Author: Mark

Happy birthday to Hubble, a company that in under a year has achieved phenomenal growth nationally and internationally, and was quickly appointed Uber’s preferred in-vehicle entertainment partner.

“Excuse the pun, but it’s been an amazing ride,” says David Taitz, Sales and Commercial Director at Hubble. “In just one year, we as a company have grown over 700%. Not only have we achieved success in South Africa, but have partnered with Uber in Kenya, Ukraine and Dubai.”

Hubble was launched in September 2016 and has since introduced Uber ‘riders’ to in-vehicle entertainment. “We put the ‘riders’ in charge of what they want to see which ensures a positive experience from interested passengers. There are now over 500 screens in South Africa alone and we’ve just launched 200 screens in Ukraine!” The engaging platform offers video and interactive content in a captive environment with measurable ROI.Some interesting statistics have been collected over the course of the year. Extremely high engagement rates have been recorded, with some channels experiencing over 20% engagement (compared to 0.2 industry average). Hundreds of test drives have been booked, from the back seat of an Uber vehicle, for motor vehicle brands. 3 million passengers have experienced the screens, while millions of touches and video rotations have been collected for clients.

“The proof of advertising success comes in the form of ROI for brands which in turn means repeat business for a media owner,” explains Taitz. “Besides the international brands of McDonalds, BMW, Hugo Boss, Landrover and GoPro, local South African brands  Woolworths, Absa, DSTV, Savanna and Sanlam, to name a few, have benefitted from advertising on the in-vehicle entertainment screens.  In fact, a few of these clients have doubled their original ad-spend after achieving excellent returns on their spend.”

Hubble has announced that they will be launching the entertainment screens in Uber vehicles in Dubai and Kenya soon. The ultimate end goal is to create real value for the Uber rider and provide brands with a communication platform that has real and deep user engagement.

“Happy birthday Hubble, we are excited to see what the next 12 months hold for us,” concludes Taitz. “We would like to thank all of our partners that have accompanied us on this journey and look forward to achieving even more ROI for our advertisers and partners.”

Whizzky, one of the top Whisky apps globally, accompanied the website worldwhiskyday.com to discover the best Whisky destinations in Johannesburg, to be featured in their ‘Whisky Capitals of the World’.

 Administered by Nokulunga Msibi, the Whizzky App is one of the world’s most used and downloaded Whisky applications for Android and iOS, and is specifically developed and designed for Whisky lovers by Evolve, who are part owners. The app is managed by and is one of the many innovative companies that fall under the umbrella of Nfinity, an established innovation hub headed by entrepreneur Ken Varejes.

“As a shareholder of the Whisky Live Festival, one of the largest events of its kind in the world that provides a platform for sampling whiskies from all over the world, it made sense to look at developing a globally accepted application specifically for Whisky lovers,” says Nfinity’s CEO, Ken Varejes. “Whizzky was the culmination of everything that research showed us that people were looking for in an app of this nature.”The home grown app has already achieved a weighty 40 000 downloads and active users from across the globe, bringing it to the attention of the worldwhiskyday website. In the feature ‘Whisky Capitals of the World’ the site focuses on, with the assistance of local experts, locating and experiencing the ultimate Whisky destinations within a specific city. Nokulunga already had a very good idea of where the best Jozi spots were and according to her, “Joburg loves its whisky and its bars attest to this love affair.”

Some of the best places that stand out include The Maxim Lounge at the Da Vinci Hotel, Churchill’s Bar with its popular #WhiskyThursdays, Bottega in Parkhurst with over 500 single malts to choose from and Meli’s Lounge in Soweto. Other noteworthy whisky lounges and bars included Southern Sun Hyde Park Whisky and Cigar Lounge, The Terrace @Hyatt, the bar Hemingways in Kyalami and Robby’s and Just Badela in Soweto.

The trip included looking for the best Whisky Cocktails, where to go to ‘dram and dine’, distilleries and the best places to shop for one’s favourite tipple.

Other interesting information reflected on the Whizzky app is that Lagavulin 16 Year Old is a firm user favourite – it is the highest ranked whisky as well as the most collected. Jameson is the 9^th most collected whisky on Whizzky and being Irish, is the only non-Scotch whisky in the top ten ranked and collected whiskies.

