Category: The MediaShop

By Victor Koaho, Business Unit Manager, The MediaShop

I remember growing up on the dusty streets of the Vaal as a radio addict who used to love listening to Radio Bop.

Radio Bop had some of the coolest voices on radio, and was broadcast out of the then Bophuthatswana. I could only catch Radio Bop in the evening, which was as a result of the signal being clearer in the evening than during the day; and as advertising people know; most people listen to radio during the day, so it meant that I could listen to Radio Bop with only a few, if no adverts at all. While people on TV were being sold products and brands I wasn’t being sold anything, and as a result, I got the best content.

However with the advent of the digital age, I am sure I would have been able to get a clearer signal of Radio Bop by downloading their app and listening to my favourite shows and personalities on my phone. Because of audio streaming apps, internet radio, and podcasts, nowadays people don’t have to listen to their favourite radio station only during primetime, but rather, whenever it suits them.

Consumers are able to listen to the content that appeals to them, when and where, they want to listen. For an example, if you love business specific news all you need to do is download or stream business news that tickles your fancy. You don’t have to wait for a live broadcast, and as you have it on your phone you can listen whenever and wherever you want to.

Notice that I mentioned listen it on your cellphones. The digital era spurred on by mobile devices has given the revolution of all things content. If you think about it, we are spending an increasing amount of time on our cellphones every day, whether its downloading or streaming audio content, surfing the web (to read newspaper content) or simply just checking what is new and hot on Twitter or Facebook.

This means that these devices have created an environment that commands a whole lot of our attention throughout the entire day. But not only that, these devices have also created an environment where lines are blurred between their core function by incorporating other devices’ functions, like taking a picture or storing music.

The existence of the cellphone has rendered many industries redundant by simply consolidating their functions into one offering. I mean when was the last time you saw someone using an actual camera to take selfies, walking around with a boom box/ghetto blaster to listen to music or even someone driving around with a bag full of CDs, and a map book for directions?

The cellphone has created a convergence of all these elements into one device, thus creating a platform where one device has the attention of the consumer for most the day.

So what does it mean for marketers? We need to take into account this new way of living, and create media strategies that utilise clever ways of targeting consumers during the course of the day with the understanding that this is the platform where our consumers can now be found. This means looking at ways of getting mobile specific executions that targets this modern day consumer.

And of course analytics will play a critical role in understanding what sort of content is largely consumed on the mobile platform, and how campaign collateral is used to give expression of the message. If not, marketers will lose out on a critical market that is switched onto their mobile devices for the better part of their day.

The job of branded goods and companies is about to get much harder, says Sandra Burger, Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop

Smart assistants or rather AI (Artificial Intelligence), much like butlers or assistants of an era gone by, will require companies to transform their strategies by no longer selling to their previous direct customers and consumers anymore, but rather to preferred artificial intelligence platforms.

Human needs are satisfied repeatedly while being guided through complex buying decisions:

Customers are no longer humans (only) – AI platforms are now the trusted advisers to human consumers. These “new buyers” and “influencers” are deemed much more influential than their masters (consumers or end-users) when it comes to routine purchases. These AI platforms will anticipate what is needed, select a relevant brand and execute the transaction, long before their humans realise that they actually need the product. AI has such a large intelligence capacity in executing the selection process that brands will be selected on their masters’ anticipated needs base.

Brands will therefore have to transform and shift their focus to impress AI platforms and compete to be regarded as higher-ranking brands than their competitors, or to even be considered as a selectable brand for demanding AI platforms.

AI’s are the new gatekeepers, controlling brands’ customers that could make or break them much quicker than humans could through word-of-mouth. It is all about the distinctive algorithms at play, and brand recognition will no longer be relevant in product selection.

How can brands adapt and be recognised by the new intelligentsia?

• Companies and marketers will have to invest aggressively in understanding the algorithm platforms used to recommend and choose their brands, including bespoke weighting for each customer. Algorithms will consider aspects such as: is brand recognition more important than price (eg. BMW), or are brand names less relevant (eg. for floor cleaners)?
• Are the direct ties with consumers still relevant for brand building? Well, yes and no. Yes, should we wish to be promoting brand awareness and loyalty of products in the “smart and connected consumer electronics” categories, or when we wish to collect data from consumers. No, if we are promoting a brand which is less reliant on AI platform intelligence for selection.
• The bulk of retail sales globally, are still brick and mortar stores and brands might still be influential for the near future. However, as online buying increases, brands will have to regularly evaluate just how important physical retail channels are to them and adjust their strategy accordingly.

