Month: June 2020

Andile Qokweni Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop

Live sport in 2020 came to a crashing halt thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic taking it from our courts, stadiums and most importantly our screens. Globally, the absence of live sport amongst sport lovers feels like a pandemic all on its own. This is the first time that all sports programmes were cancelled since the onset of World War II.

Sports broadcasting began in the early 1900s with the first live sports broadcast in 1939 in the USA, a college baseball game broadcast by NBC. What’s important to note however is although a few events had been broadcast before 1939 all of these were to limited audiences and markets as globally, very few people had TV sets.

While television has had a huge impact on sports, it also played an important role in the development and growth of television. During the early days of commercial broadcasting in the 1940s, the networks relied upon broadcasts of sporting events to increase demand for TV sets.

In the 1960s, sports programming underwent a major change. Rather than simply providing viewers with film footage of the event itself, the networks started offering special features that turned sports into high-quality television entertainment. In typical American fashion, it was merging showbiz and bringing appeal and pizzazz to an industry, which previously only brought functionality. Sports broadcasting as we know it today, a billion dollar revenue industry, was born and with it all the accompanying marketing and advertising related opportunities.

The rise of dedicated subscription-based sports networks like ESPN, Skysports and Supersport provided TV viewers with more coverage of athletic contests than was ever available before. The broadcast and cable networks began competing for the television rights to major sports leagues and events. As demand for TV sports contracts increased, the prices the networks paid rose dramatically.

In 1970 for instance, networks paid $50 million for a contract to televise professional football, $18 million for Major League Baseball, and $2 million for professional basketball. By 1985, the prices had increased to $450 million for the NFL, $160 million for MLB, and $45 million for the NBA. Sport had become big media business and continued to grow astronomically to the multi-billion dollar industry it is today.

In the list of the top 10 most expensive 30 second commercial spots ever, the top three are made up of sporting events, namely: Thursday Night Football on NBC, NFL Thursday Night Football on CBS and the top dog – Sunday Night Football on NBC – Superbowl (the pinnacle of any creative is to see their work aired during the Superbowl).

The shutdown of the entire sports world has had a negative effect on multinationals as big as Walt Disney, the parent company of ESPN, which has long relied on huge profits generated by its suite of ESPN channels in the USA. The virus outbreak unfortunately comes at a time when the global trend is to move away from paid subscriptions to online streaming platforms. We’ve seen similar pictures in Europe where monopolies like Sky are sharing the market with smaller more flexible platforms like Eurosport and BT Sport.

Not only are the big multinationals having to adjust to the changing landscape of the broadcasting business but added to that we have the pandemic, which as mentioned upfront, has been cancelled for the first time since World War II. So what does the future hold? Sport will be forced to evolve and adapt as it did throughout the 1900s and early 00s.

ESPN has countered the trend with the launch of its streaming service ESPN+ — which is an eventual replacement for the traditional pay TV subscription — and the inclusion of its channels on internet-delivered TV services such as Sling and Hulu Plus.

For the first time since its inception in 1998, Sky Sports ran a headline from its parent company Skynews as the lack of news or relevant news came to the fore at the height of the Coronavirus epidemic. Subscription prices dropped to an all-time low and the lack of new content forced the broadcaster to make meaningful connections with consumers by providing exclusive content through live Zoom and Microsoft Teams video communication.

Supersport for the first time since its own inception was screening a cocktail of the finest sports-based movies with a sprinkling of its viewers’ best moments from the past two decades but in here lies the magic of sports and broadcasting.

Being in the sport industry means that you are in the entertainment business. Rather than selling a product you are selling the anticipation of what is going to happen and you need to give consumers memories to take away.

Importantly, it is the memories that keep sport fans coming back every season. For this reason, sport as a business will evolve and find new and more meaningful ways to connect with its consumers, the industry did it after World War II, it can do it again.

Refilwe Mangweta, Digital Campaign Manager at The MediaShop

In a time when the whole world has been rocked by the tumultuous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the human condition shows how resilient it is in response to fighting this virus. Through these trying times I have learnt the importance of laughing at ourselves a bit. “A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder. For this blog, I wanted to share my pandemic woes on a much lighter note.

Like most people, when the lockdown initially began and upon seeing how the virus was going to change the world as we currently know it, I thought to myself “Ok I’ve got this! I can do my part to flatten the curve!” Dare I say, I even circulated a couple of quotes like ‘our grandparents were called to fight wars, and all we were asked to do is to stay home’.

So needless to say I was ready to stay home and saw this as an opportunity to also accomplish some of the things on my to-do list – procrastination is a real thing! What I was not prepared for is how much of a boujee person I had become which, in turn, made the task at hand uhm ‘superficially challenging’ or at the very least, interesting. Particularly in terms of things I had deemed as “essential” which were honestly just first world problems for instance…

– Store-Bought Coffee – Yep, nothing completes an Instagram picture like a cup of coffee from your favourite coffee shop. So to not have this available was shattering as a coffee lover. The lack of caffeine came a close second to the no alcohol (let’s not even go there).

– Yeast and Ginger – Oh how these previously disregarded items have become the most desired. But the struggle to find these became like the Pokémon challenge version 2.0. Who would have thought that in 2020 we’d be panic buying yeast? Today, yeast has also been promoted from being “just another baking item” to now being critical ingredient to brewing your own alcoholic beverage.

