South African banks have generally never been slow to embrace new technology, with the result that the average South African is probably more adept at doing transactions and other banking business online and on their mobiles than bank customers in many other countries. Where members of the public have sometimes had issues, however, is in the ease - or lack thereof - of use of the banks’ sites, and the communication - or perceived lack thereof - from the banks to their customers. Here’s hoping the new directions taken by Standard Bank (which late last week repositioned itself to be “Moving Forward” and launched an internal staff corporate social network) and First National Bank (which this past weekend went live with a revamped transaction website), and the use of Web 2.0, will achieve their aims - let’s face it, we’d all rather like our banks than grit our teeth and rank contact with them right up there with a visit to the dentist.

And a round of applause is due to the five South Africans who won awards in the 2009 CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the Year Awards and the two South Africans who were awarded commendations. Well done to all of you!

Have a great week!
The biz editorial team: Simone Puterman & Rod Baker

PS The Seacom switchover actually happens this Thursday, 23 July 2009. Go go go, go Seacom go!

PPS In this week’s Ornico Ad Showcase, we feature TV ads for McDonalds, Simba, Telkom Charity Cup, Fedhealth and De Broglio Attorneys, and radio ads for GrandPa, KFC, Renault, Virgin Active and Wimpy.

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This column originally published 20 July 2009.

If there is one issue that has been in the spotlight for the past weeks and months, if not years, it’s the debacle at the SABC. We’ve had the Full Monty, from trips overseas to board meetings in luxury hotels to board members resigning in droves to a leader who apparently ‘sucks’ as a leader - she said it, we didn’t. Now that we have an interim board and with the process now underway to nominate a permanent one, you’d think that given the mess at the SABC and the need to sort it out, the powers-that-be would at least get the issue of advertising for nominees right? Apparently not.

This morning, Monday, 13 July 2009, saw the launch of the Loeries judging week with presentations by jury chairmen Jan Jacobs, Jim Sutherland and Matt Shirtcliffe. An audience member pointed out during Q&A time that it was very telling that none of the show-and-tells included any traditional TV spots, but we certainly saw lots of digital and integrated campaigns. On the subject of digital, finally, after a short delay, Thursday 23 July, should see the switching on of the much-anticipated Seacom undersea cable. Will it bring South Africa - and South African advertising and marketing - into the digital age or will it only be the start of a year to two-year-long process?

Go go go, go Seacom, go!
The biz editorial team

PS In this week’s Ornico Ad Showcase, we feature TV ads for CTM, Rainbow Chicken, Woolworths, Mercedes and Stuttafords, and radio ads for Outsurance, Post Office, Telkom, DStv and Oxy.

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This column originally published 13 July 2009.

Today Dr Nikolaus Eberl asks if hotel greed will kill South Africa’s tourism brand beyond 2010 and wonders whether SA will take the high road - using 2010 as a foundation on which to build tourism in the future, or the low road, which will virtually guarantee that the industry will be hammered. He paints a bleak picture of how Athens burnt its tourism brand by hiking prices through the roof. In similar fashion, he recounts how Cape Town managed to hammer its film industry by doing exactly the same thing.

Talking about tourism, 2010 and beyond, the Eastern Cape is one province determined to take the high road. Its tourism board last week launched a revamped destination brand and 2010 sub-brand, positioning the Eastern Cape as South Africa’s “Adventure Province” “where the game never ends 2010 & beyond”. Orchestrated by Boomtown, the brand essence has been developed to position and brand the province strategically and to differentiate the Eastern Cape in the domestic and global markets. According to Zola Tshefu, Eastern Cape Tourism Board CEO, “Adventure is the one area that the Eastern Cape can factually dominate over competing provinces and is also the most important desire for travelers in the international and domestic market segments.”

Moving on to business tourism, another brand following in the footsteps of the Imperial Car Rental/Europcar global footprint rebranding strategy in time for 2010 has been the revamped iconic Rosebank Hotel, which is now the Crowne Plaza Johannesburg - The Rosebank. Its sister Magaliesburg property, the Mount Grace Country House & Spa, has also invested R135 million in a refurbishment programmed which concluded with the recent unveiling of its new state-of-the-art conference centre.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SA readying itself for the beautiful game next year.