Tips to marketers in marketing on AI platforms:

There are three questions that need to be answered:

1. Is the platform working for us?

• Select the right platforms for your brands. There is currently a flurry to launch on many platforms, but in reality, only a handful of general purchase platforms will survive: mainly those where the customer’s needs are best met and have the best combined sales and service centre.
• As marketers and advertisers, we can ensure that customers/ the target market use the platforms for the algorithms to better understand the users better.

2. What do we want from the platform?

• We will have to build platform relationships rather than customer relationships. The current efforts to create and sustain omni-channel customer experience by marketers will in all likelihood fade away as the platforms are to become all-in-one fulfilment centres within themselves, providing powerful marketing mediums, sales and distribution.
• Branded products will most probably find themselves in weaker positions when these functions are concentrated within a few platforms. That in turn will supply AI owners with enormous cloud influencing price, promotions and the consumer relationship.
• We will have to trust our successes, which are currently being unified on customer interest, like signalling brand quality, and winning customer loyalty, to an allegiance with trusted AI assistants, who will in all likelihood be much more qualified to predict and interpret our customers’ needs.
• Focus on the single channel – THE PLATFORM/S – rather than multi ATL, TTL and BTL channels.
• The ability for humans to remember details are quite fallible and we know that people have biases toward things, but computer’s ‘brains’ can remember and interpret the finest details forever. These could range from product pricing, characteristics, past performance and authenticated reviews and past customer behaviour.

3. How can we make sure the platform chooses us?

• We might have to negotiate, and possibly pay platform owners to be able to understand and influence the algorithms applied by the platforms for customised purchasing criteria (and having access to our own customers in the end).
• There might even be an option to “list” on the platforms, much as brands are now paying for shelf space in brick and mortar retail stores.
• Similar to Google’s Adwords bidding, the bidding future on AI platforms would also possibly lead to brands paying extra for preferential positions. In addition, whilst there are brands opposed to this ability, there will always be brands willing to pay to have an advantage over their competitors. In fact, this might just become a major source of revenue for the platforms.
• We as media agents/strategists/buyers will have to recognise the fact that we will have to market through these platforms.
• AI platforms will most likely outperform us in terms of accountability, when it comes to linking consumer behaviour with our media selection/interventions.
• We will have to brace ourselves with the vast amounts of the detailed traditional market and media research we will be able to receive or buy from the platforms. On the positive side, it will be customers’ actual behaviour, instead of information at an assumed behaviour level.
• Imagine a world where reliable customer satisfaction and granular behaviour data are readily and speedily available from AI platforms, rather than the limited (and sometimes biased) information from customers we have access to currently through questionnaires, telephone polling, etc.
• Brands will have to sharpen their positioning in the marketplace in ways that platforms will recognise and register them as a brand of interest.
• Platforms will know how to adapt customers’ requirements and the exceptions they are willing to take in different contexts, whilst algorithms will be sorting, predicting and executing combinations to satisfy customers at a specific moment in time when it is most relevant to that particular individual and not necessarily mass consumers anymore.

In conclusion: The future has changed and if we have not caught up to that fact, AI is most likely to take over our functions. We will have to brace ourselves to be future thinking in this fast changing world we live in.

Hello AI, my new bestie!

Isla Prentis, Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop says that Big Data was pegged as a trend at the beginning of this year. For the sixth year in row. Something’s wrong with this picture.

“Understanding is deeper than knowledge. There are many people who know you but very few understand you.” I came across this anonymous quote recently and could not stop thinking about it. Why? Because it helped me to define the gaps that I believe we’re facing in the marketing industry at the moment.

It amazes me that big data was listed as one of the big upcoming trends at the beginning of 2018 – for the sixth year in a row. How can it still be a trend six years later? And if it’s been around so long now, why is it still a massive gap in so much of our industry?

