This is how the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat-Pettersson felt when she walked into a room advertised as the Cape Town ‘Press’ Club. Not only did she find that a member of parliament of the Democratic Alliance is among its members but also that journalists are but a part of this social club.

She did what you would have done if you walked into a morgue called a butcher shop or a chop shop masquerading as workshop. She beat a hasty retreat. We now know that the “press” club chose – rather reluctantly and disingenuously as we see in a relentless campaign they are running – to rather recuse their DA friend than miss an opportunity to listen to Joemat-Pettersson.

If they believed she was wrong by not understanding that the word “press” means anyone above the age of 18 – an excuse they unashamedly continue to use as a constitution – then they should have called her bluff and let her go. Worse still, as one of their apologists wrote on Twitter recently, they should have all upped and left with the DA friend in solidary (or shame). Clearly, they have no conviction of their beliefs and they are not prepared to die for their flawed constitution.

Coming out guns blazing in a reactive campaign is too late. All the ‘press’ club is doing is trying to save face, as evidenced in Brent Meersman’s piece last week.

To claim that the ‘press’ club is not a media conference is at best skirting the issues and at worst a diversion of the worst proportions. Politicians – and indeed many public figures – have a basic and common understanding of how the media work and the value of addressing press clubs or any other associations of journalists. Joemat-Pettersson is no exception.

All she did was take an opportunity to address who she wrongfully believed to be the ‘press’ to expand further on the salient point of her budget vote speech, which she made the previous day. Also, she was hoping to have a background chat with the ‘press’ on some of the recent topical and controversial developments in her Fisheries branch, most of which this ‘press’ had reported on. But when she realised that this was not a classical press club as any layperson would understand it, she bailed out. For the record, she never asked for the DA man to leave, it was the chairman of the ‘press’ club who did.

As it now turns out, the departure of the DA MP from the ‘press’ club was actually a small victory. Joemat-Pettersson did not realise that still sitting in the room of 20 or so people were no more than five journalists, two of whom were not even members of the ‘press’ club. The “press” club has explained endless times now that their constitution and composition are such that journalists form about 25% of the ‘press’ club. Go figure.

So Joemat-Pettersson, unknowingly, found herself in a slaughterhouse of adversaries and their proxies. We know now that sitting in that room on that fateful day was, among others, a man who is a public relations agent of one of the companies currently involved in a wrangle with the minister. This very same person even had the gall to stand up and pose questions to Joemat-Pettersson without the decency and integrity to declare who he was and who he represents. It is a small wonder that the same company the minister spoke to the ‘press’ about, issued a statement even before an hour had lapsed after she spoke. Conflict?

Let me end by demystifying the myth created by the ‘press’ club and its surrogates. As a trained and former journalist, I was the one to first raise alarm about a politician being a member of the press club. The Cape Town Press Club should not patronise Joemat-Pettersson by saying that she was ill-advised as though only they have a monopoly on understanding how the media should work.

As a proud propagandist, I do not believe that even I should be admitted as a member of any press club. At the best of times, I represent the views of those about whom the media sometimes have hard questions and, therefore, having me in the midst is worse than sleeping with the enemy.

No one ever mistook a ‘press’ club for a media conference. For Meersman’s information, Joemat-Pettersson had hosted a press conference the day before. Addressing a ‘press’ club is seen as part of further enhancing relations with the media and giving them more insight on issues they otherwise would not have. What is wrong is when a press club has a membership criteria that compromises the independence and integrity of the media and still has the stupidity to defend this anomaly publicly while trying to vilify someone who outed them.

As for the argument that other politicians have spoken to this ‘press’ club before without problems, it is more like a restaurateur who insists you should be happy with a cockroach in your meal just because the other diner found 16 more roaches in his/her plate.

Rams Mabote is a former journalist and special advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat-Pettersson.

Follow him on Twitter @Mr_Kingmaker.

“Haffajee, Weideman and Volkwyn epitomise what this award has come to stand for. They have dedicated their lives to the media and to its advancement, and we find it apt that their contributions will be acknowledged at such an important occasion,” said Sandra Gordon, CEO of Wag the Dog Publishers and founder of the event.

