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The concepts of Behavioural Economics, Observed Consumer Behaviour and Neuro-marketing are enough to make any marketer head for the hills out of the sheer fear of not knowing where to begin. Kirsty Dugmore of SugaSpice puts it simply.

The truth of the matter is that evidence-based marketing needn’t be intimidating. Plainly put, this ground breaking interdisciplinary field is the integration of several scientific disciplines into the field of marketing. It’s evolving the marketing industry and offering marketers the tools and insights, based on empirical evidence, on how to achieve brand growth.

SugaSpice was created two years ago with a vision to upskill South Africa’s marketers with increased knowledge of evidence based-marketing and how to apply it.  Marketing and media industries are being offered the opportunity to learn more about the exciting discoveries made by some of the world’s leading and most respected academics in their fields.

Chief Growth Officer for SugaSpice, Kirsty Dugmore, explains that: “Evidence-based marketing uses the disciplines of Behavioural Economics, Observed Consumer Behaviour and Neuro-marketing to better understand how consumers are making the purchasing and brand decisions that they do.”

She further notes: “This promising discipline offers insights into predictable patterns and behaviours, and offers practical advice that marketers can implement in their marketing and media strategies.”

Behavioural Economics, to cite just one example, conducts analyses into consumer decision making based on empirically studied psychological traits.

“Typically, Behavioural Economics says that, as human beings, we are predictably irrational with constant flaws in our decision making processes. Consumers make snap decisions using ‘mental shortcuts’ that are available to them – but memories are stored in a way that aren’t easily accessible. The challenge for brands is to create ways to create mental availability when a consumer is in the market for their specific product or service,” Kirsty says.

“The lesson here is that brands need to realise that their customers are not constantly thinking about them, and that to stay one step ahead of competitors they have to focus on making it easy to be thought of.

With the assistance of evidence-based marketing, brands can make sure that they’re part of the consideration set when consumers consider buying specific products or services.”

Kirsty has spent the last 13 years employed in large corporate media companies and has spent thousands of hours researching the relevant literature now at the forefront of modern marketing. She has taken these learnings and developed accessible and practical course material.

SugaSpice’s Evidence-Based marketing courses offer clients the very latest in evidence-based marketing techniques, assisting them in their efforts to get up to speed with global advancements in the field.

“Evidence-based marketing has the very real ability, through easy to implement strategies, to turn a brand’s growth trajectory around, and I really enjoy sharing with marketers how to do just that.”

For more on SugaSpice and its offerings visit www.sugaspice.co.za

Everyone knows the brand, everyone has seen or read or perused the magazine! CAR magazine, a South African heritage brand, established over 60 years ago, has now evolved its online platform, CARmag.co.za even further to suit prevailing South African market conditions.CAR is Southern Africa’s leading multimedia automotive consumer brand and it’s growing even further by partnering with the industry to meet South Africa’s motoring demands. In the latest development, media groups like Caxton are coming together to exponentially expand the reach of the platform and make the new CARmag platform the largest and most trusted motoring product of its kind.

South Africa has one of the most competitive automotive trading environments in the world with 53 passenger car brands and 3,236 model derivatives, representing the widest choice to market-size ratio anywhere in the world. As the largest manufacturing sector in South Africa’s economy, vehicle and component production accounted for 30.1% of the country’s manufacturing output in 2017. Together Caxton, CAR magazine and other key players have come together, shared resources and knowledge to offer dealers affordable solutions and offers consumers informative options while accepting the responsibility to mend the disruption that has been caused in the market.

By adding the resources of Caxton Automotive to the strong CAR magazine brand, the new CARmag.co.za website will consist of a unique array of offerings to its users. This includes professional editorial content produced by the CAR magazine expert journalists and vehicle specialists, generic new car module offerings, special deals on new and used vehicles and dealership demo modules.

