Author: Mark

Gareth Grant, Business Unit Director, The MediaShop

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would live to experience a global event of this scale that would be remembered for years to come. I recall studying about the likes of the Great Depression, the French Revolution and both First and Second World Wars, but to actually live through something so surreal, no chance. Enter COVID-19…

The 26^th of March 2020 will be a date that no South African will ever forget. It was the date when our country entered lockdown and life as we knew it was turned upside down. Our movements were limited, there was a curfew in place, and what we could and couldn’t purchase was drastically affected. No take-aways? What do you mean?

In the beginning, I kept positive by reminding myself that this was only for three weeks… But wait…, three weeks was quickly extended to five weeks. Hmmm, that made it a bit more challenging to remain optimistic, especially when focusing on all the restrictions put in place. I allowed one day to feel sorry for myself and then I switched gear and realised this is a great opportunity to “hit reset”, and reflect on my life and re-evaluate what is a priority and what isn’t.

It gave me time to reflect on what is a necessity and what is a nice-to-have and to focus on the important things and be grateful for all that I have. If I was to do this properly, I would need to be deliberate about my priorities and the things I value most. I was sent an article which spoke about “time chunking” and how to break up your day. I found this to be very beneficial and so went about making a list of things I enjoy and value and things that are a necessity. From there I was more deliberate in allocating my hours, carving out work time and keeping to a schedule.

Weekends were no longer a mix of work and play but dedicated to time with my wife and our two Beagles and things that I enjoy doing.

Even as we move to less stringent levels of lockdown, I keep to a routine and start my day with a relaxing activity. Some people like to meditate, do yoga, journal or have some other form of quiet time. I like being in the bush or nature so starting my day with game drive and a cup of coffee is the best. Sarai Live on YouTube is fantastic if you share my passion for wildlife! Also, no weekend goes by without me doing things I love, like braaiing, making a potjie or doing my “skottel” breakfast as we often do when in the Kruger National Park. After all, if I can’t be in the bush at least I can have some aspects of being on a bush trip.

I have revaluated the amount of time I spend on social platforms too, as well as what type of news I consume. Video consumption in my house has increased during lockdown and across various platforms but I am more selective about the content I consume. The #RELIVE content on SuperSport was excellent! With no live sport at the time, watching old sporting events was nostalgic. I mean who could ever get bored of watching the Boks beat England in both the 2007 and 2019 Rugby World Cup Finals? And it was fun to reminisce with people I watched these events with when they were live. It is evident that I wasn’t the only person consuming a lot more video content. We just have to look at the stats across the likes of YouTube, Mzansi Magic, DStv Now and Catch Up to see this in action. Some audiences have grown by more than 30% in some instances.

My consumption, however, was not aimless. After all, I was hitting the reset button. I watched a lot of “how-to” content. No, not how to make pineapple homebrew. I have a real passion for woodworking and enjoy that time I get to spend by myself working on creations, so the content was around how to set up my workshop efficiently and ensure that I was making the best use of the space I have for my hobby and who better to ask than YouTube or Pinterest? The ideas that are available are endless. I’m glad to say that my workshop is mostly set up, and I continue to spend time in this space which adds value to my life, making things for people I care about.

As we continue to wade through these uncertain times, I urge you to take stock, evaluate what is and isn’t important, and then hit reset. Spend time doing the things that you love, have a passion for and those that add value to your life. Be deliberate about what you do. Don’t just go through the motions, because as we have seen life as we know it can change in the blink of an eye. So have no regrets, but mostly importantly, have fun!

Stay safe!

Neo Mtshatsheni, Media Strategist at The MediaShop

Despite the pandemic holding many hostage in their homes, South Africans have continued to find innovative ways to have their voices heard and to show off their skills through, for example, gaming or content creation. From a channel perspective, digital was always going to reap more benefit from this audience and the lockdown period has certainly affirmed this especially in the eSports category and on social media.

Platforms like Instagram and Facebook Live have certainly proved their worth over the past few months. Moving away from posting images of themselves enjoying a meal at the coolest, trendiest restaurant or spotting their latest pair of jeans, sneakers or sunglasses, South Africa’s youth have used these platforms to engage on issues ranging from racism, GBV, etc.

IGTV (Instagram TV) saw its first Instavella created by Ayanda Mkayi which depicts the lives of individuals living in an apartment block in Johannesburg during the national lockdown, with all scenes shot individually from the actors’ homes. Shooting ads and general TV production during lockdown was prohibited and now despite the extensive safety measures that are put in place, production still falls victim to the invisible COVID-19 enemy halting production. But fresh, relatable content remains key and as there is a growing need for local content, IGTV soapies are something to look out for!

On the eSports front, South Africa may not compare to its global counterparts in terms of the sheer size of active gamers but the interest and gaming community numbers are increasing steadily and will continue to do so. For every mobile device in hand lies a gamer and current stats show that 71% of connected South Africans play games exclusively from their mobile device. And for a category that is usually perceived to be predominantly male, 63% of them are women aged 30 and 50% of them are older than 34yrs and are using the platform as a means to escape their everyday lives. There are also many that play competitively against their male counterparts.

Console owners also provide a sizable opportunity for marketers with 53.8% of households having children that go to school, 39% are 35-49yrs and 25% are 24-34yrs. This audience might have a male skew but paired with the mobile universe it most certainly delivers numbers and diversity.

Most importantly, right now in South Africa mobile gaming is probably also the easiest way to buy media and get your brand in front of eyes. The growth in this category has been exponential compared to general entertainment, the global e-sports industry has been growing at a rate of 30% YOY and the PC gaming market is set to be worth 45.5 billion USD (788.1 billion ZAR) in 2021! The global box office which generated revenue to the tune of 41.7 billion USD (722.2 billion ZAR) in 2008 and the gaming market generated 151.2 billion USD (2.6 trillion ZAR). With fewer eyeballs available for live sports and more time indoors this category is certainly one that cannot be ignored.

As marketers, the ever-changing landscape and demographic we are constantly challenged to not only look for meaningful insights but re-evaluating the norm as the bar continues to be set high and the only constant throughout being change.

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.