The Media Online’s weekly round up of moves in media. Plus94 Research lights the launch of MAPS. Tiso Blackstar tailors its personal finance section, Money, for Sowetan readers. AdJoin Media introduces Native outstream video. AdJoin Media introduces Native outstream video, KRS and HoneyKome, a match made in digital heaven. CADAC partners with Interface Digital to help reignite its Proudly South African brand. Kwese launches mobile TV service in Zimbabwe. Boomtown does Twizza. Magic 828 celebrates its second anniversary with 350 000 listeners. AMASA invites all industry moguls to this year’s AMASA year-end celebration
This week’s BIG move: Plus94 Research lights the launch of MAPS
Plus94 Research has been appointed by the Marketing Research Foundation to handle its new MAPS survey that is set to be a replacement for the disbanded AMPS.
“The goal of MAPS is to create consumer-centric research to track and understand daily consumer behaviour, decision making and consumption,” says MA(SA) CEO and MRF director, Greg Garden. The research results will be primarily used to deepen consumer understanding for target marketing, and as the basis for the planning of media space and time. Key to this is the capacity to nationally conduct a minimum of 25 000 interviews annually, to measure over 1 500-plus brands, to embrace contemporary methodologies and models, to innovate, and to encourage transformation in the market research industry.
“With these and many more requirements met, we are delighted to announce our selection of Plus94 Research as our intended provider of the new MAPS research.”
Recognised for its progressive thinking and local leadership, Plus94 Research is the only full service market research company in South Africa that is 100% black-owned and has the ability to handle the scale and depth of a project as complex and extensive as MAPS.
Sifiso Falala (left), CEO of Plus 94 says: “As much as this is a landmark achievement for the South African market research industry, it has only been made possible by the visionary leadership of the team at the MRF.
“We are proud to be working with a team of people with a vision for consumer and media currency research in South Africa, and in whom we have faith for their broader vision for the industry as a whole.”
People moves
New sales executive for Wag the Dog Publishers
Kalyn Fagan has been appointed as a sales executive for Wag the Dog Publishers, working across The Media magazine and The Media Online website.
Bringing 10 years of sales experience, including a wealth of digital sales knowledge, Fagan previously worked for nine months as a digital sales consultant for Caxton Group.
Before that, she spent two years at Digital Marketing Management, a company that handles the entire digital footprint of clients.
Fagan (left) has an art background having studied a course at the National School of the Arts that included graphic design, jewellery design, ceramics, drawing, and painting. Her first job was doing sales in an art gallery. To this day, even though she has left the art world behind her, she still has an interest and is passionate about it and says that lessons learnt in that space can be applied to sales in general.
“When you’re doing a campaign, it’s about the artistic appeal and how it appeals to the consumer. If you have an advertisement that is bland and boring then it’s not going to appeal to anybody,” she explains.
When not at work, Fagan is also kept busy by her two children and her husband.
Her approach to sales is a simple one, “A successful platform mixed with a successful campaign, and you’ve got brilliance,” she says. “I could never sell something I didn’t believe in”.
When asked why she decided to join Wag the Dog Publishers, Fagan explains, “The biggest thing is I can learn a lot. In the field I was in I knew everything. There was nothing more for me to learn and grow from. In this field you can learn a lot and you can carry on growing.”
Business moves
Tiso Blackstar tailors its personal finance section, Money, for Sowetan readers
Readers of the Sowetan daily newspaper can now look forward to expert personal finance content when Tiso Blackstar extends the reach of its popular Money section to the Sowetan audience. Money will launch in Sowetan on 2 November 2017, to appear regularly each Thursday thereafter.
In July this year, Money was introduced to the Sunday Times audience of more than 3.8 million readers. The Sowetan audience of more than 1.4 million readers will similarly benefit from the informative content edited by Laura du Preez, and her editorial team that includes senior writer, Angelique Ardé.
Reardon Sanderson (left), Group GM: Sales & Marketing at Tiso Blackstar, says that in only a short while, Money has cemented itself as the leading resource of personal finance information and advice for Business Times readers, which Sowetan readers will now enjoy as well.
The new look SowetanLIVE website is fully responsive, with page layouts that automatically adjust to make articles easier to view on any mobile device, and has also been optimised for fast loading speeds with low data usage.
AdJoin Media introduces Native outstream video
AdJoin Media will now be offering Native outstream video, in conjunction with Rubicon Project and Virool. This new ad unit will be rolled out across Adjoin Media’s ever-growing marketplace of publishers.