Gordon added that the company launched the awards a decade ago in a bid to celebrate the achievements of women within the media sector, many of whom were not acknowledged despite their significant contribution: “What we have uncovered is a wealth of excellence, dedication and thoughtful mentorship.  And we have seen previously all-male environments such as newspapers, responding positively to the role of woman by appointing them into senior positions. We continue to run the awards to elevate the role of women in this space and highlight their stance on quality, standards and impact of the sector.”

The Media magazine’s editorial board made up the judging panel; while some of the 41 finalists initially chosen are a part of the editorial board, they recused themselves from the final judging.

“We hope that younger women in media will be inspired to follow in the footsteps of these remarkable finalists.  Their tenacity and courage in such a very challenging sector is commendable,” said Robyn Farrell, managing director of 1st for Women Insurance Brokers.

In addition to the main prize accolade, awards are also given to a Rising Star and Lifetime Achiever.

The event takes place on 26 July 2012.

About the finalists:

Ferial Haffajee is the Editor-in-Chief of City Press Newspaper. She is former Editor of the Mail & Guardian and the first woman editor of this major South African newspaper. She is former chairperson of the South African National Editor’s Forum. Haffajee sits on the boards of the International Women’s Media Foundation, the World Editor’s Forum, the International Press Institute and the Inter Press Service (IPS).

At 22, she was one of the fortunate few to interview Mandela in his first TV interview following his release from Robben Island

She held jobs at state broadcaster the SABC as a radio producer and television reporter, and in 1997 was appointed as senior editor of the Financial Mail magazine, responsible for political coverage covered the presidency and the tripartite alliance and was its managing editor.

Terry Volkwyn is MD of Primedia Broadcasting and is responsible for integrating the four radio stations in the Primedia stable: Talk Radio 702, 94.7 Highveld Stereo, 567 CapeTalk and Kfm 94.5.

She has served as chairperson of the Radio Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) for 10 years (since 2002) and has been the driving force behind the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB). She was recently appointed to the board of Kaya FM.

Volkwyn was a finalist in the Women in Media Awards in 2004 and won the Boss of the Year Award in 2006.

Her involvement in radio was initially through sales.  The role has grown somewhat over the last decade, and she is now the leader of one of the most successful broadcasting companies in South Africa.

Esmare Weideman is Chief Executive Officer of Media24. She has served as Editor-in Chief of Huisgenoot, You and Drum at Media24 Family Magazines.

With degrees in business and journalism from the University of Stellenbosch Weideman’s first beat in 1985 was as a labour reporter at Finansies & Tegniek – now Finweek – before joining The Star in 1989 as a political writer. This was during the frenetic roller-coaster days that shaped South Africa’s democracy, and provided her with the unique opportunity and privilege of being the only journalist to accompany Nelson Mandela on his six-week world tour after his release from prison. Her stint in the trenches continued with Media24 in Cape Town. Drum was the first glossy that proved Weideman’s editing skills, followed by Fair Lady, before being appointed as the first woman (not to mention the youngest) editor of You magazine.

In media, of course, we don’t often have the control group safety net and the fuzzy logic of “walks like a duck, quacks like a duck” tends to be the preferred route to decision making (to a large degree, that’s why I entitled my book Media Planning – Art or Science?). However, a recent broadcasting error by the SABC has provided an ideal control group opportunity to test my theory that nobody needs to watch every episode of a Soapie.

On Tuesday 1 May SABC re-broadcast the Bold and the Beautiful episode from the preceding night (Monday 30 April) and on Wednesday 2 May re-broadcast the “repeat” episode of Bold & Beautiful from the preceding morning (Tuesday 1 May).  The “incorrect broadcasts” are indicated in the chart below in yellow.

Now, given this set of circumstances, you would imagine that even regular viewers of The Bold and the Beautiful, who have come to accept an alarming degree of repetition, would realise that something has gone horribly wrong and quite simply switch channels. After all, if watching the same episode of a programme offered the prospect of a different outcome, then every Manchester United supporter in the world would be replaying the last five minutes of the Manchester City v QPR game for the rest of all time.

Analysis of this event, against three target markets, reveals that re-broadcasting exactly the same programme has no significant outcome in terms of TVRS across a four programme period. The data below is from Telmar but analysis of the Arianna data confirms the same pattern.