Advertising is available through highly targeted DMX Banners located on specific high traffic pages while the CAR Dealer Directory will become the most comprehensive and user-friendly automotive directory in South Africa covering all types of dealerships offering personalised profiles populated with inventory and navigation to service centres, spare parts centres and workshops.

Marc Scott, CEO at Vehicle Traders comments, “It’s been inspiring to develop this platform with our exceptional CAR magazine team. The new platform is the innovative and evolutionary product of this collaboration between forward thinking media groups and key industry role-players offering an intrinsic understanding of motoring South Africa. We have met the dealer network requirements and given the public world class content from their most loved motoring brand … CAR.”

“We believe that this platform will be the leading multimedia automotive marketplace for enthusiasts, buyers and sellers of vehicles and related products and services in South Africa, and be recognised as South Africa’s leading multimedia automotive consumer brand,” says Caxton Digital’s Group Marketing Manager, Sharlee Moriarty. “A larger audience and a holistic marketing and advertising solution can be reached by combining newspaper, magazine and online platforms under the CAR brand.”

Terence Steenkamp, Editor of CAR, further adds, “CAR has defined automotive media for more than six decades and, with this partnership, we’re excited that even more consumers will be exposed to this experienced magazine team’s insights and knowledge. That, in turn, will allow them to make informed purchasing decisions while browsing through the extensive vehicle listings under the CARmag umbrella. It’ll be a one-stop shop for all things automotive!”

This full multi-function automotive platform will highlight new cars, test them and rate them while offering the public a conduit to find great deals. It’s one website that houses only the best in quality content, vehicle listings, dealer directory and related products and services and as always – the authoritative voice in South African motoring.

 

The largest, most robust, quantitative community survey of urban South Africa, providing insights for marketers about people, their behaviours, activities, shopping, reading and path to purchase habits, ROOTS, launches its latest set of results in June.

The ROOTS survey provides single source information from over 27 000 randomly selected face-to-face interviews across many South African urban communities, using a proven, credible methodology while being more detailed than any other such survey in South Africa.

“Along with the inclusion of new industry metrics like SEM’s plus LSM’s, we’ve added new areas across the country, included more categories and even added questions on game- changers like Uber and Gautrain,” says Debbie McIntyre, Marketing Services and Research Director SPARK Media.

“ROOTS 2019 insights, will enable marketers and advertisers to understand who their market is, how they’ve changed, where they live and shop, how they behave and how to reach them.”

 As well as the traditional categories like Food and Groceries, Auto, Appliances, Home Accessories, Clothing, Shopping Centres, DIY, Travel, Finance and Insurance, more detail has been added on Health and Wellbeing, Buying/Renting a Home, Loyalty Cards, Mobility including ‘how’ and ‘how far’ consumers are willing to travel to shop. Other additions include connectivity, entertainment (yes, even Streaming) and even data on some life milestones too.

The real win for users is that this trendable big data set can be analysed at a combined big, broad picture level or distilled down to community by community detail providing opportunities for marketers looking for changes, differences and gaps.

“As digital technology integrates itself in all parts of life, we have included these options as they relate to peoples search, shopping, entertainment and reading behaviour too,” concludes Debbie.

“Since its inception in the 1980’s, the ROOTS research methodology provides a national snapshot that is designed to enable detailed analysis and decision making at a local level, and we are excited to continue to build on this proven data set that is so critical for marketers.

Watch this space, #ROOTS2019 is coming!”

For more on SPARK Media, visit our website and follow us on social media @sparkmediasa.

SPARK Media

Established in 2015, SPARK Media, a division of CTP Ltd, are experts in retail and location based marketing solutions. The company owns and represents an arsenal of print products that deliver locally relevant, effective audiences for advertising clients. SPARK Media are Strategic Partners in Audience Research and Knowledge and offer ‘Insights that Ignite’.

