allowing anyone to become a contributor to HumanzTV. There is a wealth of expertise within the international Humanz community, as well as a desire to connect and share – something we learnt when we launched Humanz Connect last year.’

Humanz Connect is an exclusive social network for influencers, available inside the Humanz app, enabling creators to discover one another and connect to chat or collaborate on content. Since its launch in South Africa in mid-2019, over 30,000 influencers have downloaded the Humanz app in the country.

‘Our vision is to enable and support the world’s largest and most engaged community of content creators and advertisers. We started our business by focusing on creating breakthrough tools for advertisers and are now shifting our focus to the creator community. To be honest, it’s about time that someone did,’ added Thusi.

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HUMANZ
info@humanz.ai 
home.humaz.ai

Primedia Outdoor Celebrates Valentine’s Day With #PrimediaBigLove Campaign

This year Primedia Outdoor once again celebrated Valentine’s day with their unique #PrimediaBigLove campaign. The campaign invited the public to send their loved ones, whether a partner, family, friend or colleagues, a love message on Twitter or Facebook and then have their message flighted instantaneously onto Primedia Outdoor’s roadside and mall digital screens nationally.  

The socially driven Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) campaign delivered a new way for people to share sentiment with loved ones and participants were rewarded with their public declaration of love posted onto the big screen.

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PRIMEDIA OUTDOOR
+27114751419 
jorja@primeoutdoor.co.za
www.primediaoutdoor.co.za

Mortimer Harvey Appoints ECD

Jacque Matthee, new executive creative director at Mortimer Harvey (MH).

Mortimer Harvey (MH) announced the appointment of Jacque Matthee as executive creative director (ECD).

Matthee learned lessons in business ownership and business closure and promptly reinvented himself for a new era in communications. From stints at Ogilvy’s brand activations company – Geometry Global – as CD, to an ECD at The Creative Council, then a very happy return as ECD to the digital world at Base2 Digital (Aqua/Wunderman) and ultimately, as integrated executive creative director of Y&R Johannesburg.

Andrew Fradd, group MD of MH, welcomed Matthee, ‘We’re delighted to celebrate the return of a now altogether more mature, well-seasoned, battle-hardened version of Matthee, now with a lot more beard, as MH’s new executive creative director.’

Matthee said, ‘I’m amazed at how big ideas come from seemingly insignificant communication requirements. How we don’t save lives bu sometimes we do. How a brave and purposeful client is your best ally. How a new media channel can give birth to a million new creative ideas. How we have the power to build up, where others break down. I love that we have the ability to shock people into action or soothe them into belonging all on the same day for different clients. What a wonderful reason to get up in the morning.’

Dave Mortimer, group CEO of MH and Gerald Harvey, group CCD of MH said, ‘Matthee has worked tirelessly to acquire a strong sense of what it takes to empower and integrate with clients, agency partners, industry supplier partners and, most importantly, within your own creative organisation. Some Cannes statues, a Loerie or two and a few other accolades along the way are testament to his drive for creative relevance and excellence.’

Katlego Moutlana, executive strategy director at MH, said that she looks forward to working with Matthee. ‘We pride ourselves on being a close-knit family committed to delivering exceptional results and I have no doubt that Matthee’s enthusiasm and passion for our business is a perfect fit.’


MORTIMER HARVEY

Dave@mortimerharveyl.com
mortimerharvey.com

 

Make Your Brand Visible On Reading Platforms

Josephine Buys, CEO of the PRC, states that although paper circulations might have declined, reading has not. This is good news for publishers and brands alike.

Global Research conducted by Nielsen for the Publisher Research Council (PRC) for its PAMS Brands People Products & Platforms (PPP) Fusion 2019 survey has revealed that during the day, when the shops are open and the vast majority of commerce takes place, a large number of consumers read newspapers or magazines.

Despite the long-held belief that drive-time radio shows take the greatest share of the audience, this new survey clearly proves that more people are reading during the day than are listening to audio.  

‘Radio drive time doesn’t have the same impact as it once had because there are now millions of more commuters and office workers, as well as people at home, who are reading on their cell phones and other online platforms during the day,’ said Peter Langschmidt, lead consultant to the PRC.

TV is unsurpassed at creating awareness and impact at the lowest cost per thousand, and this is why it takes the lion’s share of ad spend in South Africa. Read media are the perfect companion to TV as they allow readers to assimilate far more information, at their own pace, as many times as they need to re-read it, to fully understand all aspects of the product, as well as to compare prices and find the best and closest outlet to buy it.  

Smartphones are the primary platforms for reading news and magazine content online, the PPP research revealed, giving a useful guide to advertisers and publishers in terms of planning. This is why it is vital that creative must be device optimised and appropriate. This is a primary example of an age-old issue with creative not working in concert with media planning.

While many consumers are at work during the day, their smartphones are with them constantly. The data shows they tend to dip in and out of publishers’ sites during working hours, before heading home and settling in to watch TV. Even then, reading continues as those watching TV at night are increasingly ‘second screening’, taking in a television show, while checking out what’s going on with social media and breaking news stories.