Big data is not unique to the marketing industry, nor is it likely to go anywhere. I typed “big data” in the news tab of Google and received >651 million results. There isn’t an industry that isn’t talking about transformation driven by big data. I don’t question that it’s here to stay but I do question if we’re using it to add value in our industry.

Marketing and advertising businesses collect data, a phenomenal amount of data! But do we use it, I mean really use this data? More importantly, do we understand it? I personally love technology and automation because it allows machines to collect and process masses of information really quickly. By embracing automation, we make a shift from data to the insight.

Have we lost understanding in our search for big data? On that note, let me clarify that I am not against big data – in fact it is just the opposite.

With my curious mind, I’m always looking to gain new knowledge, and more importantly, new understanding, and big data helps us do this. But this alone is not enough, big data is a starting point not the end point. It helps us arrive at knowledge. Looking up and immersing ourselves into communities around us will help to move that knowledge to a new level of understanding.

Data helps us to predict patterns in consumer behaviour but it does not help us to understand what drives the behaviour. It is essential that we understand these patterns to ensure that communication happens in the right context, and it is equally important that we understand what drives the behaviour so that we can find a connection with our audience.

And if you’re anything like me, right now you’re asking why? Well, we don’t need to read another article to know that consumers are no longer passive audiences, or that brands no longer have the control. We also know that we need consumers to notice us in the relevant moment. By understanding predictable patterns, we can make sure we place communication in the most relevant places, and in the most relevant times.

But what good is a message at the right time or the right place if the consumer doesn’t notice it? That’s where the second challenge comes in – how do we connect with our consumer if we don’t understand them? If the consumer is in the driving seat, we have to make sure we get them to stop and look up. We need to understand what drives consumers both consciously and sub-consciously if we want to stand a chance of influencing their behaviour.

We need to immerse ourselves in consumer behaviour in order to gain true understanding. We need to let go of assumptions and stereotypes and start to observe the different communities around us. Like-mindedness is not created by the demographics that we happen to fall in but rather by a number of factors that we input – our culture, our interests, our attitudes to name just a few. These connections divide us into different communities, or micro-communities, and using this understanding in communication will create the connection needed to make your consumer stop and look up.

So let’s encourage big data – but make sure that it doesn’t get collected and then sit gathering dust. Analyse, interpret and apply it – it has to add value to everything that we do. But we shouldn’t stop there, we need to look up and start to understand the people behind the target audience definition, understand the communities that form around like-mindedness, understand cultural similarities and differences, and become experts in human behaviour.

And so I come back to the quote that I opened with – if you want to make an impact, make sure that you are one of those few that really understand the consumer. “Understanding is deeper than knowledge. There are many people who know you but very few understand you.”

At this year’s tenth anniversary of The MOST Awards, The MediaShop was crowned the inaugural Media Agency of the Decade, Full Service Media Agency of the Year and Overall Media Agency of the Year.

 “The MediaShop’s 30^th birthday year is turning out to be pretty incredible, this is really the perfect icing on the cake of what is proving to be a remarkable 2018,” says Kgaugelo Maphai, Managing Director of The MediaShop Johannesburg.

“Winning Media Agency of the Decade is absolutely incredible and testament to the continuous innovative nature of every team member. We understand that to stay relevant we need to constantly adapt, and we have some very exciting developments on the cards along this vein which we’ll announce soon.”

These awards are hot on the heels of The MediaShop being awarded a Gold Loerie for Nando’s #rightmyname campaign in the Media Innovation category.

“On behalf of the Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban management teams we’d like to extend our thanks to every staff member who lives our pioneering ethos every day, our clients and media owner partners that have been with us every step of this incredible journey.”

For more on The MediaShop visit www.mediashop.co.za, like them on Facebook: The MediaShop, follow them on Twitter @MediaShopZA or LinkedIn.

We’ve all heard about chatbots, says Belinda Kayton, Media Strategist at The MediaShop. Some of us might even have interacted with one without knowing it! But what are they all about and what is the potential of this Artificial Intelligence for brands?

Basically, chatbots function within messaging apps(enabling businesses to provide customer support 24/7, answer customer queries or provide complaint resolutions through the likes of FB Messenger, WeChat etc.).

