Is Facebook a Black hole?

Simon Dumenco, the media critic at Advertising Age, reckons that Facebook is becoming the media world's ‘black hole', as it introduces frictionless media sharing epic timelines for every user and ‘continuing engagement land-grabs beyond', it is becoming the media world's black hole, and devaluing the non-Facebook web site in the process. Read more »

Banks and their attitude to consumers

Remember the time when you knew the name of your local bank manager? Those were the days when your monthly salary was deposited into your account, and you knew it was safe. If you wanted financial advice, you gave the manager a call, set up an appointment, discussed the matter with him, and it didn't cost you're a cent. Read more »

The rules have changed

Advertising's role in a marketing plan is simply to increase brand awareness, motivate consumers to buy and quantify the economic objective of the plan: increased sales. Read more »

The nemesis of research is time

The speed at which the social lifestyle of consumers is changing across the world, particularly in South Africa, puts a huge question mark behind the value of research in this country. The time gap between the collection of data, and the final analysis, is often too long to be of tactical value when planning marketing strategy. Read more »

The changing consumer profile

Traditionally, the standard practice in South Africa amongst marketers and agencies, when profiling of consumers, was to use a demographic scale with the white consumer dominating the selection. How does this profiling need to change? Read more »

What's the next move for advertising?

Decades ago advertising icon Bill Bernbach, recognised that by pairing a wordsmith with an artist, the quality of advertising improved immensely. His agency proved the value of this combination by producing some of the best awarding winning advertising of that time, ads that turned brands into category leaders. The move ignited the advertising process, and changed it from, Barnum & Bailey salesmanship, to an art. Read more »

Taking a look at NewsNow

September 8 saw the launch of Media 24's new magazine, NewsNow. A rather surprising entry, when one considers that print is under attack, losing both readers and advertisers to the internet - a medium that offers the public instant access to the latest news and information, plus an increasing variety of games and opportunities for social interaction. At the touch of a key, the public has access to the world 24/7. Read more »

Chit Chat ­ 1 September 2011

John Farquhar's regular insights into the world of marketing Read more »

Why people buy

Why do consumers select one brand over another? This is a conundrum that has fascinated academics, marketers and the advertising industry ever since mass media advertising came part of the marketing mix. Read more »

Quality research creates winners

There was a time when it was the norm for South African companies to include both, quantitative and qualitative research in their annual marketing plan. Research was seen as an investment that bore fruit by ensuring product development, and advertising strategies that brought consumers on board, that increased in sales, and profits. Read more »

Social Media and consumers

Despite the current tough economic climate, and the prospect of another recession looming ahead, publishers continue to launch a never-ending stream of new print titles in an attempt to take a larger slice of advertising budgets. Concurrent with this, increasing consumer involvement with the internet, has led to the growth of social web sites with audiences, in the case of Facebook, that numbers one trillion worldwide. Read more »

Crossing the communication rubicon

I recently reminded our local advertising and marketing industry that it is rather ridiculous in this day and age to continue addressing African consumers, through ideas that are conceived and executed in the English idiom, a language that is spoken and understood by 5% in a population of 50-million. It is time brand campaigns got real and realised that the economic growth of this country is largely dependent on consumption that is generated by African consumers. Read more »

The African Consumer

Unless a company is directly involved in the marketing of products that have high appeal amongst African consumers, this market comes across as an amorphous mass to new comers, showing little shape, or size regarding the consumption behaviour of its people. Read more »

How to cheat and get away with it

Anyone who watches DStv is gets irked by its show reel: Repeats, followed by repeats, followed by repeats and so on, ad infinitum. Read more »

The Cannes 2011 performance

Taking an objective look at South Africa's performance at this year's Cannes International Advertising Awards, there can be little doubt that compared to the 'Hey Day' years of the 70s, 80s and early 90s the creative spark that made the rest of the advertising world sit up and take notice of our work, has somehow lost its way. Read more »

A melting pot of gold

The new head of the Radio Advertising Bureau, Gilda de Araujo, must be quite chuffed at Network BBDO's Grand Prix win at the 2011 Cannes International Advertising Awards. The win will enable her to boost radio as an advertising medium. Read more »

A strange New Sanlam campaign

Altruism and commercialism have never been happy bed fellows. The one calls for an emotional response about getting involved in a cause for good, while the other has a commercial purpose in mind to build the image of a company with a financial end in sight. Read more »

Lessons to be learned

Vintage advertising can be amusing in its naivety and irrelevant bylines when viewed in the Noughties. However there is some value in this antiquated medium which could - and should - be applied today. Read more »

The award bun fight

In the days when the marketing industry in this country had a strong association known as The Society of Marketers, the governing body comprised the CEOs of companies. The purpose of the association was to represent the interests of the industry, and show one face, when government legislation posed a threat to business practice, i.e. employment rules, advertising procedure etc. The executive director liaised with government on these issues and called on senior captains of industry for support when parliament debated new rules and regulations. Read more »

Media buyers: make sure of what you buy

Despite the benefit of attracting advertising revenue, if there are sales verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), there are still publishers who avoid opening their circulation books for inspection by an independent auditor. Read more »