The MediaShop’s group managing director, Chris Botha, recently attended the International Festival of Media in Montreux, Switzerland. He returned to South Africa stimulated by five key trends he picked up while networking and learning abroad.
2012 has gotten off to a blistering start. We’ve barely had time to blink and we are in May already, almost half way through the year. Time sure does fly. The first half of the year has been filled with some really exciting media events. Last week was the first major local awards evening of the year, and I am happy to announce that The MediaShop team was once again hugely successful, winning Large Media Agency of the Year at the annual Finweek AdReview Media Awards. Then I was lucky enough to recently attend another one of these events, the international Festival of Media in Montreux in Switzerland.
There were five key trends that I picked up that I thought I would share with you.
1. South African media is world class Looking at the global campaigns that were presented I was incredibly impressed with what we have here at the tip of deepest, darkest Africa. In fact, because of the unique market dynamics that we have, I believe we produce strategically richer campaigns than what some other international markets have to offer. Having such a vast income spectrum forces marketers and strategists to think smarter about how they reach them, and how they break through the clutter.
2. Agencies haven’t cracked social media. None of the social media campaigns I saw impressed me. They were all ‘push’ campaigns (talking TO the consumer), and none of the international agencies that entered used social media effectively as a conversational tool, or for long-term relationship building with the consumer. Social media is very different to classic digital, and needs a very different approach.
3. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook campaigns are housekeeping Every entry into the awards announced that they “created a Facebook page / YouTube channel / Twitter feed” as if it was the greatest thought to ever cross their minds. Issue is – EVERYONE did this. That just tells us Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Foursquare to a certain extent are now housekeeping. It is where the consumer expects to see you. It is by no means a point of differentiation.
4. What about other social media types? Pinterest and Flickr were not used at all. Very disappointing considering that these have a massive following. There are other very successful social media applications out there. Use them!
5. Media in the future will be like… the birds and the bees. I love the saying. Media in the future will be like …you know what (worried about spam filters). Only the losers will pay for it. Too true. The great campaigns were those where the client and agency created their very own sustainable platform that was not reliant on an outside media’s performance. Bravo to them. It takes deep pockets and brave hearts to invest into what in essence is being a “media owner”.