Chatbots have Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the heart of them. The former is powered by machine learning and the latter is only capable of interacting by following pre-programmed rules.

The fact is that chatbots are still in their infancy, and what we’re experiencing is just the tip of a billion dollar industry in the space of 10 years. But the adoption of chatbots is catching on and large companies such as Uber, Sephora and CNN have fully adopted this technology.

Chatbots are always available, they’re never rude, tired or irritated – they’re pleasant 24/7/365. This is why chatbots are prevalent in customer service related industries.

A key driver for this has been the adoption of smartphone technology with IM (Instant Messenger) being the primary means of communication. IM is being adopted at a faster rate than social networks, with over 4.1 billion users worldwide using Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat and Slack as examples. Consumers are so used to instant communication in their private lives that they expect the same when they communicate with companies.

According to Research and Markets, the chatbot market is expected to reach revenue of $3.1 billion by 2021. Although South African consumers predominantly purchase goods in store, 76% of people are using their mobile devices to get more information from online sources, to help make their buying decisions.

The aim of a successful chatbot is to create an experience where users feel like they’re speaking to a human being instead of to a sophisticated bot that is continually learning and optimising itself based on other user interactions.

The possibilities are immense in retail, financial services, travel, hospitality and even in utilities for service-related and transactional conversations:

• Government:Chatbot technology has the potential to be a valuable tool in helping to transform the way people engage with government departments. Chatbots are able to communicate in any language, and they learn through engagement.
• Financial Services:Users would be able to converse with the bot just as they would with a human being, providing advice or assisting with new accounts in any of our 11 official languages. Chatbots are also able to better understand the customer’s needs and requirements in a friendly and always-on manner.
• Hospitality: Gartnerpredicts that by 2020, 85% of enterprise-customer relationships will be managed without human interactions. It will be possible to interact with restaurants through IM with an emoji. Chatbots will be more than capable of taking reservations, placing orders and even recommending wine pairings if requested to do so. The bot will be able to remember this interaction for future interactions.
• (Pic from QSR Magazine):

Chatbots are already being used in the hotel industry, in their operational processes, and are reporting a good ROI.

• Healthcare and Education:At the International AIDS conference in Durban, MomConnect was launched by the Praekelt Foundation which has the potential to revolutionise healthcare in South Africa. The aim of this bot is to provide maternal health advice through the use of cell phone technologies. It is free to all users, and more importantly it is available in all 11 official languages.
• The Legal Arena:In June of 2016, news broke that a lawyer chatbot service successfully contested 160,000 out of 250,000 (64% success rate) parking tickets in London and New York (for free). DoNotPay was created by a 19 year old, second year law student from Stanford University!
• Education:National Geographic Kids UK has launched a chatbot to teach young children about dinosaurs. Conversational learning is more fun and interactive.

The possibilities are endless.

Chatbots are everywhere, we may not even realise that we’re interacting with one. As examples, we’re already able to place food orders online and are given constant updates on the time of delivery and the cost thereof. We are able to order rides from Uber and we know exactly where our driver is.

Some South African examples:

• Savant is on Twitter and chats about current scientific trends, research topics or market moves. It represents Sentient Labs ZA.
• KeiraBot – This is a real estate bot that connects you to your dream home.
• Hazie – This is a job recruitment bot that will connect you to your dream job.
• IFRS Rookies – This is an AI tutor for tomorrow’s accountants specialised on IFRS.

Chatbots Magazine predicts that:

• Every business is going to have a bot– Messaging apps are growing fiercely and if messaging apps become the number one way in which people communicate, then every business is going to need a way to engage on these platforms.
• Bots will be faster than websites and mobile apps– Currently, bots are still learning BUT they’ll get to the point where the experience of talking to a business via a bot is at least as good as using its website or mobile app. It will be quicker and easier to talk to a bot and will therefore be preferred.
• Bots will be easier to use than any other technology ever created – Language is the most natural interface humans understand, and that’s the interface that bots use. We won’t have to interact with buttons, text and images which can be cumbersome when interacting with different sites. In five to ten years, bots will be able to understand you completely – in whatever language you choose to use. In the future – talking to a bot will be like talking to a real person who has instant access to entire databases of information, and can process your thoughts and desires instantly!

