Peepz raises investment after only three months in business. SABC COO Chris Maroleng to challenge ‘harsh’ dismissal. Dr Iqbal Survé appointed to Belt and Road International Council. Emanuele Nenna appointed as the first President of UNA. ECPTA appoints Boomtown as media planning and buying partner. SA, Context direction marketing unveiled for Africa, German collaboration announced in voice marketing. Publicis Machine engineers first ever takeover of Business Day. Broadsign announces agreement to acquire Ayuda. Call for papers for the 20th PAMRO All Africa Media Research Conference.
This week’s BIG move: Peepz raises investment after only three months in business
Sozala Media has invested an undisclosed amount in eventech staffing portal, Peepz, which has been trading for only three months.
Full service activation agency, Sozala Media, understands better than most the importance of innovation, efficiency and effectiveness. That’s exactly the reason why they recently chose to invest in Peepz.
“In the current economy, brands are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient with their marketing spend, while maximising effectiveness at the same time. Peepz is a cog in the marketing mix that will deliver this, and we are super excited to be working with them,” said the partners at Sozala Media.
Peepz is a digital platform offering event managers, brands and agencies a simpler, more convenient and much more effective way to connect with the staff and resources they need, when they need them. From promoters and brand ambassadors to models, waiters, event set-up crews and everyone in between, Peepz offers the ultimate one-stop solution. No matter the skill set required, staff can be sourced, geo-located, managed and paid – all with minimum hassle and at a fraction of the cost of traditional outsourcing.
Nick Holdcroft, Founder of Peepz sid he was excited about what Sozala Media brings to Peepz. “It is not purely an investment – they bring support structures that build our capabilities. We now have a partner that will assist us in ensuring our clients are looked after, and can feel confident when booking through Peepz,” he said.
“We’ve been growing quite rapidly in the last three months. We’ve managed to sign up one of SA’s largest alcohol companies, and our list of agencies using Peepz, grows daily. We had a number of investment offers, but Sozala offered more than just funds, and that’s what triggered our interest.”
People moves
SABC COO Chris Maroleng to challenge ‘harsh’ dismissal
Former SABC chief operating officer Chris Maroleng, who was fired with immediate effect by the public broadcaster’s new board on Tuesday, is currently taking legal advice and weighing up his options, with the intention of appealing his dismissal.
The board axed Maroleng on the back of findings and recommendations flowing from a disciplinary process.
Maroleng labelled his dismissal “harsh”.
“What I was accused of certainly didn’t warrant a dismissal, certainly not in the way it was carried out. The charges themselves may have indicated ‘bad judgement’, but certainly did not amount to the levels of misconduct that I was accused of,” he told The Media Online.
To read the full story, click here.
Dr Survé appointed to Belt and Road International Council
Independent Media executive chairman, Dr Iqbal Survé, has been appointed to the First Council of the Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) at a gathering of world media leaders in Beijing this week. Survé was the only South African to be invited to serve on the First Council, which represents 26 countries and 39 media organisations.
The BRNN is a media event in China that promotes practical co-operation among media from different countries.
Survé was commended for his role as the co-chairman of the BRICS Media Forum. In his opening speech, he said media owners and leaders representing millions of readers throughout the world had an important role to play in ensuring that the global community understands, and is kept informed of the developments of the OBOR Initiative. “As trade networks are forged across the world, so too should media networks and alliances be formed,” he said. “It is important for the media to embrace the spirit of the One Belt One Road Initiative – openness, inclusivity, sharing, co-operation, innovation and sustainability.”
Emanuele Nenna appointed as the first President of UNA
Emanuele Nenna, CEO and co-founder of the The Big Now (integrated agency part of Dentsu Aegis Network) and co-founder and chairperson of Now Available Africa, is the new President of UNA, Aziende delle Comunicazioni Unite for the next three years.
Founded in 2019 from the merger between AssoCom and Unicom, UNA is the most relevant association in the Italian communication’s industry, counting with 180 companies members covering different areas: advertising, digital, PR, media, events and retail agencies.
