2008 December

Tis the season to be compiling lists: best ofs, worst ofs, top trends for 2009 and so on.

Yesterday I went along to the final Heavy Chef Session of 2008 which was entitled “what to expect in 2009 in the digital industry”. So for the benefit of anyone who didn’t attend, here are a few lists of interesting stuff I gleaned from the fab line up of speakers. (Heavy Chef is fast becoming my favourite networking/info sharing event in Cape Town).

Jonathan Cherry of Cherryflava shared his top five marketing trends for 2009:

1. Basics:
Focus on what it is you are selling and why I should buy from you. Concentrate on the “so what” factor and get rid of the fluff.

2. Hype:
People will get to grips with Web 2/social media and how they can use them as real business tools. More importantly, they will be integrated with traditional media for maximum effectiveness.

3. Focus:
Companies will focus on the 20% of their customers that bring in the 80% of their revenue.

4. Privacy:
Permission marketing will come into its own and communications will become more targetted, personal and responsible.

5. Small business:
Customers jaded by big corporate culture will increasingly move allegiance to community-based, caring and ecologically aware organisations.

Simon Leps from Fontera was the man in the hot seat with an awesome presentation on mobile, which got the audience all a quiver over issues of spam and privacy.

Nonetheless there is no doubt that mobile is THE hot topic for 2009, and that South Africa and Africa really do have a chance to leapfrog technology.

Looking into his crystal ball, Simon identified the following mobile trends for 2009:

1. Increase in SMS competitions
2. Rise in 3G video and live video
3. Unlimited contracts (unlikely in SA, but already available in the US)
4. Prepaid data
5. Touch screens
6. Mobile TV

And finally, Dave Duarte of Huddlemind and Nomadic Marketing fame took a look at digital trends including some magic videos and a look at Barack Obama’s use of social media during the US elections.

Dave also suggested three Cs of marketing in this digital age:

1. Choice = opt-in
2. Control = opt-out
3. Consideration

And gave some tips for designing a social media campaign:

Focus on:

1. Participation
2. Personalisation
3. Peer to peer pass along value
4. Predictive modelling

I’ve been having immense fun over the past couple of weeks promoting the launch of the book Earth TM, written by Etienne Kruger. It has been a great opportunity to experiment with using old and new marketing and PR tactics to drum up support for the book, and of course drive sales.

We’ve used Facebook, Twitter, old fashioned press releases, launch parties in gaming stores and such like to raise awareness in a short space of time, and on a tight budget. I’ve even found myself in the SA Post Office on more than one occasion sending books off for review - when last have you bought a postage stamp?

Professionally this has been an interesting lesson for me. Usually I tend towards B2B marketing, this is where most of my experience lies, and frankly if you asked me to market a lipstick or some similar FMCG product you wouldn’t see me for dust. (Hats off to the FMCG guys though, it’s just not my cup of tea). But, the lesson with Earth TM is, first and foremost I need to feel passionate and involved with the subject matter to be successful. This may appear self-evident, but it’s always useful to have a reminder of these things.

In Earth TM’s case, the book is a damn good read, written by an up and coming South African author, and has some interesting and worthwhile things to say, which it says well.

More generally, it’s a reminder to me that skills can be transferred, but passion, enthusiam and energy need to be authentic.

Useful stuff to take into 2009.

Meanwhile, have a look at Etienne Kruger chatting to Zoopy on their brand-spanking new site about some of the themes in the book.