Anele Mdoda voted Joburg’s Best Radio Personality. WASPA compliance dept boosted to further protect cell users. SA Florist appoints new managing director. AR+ app to bring SA’s logos to life. Moving Tactics takes the sting out of the queue for Clicks. Top speakers for Digital Media Africa. T-bo Touch’s Golf Day raises R2.4 million for children in Diepsloot. Patrick Hanlon for SA. Joburg Film Festival to create platforms for engagement. Patrick Hanlon for SA TEDx. Last chance to enrol for the free, ongoing online Wits University Course on Media Policy
This week’s BIG move: Anele Mdoda voted Joburg’s Best Radio Personality
Anele Mdoda has been voted Joburg’s Best Radio Personality and her show, the 947 Breakfast Club with Anele, was voted the Best Breakfast Show in Joburg in the annual Best of Joburg Readers’ Choice Awards.
The Awards celebrates the best of the best in the city all decided and voted for by Leisure Options Readers. The survey gives readers the chance to vote for what and who makes living in Joburg so great and it gives recognition to deserving local businesses and of course acknowledges personalities like Mdoda.
According to the Readers’ Choice Awards, “But, there’s one person Joburg feels needs a special mention, and that’s of course, Anele (Best Radio Personality). Who can resist that oh-so-contagious laugh?”
Mdoda believes it’s important to be acknowledged by your listeners. “Radio is about connecting with your audience, speaking to them as though they are your best friend and maintaining an authentic approach to everything you do,” she said.
Next on her list is the Mzansi Viewers’ Choice Awards where she is nominated as Favourite Radio Personality and Favourite TV Presenter for her work on Real Talk with Anele. To vote for Anele, go to mzansimagic.dstv.com.
Mdoda’s role within the media industry is evolving. Not one to rest on her laurels, she has started a content production company with two partners.
People moves
WASPA compliance dept boosted to further protect cell users
South Africa’s Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (WASPA) has secured the services of a dedicated Compliance Manager to oversee the department tasked with monitoring members‘ products and services offered to cellular consumers. Tshepo Jeremia (Jerry) Maseko, joins the team that proactively evaluates activity by WASPA members to ensure they remain on the right side of the highly-regarded Code.
WASPA’s over 400 members are required by the self-regulating industry body to advertise and provide their mobile content and applications services in accordance with its world-leading Code of Conduct.
Ensuring that mobile content products and value-added services offered by WASPA members and their clients, are actively and continuously monitored, tested and checked for compliance with the provisions of the WASPA Code of Conduct, is a daily operational objective of the Association’s compliance department.
“WASPA welcomes Jerry to the compliance team and is delighted to have another world-class resource to help ensure that South African consumers can use mobile services with confidence,” said Ilonka Badenhorst, WASPA General Manager.
SA Florist appoints new managing director
Melissa Cumming has been announced as the new managing director of SA Florist. Founded in 2014 and backed by four Dragons from Dragons Den South Africa, SA Florist is a trusted South African online marketplace for customers and corporate clients.
“I’m thrilled to be a part of SA Florist. They have achieved great results over the last few years and I look forward to working with the dynamic team to grow the business even further,” said Cumming.
She has over a decade of local and international experience in business development, eCommerce, client service, marketing and brand and product management.
Her impressive portfolio of experience includes, most recently, eCommerce Business Development Management at The Foschini Group, as well as managing Blue-Chip local and international clients such as Sanlam, FNB, Coca Cola, SAB, McLaren, RBS and Land Rover.
New head of corporate sales for Flight Centre
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) South Africa has appointed Lloyd Barkhuizen as its new General Manager Corporate Sales. In this role Lloyd will head up the Corporate Traveller, FCM Travel Solutions and Flight Centre Business Travel sales teams.
“FCTG’s corporate brands have been hugely successful. However, there is still significant opportunity for growth in new business acquisition, which is why we have decided to re-engineer our sales structure,” said Andrew Stark, MD for Middle East and Africa.
