The Media Online’s weekly round up of people, account and business moves in media.
This week’s BIG move: Primedia and Paramount partnership paves the way for broader audience reach
Primedia Group, the owner of a broad portfolio of broadcasting and out-of-home assets, has entered into a strategic partnership with Paramount Global (Paramount), formerly ViacomCBS, providing clients and partners with a compelling audience engagement solution, that considerably broadens reach.
The industry-leading collaboration – the first of its kind in South Africa – is a natural evolution in delivering a multi-platform content strategy in a highly competitive and dynamic environment. This partnership brings together the powerful and popular mass mediums of television and radio, presenting attractive, integrated solutions for clients and partners. What it further enables is the ability to leverage a more engaging mix of advertising channels that reaches a broader audience base – all of which will be very valuable in unlocking greater commercial value for clients and partners.
“As an audience-led business, we look for compelling solutions that continually broaden our content reach while continuing to diversify our audience base. We appreciate that audiences are increasingly consuming content, utilising different platforms – from radio to tv and digital. It is this understanding that continues to influence and catalyse our omnichannel strategies. This partnership will present solutions that are attractive to a diverse audience and simplifies access for brands,” said Lindile Xoko, chief revenue officer, Primedia Broadcasting.
The growth of radio and the prevalence of television – and increasingly, streaming – amplifies the need to create audience-led solutions that offer a diverse channel solution where content is king.
“We firmly believe that this joint television and radio media offering, which has been carefully co-designed, will pave the way for greater successes across the media trade,” added Strini Naicker, vice president of commercial & content distribution for Paramount in Africa. “This excites us about the benefits we will be able to realise for media agencies, clients and the broader media industry.”
People moves
Shahan Ramkissoon joins Eclipse Communications
Prominent South African news anchor, Shahan Ramkissoon has joined Eclipse Communications as its chief strategy officer, effective 1 June 2022. He will form part of the executive leadership team guiding the growth of the agency, its people and clients.
Ramkissoon’s experience spans three continents over the last 18 years, having worked in South Africa, New York and London. Most recently, he was the Prime-Time news anchor on eNCA from 5 – 8pm, every weeknight. He made his mark with his no-nonsense approach and hard-hitting interview style, particularly with politicians.
According to Eclipse Communications CEO, Cheryl Reddy, the people diversity at the agency has led to many successes with clients, as the collective backgrounds and experiences of the team brings a different thinking and ideation for brands.
“Shahan’s understanding of media, how news is consumed, his journalistic integrity, coupled with his strategic thinking will add immense value to what we offer clients today. We pride ourselves on our diverse thinking for our business and our clients, so I see him asking the right questions, in the development of the right strategy, ultimately achieving the desired outcomes for our business and clients,” said Reddy.
Ramkissoon will play a pivotal role in the direction of the agency, leading strategy for clients, working closely with the founding partners on group-wide initiatives and he will be key in the development of an in-house media training division.
He joins Eclipse Communications at a time of steady growth with the agency recently adding clients, such as Nando’s, Weylandts, Mondelez and Roche, among others to its portfolio.
Delna Sethna appointed Ogilvy Africa’s chief creative officer
Ogilvy Africa has appointed internationally experienced communications professional Delna Sethna as chief creative officer, to head up its creative offering for group’s Sub-Saharan Africa network from its Nairobi office starting 1st August.
Sethna has more than 20 years’ experience in the creative and marketing space. She comes to Ogilvy from Red Fuse Communications, also part of the WPP group.
“We are really excited to welcome Delna as our new chief creative officer for Africa,” said Ogilvy EMEA CCO Stephan Vogel. “She has led dozens of innovative, exciting campaigns, and been recognised with a slew of industry-leading awards. We look forward to working with Delna, learning from her across clients and across our business.”
The role of Chief Creative Officer is a newly created position at Ogilvy Africa, as the agency gears towards further strengthening its position in the region.
Among the creative accolades she has received have been at Cannes, D&AD, the #FemvertisingAwards, Spikes, Kyoorius and the Effies.
Lee-Ann Collingridge appointed acting managing director at. CMC
Conversations Media & Communications (CMC) has appointed Lee-Ann Collingridge as acting managing director after founder and CEO Vincent Magwenya’s appointment as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson.
Collingridge – an award-winning journalist, editor and communications practitioner – will take over control of the boutique communications and public affairs agency, which boasts clients such as the European Union, Barloworld and PPC among others.