Adjoin Media is a private audience marketplace that increases value for publishers by using data technology to re-package unsold inventory into more valuable audience segments.
Global technology company Rubicon Project and video ad platform Virool’s partnership provides buyers and sellers with a massive, premium mobile video inventory. Their InLine ad format means that video inventory is dynamically embedded, viewable and user- activated within written content.
“Rubicon’s Outstream solution creates limitless video inventory without displacing standard ad units to help publishers achieve true market value for their inventory,” said Anne Claire Chenu, UK and South Africa Account Director at Rubicon Project.
Credence Security wins distribution rights to EgoSecure
Speciality distribution house, Credence Security, has partnered with EgoSecure to supply the data protection company’s security products to customers across Africa, the Middle East and India. Credence Security delivers cyber and IT security technologies and solutions that protect businesses of all types and sizes against advanced persistent threats, malicious adversaries and malicious insiders.
Lauren Wain, general manager at Credence, says the deal with EgoSecure is another step towards the company’s aim to be the top security distributor in these regions, and will also be a key driver for technology growth. “We are perfectly placed to grow the EgoSecure brand in Africa, the Middle East and India, as we have several offices and warehouses strategically placed to serve all our customers in these regions.”
KRS and HoneyKome, a match made in digital heaven
Enterprise software development house, Khanyisa Real Systems (KRS) and digital agency HoneyKome, have announced a formal collaboration designed to deliver integrated campaigns – backend and frontend – around the Microsoft.net Sitefinity CMS and marketing automation platform. The partnership successfully merges the roles of technology and marketing, providing a seamless and exciting one-stop solution for chief digital officers (CDOs), chief technical officers (CTOs) and chief marketing officers (CMOs).
“We are very excited about the potential of collaborating, matching our skillset with HoneyKome’s vision and experience. We’ve been very impressed with their professional offering and their integrity, and most importantly, their trust and that of their clients, in allowing us to do what we do best – work with the tool, correctly – no short cuts,” says Steve Randles, director at KRS.
CADAC partners with Interface Digital to help reignite its Proudly South African brand
Synonymous with the great outdoors and living the braai life, the CADAC brand has been entrenched in South African society since its launch in 1948. Through its new partnership with marketing and technology agency, Interface Digital, CADAC is looking to reaffirm its status as South Africans’ #1 braai-time companion.
“We set about looking for an agency that not only had the desired capabilities and credentials to deliver on our mandate but, most importantly, we wanted to find a partner that understood our business and what it stands for,” says Elena Forno-Nash, MD of CADAC International.
“From our first meeting to subsequent initial campaigns, the Interface Digital team has consistently proven their ability to clearly understand our market, our customers and our culture . . . in essence they have quickly become an integral part of our company showing their passion in living the braai life with conviction, reflected in the campaigns that we have launched and run with already”.
Interface Digital is a Google Premier Partner agency and has been on the forefront of the South African digital marketing and technology industry for over 22 years.
Direct Pay Online Group receives second investment of $5 million from Apis
Direct Pay Online Group (DPO) has received a second investment of $5 million from the UK based private equity fund, Apis Partners. This investment, which follows the initial $10 million investment made last year, will be used to fuel DPO Group’s ambitious strategic plan which includes organic growth across Africa, strengthening the Group’s position through mergers and acquisitions, integrating the systems of all companies under the group, developing the new payments technology and the DumaPay app.
“The additional capital from Apis is a sign of the confidence that our partners have in us, and is a positive reinforcement of the good work we are doing with the business,” said DPO Group chairman, Offer Gat. “DPO Group has achieved and exceeded the plans laid out in the first phase of the strategic plan. We have established a presence in 12 African countries namely Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Mauritius. We further plan to set up operations in Nigeria, Ghana, DRC and Mozambique by the end of 2017.”
According to the plan, DPO Group has also finalised the acquisition of five companies – Pay Gate and VCS in South Africa, VCS in Namibia and Botswana, and PayThru in South Africa, and are in the final stages of acquiring an additional company, which will be announced later this year.
Kwese launches mobile TV service in Zimbabwe
Pan-African broadcaster Kwese TV has launched mobile television service Kwese TV Everywhere (TVE) in Zimbabwe, enabling customers to tether their decoder channels to their phones. A Kwese decoder account comes with up to five TVE accounts.
