AdVantage gets more social

The Advantage presence on Bizcommunity which can be accessed from the AdVantage link in Bizcommunity's special section list or at www.bizcommunity.com/advantage. A monthly digital edition of AdVantage will follow after testing is completed.

Bridging the digital divide

In tandem, AdVantage has also launched a Facebook and Twitter presence to engage more deeply with its community, showcase own brand initiatives to the industry, and provide more regular news updates from key industry events, exclusive interviews and content within the pages of the monthly print title. To join the AdVantage Facebook community: go to www.facebook.com/pages/Advantage-magazine/105133002806?ref=search or search for ‘Advantage Magazine'; and follow on Twitter at @advantagemag.

Louise Marsland, editor-in-chief and brand strategist at AdVantage magazine

AdVantage editor-in-chief and brand strategist, Louise Marsland, the former editor and editorial director of Bizcommunity.com, will be writing for Bizcommunity.com again through a regular blog, www.bizcommunity.com/blog/louisemarsland, on industry matters, launching with live blogging and tweeting from the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg, Wednesday, 22 July 2009.

Comments Marsland, “It makes perfect sense for the leading print brand in this industry category to partner with the leading online brand for mutual benefit. Business-to-business titles such as AdVantage are there to ‘facilitate trade' and add value to our stakeholder communities.

“We can do that even more effectively through extending the reach of our brand online and driving subscriptions to the monthly print edition of AdVantage, with its exclusive thought leadership, opinion, showcases of advertising work, special media focuses and in depth features, which unpack issues from all angles - like only print can do. It's a no brainer.”

Continues Marsland, “What we specifically learnt from informal focus groups and one-on-one key client interaction, conducted earlier this year before the rebrand, was that the ‘frame' within which people consume business information, matters. Our readers read the online dailies and weeklies at their desk for their daily news updates. However, they take magazines such as AdVantage home to read in depth and at their leisure. It is a privilege to be invited into someone's home and we need to live up to their expectations.”

Advantage magazine May 2009

Advantageous redesign

The new look AdVantage print title, launched with the May 2009 issue is all about ‘the work' - the creativity, people, ideas, brands, trends and insight. The new layout, conceptualised with the aid of Tip Publishing in Cape Town, is contemporary, with a new colour palette adding to the vibrant feel, more bite-sized information and creative use of layout adding to its readability.

There are more industry voices in each industry, an emphasis on marketing communications strategy, the ‘numbers' underpinning each industry, monthly input from industry opinion makers on specific industries, latest trends, new campaigns about to break, and so much more.

Advantage magazine June 2009

New columnists include:

• Ndumiso Ngcobo, author of Some of my Best Friends are White and Is it because I'm Black?
  
• South African export Ann Nurock, now CEO of Grey Canada, writing to us from abroad
  
• Odette Nurock, chair of the Association of Advertising Communications (ACA)
  
• Boo! MD Dave McKenzie on alternative media strategy
  
• a regular youth panel with HDI Youth Marketeers Junior Board of Directors; and
  
• the indomitable Chris Moerdyk telling stories about the lessons we can learn from past narratives in the industry.

Covers have a more multimedia input and are in the main exclusively shot or conceptualised for AdVantage by leading photographers and/or in collaboration with creative shops.

The new masthead sees the ‘V' in AdVantage being turned on its side as a ‘greater than' sign, informing the new payoff line of “Think Big!”

• AdVantage is running a special subscriptions offer to celebrate the rebrand at only R156 a year for 12 issues. Email for your own monthly print copy.