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PUBLISHER RESEARCH COUNCIL 
www.prc.za.com/pams

Mobile Has Become The World’s Premier And Competitive Marketplace

Simba Hozo, Digital Specialist at Reprise Digital.

We all remember the first telephone we ever used, connecting with the person on the far end of that dialling tone. It was amazing to be able to connect like that no matter the time or distance (remember the girls hogging the phone for hours?), recalls Simba Hozo, Digital Specialist at Reprise Digital.

Years after this, an even better bit of tech evolved. A telephone you could have on you all the time, one you could walk around with and connect to with more than just voice.  But did you know that handheld phones had been in the making since 1918, in trains and automobiles? This and many other lightbulb moments helped Motorola and its peers to introduce the world to the future telephone that would colloquially be known simply as ‘the mobile’.

It is argued that South Africa is the foremost mobile-first nation in Africa, maybe even the world, similar to America being the world’s foremost computer-first nation. These are probably two of the world’s grandest means of connecting businesses and consumers globally a.k.a the desktop and the mobile. According to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), South Africa’s smartphone penetration today stands at a whopping 84%, doubling in the past two years.

It is at moments like this that I remember what one of my marketing mentors used to say, ‘Fish where the fish are, and if you can’t find fish where the fish are, change your bait.’ This was a simple analogy for the modern-day marketplace where quality leads have evolved from walk-ins to platforms.

Our world is a smartphone market place and it seems the only thing that matters these days is, ‘is it mobile ready?’ ICASA recorded smartphone subscriptions at 46.9 million as at 30 September 2018 and taking this in context of South Africa’s population, July 2018 Statistics South Africa reported the mid-year population to be 57.7million.

That is a staggering figure for any business wishing to connect with its consumers. Smartphone penetration has also seen a surge in application development, because what are people really doing on their smartphones apart from connecting and transacting? It goes without saying that it’s critical that brands are playing in the mobile space today more than ever. But, how are brands standing out? Who has mastered their ‘fishing’?

For a business to thrive, with more than just a shift in mindset, I believe the following three approaches are necessary:

– Look deeper and understand the type of audience you want to attract.
– Understand how your type of audience connects and converts as they sometimes don’t relate to the same thing.
– What device is your audience using to engage and at what time?

Mobile has in no way become the be-all and end-all of connecting with customers – that would be a dangerous assumption. There is however something to be said about constantly connecting with customers. Imagine serving a print ad, then serving the same ad via desktop or TV and then later re-serving it directly to the same customer’s mobile phone. Sounds a bit stalky and nonsensical doesn’t it? What if we could just re-purpose the same ad and serve it in three different appealing ways at three very convenient times, directly to that same customer? This is the impact of smartphones and where the power of the technology lies.

The technology behind mobile phones means that businesses have the ability to study their customer’s engagement and lifestyle patterns. After all, mobile has propelled today’s fastest-growing industrial stack – digital marketing, where the global online spend has grown 3% year on year since its inception.

Over the past three decades, it remains, without a doubt in my mind, that the biggest lesson for marketers throughout mobile’s incredible changes, is that the fundamentals have remained the same. It is still vital to reach the right customers, with the right message at the right time. Technology is accelerating at a tremendous pace and it pays to keep moving with the times. Mobile more than any other platform has become the world’s premier, and competitive, marketplace. So really, it’s always #MobileFirst.

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REPRISE DIGITAL SOUTH AFRICA  
+27728721245
reprisedigital.com

HaveYouHeard Signs Five New Accounts And Appoints New MD

HaveYouHeard started 2020 with five new clients: Absa, Campari Africa, Jameson Global, Jeep Clothing and Trotters UK.

Absa Retail Banking appointed the agency to address its influencer marketing strategy and implementation, while Campari Africa tasked it with similar responsibilities, primarily in Nigeria as a starting point and rolling out onto the continent later in the year.

Jameson Global has appointed HaveYouHeard to develop its global experiential and activations strategy, based on its current Global brand platform. Jeep Clothing is seeking strategy and execution within South Africa while Trotters, a children’s clothing brand in the United Kingdom, has appointed the agency as its digital partner.

HaveYouHeard has also appointed its Head of Integrated Execution, Victoria Gabler, as managing director. Gabler joined the agency two years ago after several years spent running her own business, heading FlicFlac and spending time in the corporate world overseas. She takes over from Co-Founder, Jason Stewart.

Victoria Gabler, new HaveYouHeard managing director.

Stewart, who has been largely responsible over the past three years for restructuring and re-skilling the agency to transform it from a small specialist mainly active in the influencer and social media spheres to a full-service agency able to meet the needs of any client or project regardless of size, hands over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the agency to Gabler. He will focus on adding value for the agency’s clients, as well as exploring unexpected opportunities for growth and building new revenue streams.