Now, there are two possible circumstances that produce this outcome….

Option A] Exactly the same people who watched the Monday primetime episode watched exactly the same episode on Tuesday. And exactly the same people who watched the Tuesday morning repeat watched the same repeat on Wednesday.

Option B] A totally different set of new viewers, blissfully unaware of the programming error, happily watched Tuesday night or Wednesday morning’s rebroadcast.

This provides us with an ideal control group scenario to pose some interesting questions about the value of ‘available audience’ versus the ‘cherry picking’ school of TV buying. In short, we can answer the oldest TV buying conundrum of all … “which comes first, the daypart or the programme”?

Using the ‘Women universe filter’, let’s create a hypothetical schedule with x1 spot in each primetime broadcast … the correct broadcast (call it Event 1) and the incorrect broadcast (Event 2). Will the second TVC flighting create more Reach% or will it build Frequency? If Option A prevails, then we would expect Reach% to remain the same as the programme TVR (8,9%) and deliver x2 OTS. If option B prevails, then Reach will double to 17,8% (8,9 + 8,9) and Frequency will remain at x1 OTS.

In practice the answer lies somewhere between these extreme outcomes, and our schedule delivers 14,9% reach @ 1,2 OTS. The same pattern is discernible for all target markets and both repeat broadcasts in this study. Weight of evidence strongly suggests then, that irrespective of target market, when it comes to Bold & Beautiful, it is the “available audience” that comes first, rather than “programme appointment” based viewing.

So what does this mean for TV buying? Conventional wisdom has tended to suggest that, because of viewer loyalty, soapies are always a great place to build frequency. But overall duplication, across all target markets and broadcasts in this instance, is only 20%. That means only one in five viewers are common to both broadcasts. Of course than also means four out of five viewers to the Bold and the Beautiful re-broadcasts were “available audience” viewers.

So, it seems you can use a soapie not just for Frequency but also for building Reach%.

By the way, did you get the answer to the big question? 20% duplication! That’s one in five. Only one in five viewers are common to both broadcasts and that, I argue, means my hypothesis is right. Four out of five TV viewers only need to watch a soapie once a week to understand what’s going on.

And for the one in five of you who are watching every day and, in this instance at least, seem quite happy to watch the same episode again and again… you really do need to get out more!

This post was first published on http://khulumamedia.wordpress.com/

 Follow Gordon Muller on Twitter @mzansimedia

Who’s moved where

This week’s BIG move: JWT: Jim Faulds promoted to COO and Ashley Bacon appointed ECD

Modise Makhene, CEO for JWT South Africa, has announced the appointment of Jim Faulds as chief operating officer, JWT South Africa and Ashley Bacon as executive creative director of JWT South Africa.

JWT South Africa has been moving away from an office-centric operating model, working more and more in virtual teams that cut across geographies and disciplines. Faulds’s and Bacon’s new positions will help leverage existing capabilities across offices for JWT South Africa’s clients and assist Makhene in driving the group’s aggressive growth agenda for South Africa.

“Jim has been with the group for more than 10 years now. He successfully built the JWT Cape Town Office, tripled it in size,   and launched celebrated through-the-line campaigns for brands like Smirnoff, Shell and many more,” says Makhene.

The appointment of South Africa’s first ever Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner, Ashley Bacon, to ECD for JWT South Africa, complements the group’s focus on being industry leaders. “Globally, JWT is solidifying its position as the only agency that can deliver creative excellence with digital significance, generating cultural relevance and momentum throughout the work.” added Makhene.

New DRAFTFCB team in Durban 

Durban ad agencies might be small, compared to those in Johannesburg and Cape Town, but that doesn’t mean they’re not competitive. Clive McMurray, chairman of DraftFCB in Durban, says the agency found itself in the position of having to rediscover its entrepreneurial skills after a major restructure transformed it from a large national player to a smaller company operating under licence to its multi-national parent.

Faced with the choice of opening his own agency or continuing with the DRAFTFCB name under an affiliation agreement, McMurray opted for the latter, both because the company/brand was well known and because he had an opportunity to handpick an experienced creative team to continue. “I chose staff with three ‘c’s’ in mind– character, competence and the chemistry to work as a family. We are a close-knit team. The whole staff sits in on weekly status meetings so everyone can give their input.”

