Journal of Marketing - Aug / Sep 2008

Soweto TV (STV) is broadcast live to an estimated one million viewers in the sprawling Johannesburg township and its surrounding areas. But don't expect any glamorous studio sets or props. STV is a community medium, broadcast from an old school building on Vilakazi Street in Soweto where, just a few houses away, political icon Nelson Mandela once lived. STV is 'real people, real soul and real TV'.

East Coast Radio's pioneering drive into creating new content based on complementary technology platforms is delivering an entirely new radio star - impacting on the station's listenership profile, advertising revenues and the skills required from jocks and sales staff.

Radio has tremendous added-value for advertisers who have access to consumers across a multimedia.

The tone was almost plaintive. In her Grapevine column on the back page of Sunday Times' Business Times, Marcia Klein urged CEOs of all companies to 'take back control of their image from the grips of your public relations people'.

The Sappi African Printers of the Year awards aims to raise the standards of print excellence in Africa by recognizing and rewarding the achievements of the best printers in the African region.

A mobizine could be called an entertainment snack for the mobile phone. A little nibble of information that is downloaded to cellphones, mobizines can be read straight after download, or kept until the user is ready to read it.

New light emitting diode (LED) billboards offer hugely increased visibility and flexibility.

Web 2.0 seems to be the latest buzzword. Everywhere we go we hear about MySpace and Flickr, UTube and mXit. Many marketers are recognizing that their audiences are consuming web 2.0 offerings and that if they are to remain relevant, they need to get onto the web 2.0 bandwagon. Starting in the obvious place, they have advertised on large community networks like Facebook, or bolted blogs onto the existing website, and ticked the web 2.0 box.

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at how perceptions are being created online, almost more than they are through traditional marketing channels. As a consequence, digital marketing needs to be made part of the overall marketing mix, and even spearhead it. Here are a few ways in which to do it.

As marketers, we're in the business of creating strong brands in order to deliver brand equity - the marketing equivalent of the bottom line. So what does it take to create a strong brand? A brand is more than just a look or a logo. It's an accumulation of thoughts and feelings, a multi-sensory, experiential signature that's consistent and cohesive and takes time to develop. At Ornico Media Information we call it Brand Intelligence™ : the synchronized delivery of a set of visual codes via brand positioning, brand message, brand personality and brand promise to a select and tightly targeted market. And we recently saw a successful example in the new Audi A4 'Strings' TV commercial.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is being ported to mobile platforms to ensure that employees can send and receive up-to-date information while on the road, says Vivek Thomas, MD of Maximizer in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

In keeping with the station's distinct identity as South Africa's leading independent radio station, Jacaranda 94.2, in association with Domaine Bonaventure has once again 'upped the ante' with a groundbreaking promotion dubbed 'Soek die Koek'. The promotion, which saw the ubiquitous Vernon Koekemoer taking centre stage, is yet another feather in the cap of the station's impressive array of innovative multimedia initiatives.

The tightening economic realities have certainly become more evident over the past few months, and while we occasionally get some relief like small reductions in fuel prices, etc., it's obvious that we're not out of stormy waters yet.