Magwenya will remain non-executive chairman of CMC.
To ensure that there is no conflict of interest, CMC will not tender for government tenders, nor do any business with government.
East Coast Radio appoints Travis Bussiahn as new programming and content manager
East Coast Radio has appointed Travis Bussiahn as its new programming and content manager.
Bussiahn brings with him more than 17 years of experience in digital and traditional media, creative management, content development, multi-channel programming, planning, and production strategy.
He has a remarkable background in broadcasting with proven radio experience at all levels of the medium. Bussiahn has developed and managed creative talent to ensure they grow and perform at their optimum levels.
He has produced award-winning content around the world for media channels such as television, digital, and radio.
“East Coast Radio gave me the foundation for everything I’ve achieved in my career. To be returning to help build its bright future is a dream come true. I’m humbled and thrilled to be coming home to the province I grew up in and to an audience that I love,” he said.
Bussiahn takes over from Zane Derbyshire, who resigned to pursue a career in Atlanta, USA, after eight years with the station.
Evotel sponsors Tumelo Molloyi Sunshine Tour
The Fibre Network Operator (FNO), Evotel, is sponsoring 28-year old South African golfer, Tumelo Molloyi, for participation in the 2022 Sunshine Golf Tour, supporting the youngster’s inspirational drive to become a leader in the golfing world.
Molloyi turned pro in 2018 and is currently ranked as 1 712 on the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), having previously scored a personal best ranking of 1685 on the OWGR, and is representing Jackal Greek Golf Acadamy in the 2022 Sunshine Tour.
“Tumelo saw Evotel’s brand as caring and giving back to communities and reached out to us to assist with the expenses of the tour. We are very happy to help a rising star in South African sports, because our support and giving back is not just from a connectivity perspective, but from simply doing good in the world and offering help where we can,” said Bradley Bekker, Evotel’s head of brand.
The sponsorship of Tumelo comprises R20 000 a month for the duration of the 2022 Sunshine Tour, which includes sponsored golf clothing as well as marketing collateral.
South African hip-hop legend Cassper Nyovest joins Bitcasino
One of the biggest names in African hip-hop, Cassper Nyovest, has joined as the latest superstar ambassador at the world’s favourite crypto casino, Bitcasino.
Nyovest will represent Bitcasino for an initial two years as a global ambassador, having made a name for himself not only as a rapper, but also an entrepreneur, record producer and even part-time boxer.
He’ll be showing fans across the world how to join the crypto revolution with Bitcasino, where players can enjoy thousands of exciting casino games with a range of cryptocurrencies, including heavyweights like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
InSites Consulting forecasts qualitative growth with seven hires in South Africa
InSites Consulting South Africa (previously Columinate, South Africa’s largest modern insight agency) has welcomed seven new colleagues in its Johannesburg office, including three senior hires.
Research directors Simone Kakana and Heike Viviers bring a collective 35 years’ industry experience to the senior team at InSites Consulting South Africa.
InSites Consulting South Africa also welcomed Danie Botha, who brings 17 years of industry experience to the role of business development manager.
Also joining the agency in Johannesburg are senior research consultants Zanele Coka and Luzelle van Niekerk, and research consultants Lauren Govender and Sasha Maharaj.
Business moves
blunt magazine is back: South African media brand takes aim at Gen Z
blunt magazine, one of South Africa’s most iconic youth media brands, has returned under the independent ownership of original founding editor, Miles Masterson.
The brand’s revival, which is profiled in a Fuel TV interview for action sports show, Africa Now, began with a social media launch in February 2022, followed by a website launch the following month.
Subsequently, blunt held its first event, a skate competition at the Eyethu Skate Park in Cape Town, drawing competitors from Imizamo Yethu, Hangberg and Hout Bay, with many entrants skating competitively for the first time.
“We are super stoked to bring blunt back for a new generation,” said Masterson. “The timing couldn’t be better. With the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympics and the current explosion of street sports and culture worldwide and in South Africa, there’s a massive need for a unifying media voice for this audience in the country, a role blunt is ready to fill.”
Red & Yellow Creative School of Business expands into Mauritius and beyond
Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, South Africa’s leading authority in digital marketing education, has extended its critical skills training to Mauritius-based Honoris Educational Network to offer digital marketing to emerging talent in the country from July 2022.