“We foresee healthy growth ahead in the entire corporate sector, from small to medium and large enterprises. A combination of technology, world-class reporting and skilled travel managers will help drive our ambitious corporate growth plans in the corporate travel sector.
“For the past two and a half years, Lloyd has excelled at FCM Travel Solutions as head of Sales for the Middle East and Africa. He has re-written the history books in various aspects, and has added many prestigious clients to the FCM portfolio.”
Barkhuizen started his career in 1989 with South African Airways and has worked within a number of travel-related industries over the past 25 years including hospitality, connectivity providers and travel management.
Business moves
AR+ app to bring SA’s logos to life
LogoScan, an augmented reality (AR+) enabled app, is set to hit the South African market bringing consumers within an arm’s length of engaging with brands in enhanced reality.
The premise of the app is remarkably simple: to experience digital content in augmented reality – or link through to websites in an instant – users simply need to hold up their smartphones to activated logos, and scan.
“We’re moving beyond a point where QR codes are the only way to scan,” says Rich Cheary, CEO of Afrozaar, the South African mobile app developer behind the app. “Literally any graphic image can be made scannable and used to augment reality. Designers put so much focused effort and meaning into their creative work. We feel a QR code takes away from the visual appeal of their artwork. Together with designers, we can make the creative design be the target and come alive.”
Known for Publisher’s Toolbox – a suite of digital products tailored towards the publishing and marketing industries – Afrozaar is a known pioneer in digital innovation for the local marketplace now engineering, through LogoScan, the shift towards AR+ brand marketing.
Moving Tactics takes the sting out of the queue for Clicks
There’s nothing more off-putting to shoppers and detrimental to sales than long queues in your store. Many retailers are turning to virtual queues to better manage the wait for service in an increasingly digital world. Clicks has worked with Moving Tactics to implement a Virtual Queue solution for them.
According to Scott Matthews, head of Moving Tactics Retail Analytics, a Virtual Queue solution and several positives for the retailer. “Retailers recognise that queuing is an unfortunate part of the retail experience and that by implementing a queue management system, they are taking steps to improve the system and create a more relaxed customer experience. It not only reduces the amount of time your customers actually spend waiting but it also reduces the perceived waiting time. Most beneficially, a virtual queue management system allows customers to wander around in-store and continue to shop while they wait and, in so doing, increase their basket size”.
Moving Tactics recently implemented a Virtual Queue solution in more than 100 Clicks Pharmacies in South Africa, which includes their top stores such as the V&A Waterfront, Gardens Centre and Canal Walk, as well as in stores in Swaziland. Virtual Queue provides customers with the choice to either take a ticket or enter their mobile number. Once a Pharmacist is available to serve them, the customer will either be notified visually and audibly via the in-store digital signage screens or via a SMS notification to their phones.
Making moves
Top speakers for Digital Media Africa
Leading digital entrepreneurs are among the key speakers at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Africa 2018 conference which aims to explore new digital revenue models and how best to engage loyal readers on the continent.
Speakers include Valentine Gichau, Managing Director at Genesis Interactive, Kenya, Carl Jordan, Head of Media at Kwesé, South Africa, and Riaan Wolmarans, Managing Editor Digital at Tiso Blackstar Group, South Africa,
The conference speakers will be led by subscription and membership-marketing expert Joss Cripps who has more than 20 years’ experience in acquiring and retaining customers in the media, e-commerce and not for profit sectors.
“We are bringing together leading minds in the digital media space to discuss trends and best-practice. And we’re looking beyond traditional media for case studies on digital revenue and engagement,” said Nick Tjaardstra, Director Europe & Africa, WAN-IFRA.
The conference will be held on 23 November 2018, in Johannesburg, South Africa at the Capital on the Park Hotel in Sandton.
The conference will precede the awarding of the prestigious Digital Media Africa Awards, which will be presented at a ceremony in the evening.
