Wegbreek gives RS&P some bakgat impetus

Wegbreek was an obvious move. At first glance it looks like a pretty exact translated copy of sister publication, Getaway, with identical covers and what appears to be absolutely identical content.

But Wegbreek editor, Gerrit Rautenbach, seems to have shown considerable restraint in not wanting his new baby to be completely different to Getaway and wasting some great quality content. There is a lot of content similarity but what he has done to get into the hearts and minds of his particular market is to include some typically Afrikaans content unlikely ever to be found in Getaway. Such as including singer and raconteur Koos Kombuis as a regular columnist.

Largely though, as Rautenbach puts it, Wegbreek gets across Getaway's material "in goeie, gatskop, lekker Afrikaans."

Should have come first

When you think of it though, given the fact that generally speaking, Afrikaans magazines have always had a far higher readership than their English counterparts in South Africa, Wegbreek should have come first.

But, like most publishers in South Africa years ago, Ramsay Son & Parker unwittingly, one supposes, just assumed that South Africa's second largest language group would simply accept the concept of globalisation and be happy to consume English media.

Now everyone is finding that it makes good marketing sense to actually talk to Afrikaans speakers in their own language irrespective of whether they like or dislike having to read English media.

Emboldened

Whether Ramsay Son & Parker has been emboldened by its recent spat with Naspers over the Wegbreek title or by the purchase of a 30% interest in its company by Caxton, it seems that there is going to be a lot more exciting activity on the horizon, both in terms of paper-based publishing and online. And a very exciting publication-linked customer service project.

There is no doubt that a new and very enthusiastic vibe is pulsating through the rapidly expanding rabbit-warren that is its head office in Pinelands. Somehow there seems to be a new lease on life and a realisation that it doesn't need to be a smallish player in the media industry, but can in fact, go out and play with the big boys. It could also be because it won its first real big fight on the playground against somebody a lot bigger.

Clue to growth

But, I got the biggest clue to its growth intentions when I visited RS&P last week. Usually chairman Alan Ramsay and I talk golf 80% of the time, cars for 15% and publishing for the remaining 5%.

This time Ramsay didn't bring up the subject of golf once and we only discussed cars in the context of some new and exciting plans for the stalwart Car Magazine.

The rest of the time he was like a kid with a dozen new toys suddenly finding that his playground was a heck of a lot bigger than he imagined.