So, in short, every business needs to get a bot in order to communicate with people on message apps, and bots need to provide as much value as a website or mobile app.

Here’s a brief history of chatbots (Chatbots Magazine):

There is a spectrum of chatbots (Chatbots Magazine):

The most important takeout is that we need to embrace this AI technology and make it work for our brands within our consumer interactions because it’s coming, whether we like it or not!

 Sources:

https://www.inc.com

https://www.itweb.co.za/content

http://chatbotmagazine.com/howbotswillcompletelykillwebsitesandmobileapps

http://chatbotmagazine.com/riseofthechatbots

http://businessinsider.com/what-ischatbot-talking-ai

https://www.qsrmagazine.com/outside_insights

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/intelligence/research?

https://news24.com/Opinions/Voices/rise-of-the-chatbots

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2018/02/chatbots-to-be-the-differentiatior

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/chatbotsandthebiggerpicture

Louise Hefer, Media Strategist at The MediaShop

Something horrible recently happened in our household *cue first world problem here*. Our TV remote broke, and I mean proper broke…broke in terms of not being able to forward, exit or move between channels. So now we’re rocking it old school style and having to actually get up and change channels, I know, I know, I’m hearing your horrified screams all the way from wherever you are.

What this means is that I’m spending way more time watching TV than I usually do (and in general that’s not a lot) because now a show is a full hour instead of the 40min when you forward through the ads. This in turn is forcing me to actually watch the ads. At first I stared at the screen with a ‘the lights are on but no one’s home’ expression, not really listening or seeing what’s happening on the screen until my husband made a comment along the lines of “Sheesh (or maybe it was another adjective starting with an S), BLEEP is literally in every single ad break with the same ad, if I have to watch another ad again my brain is going to explode!”

That made me sit up and take note of the amount of ads I was actually seeing. Now I know that clutter and breakthrough isn’t new but I thought it’s worth revisiting it again, because let’s face it, we forget things. In June, 398 841 ads ran across all stations for the whole month which equates to 13 294 a day! Yes yes, I know, not everyone watches all the stations but even just looking at SABC 1, there are roughly 255 ads flighted on average per day. Even competing against 254 ads instead of 13 293 is a big task for any brand.

So with this conundrum in mind, I set off searching for a short and concise ‘How-to Guide’ that addresses this, more specifically from someone that’s really intelligent and works at a reputable company (and even though I qualify I thought that that might be slightly hubris).

Daren Poole from Kantar Millward Brown wrote an article on five rules for creating memorable ads, which I’ve summarised. In general the article digs deeper into new research that explores what builds lasting impressions in advertising. And as much as we don’t like hearing this, consumers engagement with ads are really superficial and they will only take out a broad idea or feeling when navigating through the hundreds of ads they see a day. So let’s look at the rules and how they can benefit us in the long run.

Rule #1 – Make a meaningful impression

Long term competitive advantage comes from building a brand’s emotional meaningful difference. Emotional meaningfulness is creating affinity for the brand and emotional difference is about a brand acting in a way that perceives them to be more progressive than other brands. Research shows that brands who are successful in doing this, have the greatest chance of financial success.

Rule #2 – Work with the brain, not against it

As I’ve stated, consumers are bombarded with different messages on a daily basis and very few actually stick. They simply just don’t care about the ads which have become wallpaper, so the brain filters it out. Taking this into account, it’s important to remember that firstly, ads need to have instant meaning, and secondly, they need to make people feel something. Ads that evoke emotional responses are more likely to generate sales effects.

Rule #3 – Good storytelling leaves an impression

Their research has shown that ads that use a storytelling angle are more engaging and help make the ads more noticeable and memorable (think John Lewis’s Christmas ads here). Ads that feature stories create higher level of expressiveness, which is directly linked to a lift in sales.

Rule #4 – Get the channel right

It’s important to place the right creative with the right target market, in the right channel, on the right platform and at the right time. That’s a lot of pressure, but if you don’t get that right, all your efforts will be wasted. Come chat to us if you need some help on that 😉

Rule #5 – No brand means no impression

Creating an engaging ad without branding will not add any value to the brand. Taking the second rule into account (the one about the brain), we know, and research shows, that consumers only partially engage with an ad and rarely watch it until the end. This highlights the importance of branding before disengagement. Research have found that the single best forecaster of an increase in sales effects for ads is branding.