DRAFTFCB Durban is on track if recent recognition from the Creative Circle – the only recognised body that ranks creative agencies in South Africa – is anything to go by. Having been ranked as joint fourth in the small agency category nationally, DRAFTFCB Durban is currently the number one creative agency in KZN.

Talk2Us appoints Heather Robinson

Talk2Us has announced the appointment of Heather Robinson to the role of communications development specialist.  Her core function will be working with clients on various projects that deliver the Talk2Us consulting services, as well as helping to develop the company’s product offering.

Robinson has spent more than 18 years working in multiple sectors that rely heavily on sound communication and strategic engagement. Highlights of her career include working as corporate affairs manager of Nestle South Africa, followed by general manager of Reputation Institute in South Africa, and more recently in the conservation sector as head of business development for WWF South Africa.

In brief

NXT\Digital Innovation takes on two more

Digital marketing guru, Louis van Wyngaard, joins the NXT\ Digital Innovation client service team as the newly appointed Account Director. Wyngaard will oversee the integration of digital marketing strategies for client portfolios, including interactive social media campaigns and digital applications.

Anthony Bila has been appointed as its new digital copywriter.

Who’s won what

Carat SA wins prized Woolworths account

Continuing its streak of luring SA’s top blue chip companies to its client base, media agency Carat SA has announced its latest win – the coveted Woolworths account. In charge of Woolworths buying for the past three years, Carat has now been entrusted with the full Woolworths media strategy.

“Woolworths represents the pinnacle of SA retail, and we are thrilled at the opportunity to take this exciting brand to the next level. We are honoured that they chose us as their full-spectrum media partner, and look forward to showcasing our award-winning abilities to create exciting new campaigns for the client,” says Carat MD Quinton Jones.

He says the account win is “a fantastic opportunity to make a difference for a brand for which we have huge respect. The client has incredibly high standards, and we are proud of the trust shown in Carat and its track record by being chosen as the Woollies partner of choice”.

Watt Communications welcomes technology firms to the fold

Integrated marketing and communications agency, Watt Communications, closed off April with two big wins:  global application delivery networking leader F5 and South Africa’s first provider of vendor neutral data centres, Teraco Data Environments. Samantha Watt, owner and managing director of Watt Communications says that both accounts have kicked off with great momentum, and she looks forward to working closely with both teams.

“The addition of such well-known and prestigious technology brands to our portfolio is a credit to our senior consultants offering deep expertise and knowledge to our clients. As the founder of the business some nine years ago, it’s a labour of love for me, and it’s so exciting to see how far we have come,” she says.

Owlhurst wins Emerald Resort & Casino

Owlhurst Communications has been confirmed as the communications partner for Emerald Resort & Casino.  Owlhurst will handle all public and media relations activities as well as social media and online reputation management for the company.

Who’s making moves

triVector partners with OpenText South Africa

triVector has announced its partnership with OpenText South Africa. This partnership combines the expertise and skills of two leading brands in the business process management space, providing customers with the most comprehensive view of organisation available to date. From strategy to day-to-day systems, processes and people to detailed content, organisations are now able to make best and effective business decisions.

“Our partnership with triVector is a step towards improved customer services for both organisations,” says Dawn Wood, regional director Africa and Middle East, OpenText. “The combination of our best of breed tools and triVector’s specialist skills is powerful. This allows us to offer complete solutions to customers – from architecting the enterprise, process analysis and design, to the definition of functional specifications for process automation, improving visibility and transparency of processes which enables better decision-making.”

Mondi Media expands global footprint

Hamburg/Madrid: The digital entertainment provider Mondia Media continues on its global expansion course with another strategic partnership in Europe: the company has teamed up with the Spanish PS Móviles to deliver ad-financed services for mobile content distributors. In the just-announced pilot project with PS Móviles, a server automatically integrates third-party ad banners via Mondia Media’s content management system. Professional affiliate models handle the revenue sharing.