This is the first international expansion for Red & Yellow and a key milestone for the institution. It also celebrates the introduction of the island’s first-ever, fully online digital marketing course. This expansion cements Red & Yellow’s position at the forefront of the educational sector in the creative and marketing industry.
“With the Mauritian government focusing on building infrastructure to enhance connectivity across the island, the launch of the digital marketing online short course couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Andrew Allison, chief commercial officer, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business.
As part of their commitment to driving relevant skills in digital across the continent, Red & Yellow’s online short courses will soon also be available in Nigeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
Algoa FM expands footprint via DStv
Algoa FM has extended its reach into millions of more homes through all of DStv’s South African packages. The Eastern Cape diaspora and lovers of contemporary adult music can listen to Algoa FM on Channel 837.
“This has been a work in progress as well as a business objective for many years and I am delighted that we have finally extended our reach for audience and advertisers alike,” saidAlfie Jay, managing director of Algoa FM.
“Over the course of many years, holidaymakers returning home after a stint in Algoa Country, as we like to call it, have written to us asking why we’re not on DStv’s audio bouquet. Finally, we can answer in the affirmative.”
Algoa FM connects with its audience through a transmitter network stretching from the Garden Route to the Wild Coast and inland through the Karoo, as well as live via its stream at www.algoafm.co.za.
No warning as DStv drops e.tv channels – again
The Competition Tribunal ruled against eMedia in an appeal to keep four channels on the DStv platform.
Viewers were left in the dark with no programmes as they tried to watch certain eMedia channels on the DStv platform on Wednesday night.
In a statement, eMedia said MultiChoice turned off the four channels (eExtra, eMovies, eMovies extra, eToonz) immediately and without warning as soon as the ruling was announced.
eMedia approached the Competition Tribunal in April this year to seek relief after a renewed channel supply agreement between MultiChoice and eMedia in which MultiChoice opted not to carry certain eMedia channels, namely eMovies, eMovies Extra, eExtra and eToonz.
The Competition Tribunal failed to give reasons for the ruling. The unannounced switch-off also left eMedia without sufficient time to communicate to viewers. Viewers are angry and disappointed that they are no longer able to see their programmes via the DStv platform.
All the e.tv channels will continue to broadcast on Openview.
Soul Providers Collective celebrates milestones
There were many milestones to celebrate during the month of May for creative agency SoulProviders Collective (SPC). The agency celebrated 11 years of existence; 10 years with one of their longest-standing clients, AMKA, one year anniversary of their acquisition by the Matrix Communications Group; and their MD, Nosipho Ginindza, who recently turned 40 and joined the Bookmark Awards judging panel, celebrates 10 years with the agency as the longest-serving employee at SPC.
Ginindza joined SPC in 2011 as an account manager working on digital campaigns for brands like Grolsch and 46664. In the same year, the agency won local FMCG giant AMKA as a client and has worked on their various brands over the years, managing their social media activity. Some household brands include Clere Africa, Clere For Men, Satiskin, Planet of Attraction, Shower to Shower, Chemico, Personal Touch, Cuticura to name a few.
Said Ginindza: “We’ve been able to bring in new and experienced talent to the agency and are proud to be a diverse, inclusive and female-led agency.”
HelloFCB+ launches campaign for News24’s new positioning ‘Trusted News. First‘
After a successful pitch process, HelloFCB+ and Fuelcontent worked quickly to launch News24’s new brand positioning, Trusted News. First across SA with a full 360-degree campaign, as well as a PR campaign that introduced the humans behind every News24 article, their journalists.
“Although we prefer to be behind our cameras and keyboards, we realised that an integral part of trust is knowing someone. We are not just by-lines, but real people with stories, hopes, dreams and fears,” said News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson. “Ultimately, we want to get much closer to our subscribers and become familiar, trusted personalities in their lives.”
News media took a hit as the threat of “fake news” spread. But since 2020, trust in social media declined and trust in the news has grown as people became more critical of the source. At the heart of everything News24 does, is trust. News24’s team of awarded journalists are behind hundreds of articles, reviews, stories, analyses and investigations that help shine a light on what’s happening across the country, and the world, as it happens.
The executions were rolled out across digital channels, OOH and TV, and updated as needed to promote News24 as the place to get “Stories You Can Trust”, “Articles You Can Trust”, “Investigations You Can Trust” and more.