There you go, five easy rules to keep in mind. Ads that are emotionally engaging and build lasting and memorable impression are more effective than those that don’t. Somewhere deep down most of us know this – we just need to be reminded every now and then.

And now for a challenge! I challenge you to try and watch at least one of your favourite shows tonight with all the ad breaks, and while you’re watching the ad breaks try and see whether the ads have ticked the boxes on any of the five rules. You can even create a game out of it! Come on, do it…

Jarred Mailer-Lyons, Digital Media Strategist at The MediaShop discusses movements in the Influencer Marketing space

Influencer marketing has become one of the fastest digital customer-acquisition practices. Due to the sheer power of the social endorsements, targeting options and utilising influencers with high engagement rates across multiple social platforms, influencer marketing has become a key element to marketing budgets, not only globally but locally as well.

At its most basic, Influencer Marketing is a hybrid of marketing tools, taking the concept of the celebrity endorsement and placing it into a modern day content-driven marketing campaign which focuses on micro and macro influencers. Micro and Macro influencers are a debatable topic but I tend to view it as follows…

 Micro influencers are everyday people and generally have less than 10 000 followers. These influencers will often ‘apply’ to become an influencer via an influencer dashboard on platforms like Brandnew IO, Indahash, Webfluential, Plum and R-Squared who pride themselves on authentic and premium social media accounts with high engagement from their fan base. These kinds of influencers usually have a good eye for photography, they’re authentic, generally cheaper and big brands can assist with setting them apart and creating a household name for them. On the backend, brands submit tailored briefs to these online influencer platforms for vetted and relevant influencers to respond to and then content is developed and approved.

Macro influencers are generally famous and carry a household name. These kinds of celebrities often have followers in the region of tens of thousands or millions. They are approached first hand by a brand or through Influencer Marketing agencies where they have existing working relationships. Brands will ask them to feature their product or service on their social media profiles, with a contextual headline mentioning the brand. By using macro influencers, a brand is positioned in front of millions of people and is great for driving brand awareness and visibility.

The main difference that sets influencer marketing apart is that the results of the campaign are usually dictated by the collaboration, involvement and mutual agreement between brands and its selected influencers.

Recent Adweek article boasts; “67% of marketers think influencer marketing campaigns helped them reach a more targeted audience, thus leading to more impactful results.”

In South Africa there are a number of players in the market, here is a snap shot for each of them – they all have significant local influencer bases, are technology based platforms and have excellent research and case studies on influencer audiences and campaigns. These tech players have the tools to discover the right creators and do full data tracking for campaigns with the influential content creators to maximize impact for brands, and drive results.

Brandnew IO

Berlin developed this global leader in 2016. This tech has worked with over 500 brands, completed over 2000 campaigns in 70+ markets. The newest entry to our market, the Brandnew platform runs campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and blogs. Brandnew has a global partnership with Universal Music Group and GroupM and looks to be very advanced, scalable and offers excellent insights and reporting from their dashboards.

For their research and case studies visit their blog here http://brandnew.io/blog/

Indahash

This Polish start up is 18 months old has run over 1,600 campaigns across over 70+ markets. This platform doesn’t offer YouTube or blogs but rather focuses on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. It has however made bold moves launching their own successful ICO (initial coin offering) in the crypto currency space. They’re app based and have more than 643,785 influencers registered on their platform. Indahash provides an automated solution for original content creations. This allows them to benefit from the enhanced engagement levels that come with influencers. Suitable for influencers of all sizes, it offers the possibility of working with the brands they love and monetizing their social following.

