The Media Online’s weekly round up of people, account and business moves in media.
This week’s BIG move: Adspace24’s leadership appointments
The amalgamation of Ads24 and The SpaceStation has forged a focused, collaborative team, creating bespoke solutions across Media24’s news platforms. The move gives
clients access to the audiences of more than 60 trusted news brands, that leverage digital media, print, television, content marketing and insights to drive a brand’s message home.
“Together with the alignment of our commercial teams and emphasising the focus on our clients, I am pleased to announce our leadership team. They are supported by our very efficient internal business management, media intelligence, advertising operations and marketing teams to ensure that we deliver the highest level of collaboration with our clients,” said Tasmia Ismail, GM of Adspace24. “Our sales directors, sales leads, and our new business lead come with valuable experience and knowledge of the media landscape and a deep understanding of our clients’ needs. I strongly believe that we are optimally positioned to take our clients’ marketing goals to the next level.”
The team will focus their skills and experience on ensuring a customer-centric, integrated media solutions, packaged to meet client specific objectives.
Gayle Edmunds: Head of Content: A multiple-award-winning editor, Edmunds is part of the team that co-creates bespoke, multi-format content solutions for clients. “Our team are consummate storytellers and this is the skill set clients can leverage through us,” she said. “Increasingly, the success of content lies in its ability to compete for consumers’ attention and retain it. I will continue to put my 23 years in the newsroom to good use helping clients tell relevant stories to our diverse readership across brands.”
Jerusha Raath: Head of Adspace Studio: Raath is a multiple-award winning digital publishing expert and one of 28 women selected for the Poynter Institute’s 2018 Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media. “Our talented team of writers, editors, designers, videographers and podcasters have been named best-in-class on an international stage, and we’re always ready to offer these skills to brands looking to leverage journalistic excellence with commercial clout. Clients can rely on the cutting-edge content solutions they’ve come to expect from the former BrandStudio24 team – but now, with the added power of a fully integrated, multiplatform media solution spanning digital, print and TV.”
Craig Nicholson: Sales Director Regional Portfolio: Nicholson has more than 25 years’ experience in the media industry and is former Sales Director for The SpaceStation. This merger better enables the team to meet customers’ requirements. “Our priority is to retain and enhance the strong relationships we have with customers across the business by making sure there is limited disruption and maximum strategic value. “
Samantha Africa: Sales Director Retail Portfolio: Africa is a digital expert with experience across the media landscape. She joined Media24 in 2014 and has been committed to the transition of the sales team into cross-platform, multi-format experts. “The experience we have gained in dealing with our clients’ advertising campaigns has been built up over many years. With the merger of the two Media24 commercial arms, we are now in a position to offer clients seamless access to a range of trusted and effective media platforms.”
Lee Ann Biljohn: New Business Lead: Biljohn is a seasoned digital business development manager. Her foundation in customer service ensures that clients’ campaigns deliver excellent results. She is excited to grow new business across various sectors with Adspace24’s integrated, multi-platform solutions.
“Our diverse offering as a media owner place us in a prime position to partner with businesses for growth. More than ever before we need to place trust at the forefront of all we do, and we are excited to walk this journey with our partners.”
This streamlined leadership team is committed to ensuring easy access to their diverse skill sets and will work closely with clients to design individually tailored solutions that meet expectations.
People moves
Havas South Africa announces new Village CEO
Havas South Africa has appointed of Vineel Agarwal as its new integrated Village CEO. This is a result of the group combining its creative, media, PR, and events businesses under one leadership. Agarwal takes on this role immediately and will be based at the agency’s office in Rosebank, Johannesburg.
Prior to taking on the role of SA Village CEO, he fulfilled the role of managing director of Havas Media South Africa, effectively leading the growth and development of Havas within the African continent. She will continue to lead the Africa network of Havas as Regional CEO.
Agarwal joined Havas 15 years ago as part of the international department in Paris where she managed some of the key luxury and tourism clients of the agency. She has since worked in business and agency development across Africa, client service, strategy, and research for various global and local clients. She was instrumental in the creation and early stages of many of the 10+ Havas agencies in Africa and in leading major client wins for the region.
