A great and impressive speaker Xoliswa Ndungane, General Manager BMW Brand (South Africa) quickly made an impact on her audience. Here are some of the highlights:

• We have a manifesto at BMW that says we are here to bring joy, on the back of this three letter word we build a company. We are the custodian of emotions, we are the joy of driving, no car company can rival our history, rival our passion or see our vision.
• Innovation is our backbone by joy is in our hearts.
• We will give the world the keys to joy , others promise many thing we only make one promise and that is joy

Andy Rice – Chairman, Yellowwod Future Architects: How do you manage a  local market strategy with such an international brand?

Xoliswa: We have input in that strategy, we are not all the same target audience and especially in South Africa that is very true. So we can take global strategy and apply to local markets but we have to add what the local market is looking for. We have always tried to make it our mission although we follow the global strategy it needs to apply and appeal to the local market.

Dr Thomas Oosthuisen – BrandWealth: Your Product design has fundamental impact on your brand, why is it so that difference between Mercedes and BMW is becoming less?

Xoliswa: At BMW we have always been about performance, we don’t built cars for sissy. The reality is that this is a very male brand. But our competitors focus more on elegance. And the fact of the matter is that we rather see it as they becoming closer to us rather than us becoming closer to them.

Some key point from Wayne Duvenage, Chief Executive of Avis-Rent-A-Car during his time in the hot seat:

• Brand principles are very strong, driven by ambassador program. You can ask anybody in our organization from the tea lady to top executives and they will all be able to tell you.
• Our Brand promise, are you trying hard enough? People have to step up to the plate…
• Our Brand is very consistent,
• It’s important for us to listen to our customers, we have a culture of working hard and playing hard.
• Spend 2 and a half million a year to measure our customer service, all across the board from sales, reservations etc.
• We want to make sure that our Customer Service Index is moving to 90% and is constantly there
• Differentiating factor for us is our people, they are our ambassadors of our brand

Enver Groenewald – GM Advertising Revenue @ Strategic Communications, Avusa Media LTD: Anything you have done differently for international visitors coming for 2010?

Wayne: 2010 is going to be a sell out, but it’s also going to be a tough period for us because we can’t buy extra cars for just 6 weeks. But our focus is really on brand awareness for our international travelers. Making the whole experience quicker and more effective. There will however be a slight  25% price increase over the 2010 period, and we wont be able to offer any specials.

Jeremy Sampson – Group Executive Chairman, Interbrand Sampson Group: How do you as an international brand connect with the local market?

Wayne: We spend a lot of time understanding our markets, building our databases, we identify new markets all the time. The fact is most of our product innovation happens in South Africa.

Andy Rice – Chairman, Yellowwod Future Architects wants to know: Why after 26 years still so much confusion between Sun International and Southern Sun brands?

David Coutts-Trotter, Chief Executive (Sun International): There remains some confusion I agree but we are trying to create some strong association to the Sun brand. I think within the trade there is good knowledge, but the general public remains a challenge.

Jeremy Sampson – Group Executive Chairman, Interbrand Sampson Group: Do you have a post 2010 strategy?

David: I think it is one of our big challenges, but I believe we have strong locations and we are confident that we can fill them. We do believe that after 2010 you will see more international visitors in South Africa that will be great for the industry in general.

Sun International – David Coutts – Trotter, Chief Executive

History of our brand – Sun International as organization formed in 1983 when Southern Sun was in the process of spliting the brand.  During the mid 90’s the casino industry become a very challenging business with illegal slot machines throughout the country. From there on the industry evolved to the regulated industry it is today.

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Question from the Audience: What were the risk with using Gary Bailey as Soccer sponsorship for 2010?

Tristao Abro, Brand & Insight Manager: Marketing (BP Southern Africa):
Gary is a white soccer player your right and one of the challenges for us was to consider if  Gary is representative of whole of South African market. And we believe so and that is why we have chosen to use him.

