2009 February

I said in my last post about World Wide Creative’s Heavy Chef Sessions that they were fast becoming my favourite networking/info sharing event. I love the spirit of collaboration and fun (along with the Perdeberg wine and Corona ).

So I was waiting with bated breath for the first session for 2009, which was held earlier this week. Entitled Social Media and the new tools of PR, it did not disappoint.

That feisty female Beverley Merriman was first up, chatting about the building blocks of social media using a cool Lego analogy. Very useful if you have come across things like Twitter, Facebook, bookmarking sites and so on, and are not sure how they all fit together.

Grab Bev’s presentation here.

Next up was Catherine Luckhoff, talking us through the Rocking the Daisies Campaign, which is one of the finest examples in South Africa, if not further afield, of a truly integrated campaign.

Being the first to do anything, you are constantly learning on the job, and Cath generously shared a lot of the learnings the MANGO-OMC crew underwent.

You can download her presentation here, and it is far too detailed to do justice to in a 300-word blog post (I work with the MANGO-OMC team so know just how much went into the campaign). I’d recommend taking a look, and instead will share with you my biggest take-away.

What I was left with, is that in a country as varied and diverse as South Africa, you absolutely need to use as many channels is necessary and appropriate to reach your market. It’s so easy to dismiss the smallish number of bloggers or Tweeters or people with broadband in South Africa. But it is clear that the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts - the buzz in each channel starts cross-pollinating and contributes to strengthening the overall impact of an integrated campaign.

Last up was Kaz Henderson from Total Media, taking us back to basics with an overview of traditional PR tools, and how these are changing and adapting. One the one hand my feeling is that the more things change, the more they stay the same: writing press releases news article style so that busy journalists can do a cut and paste job; it being all about relationships; knowing what people are saying about you (so much easier nowadays thanks to the tangled social media web and tools like Brandseye).

It’s important to keep up to date with the new, bright and shiny; but don’t throw the basics out the window, and be realistic about which tools you need to use, and in which combination.

The New York Times reported earlier this week about “the first site 100 percent dedicated to the best of the mobile Web, with nothing to do with the PC Web,” according to Greg Osberg, chief executive of Buzzwire.

The Denver, USA-based start-up launched a site on Monday that it describes as being the Digg for the mobile web. According to the report, the site will tap cell phone users’ collective preferences to create a guide to the best Web content for mobile users. Unlike Digg however, the site will also have four editors to supplement the user generated content.

Readers (browsers?) can scan the 20 most popular stories; navigate by topic, such as the Academy Awards, politics or health; or see the most recent links. They can also keep a list of stories they want to read later and, à la Twitter, follow their friends to see what they are reading and watching, says the report.

You can read the report here.

These are some of the interesting stats and predictions around the mobile web that emerge from the article:

By 2012, people will be browsing the Web more on their phones than on PCs or laptops - Greg Osberg, Buzzwire

The number of people who surf the Internet on phones has doubled since 2006, according to Nielsen Mobile, to 40 million. Still, only 16 percent of people with cellphones use them to go online, and those that do visit an average of six sites a month, versus 100 on their computers.

Let’s compare that to South Africa, where Matthew Buckland cites a Vodacom report that indicates that twice as many South Africans access the Internet via mobile vs traditional desktop access. I know this is not an apples with apples comparison with the previous stat, but my hunch is that SA is well in the lead of the field when it comes to mobile Internet access. This is backed up later in Matthew’s post where he mentions that SA is the 6th highest user of the Opera Mobile browser, ahead of both the US and China.

Buzzwire’s mobile site is here: m.buzzwire.com and you can check out the somewhat cheesy video here.

Urban regeneration in Cape Town received a boost today with the launch of the new look ABSA Centre at 2 Riebeek Street to the property broker community.

The skyscraper has been a landmark in the city’s foreshore region since 1968. And today, the owners, The Patrick Partnership, and the property managers, Rennie Property, revealed ongoing plans for a revamp of this iconic building that will make it a major hub in Cape Town’s legal, financial and publishing districts.
When the hoardings around the base of the building are removed they will reveal the latest in contemporary shop fronts. Frameless glass and 24 by 7 lighting create a floating effect and provide retailers with innovative display windows to showcase their products.