Jeanette Grove appointed ECD at Grey
Grey has promoted Jeanette Grove, social media and content manager to ECD as the department grows into a formidable force in the Grey Africa services.
Brought on in the role of creative director (content and social), Grove was mandated to only grow the social team (and social offering) – when she arrived there was a team of two social media managers – but to also make sure all the content Grey creates answers to a certain creative standard, and that social media is integrated into everything the agency does. A part of this was training client service and ops teams (as well as creatives) up in the “mystical ways of the digital”.
She has proven to be exceptionally good at attracting both new business and great new talent. Five years later, Grove leads a productive, happy, and highly profitable team of 20, consisting of social media managers, digital designers, multimedia designers, content writers, and community managers.
Fran Luckin, CCO of Grey Africa, said, “Jeanette is a breath of fresh air in a field that is too often filled with jargon and driven by stale, template-based creativity.”
Time to be bold, make change
Global consulting company Kearney has appointed Jo-Ann Pöhl as their new senior advisor. This marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Kearney’s South Africa team, as Pöhl brings with her more than two decades of experience and a natural dynamo in the finance sector.
Pöhl was a finalist in the Financial Services: Banking Sector CEO Magazine’s Most Influential Women in Business and Government Awards in 2010 and is part of the South Africa Boss of the Year alumni for 2013. She was identified by Euromoney as one of Africa’s top 20 rising stars in 2014, a member of the African Leadership Network (ALN) class of 2015 and won the overall Positive Role Model Award and Trailblazer category at the Gender Mainstreaming Awards in 2019.
“I am excited to be joining Kearney. I resonate with their purpose, culture, and focus on what is essentially right in the work that they do and who they partner with. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are ingrained in how Kearney does business and encourages collaboration in an environment that fosters a sense of belonging. It was an honour to moderate a panel discussion as part of Kearney’s IWD Forum where industry leaders shared their stories and facilitated a practical call to action to drive out implicit bias at a systemic level. An international audience watched as we explored how we move from once-off DEI initiatives to integrating DEI into a company’s mission, purpose, and DNA,” said Pöhl.
Business moves
WOO to reveal new audience measurement guidelines at Toronto 2022
Audience measurement is arguably the biggest issue for any medium and the World Out of Home Organization is to reveal new global guidelines for audience measurement at its 2022 Global Congress in Toronto from 25-27 May.
The new guidelines are the result of an extensive research exercise among 11 audience measurement bodies, working with international media owners and media buyers.
The guidelines will be presented by researchers Gideon Adey of GUROOH and Neil Eddleston of Runor Data Consulting, working under WOO auspices.
And it will build upon shared experience and learning from around the world, promoting out of home measurement and the consequent increase in the value of OOH to advertisers, whilst allowing collaboration between territories to help OOH grow globally.
OFM excited for Bloem Show ‘Comeback’
OFM has confirmed its involvement in the highly anticipated return of one for Central South Africa’s proudest establishments, the Bloem Show, set to take place in the Free State capital, Bloemfontein, 27 April – 7 May 2022.
According to Elmarie Prinsloo, CEO of Bloem Show, the trade fair is one of only two shows in the country that successfully combines commercial activities and agricultural art, boasting just over 100 000 visitors annually, contributing more than R100 million to the local economy while creating 1 150 temporary jobs during the period of the show.
She confirmed the entertainment programme is jam packed with OFM proud to host various music evenings featuring: Sing Country featuring Juanita du Plessis, Franja du Plessis and Ruan Josh, Francois van Coke, Snotkop and Spoegwolf. In addition, OFM is a proud sponsor of the popular FMX Flight Night motorbike stunt shows as well.
Through various competitions, OFM listeners can also stand a chance to win tickets and cash to make Bloem Show 2022 a memorable event.