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Andy Rice –Chairman, Yellowwod Future Architects asks: You say that FNB is a truly south African bank, what’s different than from other banks? Why when you are facilitating things that people do like, are generally being dislikes by the public.

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, Media Director (FNB): Well, I think people don’t like us, because we don’t give them what they want. The reality is that we have a culture in this country of being in debt, which makes it difficult for a bank. But in saying that I think we need to realise that it’s not because of our service levels, because we really are focused and believe that we provide good service.

*(Gisele contacted us afterwards and asked if we would be willing to publish an update to this post as she feels that by providing an abbreviated version of her answer on the day it could have been misleading and not contextualised correctly. Therefore as per her request:

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, Media Director (FNB): Well, I think people don’t like banks in generally because we don’t always give them what they want. By this I mean, some people don’t qualify for loans or additional credit and sometimes we have to be responsible and say no to them.  The reality is that we have a culture in this country of being in debt and banks have to be responsible about managing this. But in saying that, we need to realise that it’s not because of our service levels, because we really are focused and we provide good service.)

Enver Groenewald – GM Advertising Revenue @ Strategic Communications, Avusa Media LTD:
Globally there is a tendency to believe that the more money you through at your brand the more success you will achieve. In an environment where you had 90% of your external marketing taken away from you, what was the main things that you focused on?

Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, Media Director (FNB): Well we would continue to support our innovation programmes and we focus on our internal communication, that we enforce the values we stand for with our employees and ensure these translate to how we treat customers.

FNB Media Director – Gisele Wertheim-Aymes in a nutshells explains the success of the FNB brand as due to many years of hard work.  “Fnb is a very humble brand, that really looks at providing great value, although the reality is that most people don’t like banks.”

According to Gisele the Financial Industry is really one of the most difficult industry’s to bond with your customers. “We do a lot of research with our customers, we aren’t perfect, but our customers perceive us as having lowest bank fees, and most helpful bank and that is what is giving us the edge.”

The bottomline Gisele says is that: “We put our customers first and offer better value for money. The  culture in the bank is based on values, strong customer focus, innovation, and we also incentivise our staff  to come up with innovative idea to help customer.”

It’s Thursday once again and the who’s who in Marketing has gathered for the Top Brands Mega Forum. The Journal team have managed to gather once again some of the big brands in the industry to share with the rest of us exactly what the secret is to achieving that Top Brands Award. The Virtuosa team are here and have a front row seat to all the action, FNB is up first …. so check back soon!

PS: Follow our tweets and make sure you don’t miss a second

If you are one of the lucky few that have managed to book a ticket for the Mega Brand Forum tomorrow you will have a front row seat to all the action, insights and tips on how brands like Sun International, Avis Rent A Car, FNB, BP Southern Africa, and BMW got those awards.

If however, you won’t be able to be there you can still catch a piece of the action, by following our live tweets and blog updates. So tune in tomorrow and find out the success stories from 5 of South Africa’s Top Brands.

With the Top Brand Survey still fresh in everybody’s memory it’s the perfect time for the Mega Brand Forum.

The Journal has selected five top brand winners and invited their custodians to present their success stories highlighting key points such as:

• History of the brand
• HOw the brand is managed in SA
• What the competitive climate looks like
• HOw the brand stays fresh and successful
• What the brand outlook is for next year

The Brands that will be in the hotseat include:
Sun International – David Coutts – Trotter, Chief Executive
Avis Rent A Car – Wayne Duvenage, Chief Executive
FNB – Gisele Wertheim -Aymes, Media Director
BP Southern Africa – Tristao Abro, Brand & Insight Manager: Marketing
BMW (South Africa) Xoliswa Ndungane, General Manager: BMW Brand

Don’t miss out the event will take place on the 17 September 2009 at the Michelangelo Hotel from 07h00 to 11h00. Visit The Journal’s Facebook page for more details.