– Make-up – Firstly eyelashes (whether they happen to be your own or not) were definitely essential. And the amount of friends who are having to tame and shape their own eyebrows has made us appreciate all the photo filters on Instagram even more. Any time I needed to go out I would apply my favourite lipstick only to realize no one and I mean NO ONE would see my M·A·C Retro Matte Lipstick.Then there are those beautiful experiences we all thought we would have now that our fast paced lives have slowed down.

– The Zen, that just never came – The number of meditation apps on my phone and the neatly folded unused yoga mat are the perfect examples. Maybe I’ll give it a go tomorrow. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

– The TBR (to be read) pile still sitting on my bookshelf – Listen! As an avid reader this is painful, this was supposed to be my moment to shine. I mean while the world was panic buying toilet paper (before they moved on to the yeast) I stocked up on my fave reads getting myself ready to stay at home, and lose myself into stories and live vicariously through people sitting having drinks at restaurants . Sigh.

– Skin Regiments: My skin regiment has been affected because I used to wear a day cream in the morning then a night cream after my evening shower. But now I shower once a day because I wake up and jump onto meetings *don’t think we haven’t noticed these super early meetings added onto our calendars nowadays*, do work and schooling. So I only shower late afternoon and I can’t put on my night cream in the afternoon. Now I’m stressed because this beauty company promised me the night cream would rejuvenate my skin at night. So when do I use my night cream??? But like I said first world problems.

Thank goodness we’ve moved into level three which will remedy some of my first world problems :). I hope we can continue to laugh at ourselves a little as this virus seems like it will be a part of our lives for some time to come until we find a vaccine.

We need to come to terms with this and take the required precautions. We need to continue to show ourselves and those around us some love because this is difficult for everyone. But most importantly, find moments in each day of this new normal to have a good laugh. And where possible, share that laugh with someone else.

Claire Herman, Media Operations Lead at The MediaShop talks about the possibility of sanitisation pods, clothing bubbles and life after Covid.

In a matter of months our world has been turned upside down after experiencing a global pandemic infecting over 5.1 million people around the world and resulting in almost 331,000 deaths so far (Worldometer, 21 May 2020). Besides Bill Gates and the screenplay writer of Contagion, who could have predicted this?

In our fast-paced society with instant gratification being the order of the day, asking millions of people to go into self-isolation seems like torture – never before has the freedom to see your friends and family, to exercise or walk your dogs, been raised as such a bone of contention and “irritation” – first world problems. But to many, the harsh reality of their living conditions has made lockdown almost unbearable – restricted access to clean water and sanitation, over-crowded living arrangements, an ever-increasing level of unemployment and a massive shortage of food in many communities, is making it very difficult to keep people in confinement. President Ramaphosa’s announcement on Thursday the 13 ^th of May that we could possibly move from Level 4 to Level 3 at the end of May (for some regions at least), does give some hope, but at some stage we will need to be set free.

And when that happens, we most certainly won’t be able to “return to normal” – or at least until we have a vaccine or a cure. Some are estimating that a vaccine is still 18 months away. There will also be “degrees of normality” depending on your age and state of health, with older generations and the immunocompromised needing to be extra cautious.

In the meantime, we need to adapt our lifestyles in the long-term as we navigate towards a “new normal”. But the burning question of what exactly this “new normal” will be is on everyone’s lips. For a sobering view on how some countries are entering this new world go to CNN.com’s article “our new normal, in pictures” at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/20/world/gallery/new-normal-coronavirus/index.html .

Could our new normal be body sanitisation pods, face mask fashion outlets, clothing bubbles that enforce a two meter distance between people, a ban on all work meetings unless virtual? It could all very well happen, but let’s take a realistic look at what will need to happen when we are ‘set free’.

According to a recent Kantar webinar on Navigating Growth in a COVID-19 World, there are a few key shifts that we will experience, including:

1. Contactless love and affection: virtual dinner parties for adults and virtual playdates and birthday parties for kids, with grandparents needing to keep a safe distance from their grandchildren.
2. Super-hygiene society: masks may very well be compulsory over the next 18 months, our hands will never be the same again after all the hand-sanitizers and constant washing with soap and water, and we will not be able to shake hands in business meetings or hug our friends hello.
3. Insular lives: shopping online and shopping local will become the norm, a rise in the use of in-home media channels (TV and digital) and a renewed focus on the home as a safe sanctuary.
4. Technology super highway: technology as an enabler in society to just get things done from working, shopping and socialising to exercising and meditating.
5. Renewed respect for essentials: the demand for luxury goods will decline, with a major slowing down of the travel and hospitality industries.
6. An era of shared humanity: a renewed focus on giving back to the community and random acts of kindness, together with an increase in support for authentic brands that are helping to uplift society.

The reality is that there will be many restrictions imposed on us that we will need to adapt to quite quickly. Public transport will need to be heavily monitored to avoid over-crowding. Our retail spaces will need to be reimagined with employee and shopper safety at the forefront. Work environments will look to creating more personal space as opposed to having large areas where groups of people can get together for meetings and have breaks, and there will be a rise in shift-based work schedules and flexible working arrangements.

Schools and universities will continue to integrate distance learning platforms in certain instances, which may even resolve funding issues to cut costs and give more people access to education. Sport and music events will need to limit audience numbers, with an increase in virtual broadcasts and online performances, as well as a rise in eSport. Restaurants will have staggered seating with a drop in patron capacity and an increase in online ordering and home deliveries.

And families may just end up spending much more quality time together at home… Our new normal may not be too bad in the end, but what this crisis has done is put a spotlight on the shortfalls of our society and in our country. It is now time to actively change the way we have been living for a better future. We truly are #StrongerTogether