The retail area is linked to the buzzing pedestrian mall, office and hotel – creating a busy 24-hour retail centre point. Continuing through into the office floors of ABSA Centre itself, a redesign of the common areas is planned. The Riebeek Street entrance will pay homage to the building’s heritage and the award-winning Seagram Building in New York that inspired it. A series of black and white photographs and sketches will illustrate the two buildings’ histories and reputation as the benchmark of the International style of architecture.

In the entrances to the building, gilt-edged frames will provide a contrast to the monochrome walls and floors. This clean, crisp contemporary décor, comprising imported off-white tiles and luxurious black velvet wallpaper will extend from the foyer through the common areas.

The building also features the largest windows in the city – three quarters of the façade is glass – giving tenants unprecedented views of Table Mountain and Table Bay. Also on the cards is a revamp of the hotel that is located in the skyscraper – completing the triple play of shop, work and stay.

“Cape Town is one of the most exciting cities in the world. We are thrilled to be part of the regeneration of this important business district,” said John Foley, managing director of the building owners, The Patrick Partnership. “The ABSA Centre is an iconic landmark and has long been home to many of South Africa’s important businesses.”

“For visitors and tenants alike, these changes underscore the ABSA Centre’s status as a premier business address in Cape Town,” said Steve Rennie, director of Rennie Property, responsible for the building.

For more information visit www.absacentre.co.za

About Rennie Property
Rennie Property is South Africa’s top-performing specialist commercial property management company. Its was established in 1997, and for the past 12 years has looked after some of South Africa’s most prestigious buildings including Melrose Arch in Johannesburg, and The ABSA Centre in Cape Town. Its present portfolio of properties under management is valued at over R5 billion.
For more information please visit: www.rennieproperty.co.za

About the International style of architecture
The International style was a major architectural style of the 1920s and 1930s. The term usually refers to the buildings and architects of the formative decades of Modernism, before World War II. The term had its origin from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932, which identified, categorised and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of applied ornament.
(Source: Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.com)

About the Seagram Building
The Seagram Building is a skyscraper in New York City, located at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd Street and 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. It was designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in collaboration with the American Philip Johnson and was completed in 1958. It is 515 feet tall with 38 stories. It stands as one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate modernism. It was designed as the headquarters for the Canadian distillers Joseph E. Seagram’s & Sons.
(Source: Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.com)

Smart retailers have turned to SaleSearcher, www.salesearcher.co.za, the online sales and specials listings site, to drive additional traffic to their stores despite the current tight economic conditions.

Latest shops to use the site to promote their special offers include Foschini, the leading fashion retailer; Keedo, children’s clothing store; wantitall, online comparative shopping site; tour operator Thompsons Holidays; ShoeHQ, fashion shoe shop; and Springleap, crowd-sourcing online T-shirt site.

These retailers have taken advantage of this innovative way of reaching people who have money to spend, but want to make their Rands stretch further by taking advantage of sales and special offers.

The SaleSearcher site offers online listings of promotions from both online and offline retailers in South Africa. The site allows customers to search for sales according to merchant or by specific product category.

As well as giving retailers a new platform to promote themselves, SaleSearcher aggressively drives traffic to the site via targeted online advertising using channels such as Google Adwords and Facebook. It passes these traffic reports on to the retailers, demonstrating the effectiveness of the service.

In addition, the flexible pricing structure is based on a daily rate and contract so that retailers can quickly and easily ramp up a campaign around the time of a promotion, without being locked into longer than necessary contracts.

“Signing up for SaleSearcher was a no-brainer,” said Nelia Schutte, founder of Keedo. “We can quickly and effectively drive customers to our stores across the country and our website during a promotion, and then convert them into loyal and regular customers.”

“South African shoppers are incredibly savvy and love seeking out a good bargain, especially in tougher economic times,” said Ryan Ferreira, founder of SaleSearcher. “We’ve been getting a great response from our marketing initiatives and seeing traffic grow rapidly on the site.”

“A great idea in my opinion and a foretaste of things to come in the ‘on demand’ era,” said Chris Moerdyk, corporate marketing analyst and advisor, writing about SaleSearcher in Biz-community.

