The advertising industry in focus from the editor of MarkLives.com. By Herman Manson (@marklives)

Yup. That didn’t take two seconds did it? You want to move on up in adland you better land a couple of awards. Who needs multi-skilled, educated self-starters anyways.

David Nobay, Creative Chairman at Droga5 in Sydney, last year told delegates at the Loeries seminar that modern award shows are oversimplifying what is considered ‘creative.’ And I quote: “Awarding winning work has become a matter of looking at a piece of work and having an immediate reaction (on the judges’ part) to it before moving to the next piece.” And while most businesses are running in maintenance mode, and need solutions that cater to this, award-winning creative has become all about the new.

On the other hand, the supposed juniorisation of marketing departments aside, more people on client side today have a good grasp on marketing and advertising fundamentals, making it harder for agencies to win any argument, unless they know more than all those young guns client side trying to impress the boss with their alternative social strategy.

Creative awards don’t carry the weight they did ten years ago. Creative rankings are less likely to get you on a pitch list in an age where the CEO has a direct stake in setting the marketing objectives of a business, and marketers are becoming more hardnosed about who they work with.

There is nothing new in this statement. In 2010, Maria Popova was already arguing in Design Observer that “the output of this flawed and incomplete system of evaluation [that would be at award shows] becomes the currency designers flash at prospective clients and use to bargain their billing rates. It makes clients lazy and designers complacent. Lazy because it creates a cheat sheet for judging the merit of a designer or studio, making the client uninterested in actual inquiry into the process, work and product of smaller studios and emerging designers who may actually have a better, fresher solution to the client’s problem than the award-encrusted top-biller. Complacent because it’s easy to buy into your own brilliance when you spend your days sitting across a shelfful of awards in your posh office. And between laziness and complacency, the whole marketplace for design becomes a self-contained universe isolated from the bigger cultural context in which it lives and from the human lives it touches.”

Agencies are still pushing more money into entering into awards, jetting ECDs to Cannes, London and New York, and holding them up as a path to career success in the ad industry, than they do on setting in place strategies to up skill and broaden the general skills base of the majority of their staff.

Too many agencies still reward awards rather than incentivise education. How many agencies are linking salaries and promotions to completing relevant accredited courses, now widely available through distance internet education? Who rewards employees spending nights and weekends toiling to come to grips with the nuances of copywriting for digital and social platforms?

Even if an agency decides to continue ranking awards as a way of identifying and promoting talent, why don’t they set alternative routes to career success, so that awards don’t seem like the only ladder to the top of the pile.

Look there are exceptions to the rule. I admire Ogilvy’s efforts with its internal Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy (ODMA) initiative. Then there is OFyt who takes in a good many interns, not to make tea, but to learn from the old farts (I mean friends) who run the agency (of the eight they took on last year five stayed with the business as staffers).

But broadly speaking you plop down a Loerie or proof that you just upskilled (on your own time and dime), the Loerie will speak much louder, for the moment at least. It undermines the advertising business over the longer term, and at a crucial point in time, with the industry battling to redefine how it will look and operate down the line. And it discourages what ad agencies sorely need – the multi-skilled employees need for real through the line thinking.

The opinions expressed in this column are by the author and do not necessarily represent those of 10and5. 

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The advertising industry in focus from the editor of MarkLives.com. By Herman Manson (@marklives)

Ooh. Another agency ranking based on creative points. In case you wonder how the latest ranking works, this time produced by the Creative Circle, they use “a system similar to that of the Formula One motor racing, points are awarded for the top 10 places at each award show, with 25 points awarded for 1st place, down to 1 point for 10th place.”

It supposes the top slot at the Eagles count as much as the top slot at Cannes (25 points each to be exact). And the Pendorings don’t count at all – but Ad of the Year does.

Only award shows receiving a nod from the Creative Circle count towards the tally. They are Cannes Lions, the Loeries, D&AD, the Eagles, Clios, One Show and Ad of the Year (which is run by the Creative Circle).

The table of Creative circle rankings can be found here.