With the easy to use Whizzky app, connoisseurs and beginners alike can discover fine whiskies and that rare ‘unicorn’; scan bottle labels to get information in seconds, save favourites, rate, share ratings. Users can also start an exclusive, members-only Whisky Club and invite friends, collectively share and rate whiskies and save tasting notes. Additionally users can brush up on whisky news and watch Whizzky’s tutorial videos to improve their knowledge even further.

It’s no secret that consumers are doing everything they can to avoid as many ads as possible. This ad avoidance, while hampering the traditional advertising efforts of marketers, has led to a relatively new tactic – Inbound Marketing.

 Recognising exceptional success in this area, Hubspot has named Spitfire Inbound Marketing with the grand prize – the prestigious Hubspot Overall Impact Award for 2017, acknowledging Spitfire’s incredible 21% growth in sales for client Suzuki SA.

The Inbound Growth Story category, specifically celebrates agencies’ inbound marketing success by highlighting a client’s rapid growth through inbound marketing practices.

Hubspot is an international offering that provides tools and combines social media marketing, content management, web analytics, landing pages and search engine optimization. Inbound Marketing can be described as a strategy that focuses on attracting customers, or leads, via company-created Internet content, thereby having potential customers come to the company rather than marketers vying for their attention.The Spitfire team travelled to Boston USA this week to collect their award. “Winning the overall Impact Award is a massive achievement and huge recognition from HubSpot for delivering fantastic client work using inbound methodology,” says Spitfire Inbound’s MD and HubSpot Gold Partner Darren Leishman.

“In our case the accolade is a direct result of a consistent partnership that tackles each marketing objective holistically, with a strong focus on inbound marketing. None of this would have been possible without the support of our amazing clients at Suzuki and our Penquin partners.”

The Hubspot Impact Awards scrutinised each entry on the basis of: challenges the client faced; specifics around the agency’s implementation; quantitative results of the campaign and how it impacted on the client.

“Inbound marketing played a significant role in the growth of Suzuki’s market share. The process not only attracted new customers to the brand it also helped align the sales and marketing teams internally, and with the dealer body,” he says. “Once we started an integrated inbound marketing strategy, digital leads exceeded our twice revised stretch goal by a massive 123%.

Customers attributed to web and content leads increased to 128% of the stretch goal.”Spitfire’s sister company, full service advertising agency Penquin, is equally thrilled at the accolade. Veronica Wainstein, MD adds: “We as the shareholders of Penquin made the decision just over a year ago to split the inbound business into a single minded and focused offering, and this award affirms that it was absolutely the right decision.

It’s allowed us to collaborate and provide an integrated marketing solution to our clients with a focused partner that guides us in our traditional marketing efforts from a different perspective.  Winning the award validates the success of aligning a digital and traditional strategy that delivers tangible results to our clients. Suzuki’s involvement is testament to this and as an agency that has always been focused on delivering results to our clients, the Spitfire award further tells our story and reinforces that we can and will continue to be a results driven agency.”

The Advertising Media Forum (AMF) has announced that Koo Govender has been appointed as the industry body’s Chairperson for 2017/18. Board members comprise senior representatives from media groups around the country, each accountable for their own portfolio.

“I’m extremely humbled to be appointed in this role, especially taking into consideration the very exciting, albeit challenging media landscape we find ourselves in,” says Koo, also CEO of media agency, the Dentsu Aegis Network. “The AMF has a crucial role to play in this industry in terms of both representing all media agencies but also holding our fellow agencies accountable to the issues of transparency, research, talent and transformation amongst others.”

Before joining the Dentsu Aegis Network, Koo held the position as first female CEO at the VWV Group and has spent more than 20 years in the broadcast and media industry, including the role of Corporate Marketing & Communications Director at Mnet.

“I’m very pleased to say that our current board is a young, diverse group of media professionals, each very passionate and committed to the media and advertising industry,” she says. “We’re working on several excellent initiatives, one of which includes up-skilling current young media agency professionals, which we’ll report back on in due course.”

Koo recently had the opportunity to judge Cannes Lions 2017, Loeries 2017 as well as AdFocus 2017 in the Media and Innovation category. “I’m extremely passionate about this ever changing, ever innovating industry of ours and I’m proud to represent the AMF as a vital cog.”

Fact – local papers are thriving. Community newspapers have not followed the same declining trend that is affecting other print media. To buck the decline, newspapers must find inventive ways to retain and attract advertisers. And advertisers want innovation.