Business moves Publicis Machine engineers first ever takeover of Business Day by THE Glenlivet
In what will be a first for Business Day, THE Glenlivet will stage a brand takeover of the daily paper’s front page on Thursday 2 May, in celebration of the paper’s 34th birthday. The takeover will include a change to the paper’s iconic masthead, from Business Day to THE Business Day – something that has never been done before, in the history of the newspaper.
The takeover is being engineered by THE Glenlivet’s brand communications agency, Publicis Machine, which has been instrumental in developing the brand’s ‘THE’ campaign over the past year.
Business Day is a natural choice, given that it is THE definitive business read, THE leader in its field, THE first choice for business leaders around the country.
THE Glenlivet is THE definitive single malt scotch whisky, with credentials that include – being THE first licensed distillery in Scotland, THE creator of the term ‘Single Malt’, and THE first brand to put the term “Single Malt” on its label. It’s also THE first and only single malt that inspired a whole region, today called Speyside – which produces the world’s favourite style of single malt whisky.
ECPTA appoints Boomtown as media planning and buying partner
Following a successful tender process, Boomtown has been appointed by the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) as its media planning and buying partner.
With a three-year contract, Boomtown will ensure the ECPTA will be visible to the right people at the right time in order to increase visitor numbers to the Eastern Cape.
“Tourism is potentially a significant economy for the Eastern Cape, and it’s great to be a part of an organisation that drives people to our province for them to experience all it has to offer,” saod Boomtown account manager, Lisa Snyman.
SA, German collaboration announced in voice marketing
South Africa’s marketing community will benefit from a much wider selection of voice campaign tools following the signing of exclusive distribution agreement between local firm SayHi and European voice marketing specialist, DialFire.
Based in Germany, DialFire’s Cloud call centre software solution transforms any web browser into an inbound and outbound contact centre. SayHi, for its part, is South Africa’s leading specialist in outbound Automated Voice Marketing (AVM).
Together, these two voice industry leaders are able to offer local brands cost-effective ways to automate call centre-based campaigns centred on professionally-recorded 10 to 45 second voice marketing messages.
Sylvia Hartinger of DialFire believes the South African market is particularly exciting. “We’re very pleased to be able to enter a significant market with a respected industry player that will help us tap into the many opportunities that exist in Africa’s most advanced economy,” she says.
Hellocomputer signs as ‘Agency on Record’ for A+E Networks Africa
Hellocomputer Johannesburg has successfully pitched for and signed as the ‘agency on record’ for A+E Networks Africa, the global media and entertainment brand that owns the History, Lifetime and Crime+Investigation channels as well as the VOD platform, H-Vault.
According to A+E Networks Africa senior marketing executive, Anita Gardini, she and her team were, “excited to work with Hellocomputer to take our brands to the next level.”
Managing director, Joey Khuvutlu, added: “We were delighted to win the pitch to work on A+E Networks Africa’s business, as its brands and channels are leading the field in so many markets. We look forward to an exciting and mutually-beneficial relationship.”
Context direction marketing unveiled for Africa
Context detection marketing with the unique needs of African brands in mind. That’s the promise from digital advertising innovator Mobiclicks and its technology partner SilverPush as they set out to target the brands serving Africa’s one billion consumers.
From its new Johannesburg headquarters where it recently joined the growing marketing, advertising and design community located at the city’s Parktown Quarter, Mobiclicks now has its sights set on opportunities further North.
“There’s a sense of renewal in the air throughout the continent and we’d like to help usher in this new African dawn by working to boost the fortunes of Africa’s brands,” said Mobiclicks founder, Shaun Rosen. “Brands create demand and demand is what drives economic growth, the only proven way to build sustainable futures,” adds Mr Rosen.
According to Hitesh Chawla, CEO of SilverPush: “We are excited to expand our reach across Africa and offer our technology to brands in this market with Mobiclicks. Our aim is to help more brands reach out to their multiscreen customers more effectively via our real-time platform; and this partnership will help bridge the customer journey of brand engagement between TV, search, social media, and mobile platforms.”