For their research and case studies visit here https://labs.indahash.com/category/case-studies/

Webfluential

They have recently given license rights to Nfinity Media (local player theSALT is also part of the stable) and have a largely self-service style set up for brands and agencies. Webfluential operates across Facebook, blogs, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and in February 2018 they launched their influencer education platform, the Webfluential Academy (http://academy.webfluential.com/)

For their research and case studies visit here https://webfluential.com/influencer-marketing-examples

 Plum

A fully black-owned, trendsetting digital and social media agency, Plum prides itself on creating digital conversations. Its specialised approach ensures an amplified message for brands by knowing what’s technically possible and financially viable. The team’s knowledge of digital platforms enables them to develop the most impactful and cost-effective campaigns to meet their clients’ needs – from start-ups to blue-chip multinationals. What sets Plum (formerly “Plum Factory”) apart in the social and digital industry is its investment in nurturing young, aspiring digital and marketing creatives, introducing them to the science of digital, and enhancing their techniques to ensure cutting-edge delivery and a pipeline of trailblazing talent.

R-Squared

From initial planning to mission-related content specifications, to timing of deliverables, R-Squared Digital’s expertise in influencer marketing campaigns, partners with its clients to create a dedicated strategy. R-Squared Digital provides a multifaceted due diligence based on deep influencers’ audience insight, work quality and consistency, and relevance. Specific missions per influencer create maximum authentic engagement, and validations of each post before publishing guarantee brand safety, and are all part of larger campaign management design and execution processes.

For some of their work and case studies visit here https://r2digital.attach.io/H1Pz~gq3M 

There’s no doubt that Influencer Marketing has become a very interesting space to watch and that it will escalate in popularity really quickly. But brands shouldn’t forget that the key to influencer marketing is knowing how to develop an integrated strategy that taps into the key drivers of behaviour. We can then use these insights and align them to micro and macro influencers who have greater powers of persuasion through word of mouth recommendations within their communities.

 

The Nando’s #rightmyname campaign has won a Gold Loerie in the Media Innovation category, submitted by media agency The MediaShop and creative agency M&C Saatchi Abel.  The #rightmyname initiative saw Nando’s championing the cause for uniquely South African names to be recognised by spellcheck. #rightmyname encouraged users from diverse South African backgrounds to upload their names to an online database with the intention that on Human Rights Day this year (21 March) users could download the database and update their computer’s dictionary.

 “This magnificent accolade comes on the back of Media Strategist Maggie Pronto’s skilful negotiation with The Sunday Times which really brought this campaign alive,” says Kgaugelo Maphai, Managing Director at The MediaShop Johannesburg.

In a media first, The MediaShop negotiated with the nation’s largest newspaper to underline all South African names on their cover page and inside spread, sparking many to think that The Sunday Times had made a horrendous editorial error, only to be met with a full page ad explaining the campaign.

Maggie adds: “We have been absolutely delighted to work with creative agency M&C Saatchi Abel on this incredible campaign that garnered a 7400% ROI on our media spend, excluding the incredible social media engagement and online conversations that ensued,” she says.

For more on The MediaShop visit www.mediashop.co.za, like them on Facebook: The MediaShop, follow them on Twitter @MediaShopZA or LinkedIn.

Nicci Jones, Digital Media Strategist at The MediaShop looks at keeping rogue influencers in (legal) checkEverything around us is for sale, from the airwaves that we listen to, to the TV programmes that we watch – even movies on the big screen have products snuck into them to subliminally drive our brand preferences. Our social media spaces are dotted with influencers who endorse products that they are paid to promote in a ‘non-intrusive manner’ – whether we’re aware of the brand affiliation or not.

Online influencers are a complex market, especially in the social media space where boundaries between public and private domains have become blurred and where we have perceived closer access to celebrities and role models that we have idolized since our teen years.

We can interact with these stars at the click of a button, and the choices they make inspire the choices that we make.

If social media trends are not on your radar, you might not have become aware of the influx of celebrities suddenly letting us into their lives and sharing with us their latest secrets to their brightest smile, or the smallest waist, or the longest hair. Social media celebrities have become increasingly industrious, and it’s hard to tell when they’re endorsing a product, or letting us into their personal lives. Ingenious managers (or in the case of the Kardashian/Jenner clan – momagers) have negotiated clauses into contracts that have managed to bypass the protection of consumers – you didn’t really think Kim and her clan whitened their own teeth, did you?

Consumers are rushing to buy products trusted (read: endorsed) by their favourite celebrities, increasing the revenue of both the product and the celebrity, with absolutely no regard for authenticity, trust or transparency.