In an exciting new venture for its stable of media companies, The Nfinity Group, headed by media entrepreneur Ken Varejes enters the Television and Radio broadcast spheres. The company is proud to announce a new partnership with an innovative consumer engagement broadcaster in the form of the Brand Game Shows and its creator Craig Clay-Smith. Nfinity and Clay-Smith share a common vision and passion for media innovation and the Big Brand TV Show together with a new radio extension, The Lucky Listener Radio Show are unique media, with interactive brand focused television and radio game shows, that are synergistically supported with print, and/or online and social media platforms.

 To reach a total cross section of the South African consumer market, The Big Brand TV Show enters the DSTV Bouquet family, featuring six shows a week, two each across the MNET, Mzansi Magic and KykNet channels. Lucky Listener launches on East Coast Radio and Jacaranda, where collectively the two shows will give away over R4-million in cash prizes annually. “We see these interactive, broadcast brands as a perfect fit for our strategic sales mix and vision for unique media solutions that we already offer,” says Ken Varejes, Group CEO of Nfinity Media.

The partnership allows Nfinity Media to leverage their unique sales expertise to deliver highly effective and value-based media packages to the market. The incredible value proposition of the show engages consumers across the entire viewer or listener spectrum when the on-air presenter asks a viewer or listener, targeted, brand or value-centric questions. Correct answers are rewarded with cash whilst simultaneously consumers are educated on the key intrinsic values or sales propositions of a variety of brands.

“The Big Brand TV and Lucky Listener shows make perfect sense at Nfinity as cross-over support for a brand’s traditional media mix, providing engagement, feedback and market intelligence,” says Ken. “The first consumer interaction with the brand for TV is weekly across some of the biggest print titles in South Africa; Huisgenoot, You and Drum, initiating a two-way communication stream.” On radio the shows are driven through the station’s own web site while both platforms are supported through online and intensive social media campaigns.

The Brand Game Show will be represented in Johannesburg’s Nfinity offices by Justin van Alphen, an experienced New Business Sales Developer with more than a decade of experience. Justin has been named Portfolio Sales Manager of the year 2016-2017, Media24 Sales Manager 2016-2017 and Sales Innovator of the year 2016-2017.

“We welcome our latest partnership with Craig and Justin and we know that we have a solid and innovative offering that brands haven’t truly maximised yet on TV and radio,” says Ken.

 Nfinity DNA

Headed by entrepreneur Ken Varejes as CEO, Nfinity is the latest innovation hub to land in the media, marketing and eventing fields. Nfinity is poised as a space for entrepreneurs to grow and better their businesses under the guidance of Ken and his growing management team, each a specialist in their own field. Nfinity currently has established shareholding and presence including in the following companies: AdColony, theSALT, Reveel, Whisky Live, Whizzky App, Orange Block, , theIntern-Ship, Brand a Tuk Tuk, Nfinity Digital and Brand Game Shows.

Hot on the heels of winning Best South African Blog of the Year, founder of South Africa’s Good Things Guy has been named the category winner of ‘Social Enterprise and Philanthropy’ and the fourth most influential South African in the ‘100 Most Influential Young South Africans’ poll.

The survey, conducted by leading international PR and ratings agency Avance Media, recognises remarkable contributions made by individuals towards their respective fields which have impacted other young South Africans and beyond.“It’s moments like these that remind me that I am on the right path,” says Brent. “Good Things Guy feels like a gift that was given to me to help South Africans see our beautiful country with new eyes and I am thankful for each and every one of our readers!”

First launched in 2016 by Avance Media, the 100 Most Influential Young South Africans has previously been won by comedian and TV personality Trevor Noah (2016) and Ndlozi (2017). This year, Caster Semenya was the first woman to be awarded the coveted title as the Most Influential Young South African for 2018.

Good Things Guy was created by Brent in 2015 to promote South Africa’s good news and to share inspirational stories. The site has evolved to become a global, multi-platform company that shares unique content to over a million readers each month.

“I believe that there is always a good news story to tell and I’m honoured to be recognised as an inspirational South African amongst amazing individuals who have excelled in their fields of business, lifestyle, sport and entertainment. All this in the first quarter of the year! I’m looking forward to sharing many more good things throughout 2019.”