Freshworks integrates with the WhatsApp Business solution
Freshworks, a global leader in customer engagement software, has integrated its customer engagement suite with the WhatsApp Business solution to offer on-the-go conversational support via WhatsApp. Over 1.5 billion people from 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends, family and businesses, anytime and anywhere.
Freshworks now helps businesses efficiently manage and route user conversations happening on WhatsApp and other channels, via Omniroute, Freshworks’ patent-pending technology within the Freshworks customer engagement suite. Omniroute provides customer service agents with a unified view of customer inquiries regardless of channel and helps them respond to those inquiries more efficiently.
Grandesign unveils new company name for experiential vertical
Last month, Talon announced its expansion in the US with the purchase of Grandesign’s traditional out-of-home (OOH) vertical. In light of the acquisition, Grandesign’s experiential vertical is working as a standalone under the name “Grandesign Experiential”.
“When Grandesign got its start, experiential was a luxury for brands if the budget permitted. Now it’s the engine to all marketing plans,” said founder of Grandesign, Aaron Gaeir. “Grandesign Experiential can now work closely with companies like Talon to have a bigger voice and continue to create out of this world activations that brands are craving. No one has the resume, the history, the people – and now the out-of-home connections – that Grandesign Experiential has.”
Broadsign announces agreement to acquire Ayuda
Broadsign International Inc, a digital out-of-home marketing platform, has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire the industry’s premier out-of-home enterprise business solution, Ayuda Media Systems. Both companies are headquartered in Montreal. For out-of-home (OOH) media owners who have an increasingly complex mix of digital and classic inventory/locations, the combined power of Broadsign and Ayuda will enable them to streamline business operations across all of their inventory, digital and classic. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019.
The OOH industry delivered US $38.6 billion of advertising in 2018, and for the first time 50% of revenue came from digital signage locations[1]. As OOH media owners continue to drive forward, each needs a more unified solution for managing, selling and delivering all of their OOH advertising, regardless of format type.
Making moves
Call for papers for the 20th PAMRO All Africa Media Research Conference
PAMRO’s 2019 All Africa Media Research Conference will take place in Mauritius at the Hilton Mauritius Resort and Spa, Flic-en-Flac from 25 to 28 August 2019 and will explore the theme: Investing in research, investing in brands, investing in Africa.
This year PAMRO celebrates its 20th anniversary, that’s 20 years of research experts from across Africa and the rest of the world coming together to exchange knowledge and to learn from one-another’s successes and failures, with the ultimate goal of harmonising research methodologies and encouraging excellence in the industry.
In line with this, PAMRO invites individuals or institutions interested in presenting findings from media audience research activities and/or relevant case studies.
Papers on measurement innovation, research-on-research and best practice from professionals in the field of media research will be vetted according to their relevance to the industry. Although case studies are welcome they need to convey findings that are of value to the broader research community.
Only papers sent to PAMRO executive director, Jennifer Daniel (jdaniel@pamro.org) before 14 June 2019 will be considered.
Living & Loving readers share the love online
Caxton Magazines’ Living & Loving brand has been receiving major online love from its readers with a 106% increase in search traffic from January to February 2019.
“The Living & Loving website continues to grow in leaps and bounds,” said editor, Sonya Naude. “At the end of January 2019, we had an audited 115 298 South African users as verified by Effective Measure compared to 77 624 SA users in Jan 2018. We attribute the growth to a keen knowledge of content that resonates with our readers.”
Living & Loving’s Pregnancy section remains by far its most popular category on the website, followed by the Baby section. “Competitions continue to do well on our online platforms and we’d encourage more brands to get involved,” Naude said.
And she added: “At the end of Feb 2019, we had 110 937 unique South African users visiting our website. Our target for the first six months was to achieve 100 000 SA unique visitors and we’re thrilled that we’ve already exceeded this so early on in the year.”
Total users from search traffic for February 2019 is 375 410. This figure represents a massive 106% increase in hits from January 2019.