Mondia Media COO Volker Glaeser is very happy with the successful collaboration: “By entering into this strategic cooperation with PS Móviles, we are further enlarging our extensive portfolio by amending ad-funded services that provide additional value to our customers.” Borja Calvet, CEO of PS Móviles, adds: “We’re very excited to have Mondia Media at our side as a strong partner whose premium inventory is perfectly suited for our demanding advertisement customers.”

Note: TheMediaOnline has a job advertising service. The site is read by media professionals across South Africa. A job posting on the Media Online Costs R342 (incl VAT) and appears for 30 days. It appears both on the Media Online site and Memejobs.com.

 http://themediaonline.co.za/jobs/

“Chris has been presenting the Midday Report for the past eight years. He has worn many hats while being with us and he leaves behind a lasting legacy,” says Primedia Broadcasting CEO, Terry Volkwyn.

The Midday Report is an hour-long current affairs show that brings listeners up to date with the latest breaking news and information, analysis, interviews and comments. It is simulcast on both 702 and CapeTalk and has won a number of awards, including an MTN Radio Award for 2011.

“I am absolutely thrilled and excited and I’m looking forward to hosting the Midday Report which is South Africa’s premier news and current affairs show. It’s a huge opportunity to speak to newsmakers and give our listeners the very best understanding of news events as they happen, when they happen,” Grootes says.

Gibbons said he wanted to emphasis that he and Primedia were parting on the best of terms. “Primedia and I go back 32 years in one form or another and both parties value that long association. However, I do feel it is time for a change of emphasis in my professional life. I wish both Talk Radio 702 and 567 CapeTalk all success – and perhaps our paths will cross again in the future.”

“Because of the changed understanding of the consumer in recent years, there has been a concerted effort to uncover a more in-depth and robust picture of customers,” said Hainsworth at the event.

Hainsworth, who hails from the UK and who is considered a marketing guru in the outdoor media sector (stemming from her time at Clear Channel), highlighted the trailblazing research on consumer habits conducted by The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

“It was found, from the institute’s study, that across hundreds of brands and sectors, the importance of emotionally-charged advertising outweighed that of appealing to the consumer’s logical and rational mind. So for instance, advertising price offers won’t really cut it in terms of hooking your customer,” she said.

Interestingly, the fame model is the most effective emotional strategy of all. Making your brand famous in its category can lead to big profit gains.

“Human beings employ rules of thumb when faced with a plethora of choice, and these can include price, familiarity, fame and social proof. People will choose a brand that they have heard of, that is famous, or that their friends recommend,” Hainsworth asserted.

Barry Sayer, CEO of Continental Outdoor Media, expanded Hainsworth’s sentiments by illustrating how marketers are not only intent on understanding their customers – the sometimes irrational and emotional way they make their choices and the surge of reactions if a brand gets something wrong – but also how they live their lives and make their choices.

“We are seeing how campaigns are often multi-dimensional, multi-sensory and holistic, with a continuing conversational brand presence, rather than the peaks and troughs of yesteryear,” said Sayer.

Added Hainsworth: “For brands to be truly differentiated, they have to go beyond traditional ratings tools and rather delve deep into the psyches of consumers.”

‘Psychographic’ variables, as they are known in consumer research, are attributes relating to personality, values, attitude, interests and lifestyles. It expands on ‘demographic’ variables like age and gender or behavioural variables such as usage rate.

“These kind of ‘psychographic’ variables may be helpful to marketers in reaching a more aware, empowered and often skeptical consumer. Brands are thus moving towards developing closer relationships with their customers and to understand them as real people,” she said.

Hainsworth used the example of Unilever, which she said was a company that supports its brands with excellent marketing and multi-channel communication. “Companies increasingly have to be engaged with their customers at all hours, often must think globally as well as locally, and have to be involved from the board down, in being clear about the company’s purpose, in engaging with consumers, embracing technology and in extracting maximum value from data.

“It is no wonder that we have seen a large number of company restructures, at Sony, P&G, News International and Yahoo, among others, as chief executives position their businesses to be more flexible, fast and innovative for the future, because it will come down to survival of the fittest.”

The BBC has been servicing the world with news for longer than almost any other media organisation. It has been in Africa for 80 years and has, as its controller of global news, Richard Porter, says, “found its place in a modern setting and changing world”.