The Good Things Guy can be found at www.goodthingsguy.com, on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Most executives would agree that the single biggest asset of their organisation is their people, their employees and management. Employee Advocacy is at its core, the promotion of an organisation through its staff.

“Who knows the company best, who are the company’s biggest brand ambassadors, who understands the market best and has high propensity to be on social media?” asks Pieter Groenewald, Managing Director of theIntern-ship, part of the Nfinity Group of companies. “The answer to all of those questions is the team members within any organisation.”

In South Africa, companies haven’t activated employee advocacy within their organisations as prolifically as in overseas markets merely because they don’t understand the gold they are sitting on, and if they do, they don’t have the machinery to bring the gold to surface.

“The statistics speak for themselves in that most organisations have enough content to share to prospective clients and staff, but they don’t have the means to dominate communication channels due to the nature of these being pay-as-you-go or paying media owners. Once payments stop so does the exposure,” says Pieter. “It makes sense to consider activating the skills of employees to become more digitally visible, to tap into this valuable communication channel, which is in fact not a pay-as-you-go channel but rather continuous exposure through engagement and re-sharing, therefore delivering exceptional ROI.”

Being a completely new form of marketing in South Africa, readily available statistics are not available, but international statistics are completely relatable. The good news is that most employees are already on social media, so why not tap into that resource? At the heart of social is the coming together of like-minded people and communities. In fact, 98% of employees are using social media for personal use, while 50% of those already post about their employers/organisation.

“It’s the old word of mouth methodology that’s been effectively translated online,” says Kevin Kirby, COO of Nfinity. “84% of customers say that they value the recommendations from friends and family while 21% of customers say that they ‘like’ employee posts about companies.”

Studies show that employees have ten times more social connections than standard brands. An increase of 12% in brand advocacy can lead to 200% more revenue reveals another study.

“The reason it works is because people trust content and recommendations from people they know more than marketing messages from companies,” says Pieter. “In fact, people are 16 times more likely to read a post from a friend about a brand than from the brand itself. Employees are often the best salespeople of a brand (even if they’re not in sales). They have more influence over the products and services their friends and family buy than any piece of marketing material ever could.

Can you afford not to investigate?” concludes Pieter.

www.nfinity.co.za

Nfinity DNA

Headed by entrepreneur Ken Varejes as CEO, Nfinity is the latest innovation hub to land in the media, marketing and eventing fields. Nfinity is poised as a space for entrepreneurs to grow and better their businesses under the guidance of Ken and his growing management team, each a specialist in their own field. Nfinity currently has established shareholding and presence in the following companies: AdColony, theSALT, Reveel, Whisky Live, Whizzky App, Orange Block, Reveel, theIntern-Ship, Brand a Tuk Tuk and Nfinity Digital

Spark Media is happy to announce that as from the 1^st March 2019, the company will be separating its digital and print sales divisions into two distinct entities.

The newspaper sales division will retain the Spark Media name, and will house booking, production, sales, marketing services, research (ROOTS etc.) and other market intelligence needed to build effective media strategies.

Gill Randall will lead Spark Media as CEO, along with industry veterans Olav Westphal as Sales Director, Debbie McIntyre as Marketing Services and Research Director, Diane Albertus heads up Advertising Operations Director and Celeste Blake as Finance Director.

The digital sales business will be rebranded as Spark-Hive Digital, and will continue to represent Caxton’s well-known and extensive online assets.

Current Spark Joint CEO, Marc du Plessis, will initially oversee Spark-Hive Digital’s leadership team, including Parmeshan Moodliar as GM Sales; Kristin Louw as GM Operations and Ashleigh Footit in the capacity GM Programmatic and Data.

Marc will then be taking on further responsibilities within the Caxton-CTP group. We congratulate him on this recognition and thank him for his exceptional contribution to Spark Media.

