Briefly… Total SA updates road users on fuel via Facebook and Twitter; NewsNow is NuusNou; African mobile advertising market grows 37.9% in three months; Mobile Chilli completes deal with leading music labels ; and Innovative cloud-based online shopping experience launched.
Total SA updates road users on fuel via Facebook and Twitter
Total South Africa is making full use of social media channels to ensure that its customers know which of their service stations have fuel during the strike that is affecting fuel availability around the country. Through its Facebook and Twitter accounts, it is providing constant updates about where fuel can be found, and will continue proving this valuable service until fuel deliveries are back to normal.
“We see it as an important value-added service for our customers, who after all, keep us in business,” said Nadia Vosloo, brand and communications manager. “Social media is a swift and powerful communication tool as it provides instant messaging and can save people a lot of time and hassle searching for fuel.”
Vosloo said it is important for fuel users to take note of the time the last update was posted so that they do not go to a site that might have subsequently run out of fuel.
Total’s social media details are: Facebook: Total South Africa; Twitter: TotalSAfrica. It is important to note that Total is using the hashtag: #gotpetrol
NewsNow is NuusNou
NewsNow, the newest title from Media24 Magazines, was recently launched to the advertising industry and the overwhelmingly positive response proves there’s a need for a product tailored for busy lifestyles. At the same time, Media24 announced that there will also be an Afrikaans version.
The 48-page offering will contain short stories that take about a minute to read. NewsNow will target high-end advertisers who are keen to speak to ambitious, well-informed South Africans (LSM 7-10), says Willem Breytenbach, general manager of Media24 Weekly Magazines.
“NewsNow’s readers are busy people, 25 and up. They range from businessmen to moms and young professionals – anyone who has too little time but who wants to make sense of the world. No equivalent news magazine exists and NewsNow is the perfect brand fit for advertisers, ranging from smartphones and luxury cars, financial services to leisure, among others.”
The magazine’s advertising pages – which cost R25 000 for a full-page, full-colour ad – will be limited to ensure a consistent number of editorial pages every week.
Subscribers who get in before August 31 will receive 50 issues of NewsNow for the price of 36. The first 1 000 subscribers will also receive a R400 Kalahari gift voucher and an 8GB flashdisk. Subscribers will receive six trial issues after which they receive a full refund if they change their mind.
NewsNow will cost R20 at retailers and through online publishers zinio.com <https://zinio.com> <https://zinio.com/> . For more information visit NewsNow at nn.co.za or follow us on Facebook (NewsNowMag) and Twitter (@NewsNowMag).
African mobile advertising market grows 37.9% in three months
InMobi has released its May 2011 Mobile Insights Report for Africa providing insights on mobile advertising trends on the continent. Data from the report shows that InMobi now serves a staggering 4.2 billion impressions a month in Africa, up 37.9% from 3.0 billion in February 2011.
Key highlights of the South Africa data include:
· Growth in smartphone impressions was 34% for the period, with 223 million mobile ad impressions monthly now coming from smart devices
· With almost 74% ad share, Samsung and Nokia dominate the market with RIM a far third with 13% share
· Android is present in the market with 9.7 million impressions monthly
· Nokia remains the largest manufacturer with a 20% share, but it has lost 3.1 points in just 90 days to RIM (+3.6)
South Africa shows 36% higher share of impressions on smart devices compared to other Africa countries. However, the relatively slow pickup of smart devices in Africa is highlighted by the fact that South Africa smartphone impression share is nearly half the global average.
Isis Nyong’o, Vice President and Managing Director InMobi Africa confirms that “Mobile media continues to consume the mindset of consumers across the continent. As mobile ad impressions continue to grow rapidly, it’s evidence that more consumers are using the mobile web and current users are highly engaged.”
The report finds that Botswana, Ethiopia and Nigeria show the fastest mobile ad growth in mobile markets in Africa from February to May 2011. Nigeria and South Africa maintain thetop two positions as the largest African mobile markets, and now represent 2 of every 5 mobile ads across the continent.
The full report is available to download at www.inmobi.com/research <https://www.inmobi.com/research> .
Mobile Chilli completes deal with leading music labels
Mobile media company Mobile Chilli has completed a deal with South Africa’s leading music labels, to bring the company’s hugely popular mobile download service to the country.
Steve Kitchen, the managing director of Mobile Chilli, said, “We’re absolutely delighted to be working with world class companies such as EMI, Universal, Warners, Sony and Ministry of Sound to bring their unrivalled catalogues to mobile phone users across the whole of South Africa. The demand for mobile downloads has grown enormously in the last few years. Phone owners worldwide have realised that their handset is a capable and versatile multimedia device.
Mobile Chilli is one of the world’s leading mobile media companies, allowing users to download individual music tracks, full albums, games, video and ringtones to almost every type of handset, from the simplest mobiles to the latest smartphones, including iPhone and Android.
It not only provides users with immediate downloads direct to their mobile phone, but also sends the purchased tracks to the consumer’s home computer. The portal’s value for money, simplicity and accessibility for all mobile phone users, has made it one of the most popular mobile portals in Europe, with a 400% increase in users since early 2010. The company is on course to hit 1,000,000 paid downloads by the end of 2011.
Innovative cloud-based online shopping experience launched
British company Madai has released a cloud-based online shopping platform designed to motivate customers to give feedback or personal information by reducing the purchase price of the product or service that they desire.
The Madai platform is made up of sophisticated applications that can be easily integrated with any website or social network. It enables the promotion of a product or service at a rate that can then be reduced by users as they share information like their contact details or opinions on the site, product or service. The customer can continue to interact with the platform until they are satisfied with the reduced product price, and then make their purchase.
“The beauty of the platform is that it gives customers what they want – reduced prices – for providing the websites’ owners with what they want – demographic information that allows them to define and shape their businesses,” says Paul Middleton, the South African representative.
Companies enter into an agreement with madai for a three-, six- or twelve-month rental of the platform, which is then integrated directly onto their websites. They can then choose the method and frequency with which they use the platform – be it for promoting a product, conducting market research or running a competition.
“Madai takes the whole shopping experience to another level, where the consumer has the power to decide on the right price for a product, while the seller gains the advantage of learning more about what their customers actually want,” says Middleton.
“More than anything, it provides a new and exciting way of interacting with consumers – it’s about so much more than making a sale.”
At the same time, madai is not about exploiting the private information of users. With every interaction, the platform will let the user know the intended use of the data. The data will not be passed on to any third parties without explicit permission and if this authorisation is obtained, it will result in an immediate benefit to the user in the form of a discount on the product or service.
So far, a well-known winery will be using it to promote their new products, and an international hotel chain intends on using it to introduce an innovative incentive scheme.