“It is exciting times ahead with the ‘re-opening’ of the Bloem Show. We have missed this ‘grand old lady’. OFM is continuing to partner in the presentation and encourage the entire Central South Africa to visit and bring the family,” said Nick Efstathiou, CEO of the Central Media Group which has interests in OFM.
Anzu and Oracle Moat enable first-to-market viewability measurement for in-game ads
Anzu.io, the world’s most advanced in-game advertising platform, and Oracle Moat, part of Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX), have announced first-to-market viewability measurement for in-game ads. This means advertisers working with Anzu have access to third-party viewability verifications and in-view metrics by Oracle Moat when running in-game ads, either direct or programmatically, on mobile and PC.
The in-view ad impressions within in-game take into consideration the percentage of the creative on-screen, the ad size, time in view, and the angle of the ad to ensure a robust and accurate measurement is made. These metrics are also available globally, no matter where advertisers are running their campaigns from. In addition to in-view metrics, Oracle Moat will also continue to verify impressions delivery and detect invalid traffic (IVT) across Anzu’s in-game banner and video ad formats.
Anzu CPO Ben Fenster said: “Providing third-party measurement is essential to building effective media strategies, industry confidence, and wider adoption of in-game advertising, helping to establish it as an ad category. We’re excited to be the first to bring Oracle Moat’s viewability measurement for in-game ads to advertisers, and we look forward to helping them establish clear benchmarks when it comes to viewability so they can see how their in-game campaign performance compares to other channels.”
Mark Kopera, Head of Product, Oracle Moat added: “As advertisers continue to invest in in-game advertising, it’s crucial that they can measure key viewability metrics, like the percentage of an ad that appeared on-screen, time in-view, and more. By expanding our collaboration with Anzu, we’re able to give advertisers the measurement tools they need to make more informed buying decisions to reach these highly engaged audiences across gaming environments.”
Partnering for digital transformation
The drive to create a digital ecosystem with innovation at its core has seen award-winning digital pioneer Jay Thomson team up with the next big thing in digital product consultancies: Urbian, a leading fintech and digital tech consultancy that helps ambitious leaders to pioneer and innovate in the digital economy.
As the former founder and managing partner of Liquorice, Thomson has worked with top multinationals and South African corporations to develop pioneering digital innovations.
The client’s needs and their view of digital transformation will inform what approach they need, explained Thomson. For instance, if a company needs a digital campaign, a digital agency will best meet its needs. Large enterprise software solutions may need the support of a multinational consultancy. But if a company is looking for breakthrough consumer-facing apps, FinTech, and online services, they need the services of a product studio, or digital product consultancy, like Urbian.
“For clients to get better business results from transformational projects, companies need to stop relying on generalist partners to implement incredibly specialist work. The secret to success lies in the transformative solutions that digital product consultancies such as Urbian produce. They’re at the forefront of digital transformation, centred on user-focussed co-creation. They build solutions that transform the business itself, futureproofing it with what end-users actually want to use. I’m excited to be part of this future of digital product innovation,” Thomson said.
People in the industry may know Urbian from back in the day as a hot multi-award winning digital creative agency. What most don’t know is that six or seven years ago, Urbian put that aside and made the hard decision to pivot into a specialist digital product consultancy. Today, the consultancy is synonymous with building pioneering Fintech, PropTech, InsurTech, BankTech and other transformative online capabilities for leading Corporates.
Headed up by Anton Moulder, the consultancy brings together product design, business strategy and lean software development to create innovative products that matter to the world.
Making moves
Bongani Bingwa spearheads 702 Teacher of the Year campaign
Talk radio station 702 and its breakfast show host Bongani Bingwa are celebrating outstanding teachers.
All South Africans are encouraged to share inspirational stories about teachers who made an impact in their lives on www.702.co.za. The only criteria is that the teacher should currently be in active service at a school.
One exceptional teacher will be profiled per month from April to November 2022. The teacher will be selected based on the strength of the written motivation received, and the story it tells about the impact he or she made in someone’s life. All monthly finalists and their nominators will be interviewed by 702 Breakfast show host Bongani Bingwa to share their story.
