Branding Africa

And the favourites are… - 1 Sep 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Millward Brown last week announced South Africa's Best Liked Ads for Q1&2 2014 and Coca-Cola was selected as the country's top brand in the 2014 Sunday Times Top Brands Awards. In last week's exclusive Loeries Creativity Q&A series for Bizcommunity.com, Jessica Taylor chatted to Executive Creative Director of McCann Australia and also the creator of the fantastic "Dumb ways to die" campaign, Patrick Baron. Joseph Neusu reckons emotional branding - the love affair between consumers and brands, is extremely important, and Estiaan Robbetze says the idea of primetime is somewhat dead. read more

Forbes is first - 25 Aug 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] With a beautiful sunshine weekend behind us here in Cape Town, we enter the last week of August 2014! Can you believe it? Herewith the news highlights from the past week: According to the IPSOS EMS Affluent Survey in Africa, Forbes Magazine has been named the top magazine amongst Africa's richest. In this week's exclusive Loeries Creativity Q&A series for Bizcommunity.com, Sindy Peters chats to Arno Lindemann, Chief Creative Officer of Lukas Lindemann Rosinski. read more

Can't read, won't buy... - 18 Aug 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Françoise Henderson says that as Chinese is set to overtake English in 2015 as the biggest language on the internet, with Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian making rapid inroads, the advantages of a translated website are obvious... Studies by analyst firm Common Sense Advisory has found that 75% of customers prefer buying products in their own language. read more

And the finalists are... - 11 Aug 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Well, a big congratulations to all the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2014 finalists! I can't believe it's that time of the year already... Good luck to each and every one of you, and thank you for the contribution you make to the industry! David Blyth has dubbed Ghana the 'lesser-known marketing treasure of West Africa' and says that when judged on market size, this country is often overlooked by brands looking to expand across Africa. Last week also saw the celebration of our 100th Biz Takeouts episode! Our show host, Warren Harding (@BizWazza), chatted to leader of Democractic Alliance (@DA_News) and Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille (@helenzille), as well as Justin Beswick (@justinbeswick) and Kirsten Wilkins on TEDx Cape Town (@tedxcapetown). read more

Eenie meenie miney moe... Chinese handsets set to grow? - 4 Aug 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] According to Russel Southwood, the price of generic Chinese smartphones (at around $70-80) will be affordable by a significant chunk of Africans who currently own feature phones. There's also the possibility that the Chinese handset Xiaomi (which runs on Android), an iPhone lookalike, will come to Africa. read more

The strange culture of business marketing... - 28 Jul 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Chemory Gunko reckons South Africa has a strange culture when it comes to business marketing where many marketing people placed in companies are juniors, if they even exist at all - or the role is just not taken seriously at all by anyone internally. She gives advice on what you should be looking for in today's digital age and what skillsets an effective marketing person in your organisation should have. read more

And the footprints keep extending futher into Africa... - 21 Jul 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Last week was quite a jam-packed week with big news being Joe Public announcing its growth plans in Africa through a partnership with integrated communications agencies Cosse (Nigeria and Ghana) and HWMiT (Zimbabwe). Also extending its African footprint is Primedia. read more

Here's to some smashing startups! - 14 Jul 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] DEMO Africa last week selected the top 40 entrepreneurs to launch at this year's conference, taking place in Lagos, Nigeria, from 22-26 September. Out of more than 400 initial applications, and 242 shortlisted ventures, these 40 obviously impressed! Well done! In 2000, Rwanda began to relentlessly develop its ICT sector after it adopted the National Information Communications Infrastructure (NICI) policy and created a long-term plan to achieve full digitisation in four five-year stages. read more

How does Africa tweet? - 7 Jul 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] In the second How Africa Tweets study, Portland analysed geo-located tweets originating from Africa during the final three months of 2013. The study dives deeper into Twitter use in Africa - which cities are the most active, what languages are being used the most and what issues are driving the conversation online. read more

Is Africa still in the lead? - 30 Jun 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Is Africa still leading the global mobile payments innovation race? Howard Moodycliffe reckons Africa has lost some ground... Michael Wood states that developing markets develop better global business leaders and Adelaide Potgieter thinks that big ideas have a bigger role than ever. In other news over the past week: The 2014 Burson-Marsteller Twiplomacy study shows that Uganda's Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi, is the most conversational politician on Twitter. read more

Why? Because we Cannes! - 23 Jun 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Last week saw the annual celebration of creativity in communications, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, take place in Cannes, France. Congratulations to all the South African agencies and production companies who were shortlisted and of course those who walked away with Grand Prix, Gold, Silver or Bronze Lions to add to, or begin, their Cannes Lions collection. read more

Have you done your market research? - 9 Jun 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] According to Laine Barnard, extensive market research is vital in order to determine the best strategy before entering a country with a new product or service. He also reckons the process of urbanisation is steamrolling through Africa and with that comes more spending money and a growing desire to spend that money - making retail in Africa a hot topic right now. read more

A constellation of stars... - 2 Jun 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] A big congratulations to all the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) winners! If you missed it, have a look at all the 2014 AMAA stars. Mike Silver writes about commercialising the YouTube experience and reckons that as the online and offline worlds converge further, brands will do well to look over their shoulders (or screens) as talented domestic pets and performing babies fight for their audience's online attention. In Juliette Attwell's BizCareers column, she advises how mixed experience can help rather than hinder your career, as well as the difference between a cover letter and a motivational letter. Stephen Claassen poses the question whether Africa is the emerging market of the decade and Travis Bussiahn gives advice for radio station managers on how every on-air presenter they let go takes a piece of their future with them. Last but not least, if you missed last week's Biz Takeouts show, listen to the podcast which is now available. Have a great week! Cheers! Ilse van den Berg, Editor: Marketing & Media Africa (@Biz_Africa) read more

Africans to tell the African story - 26 May 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Big news this past week was that Mail & Guardian launched a homegrown digital news platform, Mail & Guardian Africa, for Africans to tell the African story. The platform is lead by Editor, Charles Onyango-Obbo from the head office in Nairobi, Kenya. Google kicked some dust in Apple's eyes as it was named the world's most valuable global brand in the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand ranking. read more

An endless online party - 19 May 2014

[Ilse van den Berg, @Biz_Africa] Taking a look back at the week's top stories, Jenny Reid reckons social media is a bit like an endless online party that can quickly get out of hand. Do your employees understand professional social media? In her BizCareers column, Juliette Attwell gives advice on how to handle the "Tell us about yourself" question in an interview. On Tuesday we rounded up our interviews with the Loeries Africa Committee by chatting to Editor-in-Chief of Brandwork Nigeria, Dan Oshodin. Millward Brown revealed seven key lessons for brands, based on the performance of brands such as Apple, Amazon and Visa over eight years of the BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study. All African journalists (African nationals based on the continent) creating content targeting an African audience, are reminded to enter the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Competition before the entry deadline of 30 May 2014. read more

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