What a crock of dissembling crap! The ANC must think most people are simpletons - like their voters. One question I would like to ask (but will never get answered, except as a lie) is exactly what percentage of toll fees will actually end up being be spent on roads?

After the apparently obscene costs of collection (+50% - meaning that some fat snouts are in the cream trough again) where does the money go??.

People do not mind paying for the roads but they hate pouring money into the ANC feeding trough. A petrol tax would have been far simpler, fairer and credible.
And we - the motoring public - all know that.

OMG - what vital, mindblowing news!

A trash food flavour, described with all the passion, vogue-ish cliches, and mindlessness that only a US brand victim could display.

Dylan,

As you weren't around then, please don't assume anything.
There was plenty of black directed advertising on radio, outdoor and at PoS. (Ask any 'senior' from Unilever) And remember, TV commercials did not happen until 1978, so radio advertisng was good - far better than the stuff we get today for the most part. My agency hired several teams of UK creatives in the 70s / early 80s and they like the challenge of working here (and were good too.) Some wrinklies may remember the highly successful TVC for XXX Mints featuring a soccer stadium full of people singing Shosholoza - the ad written by a London guy who had been in SA for 3 weeks and casually asked, "Wassat song all the black dudes seem to be singing then?"

Wilson Rowntree came to own that song - then Nestle threw it away.

Llewellyn - I've never read, "he sleeped well that night".

More rubbishy English:

Q. "How are you today?"
A. "I''m good, very/so/amazingly good, thanks." (Jenny CW, typically)

Why do radio presenters (et al) insist on reporting the state of their morality, rather than their health?

Which Victor Hugo incident are you referring to? The one where he apologised for submitting such a long piece because he didn't have time to write a short one?

I don't agree - Americans seem very fussy that you use their version of English when doing work for US and Far East markets - and pedantic I may be, but I would not use the precious US Zee in place of S, or drop the 'u' in the 'ou' sequence (e.g. flavor for flavour); or even consider past tense abominations like, 'he dove into the swimming pool' in communication with the UK!

On Office 2010 (maybe earlier versions too) you can set automatic spell checking on every mail you send - very quick --you do not have to open Spellcheck each time.

Yes - the 140 character limit should also be an exercise for those people who use long, unnecessary multi-syllable, words when short ones are always better. My pet hates include 'utilise' for use, and the hideously ugly, 18C English, 'gotten' (which the local youth seem to think is a cool American word, for some reason.)

I really can't agree,
Since Google search became so advanced, you don't need to know the exact URL of any company, especially the major ones that tend to dominate page rank, etc. I think these guys have wasted their money on hubris - like my car's got 4 exhaust pipes, your's only 2.
I suppose they can 'afford' it, which is the US excuse for everything. As the late Miles Kington (editor of Punch) once suggested: 'don't knock the Americans. They have the best taste that money can buy'.
became so

I thought that Top TV had folded months ago? Is this the best they can do to finally arrive?

Your description of the SABC farce reminds me of a bunch of young kids playing in the sandpit and then given with a bunch of shiny new toys that are way beyond their age and intelligence - so what happens? They can't make them work and they break them.
In fact this description fits just about every facet of the ANC's cadre-infected management and administration.

Yes, "broadband" in SA remains a living lie or a business delusion, or a combination of both, depending whether you are seller or user.. Lately, nerds and 'future-victims' are talking-up 4G when most people have yet to experience reliable - if any - 3G delivery. (Maybe we'll actually get 4G with 5G and so on.)

Techno-dreams have always been ridiculously ahead of reality in SA and this applies to internet access and usage as well. Until we are delivered genuine, low-cost broadband, we'll never know its true transforming possibilities. (In any other developed country, SA sellers claiming 'broadband' - including Telkom - would have been prosecuted and fined out of existence by now.

What small little complaints you all have!

Your problem seems to be about demographic segmentation - which is only one of many models for segmentation - and the most basic.

You should perhaps know that over time, there have been many highly sophisticated models constructed via intensive research that break through the simplistic-ness of race, income or other demographics. For example, the Heylen Implicit Model quite convincingly segments all humans into 8 basic fundamental psychological typologies, which can be demonstrated to govern their attitudes and purchasing behaviours across scores of product categories.

Brilliant work - but - which like all similar models - has the basic weakness for marketers of being significantly un-exploitable when it comes to most communications channels. Most psychological typologies are not precisely leverageable in the majority of media channels- with certain exceptions like special interests - which is why I believe that special interest magazines supported by websites are the singularly most powerful media combination currently around (SA has the problem of a very small affluent market base in this respect.)

You cannot optimally market one utility to 8 different typologies within a one brand business - you cannot afford an 8 brand-positioned business selling the same utility, either.
What you inevitably end up with is a collective and thus compromised, brand proposition in overlapping media.

Funnily enough after 30 years in the business my observation is that the basic demographics you despise, have enough behavioural and attitudinal correlations to make them practically applicable in the majority of categories. You do require a seasoned perspective and interpretation of the opportunities, however.

An interesting article from Reg (not that I have ever read a boring one from him.)
The new syndrome he describes is probably a result of certain fringe segments of the 'get want you want' psychographic groups being forced by economic pressure into adopting a more 'want what you need' attitude.

'Status' will never go out of style, humankind being naturally competitive. The key issue is how status is measured. Unfortunately, today it means material wealth only, driven worldwide by the overfed and wasteful 'super-society' society that the USA has become in the last 50 years. Material wealth is a simple measure, particularly for the less intelligent, by which to perceive and judge social status; and thus aspire to, often in a pretentious, desperate and anti-social manner.
Such is certainly the case in SA.

Not one single statistic in this interview and thus probably nothing that we all didn't already know - disappointing.

Having spent 36 years here from the UK, and having spent time in the US, I would suggest that SA has yet to understood, much less start to develop, a mass business culture of service. (I await the censure of those who are genuine exceptions to view with respect!)

St.
You need a course in practical English. Your text is full of pretentious cliches that you obviously don't know the meaning of. It does not come across as expert. It come across as ignorant. For example, "opinionated" is a derogatory term and refers to a person full of opinions on matters he/she knows nothing about. I would hesitate to put you in that category but you should avoid the possibility.

Hi Marion,
One might say that everyone who has decided to attend the Olympics has already decided and /or got their tickets by now.
The purpose of much of this street display stuff falls into what used to be called post-purchase reinforcement.
However, it is surprising that sponsorship presence (if I understand you correctly) was not in great evidence.