“Ke Nako [it's time]”
The biz editorial team

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This column originally published 6 July 2009.

Just to prove that we can do as well in the world’s advertising arena as we can in hosting sports events, our agencies have done us more than proud at Cannes this year. TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg’s Trillion Dollar Campaign for The Zimbabwean brought home an Outdoor Grand Prix and heads the SA winners’ list with nine Lions (including five Gold), and Net#work BBDO Johannesburg also brought home glory with a Radio Grand Prix (South Africa’s first ever) and two Bronze Lions. Rounding off the Joburg agency domination was Ogilvy Johannesburg four Lions (three Silver and one Bronze). In all, our contenders brought home two Grands Prix, five Gold, four Silver and eight Bronze.

The Confederations Cup is also done and dusted and, despite the naysayers and doubters, it has largely been a success. True, there were some problems, but that is what the Confed Cup is also about… being a dry run for 2010 so that problem areas can be identified and sorted out before hordes of soccer fans descend on us. That is the priority now - to sort them out (not the fans, the problems) and that means a good hard look at what went wrong or could have been done better - such as the marketing of the Confed Cup (and 2010 FIFA World Cup) in the first place, and the park and ride system, which also had some troubles. Perhaps the powers-that-be might also like to take a look at the issue of ticket prices, while they are about it?

In this week’s Ornico Ad Showcase, we feature TV ads for Vodacom, Wild Island, Love Life, Momentum and KFC, and radio ads for Motorola, Consol, Symmetry, Visa and Outsurance. We invite you to view/listen, rate and comment upon these ads.

Well done to all. Take a bow!
The biz editorial team

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This column originally published 29 June  2009.

I was sad to leave Cannes yesterday, Thursday, 25 June 2009, because each year for a few days in my hectic life schedule I get to sit and listen and marvel at the amazing innovation that is shaping our advertising, media and communications.

This year was no exception. I was exposed to many campaigns that honoured integration and took real consumer insights and applied them in inspiring ways. www.thegreatschlep.com showed how a simple consumer insight could influence a presidential race; a brilliant campaign for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef will change tourism communication forever; Gillette’s Campaign for men showed there are no-holds barred online in demonstrating (pretty tastefully I have to say) how men should trim their pubic hair. And the campaign for Distracted Drivers/Road Safety got everyone talking.

I sat through fascinating insights on how 20 million consumers around the world interact with Xbox games each month and even Unilever use Microsoft’s Free Interactive Games to sell margarine. The Sagami Original campaign for the world’s thinnest condom was a beautifully crafted and thought-out story that won a Grand Prix in PR. The work on the Deadliest Catch was riveting with very smart media integration and I just have to see that show!!!

We were told that men go online for fantasy and women for reality - sound familiar?

I learned about Microsoft Surface, Bing, the Long Nose, The Natal Project, the Eyeblaster Project to end traditional advertising, Skimmer, MagCloud and a whole lot of other really fascinating stuff - so much so that I was told I was becoming a technology slave one night at dinner by a techie (talk about calling the kettle black) who was watching me Tweet away.

Slave or not, I cannot emphasis enough to communicators, marketers, advertisers and media specialists to get closer to the technical innovations that are changing our world. Find ways to bring the understanding into your business - collaborate with others, particularly technology partners, create campaigns that engage and most important become part of the conversation.

I started Tweeting from the time I arrived in Cannes and just this involvement and engagement shifted my absorption of information and clarity of thought and interaction with others. I warn you though; it is addictive (that’s the technology monk in me speaking).

My highlight was Twitter and the young and unassuming Biz Stone. Forget the US$500 million. How incredible it must be to have been part of creating something that is changing the world so fundamentally.

I say this because, for the past few days, CNN has been a Twitter with the coverage of the riots in Iran and Twitter has been a key feeder to this (see #iranelection). Twitter is becoming the news agency of the world and people are finding a voice that would otherwise be censored. All it takes is a mobile device and you can find your voice. Where major news corporations cannot be present or report the repressive tactics of governments, Twitter will make their voices heard.

It’s unstoppable and profound and I count myself lucky to live in this age where the individual can participate in this global conversation.