T-bo Touch’s Golf Day raises R2.4 million for children in Diepsloot
T-bo Touch has made good on his public promise to a children’s charity Delivering Happiness To Diepsloot founded by Giuseppe Plumari the CEO of Steyn City. In this massive joint initiative, through his annual golf day, Touch has mobilised South Africa’s fashion retail giant, The Foschini Group, to donate valuables worth R2.3 million this year.
The Touch Invitational Golf Day is a prestigious golf event that aims to improve, empower and lighten up the disadvantaged lives of the Diepsloot community.
“This year is our 3rd annual Touch Invitational and one thing I know is that the power of the number ‘3’ is exponential. With TFG as new partners alongside Audi South Africa, Steyn City and myself, we have already raised the bar in giving,” said Touch.
“…this year, we promise to set a new record for the children of Diepsloot. One day they will pay it forward too,” Touch added. In 2016, the Touch Invitational raised R1 million rand but this year will see that figure more than double.
To head up the auction, Touch has teamed up with an amazing Johannesburg based, black artist who has sketched a one-time only masterpiece to be auctioned off. Tumi Sibambo caught Touch’s attention on Twitter when he sketched a portrait of Touch and tagged him.
The golf day will be held on the 30th October at Steyn City and in the first week of December Delivering Happiness to Diepsloot t rucks and buses will drive into the Diepsloot community to handover the goods and blankets to thousands of deserving boys and girls.
Joburg Film Festival to create platforms for engagement
The Joburg Film Festival will be screening a large variety of top South African, African and international films, in addition to various dialogues with key industry leaders and stakeholders, taking place over a period of eight days.
With some of the continent’s best filmmakers, local and international movie actors, directors, producers and other entertainment industry leaders descending upon the metropolis next month, the various groups of industry players will engage with one another and South African audiences in a dialogue around South Africa’s burgeoning cinema.
Curator, Mozambican filmmaker Pedro Pimenta, who is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of the United States, and his team have selected 40 African and internationally curated releases from various countries
In its commitment to forwarding a critical and current conversation, the festival has organised a powerful women-centred event with Sisters Working In Film and Television (SWIFT) at Constitution Hill on Sunday the 11 November to discuss gender equity in the film, television and cultural landscape of South Africa.
The Joburg Film Festival, supported by the Department of Arts and Culture and the National Film and Video Foundation, is partner to the internationally renowned DISCOP Film and Television market
The full festival schedule will be announced on the www.joburgfilmfestival.co.za website soon.The festival runs from November to 17 November.
For the Diary
Patrick Hanlon for SA TEDx
For the first time, South Africans will be able to join the Charles Darwin of branding and guest speaker at TEDx, Patrick Hanlon for a Primal Branding experience of innovative thinking and ideas.
The global market has been disrupted by massive technological change and the way consumers choose to engage with brands and services.
Recognised as the world’s leading brand evolutionary, Hanlon is CEO and founder of THINKTOPIA, a global brand and strategic innovation practice for Fortune 100 clients including American Express, Levis, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kraft Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Yum! Foods, Wrigley, PayPal, Gap, the United Nations and many others.
When: 6 November 2018
Where: Randburg
To book, click here.
Last chance to enrol for the free, ongoing online Wits University Course on Media Policy
Students can still enrol for the free Wits LINK Centre and WitsX course entitled, Civil Society and African Media Policy in the Digital Age’ which started on 10 October 2018. The course, ending 21 November 2018. It draws on a network of experts and recent case studies across Africa to unpack the continents media environment.
This free course available on edx, is open to all, but aimed at empowering civil society actors – including advocacy coalition members, NGO/CBO representatives, union members, journalists, editors, researchers, academics and post-secondary students – to work in support of free, pluralistic and independent African media.
The course runs for six weeks and requires a dedicated effort of tw to three hours of study per week. As of today (October 24, 2018), three weeks remain. In spite of this, you can still catch up. Enroling now still provides access to specially-written case studies from seven African countries that serve to show the various ways civil society are impacting media policy.
Students wanting to enrol for the course must go to this edX course link.
To enrol for the course go to this edX course link.
