eMarketing Trends|Verbal Acrobatics & Graphic Gymnastics

It’s the first Journal of Marketing breakfast and Virtuosa once again are here giving live updates through Tweeting and Blogging to bring you all the news firsthand. Moderated by Jeremy Maggs this morning we are talking about Radio and why this medium is still relevant. The panel consists of Lance Rothschild (Media Consultant & Radio Commentator, Opportun(at)e), Norman Gibson – (GM, Radio Advertising Bureau) Omar Essack (Executive Director: Broadcasting, Kagiso Media) Andrew Smythe (GM Radio Sales & Alternative Revenue, SABC, Terry Volkwyn (CEO, Primedia Broadcasting).

Interesting for me is the panels diverse opinion around what role digital should be playing in radio stations. Some seem to be of the opinion that internet access in South Africa is not high enough to warrant really investing into it. I find these opinions surprising. Others on the panel recognise that digital is exploding and see this as an unique opportunity to offer an integrated approach to their listeners. What’s clear is that there is an uncertainty on how best to integrate digital with their offering and how to  manage the communities that are developing around the station and especially the websites.

If you want to read more about what was discussed during this morning session be sure to get your hands on an issue of the next Journal of Marketing.

Virtuosa will be at the event doing live Tweeting and blogging so get all the details here if you can’t be there on the day.

For those of you who couldn’t join us at today’s Mega Brand Forum you really did miss out! It was a great event, with wonderful insights and engagement from the Brand custodians and the Brand Champions.

There are however two more events coming up this year presented by The Journal of Marketing, so make sure you book early to avoid disappointment.

• 29 October: Retail Brands: How they stay on top
• 26 November: The annual conference

Suzanne Stevens is the General Manager: Marketing Services at Discovery Health and highlighted this about the brand:

• Discovery is a brand that has started in a product environment, 1993 company was established.
• We are in fact a very young brand.
• Using the discovery qualities to evolve our business
• At the core of everything that Discovery deliver is a clear vision, purpose.
• Our reason for being is to make people healthier and enhance our lives.
• We are extremely aware of the emotional and direct impact that we have on peoples lives.
• Nature of our business is that it reaches people at a critical point in peoples lives.
• Constantly listening and monitoring to what our customers are telling us.

Question from the audience: How to you deal with the fact that by not settling peoples claims you are perceived as thieves?

Suzanne: This really is a very complex industry and people don’t really understand how health care work. We pool peoples money and the way we pay out claims are regulated by very strict rules and regulations. Also you need to consider that there are really various stakeholders from the doctors /medical staff to the patients, it’s not that simple.

Enver Groenewald – GM Advertising Revenue @ Strategic Communications, Avusa Media LTD:If the Vitality program for some reason stopped to exist would your brand still thrive?

Suzanne: Absolutely Discovery can stand on its own two feet. In every dimension we track ourselves, on financial level, service level and product level.

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.