Advertising, marketing and competition authorities have cottoned on to this lack of transparency, and have started taking influencers to task for being duty-free brand marketers. The onus has now been placed on the influencers to protect their integrity and authenticity when it comes to brand endorsement to their audiences. Although creating sponsored branded content allows them all kinds of creativity, influencers now need to comply with the law of disclosure, and the initial approach to online influencer endorsement no longer has the legs it used to.

Following in the wake of highly debatable and controversial rules and regulations of sponsored content set out by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that were put into place in South Africa, online influencers need to disclose any sponsored brand content – for the protection of themselves and the brands they endorse, as well as ours. This places a large amount of responsibility in the hands of influencers, and those who don’t pay attention to the regulations run the risk of loss of credibility, as well as being heftily fined. After all, if you’re going to be the face of a product as well as an inspiration to many, you need to do so responsibly and be aware of industry best practice.

As a consumer, this might not soothe the taste buds as well as those endorsed detox teas do, so here’s a breakdown of a few best practice guidelines on all platforms, which we can now hold our influencers accountable for:

 Hashtags:

All sponsored content needs to be clearly labelled. If the influencers themselves cannot tell that the posts are sponsored, chances are that we can’t either – so hiding them in a blur of words won’t be considered as full disclosure. The following hashtags have been approved on all platforms – from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter and blogs:

• #sponsored
• #ad / #advertising
• #affiliate
• #promotion /#promo

*(The FTC has made a point of noting that hashtags that are not easily identifiable as sponsored content, simply don’t count. Sorry Kim – but your very cryptic #sp, #spon, and #spons just don’t make the cut anymore.)

Links and Handles:

• Links to brand websites need to be fully visible without being shortened, and need to contain the brand name in any accompanying descriptions.
• Brand @handles need to be included

Videos and YouTube:

• The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of South Africa denotes that all sponsored content needs to be disclosed to viewers in both the text and the startof each video.
• When uploading videos, influencers are compelled to notify YouTube of sponsorship elements under a content clause/declaration.
• Advertising needs to be disabled if the influencer feels this may clash with their sponsorship deal.
• In the words of the FTC, a hyperlink is not enough, nor is a brief mention of a brand.
• Live streams need to have endorsement information clearly displayed throughout.

Although these rules may seem excessive at first, they are necessary to avoid the repercussions of not abiding by them. Not following these guidelines could result in permanent bans from social platforms – and no influencer can afford for their social platforms to be negatively affected.

In case you need a few pointers on whether your influencers are ‘behaving’, the FTC has laid out this helpful set of guidelines so that you can hold them accountable for their endorsements.

The IAB UK has weighed in with their guide to best native online advertising disclosure practice, too – both guides are enforceable to the influencer market, and will help you as a brand, to protect yourself.

Chris Botha, current Group Managing Director of The MediaShop has announced the agency’s new central holding company Park Advertising. This entity will house two media agencies – The MediaShop and newcomer sister agency Meta Media.

 With immediate effect, Chris Botha assumes the role of Group Managing Director of Park Advertising, and will oversee the management operations of both businesses. The MediaShop’s leadership team comprising Kgaugelo Maphai (Johannesburg), Bonita Bachmann (Cape Town) and Arisha Saroop (Durban) will continue in their roles. The management team of Meta Media will be announced in due course.

“The MediaShop and Meta Media will operate independently of each other, in their own offices, with their own management team, directors and client bases. Meta Media will operate in both Johannesburg and Cape Town, and plans to officially open later this year,” says Chris.

“This strategy is part of our overall growth plan for our network and to provide more opportunities for our people. The fact that everything came together in the year of our 30^th birthday is a bonus! We’re incredibly excited at the journey ahead and thank our team, clients and media owner partners for helping us get to where we are today.”

The MediaShop will retain its Level 1 BEE rating at 55% black ownership. Meta Media will also be a majority black owned Level 1 agency through Interpublic Group South Africa’s local shareholding.

For more on The MediaShop visit www.mediashop.co.za, like them on Facebook: The MediaShop, follow them on Twitter @MediaShopZA or LinkedIn.