Media Moves… TheMediaOnline’s weekly round up. Starcom appoints new business head for Proctor & Gamble. Award-winning journo is all business. Chief marketing officer for Blue Label. Sibongile Gura Joins The PR Collective. Uhuru to become a one-stop communications shop.
Who’s moved where
Starcom appoints new business head for Proctor & Gamble
With over 30 years media experience under her belt, Lesley Kretzmer has been confirmed as the newest member of the Starcom team as business head for Proctor & Gamble, and senior strategist.
“Lesley has worked at most of South Africa’s premium media agencies throughout her career, and has worked across a myriad of industries” says Gordon Patterson, Group MD of The Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG). “Lesley’s real passion lies in the FMCG category and in managing products which makes her an ideal candidate to lead the P&G team and bring fresh insights and direction.”
Krezmer is excited to start working on the P&G brand which has not featured in her career to date and looks forward to learning the client’s business methodology, sharing her vast media knowledge with the team and making her mark on the business.
“We feel this is an opportune time to have a new person at the helm and we know Lesley will be an invaluable contributor to both SMG and P&G business going forward,” says Patterson.
Award-winning journo is all business
Award-winning journalist Yolandé Stander will aim to make industry news more accessible to the man in the street in her new role as business reporter for The Herald, which forms part of the Times Media stable.
Stander, who is based in Port Elizabeth, was appointed to the country’s oldest daily newspaper in January following stints as senior reporter at the daily as well as the Weekend Post, one of its sister publications.
According to Stander, her aim is to move away from typical, heavy-reading business jargon to a style that will be more palatable to her readers, who are situated mainly in the Eastern and Southern Cape.
“If you’re not in business, the reporting can often be too technical. So I hope to make the news more comprehensible and also show how it affects everyone.”
Having cut her teeth on the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber’s in-house publications and as a reporter at Die Burger, Stander said she understood the needs of both business and the media.
She said her core focus areas would be the automotive and agricultural sectors as well as the import-export industry, which centred its operations on the local ports at Coega and PE.
“I will also focus on the booming small business sector, which has been side-lined in the past.”
Chief marketing officer for Blue Label
Blue Label has announced the appointment of Rob Fleming as chief marketing officer. Fleming will be responsible for developing and managing corporate and business marketing strategies throughout the Blue Label group, focusing on product, services and brand management. His responsibilities also include expanding Blue Label’s market presence and driving product innovation.
“We are delighted that Rob is joining our growing business at Blue Label. His experience gained in an enviable track record and his strategic leadership in marketing will lend new energy to our numerous product and service brands,” says Mark Levy, joint CEO of Blue Label, in welcoming Rob to the group.
Fleming honed his marketing skills with Unilever before joining SAB Miller some 16 years ago. At SAB, he was responsible for managing some of its iconic brands before taking over the company’s extensive sponsorship portfolio, initially in South Africa and later globally.
Sibongile Gura Joins The PR Collective
Sibongile (Bongi) Gura is the latest addition to The PR Collective. She joined the team as an account manager in January 2013. Gura comes with a load of experience haven worked in the media industry for the past few years. Her love for words started back at Northcliff Primary where she wrote poetry and took part in public speaking. After matriculating in 2003, she went on to study journalism at Tshwane University of Technology, and had her own column in Homeless Talk before she even received any experiential training other than writing for Rekord-Wes as part of her training.
“We are very fortunate to have a talented and experienced public relations practitioner and seasoned writer such as Bongi join our team. With the scope of clients we have secured for 2013, we are looking forward to taking public relations campaigns to even greater heights than we have in the past,” said Werner Botes, managing director of The PR Collective.
Gura will be working on a variety of accounts, including Bavarian Motorcycles, Universal Music and Xylem Water Solutions South Africa.
Who’s making moves
Uhuru to become a one-stop communications shop
Uhuru Communication, a wholly black-owned company and home to several well established magazines, has announced its intention to expand into TV production, digital web-based publishing, marketing and client liaison – what chairman Des Sampson describes as “a one-stop shop”.
The company is based in Cape Town and also operates in Mauritius, where it already has a TV production division. Its titles include TennisLife Africa, which sells throughout Africa, DENOSA, the magazine that serves 85 000 members of the nursing profession, Southern Anglican, the mouthpiece for the some three million members of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, The Aids Guide, and Wildside, an eco tourism publication. It also publishes Public Sector Manager for the Government Communications and Information System (GCIS) and Municipal Focus for the Local Government Business Network .
Uhuru has also for the past six years published Sawubona, SAA’s in-flight magazine, but is passing that baton to Media 24 (Ndalo Media) at the end of March.
“We’ll be sorry to see it go but it will free us to pursue our own objectives and we’ll be handing it over with pride. We lived through three SAA boards, the introduction of several new routes, the restructuring of the airline and an incredibly tough economic period to make it the premier magazine it is today. It was great working with the SAA team and we also managed to build an exceptional rapport with loyal advertisers, often challenged by the turbulent times,” says Sampson.
Elaborating on the shift to web-based publishing and digital, Sampson says the company has been completely restructured and now has two distinct divisions namely a print division headed by newly appointed sales director, Nardine Nelson that includes all formats of print publishing (the company has now acquired a printing company that trades under the name and style of IMPRESSUM) and an electronic division, headed by Samm Bain, that includes publishing and communications in all electronic formats and applications used by consumers world wide.
A new board of directors has been appointed and three staff members that have served the company well in its 11 years of operations have been appointed to the board, namely Nardine Nelson (sales), Craig D’Oliviera (design) and Tommy Wildschutte (operations). “To ensure our penetration into the African and global market the company has appointed Oduwole Ademole (a Nigerian/American) as a non-executive director.
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