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe CEO Douglas Mboweni said this would be the beginning of a different mobile TV service in Zimbabwe. He said Kwese customers in Zimbabwe would soon be able to do “TV roaming” in other countries where Kwese is available. To support the mobile television service, Econet has rolled out more than 575 fixed Wi-Fi hotspots and 240 mobile sites in the country, in collaboration with sister company ZOL.
Mboweni said Kwese customers can use the service by downloading the Kwese
Kwese TV now operates in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia, Swaziland, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Botswana. In addition, Kwese Free Sports (KFS) operates in 23 African countries.
The Bike Show goes digital
The Bike Show is a motorcycle TV show on IgnitionTV (channel 189 on DStv) and YouTube. “But our empire is expanding,” comments Donovan Fourie, from The Bike Show. “We’re living in a digital age, and we need to be more active in that realm in order to stay relevant.”
Stratitude was tasked with building a professional online portal that supports and enhances The Bike Show brand, said Neil Bromehead, head of digital. “One of the fantastic aspects of this job was that we had tonnes of content but this meant we had to be clever on how we structured the site.”
When we were approached by Donovan Fourie to build a new site for The Bike Show, our digital AD and head of digital, who are both avid bikers, were over the moon.
“The Bike Show travels all over the world to test the most beautiful and powerful machines. I felt like a kid in a candy shop – one we were building,” says Nic Baker, digital account director at Stratitude.
Boomtown does Twizza
Boomtown has begun work on a number of projects for Queenstown-based Twizza, a beverage manufacturer specialising in high quality carbonated soft drinks for the South African market.
Both based in the Eastern Cape, and with a presence across South Africa, Boomtown has carried out extensive in-field research for the popular soft drink, and from the insights gathered, created a brand strategy which will guide all communication going forward.
“Boomtown illustrated an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the FMCG sector and its strategic approach resonated with the Twizza business requirements,” remarks Twizza group marketing manager, Lance Coertzen.
Chargebacks911 announces partnership with LimeLight to reduce credit card chargebacks
Chargebacks911, a leading international dispute mitigation and loss prevention firm (known as The Chargeback Company in Europe), has announced the integration of its comprehensive chargeback management services into continuity commerce platform, LimeLight.
The new partnership will see Chargebacks911’s proprietary technology assisting LimeLight by helping to detect, manage, and fight fraudulent chargebacks, facilitating LimeLight in its mission to provide the most comprehensive business platform for performance marketers in continuity marketing and subscription ecommerce.
Making moves
Magic 828 celebrates its second anniversary with 350 000 listeners
Magic 828 am has celebrated its second anniversary and growing popularity, increasing its listenership by more than 100% over the last year in the greater Western Cape region.
As a birthday surprise, Magic received confirmation that its listenership increased to a whopping 350 000 (three hundred and fifty thousand) listeners – a great achievement within two years for any radio station. At the celebration, the performance of Three Tons of Fun entertained a roaring crowd at the rooftop party of the radio station.
The station, based in Pinelands, was officially launched on 1 October 2015. It is the only radio station with its own and independent mast which transmits its music all over the Western Cape and the surrounding area.
Tony Sanderson, CEO of Magic said, “The essential broadcast format of the radio station is one playing great golden oldies music of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s to 2000’s with limited sport, news, community information but less talk. We are so proud of the progress that the station has made over the past two years – this calls for a celebration. We also wish to invite you to listen to the music we play on 828 AM, I’m sure you would not want to change the dial afterward. “
Since its launch, the radio station is growing in leaps and bounds and its business model is performing as expected. The radio station is built on an advertising revenue model driven primarily by listenership.
Advertising revenue continues to increase as a result of the steady increase in listenership and awareness created through various marketing of the station and its brand. Advertisers have raved about the success and returns from advertising on Magic 828
AMASA invites all industry moguls to this year’s AMASA year-end celebration
Business was tricky, budgets were lean, but the year’s almost over, it’s time to be seen, come as you are, dress up in Taboo, let loose for tonight, have a drink…or a few!
AMASA invites you to a night of letting loose, unwinding, and enjoying yourself – because you deserve it!
Join us at Taboo Club, Sandton in true Taboo style on the 15th of November, from 19:00 pm till late.Book your spot now through Nutickets at https://amasa.nutickets.co.za/
For sponsorships and VIP table packages, please contact Sean Press (CEO at Contact Media), pressman@contactmedia.co.za