The media environment is deepening in its complexity, rendering the traditional separation of print and digital strategies artificial, at best. Consequently, media planners and strategists are expected to have a thorough grasp of all the channels within the media mix.

To help planners navigate this highly integrated landscape, we believe that the onus lies with the media owner to offer specialised knowledge about how their channels can provide real value within a broader approach.

To state it succinctly, we strongly believe a more focused approach to the representation of our varied channels will best serve the interests of all stakeholders.

We are excited to implement this next step in Spark’s evolution as a premier commercial channel provider, and look forward to building on existing and new relationships with our valuable clients.

On 21 February 2019, Chris Moerdyk asks the question “Just how far have South African newspapers fallen?” Gill Randall, Joint CEO of SPARK Media, gives her thoughts.

 It is important to note the article written by Chris Moerdyk refers mainly to daily and weekend papers and most certainly does not apply to local newspapers.

Daily and weekend newspapers have experienced declining circulations for many consecutive years, and this isn’t a trend that looks to reverse anytime soon. The decline during ten-year period for daily and weekend newspapers from 2008 to 2018 has been 56% and 57% respectively. In stark contrast, the LOCAL newspaper category – where Caxton is the major player – remains stable and shows growth in certain areas. Over the same ten-year period we saw a 9% increase in circulation – a trend that we are confident will continue for many years.

This successful model has for many decades covered relevant local information and locally available shopping deals – a format that has kept this particular category of newspapers strong, both in terms of the free and sold publications.

Local newspapers remain the only mass-media print option available nationally, as well as offering the benefit of tactical and/or geo-segmented opportunities to reach large audiences.

Visit the SPARK Media website (sparkmedia.co.za/) and follow them on social media @sparkmediasa.

SPARK Media

Established in 2015, SPARK Media, a division of CTP Ltd, are experts in retail and location-based marketing solutions. The company owns and represents a myriad of print and digital products that deliver locally relevant, effective audiences for advertising clients. SPARK Media are Strategic Partners in Audience Research and Knowledge and offer ‘Insights that Ignite’.

The latest release of three years of fused ROAD research, highlights how the industry is better equipped to evaluate and plan OOH, with a currency that offers the same metrics as other media types. This new release allows for all users to optimise media planning and buying, and to develop effective strategies – music to everyone’s ears!  The OMC recently presented in both Johannesburg and Cape Town to interested attendees who all understand the importance of this currency. “The OMC’s vision is, and continues to be, being an organisation that brings stature and credibility to the medium through strategic and collaborative marketing efforts,” says OMC’s General Manager Trish Guilford. “We have a research currency that is robust, accurate and  designed for our local market, delivering value and meeting a host of OOH planning and strategy needs.”During the presentation, OOH media owners, media agencies and marketers witnessed first-hand just how integral this data and software will become in their daily planning. With the unveiling of the enhanced Optimiser tool, which demonstrated how OOH can be  based on both budget and set criteria aligning the software to the user’s needs, that delivers efficiencies and better planning. Further projects and initiatives that the OMC had been busy with over the past year were shared with the audience.International guest speaker James Whitmore, Managing Director of Route in the UK, outlined his organisation’s history, its structure and scope. He emphasised that it is through TRUST and collaboration that Route has been able to deliver robust and detailed OOH audience measurement.  He also outlined how Route is funded, with both media owners and media agencies contributing towards the research. The industry has committed to a cycle of six-year funding periods, which ensures a stable financial base that gives the organisation the freedom and independence to plan and think ahead. He concluded with a number of case studies. These demonstrate how audience data can be used to illustrate how OOH improves advertising results for clients, whether as a single medium or as part of a combination of media.Following the presentation, he said: “New technology means that automation is a serious consideration for all media; if not now, then in the very near future. If this is to work properly and in the best interests of advertisers, it is vital that the data inputs are objective and robust. Joint industry currencies – audience measurement bodies – are having their moment in the sun. It is increasingly evident that strong, independent research is paramount for the health of media owners, agencies and advertisers. Without it we fear a future of confusion, inefficiency, ignorance and mistrust.”