From nonsense to substance – the team over at OFyt (Old Friends Young Talent) just landed a motoring account worth around R50 million (for Kia) and then lured back to South Africa Greg Burke as ECD of its new Johannesburg office. Burke has been creative partner for O&M London’s Ford business since 2005 (as Executive Creative Director of Blue Hive London – the WPP agency that handles Ford in Europe). Before that he spent nearly 30 years in South African advertising – mostly at  Ogilvy/RS-TM – where he created some legendary ads including the David Kramer campaign for the VW Bus.

In just over a year the agency has grown to 36 people. It has a strong focus on pulling in young talent and mentoring them and is lead by a formidable team in Gary Leih (former group MD of Ogilvy South Africa, co-founder of ad agency The White House, chairman and CEO of Ogilvy Group UK and an Ogilvy Worldwide board director); Jono Shubitz (a former ECD of Ogilvy Cape Town and chairman of OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Interactive SA) and Paul Newman (a former marketing director at Nationwide).

Expect more waves from OFyt. They just proved they are about to stick around.

Finally the Mars One mission has created quite a bit of buzz in international news media of late. Yes a lot of it was sceptical, this is after all a private company trying to set up the first human colony on Mars, funded by a reality TV show that will have the masses pick their fave astronauts for the mission. As one columnist put it rather grimly – a reality TV show where the actors will ultimately die on set (it’s a one-way ticket – literally). Hollywood must be lining up for the rights to this one.

It’s also quite inspiring and taps into (or manipulates, whichever way you choose to see it) our sense of hope and optimism, in a time anxiety (thank you 24/7 news cycle) and plenty of distressing news, not to mention economic woes.

There is a South African link to the Mars One story – ‘high-concept’ creative agency Now&Partners (see the interview here) are early investors in the project and created an inspiring short film to launch the nominations phase for people wanting to escape this world, or build a new one.

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The opinions expressed in this column are by the author and do not necessarily represent those of 10and5. 

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In the early to mid-1990’s the commercial internet was just grabbing a toehold in South Africa. In ’96/’97 I was still one of only a handful of journalists covering ‘new media’ in this country. I was classed a ‘tech journalist’ even though I didn’t know anything about gadgets. You see people who worked on/with/through the internet were easy to silo (at that point as ‘tech’).

Then digital went all Big Baboon House on every industry you can imagine. No more silos. If you work in media, part of your job is working on/with/through the internet. Ditto for advertising, marketing and a host of other industries.

This brings us to an interesting point. If you are an association created for people functioning in the digital silo, in a time when (dear senior big agency management please place your hands before your eyes – just for a moment) the digital silo is bust, just how relevant are you?

It seems to be one of the questions facing the Digital Media & Marketing Association (DMMA) – an association focussed ‘on growing and sustaining a vibrant and profitable digital industry within South Africa.’ Its members consist of a bunch of publishers and agencies that value their digital capacity and skills, and often have a digital legacy, but are no longer necessarily digital pure plays.

The question of the DMMA’s influence (if not yet of its relevance) has come under the spotlight with revelations that its current management structure have, and this is putting it kindly, outpaced its constitution. Without its members really noticing. Ahem.

The eight member elected executive committee, whose mandate is limited to one year terms, was replaced by a reduced board which extended its own mandate and then appointed a (nominated but unelected) steering committee, all without the organisation updating its constitution (which would require a vote in favour of changes by 75% of its members).

The board of any industry organisation or association holds a fiduciary (ethical and legal) responsibility to members, which is generally set out in a constitution. In fact, in the case of DMMA, its constitution specifically states that ‘The Chairperson shall preside at all meetings at which he/she is present and shall enforce observance of the Constitution [of the DMMA].’

Failure to do so represent a failure in the fiduciary duties of the board and directors. In the instance of the DMMA, it also represents a failure by members to hold their board, who oversees a good deal of money paid in membership fees, to account. Members had been informed of the decision by two of the eight persons elected to the 2012 board to effectively extend their own mandates by eight months (to the next AGM – rescheduled from January to August) and to appoint a third director and the steering committee.

Either members felt it was worth ignoring the constitution set up to protect their interests in the hope that the new team would deliver a better functioning organisation (this seems increasingly unlikely given the nature of the current comment thread below the original story) or they felt intimated to voice an opinion within the structures of the organisation (which would be a devastating indictment on the culture of the organisation and/or industry it represents). Finally it could simply be, to put it bluntly, that they considered the body to be of so little influence that they could not be bothered.