“Teachers play such a pivotal role in society. Not just as educators but also as role models, mentors, caregivers and advisers,” says Mzo Jojwana, 702 station manager. “Now in a post-Covid reality we have a renewed appreciation of the gruelling, often thankless work they do. As a station we think it’s time to applaud them and give them the recognition they deserve.”
People are invited to nominate a teacher who made a big impact on their, or their children’s lives, by submitting their story on the 702 website.
SABC1 tackles social issues with Breaking the Silence
SABC Education, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, is introducing a brand-new series titled Breaking The Silence. This 13-part series will be broadcast every Monday at 16:30, starting from the 4 April 2022.
Presented by media personality Dineo Ranaka, Breaking The Silence will tackle a whole range of social challenges that affect the education of young people of school-going age.
The series has been developed to strengthen the provision of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Life Orientation by educators in the schooling system. Social challenges such as HIV infection, gender-based violence, early unintended pregnancy, drugs, and substance abuse are some of the matters to be dealt with in the series.
Breaking the Silence is a myriad of responses from the DBE and its partners to address the various challenges around Comprehensive sexuality education, including GBV. The platform created is to aid educators in addressing pregnancy prevention, gender and gender diversity, alcohol, and drug use prevention through their delivery of CSE in the classroom.
“SABC1 is proud to partner with the Department of Basic Education on the new series Breaking the Silence. The channel needs to educate viewers and reflect on issues that affect the youth of South Africa. The show showcases the challenges of sexuality education as a whole and plays an active role in changing the narrative in empowering the youth of today.” Acting Channel Head SABC1, Thuli Nhlapo, added.
INMA announces launch of Subscription Benchmarking Service for news media companies
The International News Media Association (INMA) has announced the launch of a new digital subscription performance benchmarking service for news media companies following a successful six-month pilot.
INMA’s Subscription Benchmarking Service is designed as an international peer-to-peer exchange, promising an active benchmarking community and featuring data-rich dashboards with actionable insights and personalised subscription best practises.
The paid-for service is available to INMA’s corporate members who publish at least one online news service. Publishers are not locked into any hardware, software, or consulting agreements, and may submit several brands at no additional charge.
The pilot was conducted with 102 national and regional news brands from 30 companies in 19 countries.
The Subscription Benchmarking Service is part of INMA’s Readers First Initiative and led by Greg Piechota, the association’s researcher-in-residence.
FMI rebrands to Bidvest Life, eyes greater market share
Life insurer FMI has officially rebranded itself to Bidvest Life as it looks to unlock growth opportunities, raise its profile in the local market and better connect the company with its customers, Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs), and other stakeholders.
FMI, which was one of the first insurers in South Africa to specialise in income protection for business owners and the self-employed market in 1995, has been a division of Bidvest since 2016. CEO Lulu Rasebotsa says the rebrand is a key step in the company’s move away from being ‘the best-kept secret’ in the local market.
WEBINAR | Tune in to winning
Register for the upcoming Radio Awards ‘Tune In’ digital dialogue on March 31 at 10am
Winning awards is not easy, and to be recognised at the Radio Awardsdemands broadcasting of the highest quality. Competition is fierce.
Join industry icon Tim Zunckel (regional media business advisor, Sub Saharan Africa – Internews) and a panel of former winners, as they share what it means to come out tops and how it has benefitted their stations. Whether it’s improving the overall quality of broadcasts, building employee morale, upskilling employees, growing engagement, or boosting revenues, the value of an award cannot be underestimated.
During the session, we’ll also share tips on how to submit an entry that knocks the judges off their feet and give stations the opportunity to ask questions about the entry process.
Panel members:
- Tim Zunckel – regional media business advisor: sub saharan Africa, Internews
- Alvin Pillay – station manager, Lotus FM
- Boni Mchunu – managing director, East Coast Radio
- Charonike Nel – station manager, PUKfm 93.6
- Stephen Werner – station manager, kfm 94.5
Event details:
Date: March 31 2022
Time: 10.00 – 11.00am
Location: Online
To register your virtual seat, click here.