Porter recently addressed the Africa Cast Conference in Cape Town. Africa, he says, has “one of the most exciting media markets in the world right now”. It’s a market where smartphones and the mobile market are challenging news organisations to adapt, or die. It’s a market that is huge, with diverse voices and diverse needs. It’s a “noisy” market with many sources of news and content.

How, then, does the BBC raise its voice above the rest? It comes down to values, Porter says. “Trust, independence, accuracy, fairness, impartiality and honesty are the values we stand for. Trust is hard earned and defended, and it’s something easily shattered if not protected,” he says. “You build trust through being open. The way people use BBC content is a measure of how much they trust us. We’re quoted as a good source.”

It’s a tricky balance in a world where social media platforms and citizen journalism can help drive the news. “We use the same system of checks and balances and high standards as we do for any media platform,” Porter says. “The speed of delivery has changed, so we have to rely on the knowledge and experience of the people we employ, and the people on the ground.”

He cites the example of the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the cellphone footage of his last minutes that was flighted around the world via 24-hour news channels. “We were fortunate that we had a correspondent in Misrata, close by, and that was an advantage.

“It took time to verify the footage, to be sure it was him. We didn’t see it as a race, about winning, about being first to show it. We took a more cautious approach and in the end, chose not to show everything.”

It seems viewers appreciated the approach. In a poll on the Global Minds Forum, “an online community of BBC viewers, listeners and website visitors brought together to provide global feedback on BBC content”, 75% of those polled thought the BBC’s use was “about right”, Porter says. On the day Gaddafi was killed, the daily users were up by 42%. Global Minds currently has over 30 000 people signed up around the world who give feedback on BBC radio, online and television news.

Nevertheless, the global appetite for news on demand, 24/7, has challenged the way in which the BBC delivers news. Values, as Porter says, have to be backed up by “the resources, skills and technology to meet the needs of modern audiences”. One such means is the BBC Global Video Hub. “The Hub enables us to use our expertise in TV production to generate cross-platform content in multiple languages. It’s also a perfect way for us to bring stories from Africa to a global audience,” Porter says.

The BBC started broadcasting in Africa in 1932 and has developed “a large newsgathering operation on the ground”.

“In terms of reach, we’ve got a weekly African audience of around 90 million, the majority of whom still access the BBC via radio, followed by TV and then online,” Porter says. Radio plays “an important role in any market irrespective of maturity”.

The BBC has Africa bureaux in Johannesburg, Nairobi and Lagos. “We often use freelance camera crews and are increasingly using independent correspondents. The tighter financial environment means local experts have a bigger role to play, plus they’re authentic voices. So we’re doing more and more training to develop correspondents,” he says.

“Ideas like the global video hub help us to reduce costs whilst enhancing our reporting. They make us more efficient whilst adding a dimension to our news reporting that competitors will struggle to match, and that’s what’s needed in today’s news market,” he says.

But before they dive head first into a project, the BBC does significant research into its audiences. Porter told the Africa Cast conference about a new measurement method called ‘Sysomos’. “The system allows us to track conversations across the social web to better understand what people think about the BBC brand and our output.  And, when appropriate, we enter the conversation and engage with specific conversations or debates,” he told the audience.

He believes the BBC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts – both of which have in excess of one million followers each – are becoming a key source of news in Africa.

Porter says mobi is a “big area of focus” and they’re working on an SMS-based service. “The use of smartphones is widespread across the African continent so this is important to us,” he says. “We’ve seen huge growth in the use of content on mobile devices, proportionately greater than anywhere else in the world. As you all know, Africa is the fastest growing market in the world for mobile telephony.

“There’s a large market for this sort of content, although cost and speed of downloading are still a barrier. However, there is still a large volume of sharing between devices, primarily via Bluetooth, and this is something that’s quite particular to the African market,” Porter told Africa Cast.

Porter says the BBC has changed from a “megalithic organisation that talked to people to an organisation that has conversations with people”.

So what is the future for Africa and the BBC? Porter says the BBC is “actively” looking for opportunities to make its news programming available via local partners – whether TV, radio, mobile or online – in key markets within Africa”.