APO Group partners with the Catholic Church in Africa to provide comprehensive Public Relations
APO Group, a Pan-African communications consultancy and press release distribution service, and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) announced a working partnership aimed at providing extensive Media and Public Relations support to the Catholic Church in Africa (Holy See).
By working with the SECAM, the institution that coordinates the Catholic Church hierarchy’s pastoral work in Africa, APO Group will bring greater cohesion to the Church’s communications strategy, helping to deliver core messages of the Holy Father and the Holy See to Africa’s 251 million Catholics who are spread far and wide across the African diaspora. It will also publicise and present news and information about the life of the Church in Africa to a global audience.
Play-to-earn gaming adoption set to double in South Africa
Play-to-earn (P2E) gaming adoption is set to double in South Africa in 2022, according to Finder’s NFT Gaming Adoption Report.
Finder.com polled 43 312 people across 26 countries to reveal 10% of South African internet users have used a P2E game. However an additional 11% say they plan to P2E this year, meaning adoption could soon reach 21%.
South Africa ranks 17th for NFT gaming adoption, ahead of the US (9%) and the UK (8%), but behind countries like the United Arab Emirates (27%), Nigeria (16%), and Argentina (12%) and below the global average of 14%.
Men are the biggest adopters of P2E NFT gaming. 12% of South African men say they’ve played-to-earn and this is set to grow to 25% by the end of the year. Meanwhile just 9% of women say the same and this figure will grow to just 17% this year.
Finder.com’s cryptocurrency editor Keegan Francis said he wasn’t surprised by the relatively high adoption rates in South Africa.
“Findings in a similar study we conducted reveal that 56% of South Africans think crypto is a good investment, compared to the 47% who said the same in November of 2021.”
Making moves
Relevance is crucial to success in advertising
With the upsurge of global brands entering the South African market, and vying for prime marketing space with local competitors, the advertising industry looks to grow upwards of R48 billion by the end of 2023.[1]
Showing a fixed growth rate since 2017, OOH out of home advertising continues to attract a higher percentage share of advertising spend in the country, compared to other segments such as print.[2] Mass media, and specifically radio as a medium, also continues to remain strong in terms of reach with almost half of the population – 22.4 million listeners – tuning in on an average day across the country.[3]
So, how do brands elevate themselves to reach their target audience? According to Irina Vlad, Managing Director at Ivie Media: “In a highly congested and competitive advertising market, targeted awareness through dynamic creative is key.”
Using dynamic creative in advertising – whether radio, OOH or TV –allows a brand to speak to its audience in the way that they want, providing consumers with more reactive and relevant content.
With this data-driven, dynamic content approach, the Ivie Media team was tasked to support South African FinTech, Lulalend in achieving their marketing goals on radio: “We enlisted Ivie Media to support us in building brand awareness and education of our offering in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Those provinces where campaigns were run saw an increase of 12% application volume compared to provinces where campaigns were not run,” said Tom Stuart, CMO of Lulalend.
A relatively new agency having launched in 2020 during the global pandemic, Ivie Media is a 100% women-owned boutique media agency.”
FreshStop donates raised funds to Gift of the Givers to support KZN flood-affected communities
Over the past few years, the South African economy has been under strain, putting significant pressure on both businesses and individuals alike. This, coupled with the pandemic, placed even further stress on various sectors. “Like many industries, the fuel and c-store retail sectors were severely affected by the global pandemic,” says managing director of FreshStop, Joe Boyle.
As residents and businesses were starting to recover from the 2021 riots, the floods caused more havoc for businesses, the province, and the economy; nine FreshStop stores damaged and one remaining closed. Most devastating is the severe impact it has had on poorer communities. “At FreshStop, we have had 50 colleagues lose their homes and personal belongings, and two families have lost family members,” explained Boyle.
To alleviate some of the financial distress caused by lockdown and ensure adequate nutrition, FreshStop assisted their colleagues and families through the donation of more than R400 000 worth of fruit and vegetables. And in response to the latest crisis, the FreshStop Franchise Forum developed two cash support channels to assist both colleagues and those less fortunate in areas that were most affected by the floods.
FreshStop also committed to match any cash donations made to the FreshStop KZN Flood Relief Fund, which was set up to assist those affected by the floods. Along with other donors, FreshStop was able to donate R180 000 to colleagues and close to R420k was raised by the Retailer along with other benefactors, which was donated to the Gift of the Givers.