Cannes Lions stories on Bizcommunity.com (which hyperlink to relevant Cannes Lions content):

• SA makes final Cannes Lions shortlists 26 Jun 2009 11:12
• Gold again for TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Joburg 25 Jun 2009 08:09
• Cape film industry at Cannes 24 Jun 2009 13:32
• TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris caps record success with Grand Prix 24 Jun 2009 11:20
• Net#work BBDO - “Yes, we ‘Cannes’ again” 24 Jun 2009 10:29
• Two Grands Prix for SA at Cannes Lions 24 Jun 2009 09:13
• SA makes Design Lions shortlist 23 Jun 2009 15:00
• Silver Direct Lion for TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris 23 Jun 2009 09:32
• 2009 Cannes Lions SA shortlists so far 22 Jun 2009 11:30

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, FNB head of media
Bizcommunity.com guest blogger

The techies will continue to change our world. I’m more convinced of this than ever from my time here at Cannes.

Sorry to say, it’s not the creative talent or marketers who are setting the agenda here. Sure there are cool ideas, but it’s the geeks who have created and will create more and more tools, unlocking a world of free and flowing communication and importantly captivating consumer attention.

The media-savvy Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, confirmed this. He exuded power and confidence as the paparazzi snapped away and Fortune fired off live questions at him. Later at the Cannes Awards, Ballmer was named Media Person of the Year? Yes, indeed (see Gold again for TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Joburg).

Earlier on, I listened with keen interest to the HP and RG/A team talk about cloud computing. Coming from a magazine publishing background I marvelled at MagCloud. This enables wannabe publishers to publishing virtually without the usual financial risks of magazine publishing and the revenue model is on demand. So the only real costs to the publisher is the content generation - the rest is sitting in the cloud, only activated and printed on demand when a consumer buys the title.

It’s really exciting for small niche publishers and even larger publishers who are testing new products. More importantly, it puts the power in the hands of the individual and no longer in the hands of printers, distributors or retailers.

I’ve spent a good deal of my time with digital media strategists and tech-savvy people and they are all saying the same thing. Technology will continue to set the agenda and we will have to constantly try to work out how we effectively join the ride.

Don’t forget to follow my live tweeting from Cannes!

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, FNB head of media
Bizcommunity.com guest blogger

Yesterday, Tuesday, 23 June 2009, confirmed that collaboration is key to communication success. Current market conditions and the growing influence of social media and participatory culture requires all of us - agencies, marketers, media houses/owners and the rest - to humble down and collaborate. Clients are also going to have to take the lead and look at new models of remuneration to encourage and reward a more collaborative approach to their business.

Listened to case study on cool campaign for Sagami Original, the world’s thinnest condom and winner in PR category. Great digital campaign!

I spent a lot of time in tech sessions.

Bill Buxton, a scientist working for Microsoft and creator of its latest innovation Microsoft Surface, managed to get a laugh out of a weary crowd when he made light of the weighty topic of tech development (www.qvivid.com). He told us three screens is child’s play - we are heading quickly for a multi-screen environment where technology will change consumer interactions around multiple touchpoint tech offerings.

We heard about the Long Nose (forget the Long Tail), how environmentalists will ensure that Print dies (they gotta save the trees), God being the founder of advertising and flowers being some of his greatest work… Well, it certainly beat the prior experience of listening to the Principle Platform Evangelist who failed dismally to live up to her passionate title and content on integrative technology platforms to manage cross-media implementation. Theme again - collaboration and integration, although poorly explained!

Later on at a party on the Carlton Hotel beachfront I got talking to Finweek’s specialist editor Tony Koenderman, considered South Africa’s leading expert on marketing and advertising. He confirmed that, for the first time in many years at Cannes, there’s proof in the campaigns that collaboration and integration has become a reality. That’s great news, along with the two Grand Prix Lions SA agencies TBWA\Hunt\ Lascaris Johannesburg (Outdoor) and Net#work BBDO Johannesburg (Radio) picked up (see Two Grands Prix for SA at Cannes Lions and SA makes Design Lions shortlist)!

Don’t forget to follow my live tweeting from Cannes!

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, FNB head of media
Bizcommunity.com guest blogger