“We also plan to build on the strong advertising client base within Africa for our commercial operations – BBC World News and BBC.com/news,” he says. “The focus for the BBC will always be substance before style, but there’s no reason why we can’t deliver both.”

This story was first published in the April 2012 edition of The Media magazine.

“The lines distinguishing stakeholders in the food industry have never been as blurred as they are today. Restaurant patrons, restaurant owners, chefs, home cooks, shoppers, foodies, producers, suppliers… It’s harder than ever before to classify our consumers and tailor content for their specific interests and needs.

“The renewed Eat Out will offer all stakeholders a one-stop brand, which is richer in content and experience and incorporates anything and everything to do with food,” says Anelde Greeff, content director of both brands.

Eat Out has always been one of the country’s most comprehensive and credible restaurant guides and now, with the inclusion of content much-desired by foodies, it is set to become the most inclusive food guide available.

“The time feels right to combine eating out, food shopping and cooking into a single brand, and to offer our users and readers the best possible food experience,” adds Greeff.

This merger will take place across all available platforms, but will be most visible on the renewed Eat Out website, where two new sections will be added: Stores & Markets and Recipes & Chefs. The annual Eat Out magazine will be published in its current format in November 2012 and will be launched at the Eat Out Restaurant Awards on 18 November.

The Eat In Produce Awards will take place in March 2013, but will be renamed the Eat Out Small Producer Awards. The awards will be accompanied by a publication that announces the award winners.

Eat Out and Eat In followers and readers can get involved with the merger via a Facebook app, launching this week. The team is inviting fans to participate by sending their ideas for a slogan for the new Eat Out. There will be an interactive voting mechanism and the winning slogan will be announced in the week commencing 11 June 2012. The new iPad is on the table as the prize for the slogan selected by the Eat Out editorial team.

Enter the competition before the end of May 2012 on https://www.facebook.com/EatInSA/app_279820355431927and https://www.facebook.com/EatOutMag/app_279820355431927

In May, every pizza sold will see R1 donated to Matla a Bana, an organisation involved in the development of child-friendly crime reporting facilities and the training of specialised counsellors to assist in cases of child rape among others. Roman’s Pizza plan to sell a million pizzas during the month.

“We all live for one another,” says Roman’s Pizza marketing director Bonnie de Klerk, who believes that it is every brand’s responsibility to engage in at least one  cause-related campaign annually. The campaign formalises the Roman’s Pizza Cares project, already underway for the past 24 months. She adds that sales are on track to raise the target of R1-million.

Romans Pizza is at 1137 Burnett Street, Hatfield, Pretoria.

Simon Berger-Perrin, vice president of mobile at OLX, reports that globally there are over 55 million iPads out there, with a 150% growth rate over last year, with 60% of the tablets market, and the App Store has reached 25 billion downloads as of March 2012. “We are excited to release this new universal app to address the booming iPad market,” he says. “Now iPad owners have a great free app to buy and sell everything with OLX.”

OLX SA country manager, Paul Casarin, says he is encouraged by the growth of iPad penetration in South Africa. “As more South Africans start using smart phones or touch devices, they will discover the same convenience of using OLX on mobile, that they’ve grown accustomed to on the Internet,” he adds.

“South Africans are progressively using mobile to transact and OLX already provides free classifieds services on a wide range of devices. A large part of our traffic in South Africa comes from iPad owners already. Based on the overwhelming response from our users, we’ve developed a dedicated app for the iPad which dramatically improves the overall user experience.”

It is a Universal app, therefore users only need to download one app and it works on both devices, iPhone or iPad. “The advantage for the users who own an iPhone and an iPad is that they do not need to download two different apps. Same for the updates, both iPhone and iPad apps get updated at the same time making it a convenient option for mobile users,” he says.

Importantly, Casarin says that the new app incorporates the high moderation standards OLX applies to its site enabling a safer place for buyers and sellers.

“Since we launched our first campaign this year, we already had over one million visitors coming to olx.co.za in the month of March. We now have more than half a million adverts available with plenty of choice available to everyone,” he adds.

For those looking for a mobile OLX experience that don’t have iPads, OLX has applications available for BlackBerry, Android and Nokia too.