And who can blame them? The digital silo is dead.

The opinions expressed in this column are by the author and do not necessarily represent those of 10and5. 

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The Grove in Braamfontein was the location for Puma’s The Creative Factory Co-Lab

Puma set up their Creative Factory Co-Lab at The Grove in Braamfontein over the weekend, and we went along to take part in the event.

Throughout the day, people were taken through the Lumitype print process using stencil images made by Puma brand ambassadors to create their own uniquely printed t-shirt or bag made from responsible fabrics.

Here are some pictures from the day, which drew a large crowd of curious people, keen to try something new and express their creativity.

Printing with Lumi light-sensitive fabric dye

Rukinga responsible fashion printed Ts

The event was part of Puma’s international Love Thy Planet initiative, which you can find out more about here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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All brands like to think they’re the coolest in the land but the youth have spoken and the coolest have been named.

The Sunday Times Generation Next survey is an annual brand survey looking to provide information on the likes of the South African youth market (between the ages of 8 and 22). The survey spans 72 categories and the results are broken up into Coolest Brands and Lifestyle Trends.

Over 7,200 young South Africans from across six provinces were quizzed on their favourites from fast food outlets to fashion brands. Brands take note, over fifty percent of South Africa is under the age of 23 and in 2010 alone spent R95.3 billion.

Here are some of the winners:

Coolest Brand Overall – 1. Blackberry 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola

Coolest Brand Slogan – 1. Ayoba! (MTN) 2. Just do it (Nike) 3. So Much More (DStv)

Coolest Corporate Citizen – 1. BMW 2. Woolworths 3. Coca-Cola

Coolest Fashion & Accessory Store – 1. Mr Price 2. Edgars 3. Jay Jays

Coolest Fashion Brand – 1. Nike 2. Adidas 3. Guess

Coolest Job – 1. CEO (The Boss) 2. Actor/Actress 3. Own Business (Entrepreneur)

Coolest Alternative Fashion Brand – 1. Uzzi 2. Aca Joe 3. Jay Jays

Coolest Telecoms Provider – 1. Vodacom 2. MTN 3. Cell C

Coolest Computer Brand – 1. Apple Mac 2. Samsung 3. Sony

Coolest Fast Food place – 1. KFC 2. McDonald’s 3. Debonairs

Some surprising results, don’t you think?

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Telephony company Vodacom is expected to rebrand today to the Vodafone colours. Rumours are that it will only be the colours and logo that changes, but the name will stay the same. It’s the Vodacom Unlimited Festival tonight at Orlando stadium, which is where they are expected to make the big announcement.

We’ve managed to source these images from various places, but we’re still looking for some more examples.
Word out is that there is a media black-out for the next week, so expect to see Red Vodacom in practically every piece of media you can spy.

The iconic Vodacom on the Ponte Towers will also be rebranded:

UPDATES:

We have received a couple of posts from people seeing the new branding around South Africa. Please send in your sightings to submissions@10and5.com or send us a Twitpic to @10and5

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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‘Lu’ has a unique way about himself. He recently removed himself and all his posted work from Facebook, not that it matters really, seeing as he was on under a weird pseudonym name anyway. He likes what he does & this is a version of his house “MIcasaESsuCAsa”. He’s also got a children’s book coming out in December (although I’m sure that’ll be a little different to this).

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If you’ve used the new Integrated Rapid Transport system then you would’ve come across these mosaic murals along the walls of the station and walkways. Each one was designed specifically with the history and culture of Cape Town in mind. The murals include mosaic art of Cape Minstrels, the Mouille Point lighthouse, horse-racing, the Metropolitan Golf Club and supporters of the world cup.

Click through to see some of the mosaics. (pics found at www.andrewboraine.com)

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In what is possibly the coolest news we’ve heard all year, The President is opening a new design store called CHURCH.

The shop will stock a selection of international and local items, including Comme des Garcons perfumes, Jorge Alderete prints, The President’s own merchandise, some international magazines and books, fresh flowers and lots of interesting finds.

CHURCH will be opening its doors on Monday 10 May at 9 am. Be sure to visit them at 12 Spin st (opposite Church Square) in Cape Town.

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