Lauren Shapiro from Kuper Research detailed how OOH research is not like other media research and is not a simple plug and play process.  Lauren explained that in terms of improved understanding of mobility, routing and the value of a greater number of respondents, the ROAD research highlights the OMC’s commitment in terms of longevity and delivers accurate audience insights to the market.The research, in this release, contains a fused, rolling, robust and sizable sample of over 45 000 people.

“The perception around OOH must be changed in order to stay current,” said Howard Lonstein, Marketing Manager, Outdoor Network and OMC committee member. “One way of demonstrating how OOH can stay current is to look at how optimising OOH in the media mix can increase the share of advertising spend to the medium. The best medium to demonstrate this is to synergise with digital. We are all aware that advertising budgets are not necessarily being cut, but rather being allocated to different media channels. By integrating digital with ROAD, some amazing and impactful insights are gained to guide planning and improve consumer targeting.”“It is only by creating accountability for our valuable client’s media spend and with trust in the data and methodologies, that the OOH industry can and will grow. The ever-improving ROAD research and Quantum software will go a long way in achieving this,” concludes Guilford.

“The hours of arduous work and time invested by the OMC to deliver these accurate audience insights and constantly evolving and improved planning processes, with the industry, media owners, agencies, brands and advertisers in mind, and through collaborative efforts will ensure that the currency will be even more successful in the future.”

For more information search #OMCRoad19 or follow @SouthAfricaOMC on Twitter or find OMC Out of Home Measurement Council on Facebook.

Caxton Magazine’s Living & Loving brand, one of South Africa’s favourite and most trusted authorities on pregnancy and motherhood, has expanded its consumer touchpoints to include a new online video series aimed at moms and moms-to-be. 

“Following a five-episode trial series at the end of last year, we’re thrilled to announce that we have secured a ten episode series that will run from the 6^th March to the 15^th May with brand Epi-Max having full exclusivity for these ten episodes,” says Living & Loving editor Sonya Naude.

“The original five-episode series featured the Epi-Max brand, a range of emollient moisturisers suitable for the whole family, and was produced by Life in a Bulb productions. The series featured popular Mommy blogger Melissa Swart and we were honestly blown away by the results,” she says. “Our ‘getting your body back after baby’ had a reach of over 19 000 people and over 3 500 engagements. It’s a topic that clearly resonated with our audience.”

This past series, entitled ‘1,2,3 with Melissa Swart’, focused on motherhood and how to cope with all  its realities. Topics included getting your body back after a baby, post-natal depression and “suicide hour”, a term used in parenting circles for that time of day when all hell breaks loose.

“Apart from being wholly engaging with a personality that Moms can identify with, viewers had the opportunity to win a hamper of Epi-max products each week by posting the answer to a question posed by Melissa at the end of each video on the Living & Loving Facebook page,” explains Sonya. “In the new series Epi-Max will be giving away more product hampers and a R10 000 cash prize to one viewer at the end of the series.

We would encourage brands that wish to make an impact with our audience of young moms and moms-to-be to get in touch with us and ensure that their brand is seen on our new platform.”

“We’re excited to be producing more and more content in the video space with our brands because the demand is clearly there,” says Caxton Magazine’s Anton Botes. “Our brands each have a strong South African heritage and whether our audience engages with us through our print platforms or online, the affinity with the brand is stronger than ever.”

Caxton Magazines DNA

Storytelling is our business. Content is our currency. Caxton Magazines is a division of Caxton CTP Printers & Publishers and houses 12 brands in print and digital formats, primarily aimed at the women’s lifestyle segment across life stages, lifestyles and income groups. These brands are: Vrouekeur; Woman & Home; Bona; Living & Loving; People; Food & Home Entertaining; Your Family; Garden & Home; Farmer’s Weekly; Essentials; Rooi Rose and SA Country Life. Visit www.caxtonmags.co.za