‘HaveYouHeard is in an incredibly healthy position with a very strong foundation, culture, team and systems that make doing good work exciting and stimulating, if not easy. We have a very unique offering and approach that clients are enjoying, have picked up exciting brands as new clients, and are perfectly positioned to be able to deliver very powerful work,’ he said.

‘It is therefore the perfect time for myself and Co-Founder Ryan McFadyen to relinquish day-to-day control and focus on what we do best, innovating within the creative world, by sharing responsibility for the agency’s future with someone who understands its idiosyncrasies, who shares our passion and vision, and who has the skill set to – quite frankly – do a great job. Gabler is undeniably that person. From day one, she leveraged her strong operational skillsets, financial acuity and street-smarts to make us more efficient and pass those benefits – financial and time savings – onto our clients.’

‘As Head of Integrated Execution, she managed all execution departments from experiences, to activations, to influence, to digital, to production, to PR. Here, she did a phenomenal job of integrating our departments and teams, morphing them from silos into collaborative units. This had an immediate impact on our work and made us more efficient and effective so that we were delivering better outcomes, easier. With her incredible ability to bring out the best in people and the teams they form, she is able to simplify and systemise excellence, and has earned the respect of everyone in the agency. We’re very proud of her, how she has grown through our in-house development and leadership programme, and look forward to seeing her positive influence on our clients’ businesses,’ said Stewart.

Gabler has a strong background in FMCG, a deep understanding of the South African liquor industry, and a solid track record in activations and brand events. She studied Marketing Management at the Institute of Marketing Management and has a Diploma in Advertising from The Institute of Marketing Management.

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HAVEYOUHEARD
+27112681331
 haveyouheard.co.za

The Migration Of Customer-Facing Websites And Apps To The Cloud

Image source: Bluegrass Digital website.

Bluegrass Digital CEO Nick Durrant mentions that modern businesses are moving customer-facing websites and apps to the cloud. It enables them to reduce infrastructure costs and spend more time focusing on revenue opportunities and business growth. 

Many companies already use multiple cloud providers in addition to their on-premise deployments and private cloud. Cloud requires a major shift in thinking in order to improve the user experiences and increase repeat business. This creates unique challenges when trying to make advanced services simpler to consume and maintain. It’s even a bigger challenge for business leaders to address the need for quicker and consistent app deployment across multiple platforms, each of which may have different configurations and capabilities.

Gartner claims that multi-cloud strategies will reduce vendor dependency for two-thirds of organisations through 2024, but this will happen in ways other than application portability. It says few applications ever move once they have been deployed in production and adopted by the business. The majority of multi-cloud strategies are more focused on procurement, functionality and risk mitigation than on portability.

So why should one consider moving to the cloud? The short answer is that it provides lower infrastructure cost with massive financial and operational rewards. There are many other benefits to move to a cloud architecture: these could include greater flexibility, lower operational overheads and reduced infrastructure costs.

It is a challenging and highly complex task that requires careful planning. Business is fast realising that migrating to the cloud is not as easy as it seems and there is a huge amount of learning and upskilling required. This is a reason why businesses need to find a partner to support them on this journey.

With cloud-based apps, businesses now have access to a plethora of benefits that traditional apps could never provide:

Better collaboration

Employees can now work and collaborate from anywhere. Cloud-based services and apps enable staff to access the same tools and data, no matter what device they are working from. In so doing, it keeps everyone on the same page, reducing the risk of miscommunication and increases efficiencies.

Always up-to-date software

With most cloud-based solutions, businesses no longer need to worry about updating or maintaining software. With Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), the tools and apps are updated automatically without any intervention from the IT department.

Scalability

Instead of purchasing and keeping several servers, storage and licences, cloud allows one to purchase additional storage and licenses instantly at any time.

Eliminating costs

For any company, establishing and running a physical data centre could be a costly and time-consuming affair. It requires a range of physical resources that are knowledgeable and experienced. By opting for cloud data servers, businesses merely pay for the service and can unsubscribe at any point. Cloud helps cut on the overall investment expenses and adds to a better return on investment.

Flexible resources

Employees can now work remotely using desktop virtualisation, a cloud-based app that enables staff to access their desktops from anywhere. They can access their apps, services and data regardless of where they are, as long as they have a device that connects to the internet.

Remote access to data

Need to make key business decisions when travelling? Cloud is the answer. It provides instant access 24/7 to all important data and one no longer needs to keep redundant copies of this data on any device whilst travelling. More importantly, the data is always updated, so one will always be accessing the same data that any team member is working on.

Improved security

Updated software also means improved security. Using cloud-based apps can help ensure staff are using the most secure software possible. This can also help prevent unauthorised access to confidential or sensitive company information that is stored in the cloud.

Competitive advantage

Forward-looking companies will continue to find new ways to transform. They are putting their apps in the cloud because the business case is compelling and it gives them a competitive advantage. As they gain experience with migrating to the cloud, new opportunities for increasing agility, focus and cost savings will emerge.

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BLUEGRASS DIGITAL
hello@bluegrassdigital.com
bluegrassdigital.com
This is Modern Marketing