“Historically, creative opportunities in print have been limited,” says SPARK Media’s Strategic Marketing Services Director, Justine Williams. “Clients have challenged us to become more creative, more impactful and to deliver new ways of creating lasting impressions on readers.”

In 2016, SPARK Media launched its Fashion Week campaign, introducing their print innovations to the advertising community after investing heavily in the technology to cater to the changing industry requirements. In a short period of time, the company was able to print unique codes on individual inserts, offer die cuts, layered inserts, belly bands, Powerwraps and the popular Powernote. These innovations opened up a world of opportunities for advertisers.“Like Fashion Week in the clothing industry, the industry’s top designers present their latest collections associated with sexiness, allure and creativity,” explains Williams. “These characteristics aligned perfectly with what we wanted to achieve and attribute to these print innovations.

During Print Fashion Week, agencies across South Africa were shown the possibilities when it came to creativity, inventiveness and flair. It was all about jazzing up classic print with dashing layers, trendy jackets and chick belly bands.”

We look back to see the impact that these innovative products have created for clients.

Belinda Kayton from The MediaShop said: “I love the layered inserts. We use inserts for our retail clients – it’s a complete stand-out because inserts work for us and are important to us.” The cut-out provides interaction and she loves the fact that the reader can actually become part of the advert. “Isn’t that the point of it?”

Sean Sullivan from The MediaShop enjoys the flexibility inherent in the various innovations and the additional impact they provide, making their clients really ‘stand out’.And do these print innovations deliver tangible results? According to the head of a national electronics retailer, most definitely, after the brand experienced the best December in years after using the Powerwrap. Another client testimonial of the print innovation success reported that the Powerwrap increased their headache powder’s share growth by just under 10% and was the perfect supplement to their radio campaign.

The proven importance of a local print presence was recognised by a client who noted: “the week that you aren’t in the community newspapers, and your competitors are, you stand the chance of losing between 15 to 20% in turnover.”

“Print Fashion Week and our innovation in print have been extremely successful and has accounted for an additional R5 million in revenue, generating at least 24 additional campaigns.” concludes Williams. “Just like the hottest fashion couture, local print media keeps delivering and innovating, clearly negating the perception that print is dying.”

Ken Varejes, Group CEO of media innovation hub Nfinity, says that many business owners reach a point in their life cycle where growth stagnates and they’re not sure how to progress.   Tenacity is defined in the dictionary as “persistent determination”. This aptly describes the central ethos of the businesses that Ken has taken a vested interest in within Nfinity. “It ties into quality and work ethic which are both critical for success,” he says.

It’s the age old story of being like a bulldog and never giving up. I use the example often of a youngster looking for work – don’t expect to walk into a job. If you want to work for a particular company don’t take no for an answer, camp out on their doorstep, research everything about that company and be prepared to work just for free if you have to get a foot in the door! And importantly, make yourself invaluable! Soon enough they will find a salary for you.”

This is the type of tenacity that makes for entrepreneurial excellence.

An innovator and salesman at heart, Ken believes in elevating his businesses within the media space. “Our businesses offer their intended audiences unique ways to communicate, to engage and that ultimately make a difference to that company’s bottom line.”

“I’ve always said that it’s crucial to have good people around you, and that includes a solid infrastructure of people that perhaps know more than you do in key areas of the business.”

Nfinity offers their existing businesses a solid management backing that includes assistance on financial management, client retention, increasing sales and finding market gaps that need to be filled. “It’s all about having the correct networking contacts and tapping into each other’s networks of people,” comments Ken. “The shared business knowledge, intellectual property and even shared moral support are crucial for any business taking the next step up.”

“We work with people who are passionate about their business, who have the tenacity to achieve, a never say die attitude and who will not give up at the first hiccup along the way. Right now Nfinity has an incredible group of innovative media businesses that are thriving and it’s because each and every MD and member of our team believe in what their business stands for and work 24/7 to achieve the end goal,” he says.

“I believe there’s a ton of opportunity for businesses in South Africa provided you have an offering that will fill a gap in the market and you have complete belief in what you’re selling. Because ultimately if you don’t believe in your own product or service you’ve failed before you’ve begun.

To sum it all up: “Be a bulldog, don’t let go, be persistent and finally, know when to lean on someone for some assistance.”