About SaleSearcher
SaleSearcher, www.salesearcher.co.za, offers a quick and easy way for consumers to search for sales and special offers from retailers located around South Africa. It allows consumers to make the most of their hard earned Rands by pinpointing the sales they are looking for, and gives retailers an additional platform to engage with South African customers that have money to spend. The site is the brainchild of young South African entrepreneur, Ryan Ferreira. After working and travelling abroad, Ryan spent six months researching the viability of SaleSearcher before launching it in November 2008.

Snuffling around the Internet last week, doing some reading on social media trends, I was reminded of a great post by Arthur Goldstuck on corporate blogging.

The post is from late 2007, when Nationwide Airlines still existed but was suffering from wings spontaneously popping off the side of planes. Idols was coming to an end and Goldstuck found himself on a Kulula flight with the five finalists. (They should have been flying Nationwide, the official sponsor, but the planes were grounded).

At the end of the flight, the Kulula pilot quips:
“On behalf of Nationwide airlines, sponsors of Idols, we would like to thank you all for flying kulula.com.”

Goldstuck writes: “[T]he captain’s comment couldn’t possibly have been scripted. It is unlikely that the marketing department was on standby with a scriptwriter in the eventuality of the pilot needing a quick actuality joke. Rather, the punch line to the flight seemed to flow naturally from the attitude of the crew, the culture of the airline and an adventurous approach to communicating with customers.”

In this case, Goldstuck goes on to talk about corporate blogging, and how Kulula was perfectly placed to maximise a corporate blog, written by its staff.

Of course nowadays things have got a bit more complicated than simply blogging (although I remember from my corporate days that setting up a company blog was not an uncomplicated thing either). Companies can, and are being encouraged to, engage with the world using a host of social media channels, including Twitter, Zoopy, Blueworld, MXit and the like.

So this raises the question: How does a business engage with the world using social media in a successful, engaging and authentic way, while still ensuring the content is on message?

And more seriously, is the inability to get this right a big, red warning sign that something more fundamental might have gone awry? Could the fact that you can’t easily enable your staff to engage in social media be the canary in the coal mine pointing to an alarming corporate culture that can’t and doesn’t enable its staff? A corporate culture that, in my mind anyway, is ultimately unsustainable. A bit like the Soviet Union once Levi’s Jeans and rock music arrived.

Companies like Kulula are unfortunately few and far between. And, to be fair, many companies admirably strive for this type of culture (hopefully from the grass roots up as opposed to via a three-month company culture and value exercise run by external consultants). The reality however is that many companies wanting to engage using social media channels will need to put some guidelines in place.

The challenge is to get the balance right. Not stifling spontaneity and individual expression, while still achieving company goals - let’s not fool ourselves here, there is a commercial impetus for this activity.

Back to my Internet snuffling. I came across this useful-looking resource: The Altimeter Wiki. It lists a bunch of social media consultants and agencies (mostly US based, maybe we should get some South African names up there?) and also points to a range of social media policies including those of the BBC, Harvard Law School, Cisco and Robert Scoble.

The BBC’s policy doc takes the issue a bit further. Entitled “BBC Guidance on Personal use of Social Networking”, it highlights the impact that private blogging can have on a corporate reputation. As most of us know, with the Internet you have very few secrets, so it’s often pretty easy to link an individual with their employer.

The problem is, this raises the sort of conundrum that my high school headmaster seemed to spend his time grappling with. I distinctly remember being told that even if you weren’t in uniform, people could reasonably identify you as a pupil of a certain school, so you better behave accordingly. So far so good, if somewhat draconian, but I do remember wracking my teenage brain to work out what this meant for someone who didn’t go to my school but had strayed across suburb lines and hence could be mistaken for a pupil at my school. Would they too be subject to my school rules? How would they know what they are? What happens if my school rules conflicted with their school rules?

Back to social media policies, personally I am a fan of common sense prevailing and keeping it simple when it comes to these sort of  guidelines. It’s an idea to involve your staff in setting them up.

This social media thing won’t go away, and will definitely get sucked into the mainstream. No amount of band-aiding will help though, if underneath it all your corporate culture needs a bit of CPR.