The Media Online’s weekly round up of moves in media.
This week’s BIG move: BBC Studios extends reach across Africa
BBC Studios has licenced over 800 hours of content to clients across the African continent in the past six months.
“We are pleased to be bringing content to East Africa with SBC and KTN so more homes than ever before will have access to our world class programming across the genres of natural history, premium drama, children’s and lifestyle, and can become part of the global conversation and excitement around them,” said Salim Mukaddam, SVP CEMA at BBC Studios.
The first ever agreement between BBC Studios and the Seychelles Broadcasting Company will see over 150 hours of BBC Studios content air on SBC1 and SBC2 channels.
In Kenya, BBC Studios agreed its largest package deal to date with Kenyan free-to-air broadcaster MediaMax Network Limited for its K24 and Kameme TV channels. The natural history, children’s, and lifestyle package includes the BAFTA award-winning Planet Earth II, Junior Masterchef (S2&3) and MI High (S1-7).
A mixed genre package was brokered via Vubiquity for SVOD providers across 22 African markets[1], including Cell C’s Black, Vodacom, Deod, and MTN. The package consisting of over 250 hours of content includes popular dramas Call The Midwife (S1-8) and Death in Paradise (S1-8), comedy sketch show Famalam (S1-2) and BAFTA award-winning pre-school series Sarah & Duck.
Elsewhere in South Africa, SVOD service Showmax has licenced over 230 hours of premium drama, children and factual content including Les Miserables, landmark science series The Planets, and BAFTA award-winning pre-school favourite Hey Duggee. Titles making their territory premiere in the market include relationship drama Trigonometry and spy-thriller Summer of Rockets.
Pay TV channel M-Net picked up a music and documentary package which will see M-Net become the new broadcast home in Africa for Glastonbury – the world’s biggest music festival, while SABC3 will be taking 18 hours of natural history content including Animals with Cameras, Spy in the Wild, offering a new perspective on the animal kingdom, and Earth’s Greatest Seasons.
People moves
SURF teams with incredible influencers for a brighter South Africa
Actress Candice Modiselle, motivational speaker Vuki Dlamini and career expert Lungisa Sonqishe have joined the Surf School of Shine team to help fight youth unemployment in South Africa.
South Africa’s unemployment rate has risen tremendously, and while part of it is due to the shortage of available jobs, another is that most job seekers do not understand the significance of investing in their job search activities and preparation. Surf, through its e-learning platform The Surf School of Shine, provides free courses ranging from career planning, finding the right job, interview tips, and financial education.
Throughout the campaign, the influencers will be visiting various TVET colleges to engage and educate students about the free platform, host interactive sessions on their social media pages and offer free one-on-one mentorship sessions throughout the rest of this year.
Business moves
The tribes have spoken: Ads24 unlocks new opportunities for brands
In its ongoing quest to help advertisers reach the hearts and minds of its broad readership, Ads24 introduced its six Dynamic Tribes.
The media owner has done extensive work and is shaking things up by segmenting its readers according to interests and lifestyles from foodies and travellers to sports fanatics, financial savvy investors or eco-warriors, among others – allowing an easy fit between brands and Ads24’s extensive readership.
These tribes live across Ads24’s range of titles and across all of its print, digital, and social-media platforms, which means brands can easily implement an integrated, innovative, multi-platform campaign. In addition to offering advertisers access to its Dynamic Tribes, Ads24 has made it simple to find the ‘sweet spot’ between consumer interests and their publications. Ads24 will be unlocking the secret to opportunities represented by the tribes in a series of activations.
Enlight Strategic signs Oribi Analytics
Enlight Strategic, the digital transformation consultancy founded by former Primedia Digital and Creative Spark CEO Tanja Lategan, has inked an exclusive partnership with data analytics tool Oribi Analytics.
Founded in 2016 by Israeli entrepreneur Iris Shoor, Oribi is behavioural analytics software aimed at marketers and business owners looking to understand the performance of their websites and marketing campaigns through tracking events, conversions, correlations and user behaviour.
Under the terms of the partnership, Enlight Strategic will be the exclusive representative of Oribi in South Africa.
“Given South Africa’s tough economic circumstances, businesses are under more pressure than ever to deliver increased returns at reduced cost,” said Lategan. “Their best hope of doing so is to embrace digital transformation in their marketing departments.”
For its part, Oribi is eager to add some South African entities to the global list of companies it already counts as clients, which include Sony, Audi, and Aon.
Out There Media signs with Vodafone for RCS
Successful Disney and McDonald’s campaigns herald new era for mobile network operators
Out There Media (OTM), a global leader in mobile advertising and data monetisation, has partnered with Vodafone Group for its Rich Communication Services (RCS) offering.
The deal follows two highly successful campaigns with The Walt Disney Company Africa and McDonald’s, with OTM being the first company in the world to trial this technology with both these major brands.
Kerstin Trikalitis, CEO of OTM (above), said: “Our proprietary technology platform, Mobucks, produces a level of RCS experience not yet seen in the marketplace and a viable alternative to current over-the-top (OTT) apps. By joining forces with Vodafone, we have created a unique, end-to-end, cloud-based and fully-managed RCS solution, taking full advantage of the channel’s ability to allow users to interact with brands without leaving their native messaging app.”
Liz McCord, principal product manager at the Vodafone Group, added: “The Disney and McDonald’s campaigns run by Out There Media and Vodacom demonstrate the first large scale commercial RCS campaigns by big brands on the continent. The results were spectacular and prove the value of this new messaging channel for mobile customers and brands alike. RCS Business Messaging is the game-changer the industry has been waiting for.”
Facebook announces opening offices to small businesses around the world
Holidays are one of the busiest times of the year for many businesses, so having the right resources and skills to manage your business during this time is critical. According to a Facebook-commissioned Ipsos study, in 2018, nearly half of US shoppers had started shopping for the holidays in November or earlier. That’s why today, it is opening our doors to small businesses to help them prepare for the holiday season and introducing new tools to help them manage their business across our apps more efficiently.
Over a 24-hour period, the Boost with Facebook Holiday Bootcamp is welcoming small businesses to itsoffices in New York City, Menlo Park, Austin, Chicago, London, Dublin, Berlin, Madrid, Warsaw, Istanbul, Lagos, Johannesburg, São Paulo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Singapore and the Philippines.
For the Diary
Coming up at Heavy Chef
Coming up soon: The Unifiers, with Robbie Brozin, Albie Sachs, and Lwando Xaso, 29 October JHB; and The Platforms, with Aisha Pandor, Katlego Maphai, Wesley Lynch and Khaya Dlanga, 31st October CPT.
For more, click
here
[1] Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, DRC, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia
