Nicisms

It’s fast moving towards the final day of 2008. What a year it has been. I usually (much like many bloggers) put together an end-of-year post that sums up a few things and pulls together events all nicely. I am going to be composing one of those articles but this isn’t it.

This post is a collection of answers from some of the top people, movers and shakers and industry leaders in the online market. I asked them two questions:

1. What was the single most defining moment in the South African online industry in 2008?

And

2. If you were to make one prediction for 2009 what would it be? And don’t tell me that mobile is the next big thing!

So let’s dive straight in to the answers:

Fred Roed, CEO of digital marketing agency, World Wide Creative.

1. Barack Obama winning the election. This meant that digital agencies such as World Wide Creative could justify their presentations demo-ing how messages are accelerated online. We could say ‘See! Look how he did it!’

2. Hype around Mobile and Social Media will be removed from the industry, meaning that digital will go mainstream. Following the international norm, marketing agencies will increasingly use online as the major destination point for all the other channels to feed into.

Vincent Maher, Portfolio Manager for Social Networking at Vodacom SA

1. For me the defining aspect of the whole year is that there didn’t seem to be a defining moment. There we a few things that happened but none of them were defining in the classic sense. In many ways this is a sign of maturity in the industry and an indication of resilience to smaller influences.

2. The breadth and reach of social networking is going to increase through services like Google FriendConnect and Facebook Connect and this will also reveal several vulnerabilities in the form of viruses and spam across these networks. Location-based services are going to become more accessible on the API level for developers to incorporate and, importantly, the global financial meltdown is going to cull a lot of the flimsy Web 2 operations and make the industry a little more intersting.

Andy Hadfield, The Internet & Social Media Guy, FNB

1. The credit crisis. The credit crisis is probably going to precipitate Bubble 2.0 – which is excellent news. Unlike last time, there have been precious few IPO’s, which means while many web startups may go down – they won’t take public shareholders with them. And any bubble burst presents a great opportunity for web companies that offer REAL value to rise to the fore. Oh, and Twitter. But it seems 3 million really active users still counts for value in someone’s book

2. The battle to own the social profile will increase. FaceBook vs MySpace vs Google Friend Connect vs Et Al are going to muddy the waters for the first 6 – 8 months of the year. Hopefully, coming out of that will be value driven profiling services which allow you to centrally store your social profile, pick it up whenever you want and hop all over the web. Let’s face it: storing a picture, bio and web links is not a value driven social profile. These companies are going to have push the boundaries a little to force consumers to make a call on where their social data and social networking time investment will sit…

Heather Ford – Web social entrepreneur

1. Quality Vacation Club suing blogger Donn Edwards
(http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/) for defamation. I think it’s
important because, while the same comments have come from the
mainstream media, QVC has chosen to sue the blogger. It will be
interesting to see how this turns out – at the crux, I think, is
whether ‘fair comment’ on a blog is being seen by South African courts
as equal in importance to ‘fair comment’.

2. My prediction is that we’re going to see greater diversity in the
South African blogging community next year – people linking to those
outside of their social circles, invitations to bloggers’ social
gatherings like the 27 dinner, and more training and connections
(here’s hoping!)

Duncan McLeod, technology editor, Financial Mail, and editor of www.FMTech.co.za

1. Definitely Altech’s victory against communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri which now allows just about anyone to build a communications network in competition with incumbent operators such as Telkom, Neotel and the mobile phone providers.

2. Bandwidth caps will soar — people will get at least triple the bandwidth for the same price — as Seacom comes online. This will lead to strong growth in online business in SA in 2009.

Charl Norman is the co founder and chief operations manager (COO) for Blueworld Communities. BWCOM owns numerous niche social networks based in South Africa.

1. Blueworld Communities (www.bwcom.co.za) being acquired by Naspers – this paved the way for other acquisitions in our local space – Zoopy and Afrigator soon followed with investment from Vodacom and MIH/Naspers. This created investor confidence in our small local market and enabled other startups to more confidently seek investment.

2. The economic crisis will slow down venture capital investments and startups unable to figure out their revenue model will have their funding reviewed or forced to merge with other similar lower tier startups.

Users will own their online identity (e.g. profiles) with tools like Google and Facebook connect. Users will carry this identity along with them around the web forcing online communities like social networks to embrace data portability technology.

Social media will also become more mainstream as tools like Twitter will be adopted by the general public and not just geeks. Good companies will have concrete social media strategies as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Catherine Luchoff is joint partner and founding member of MANGO-OMC

1. There isn’t one particular moment I can single out as the defining moment of 2008. Rather, I consider 2008 to be a defining year: One in which social media, crowd sourcing and micro-blogging found their footing and laid the foundation for converged campaigns that will, and have, defined the way we communicate and consume information.

2. With filter failure on the rise and information overload rife, community manager positions and descriptions such as ‘trusted filter’ will become more prominent. 2009 will also be the year in which the foundation for a holistic measurement tool, one that takes all channels into account (online, offline and mobile), will be defined.

Interesting stuff. Hopefully those who didn’t get to the questions will be able to post their responses in the comments of this post. I sent the email out to ±25 people for their comment.

I recently wrote about a new mobile initiative called Comedy Twist.

Subsequent to writing my review of their launch they began an advertising campaign on billboards around Johannesburg. The approach they took surprised me somewhat as it’s a dangerous game they are playing.

The chose to take on Mr Lolly Jackson of Teazers fame. They created a mock-teazers billboard that had a similar looking logo, a male blow-up doll and other recognisable Teazers brands.

Apparently Jackson didn’t respond well to these billboards as they were taken down.

They were replaced with this:

As I’ve said, I think Comedy Twist is playing a very dangerous game here but as everyone knows, any publicity is good publicity. Whether Comedy Twist or once again, Lolly Jackson’t Teazers is gaining the most exposure remains to be seen.

The phrase “Viral Marketing” has become quite the buzz word of late. But I personally don’t buy it. It might be fashionable and working for now but it most definitely isn’t anything new. Even Wikipedia’s definition refers to the use of existing social networks. Pah, as if the web can claim this form marketing.

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.[1] Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.[2] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.

The Hypothesis

I’m going to dive right in to my hypothesis. I think that if you go as far back as the birth of christianity you will find viral marketing. Maybe it appeared in different forms (godly or other) but it was present even then.

Jesus was a man of old, but his story spread throughout the land back in the day. How? Very simply. He did something amazing, incredible, unbelievable even and word spread. He basically created his own viral video without the video. He did something that no one had done before or seen before and the word spread like wildfire. He created his own version of the Rayban, Evolution of Dance, Avril or Dead Terrorist Youtube video and then the public did the rest.

The Scale

Yes the scale of the word spreading might have been significantly less than the 2 Billion people worldwide who are online today but the principal was the same. Humans like to be astounded. On top of that human beings like to socialise, be the first, follow the group and participate in communities and all of this applied then as much as it did now.

The Message

What was being spoken of, spread around and “preached” back then is significantly different to the content that has become viral nowadays. Christianity and other religions spoke of a life-changing concept that was the word, a god, a set of laws, rules, beliefs and ideas that intended to change people and their way of life.

Today content is funny, clever, different, advertising, movies, music videos and clever tricks that fascinate people and keep them occupied for just long enough to want to send on the video, blog post, article, website or concept to their friends and their friends and their friends. Yet again, the basic concept remains the same. I like it, I like to participate with people in what I like and thus I will send it on so I can discuss it with them, debate it with them and enjoy it with them. God, The Bible, a video, blogger or mp3, anything can go viral and has been going viral for centuries.

The crusades

The great era of the crusades which were so quickly forgotten by many people today is not necessarily an example of anything viral. It is an example of aggressively marketing a concept to a market that is possibly unwilling or isn’t aware that they like the idea just yet. That is, until you shove it down their throats with a blade.

Much like today’s corporations. If you don’t use Google you probably aren’t getting the best results. However there are people who use ask.com, yahoo.com, cuil.com (are there people using Cuil?) or any slew of other options. Just as there were people believing in Allah or any number of other gods or demi-gods. If you aren’t using Google however it is hard to get away from them, their spokespeople, their marketing – however subversive it may be – or their word of mouth presence. You will succumb to the Google Crusade if you haven’t already.

An estimated 2.1 billion christians exist in the world today. That is around and about 1/3 of the worlds population. Wouldn’t you say that is the greatest viral campaign of all time? I would.

Preaching, Indoctrination, Propaganda and Sheep

Let’s be frank about this, we are all sheep of one kind or another. The christian, muslim, hindu, agnostic, atheist, google, mozilla, microsoft, opensource, closed source or any other source out there. We all subscribe to opinions, likes, dislikes and beliefs. It is thanks to this wonder of humanity that viral marketing is and always will be the most phenomenal way to market a product or concept. People like to below, to prescribe and subscribe to something.

Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, Apple, Honda, Toyota, Pepsi and Microsoft are all some of the most recognisable brands in the world because there are people sharing the brands and associated products amongst their friends, family and social groups. Viral marketing is not a web 2.0 revolution in marketing, it isn’t even a web concept. It’s a practice that has been used for millennia to make people money, spread a word or punt a product. Welcome to the wonders of history repeating itself.

An Example: FAIL

The recent “FAIL” trend that has swept the web is the perfect example of a viral concept shared amongst social groups. Everything is a FAIL. It has become a cult that is practiced offline as much as it is online. It started with one simple fail and expanded in to blogs, websites, videos, songs and more. It has transcended race, gender, age, culture, technology and platform. People can fail online, brands can fail with offices, products, articles or just about anything that exists.

Viral marketing is most definitely not a FAIL but many have failed at viral marketing.

Doritos has been everywhere lately, all over the radio, a few other ads here and there. Basically they have been punting their Facebook page.

I eventually saw that one of my friends on FB had joined the group as well as ±1500 people.

My immediate reaction is that this is a flop of a campaign. Advertising on radio is no cheap affair but an affair it is. You face the risk of being caught out by your better half – the listeners or target market. And to me it seems as though this has happened to Doritos.

Why I think this is campaign was a flop?

Coming off the back of a great advertising campaign with their “Moment of boldness” A few years ago I can’t believe that Doritos could have done so badly with this one. That campaign was a viral campaign before there were viral campaigns. To this day I know many people who still joke about their moments of boldness.

At the time of writing this post there were 777 122 people from South Africa above the age of 18 on Facebook. That works out to about 0.2% of the users on FB, from SA actually bothered to become a fan of the brand. In my mind, that’s a bit of a flop.

Why this could be perceived to be a successful campaign

Theoretically what we could be looking at here is quality over quantity. Involvement and activity over masses of inactive users/fans.

But let’s look at this for a moment before we get ahead of ourselves. The available features on the FB page of Doritos are: Notes, Photos, Video, Wall Comments, Events and Discussion Board.

To analyse these in a bit more detail:

Wall
313 posts

Discussion Board
Topic 1: 120 posts by 95 people
Topic 2: 29 posts by 25 people

Videos
12 fan videos

Photos
44 photos
5 albums

Events
Event 1 – 6 confirmed guests, 4 wall posts
Event 2 – 28 confirmed guests, 6 wall posts

Notes
7 notes
144 comments

Looking at the above breakdowns I honestly cannot say that all the money Doritos must have spent on their mainstream ad campaigns was worth it. 44 photographs and 12 videos is really not a good response in my opinion. Especially considering that there are ±1500 people in the group and over 750 000 people in SA on FB. That means that less than 1% of the fans on the page posted a video and almost 3% of the fans posted a photograph.

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve posted, viewed and commented on hundreds of photos on FB, that should’ve been the saving grace but alas, it wasn’t.

What Doritos could have done differently

Expanded their “moment of boldness” campaign to an online network of viral campaigns. Blogs, videos, podcasts and “fake events” that could have boosted the reputation of the brand for the young and socially in touch.

I can picture the blog and videos now; South Africans all over filming their moment of boldness, recording fake jumps, dares and ironic, satirical parodies of the “bold” factor.

Doritos could have done more with their Facebook group. Updates, invites, ads, coupons, giveaways, freebies. Sometimes it just takes a bit of gritty interaction to spread the word for a fan page, not an entire radio ad campaign. Other than giveaways the Doritos fan page gave nothing to its members. No community offering. I know a lot of people who feel an affinity to Doritos, it’s their choice chip, but they were not enticed to join this group. People like Apple Students has it right on their page. They have a community, not a product.

Below the line marketing would have worked better. Get bloggers involved, send them a box of crisps and ask them to eat them, rally a party around the chips, get other bloggers in on it and spread the word slowly to all their readers via the subsequent posts.

Print would even have worked better than radio. More people will sit near a computer while reading a newspaper/magazine than will be listening to the radio, so why put it on the radio? You are probably driving in your car when you hear about the Doritos fan page, not sitting by a pc with internet access. Bad move.

I did try to contact Doritos, the admin of the group or anyone but no one responded. I gave them a few working days. I’d love to know if they consider this campaign to be successful or if they are looking in to recovering from the flop that I see?

Irrespective of the medium in which the story is being told the key is that the story needs to be good.

That is my basic premise and that is what I stand by.

In today’s market stories are able to be told in various mediums with various levels of interaction, lengths, research and dedication. This can be a wonderful movement in the right direction. However if merely taken at face value story telling can be lost and misused.

Good stories will prevail and let’s be honest if there is anything that we learned from the Carte Blanche story on Web 2.0 it’s that audiences are not stupid.

Basically what I am trying to get across is that primarily journalists are just that, journalists. This is their charge in life, their career, reputation and job. I live my career and am passionate about the maintenance of my industry, the ethics and self preservation (ofcourse).

The order of things is simple: The story, the building of the story, the medium used to promote the story and the audience the story reaches.

I think that in the media industry today the above order has been marginalised and isolated.

In other words, a journalist (whether multimedia, writer, photographer or whatever) works for a magazine for example, has an idea for a story and creates it. Then gives it to the magazine and they publish it.

The magazine’s target audience does not change week to week depending on the story so basically it’s up to us (media producers) to make that change, not so? No, not so apparently.

The other way of looking at this scenario is how the story is changed to fit the medium and target audience. In the process the story becomes twisted, warped and loses its thrust. Thus not portraying its initial and intended message effectively. Perfect example of this for me is the Carte Blanche story.

The situation there was simple and in my mind two things could have changed the outcome of the story.

Firstly: The medium for Carte Blanche is television. Therefore there isn’t much time to get in to the nitty gritty of a subject like web 2.0. Yet they still wanted to appear to be “cutting edge” so they stuck with it. Their deadlines were tight and had three days to compose a story. The justification for their failure to find more sources was that they were in Cape Town.

Considering the story is about technological developments and web 2.0 why didn’t Carte Blanche really cut some edges, get on to skype, twitter, Facebook and other mediums and do interviews in that way?

That’s what I call using the tools to make a story. The story idea was there, their market is solidified in many years of broadcasting so all that was left was to construct a story that they could put forward effectively. Using these mediums altogether would have expressed some sense of “web 2.0″ and communication developments.

Furthermore, why didn’t Carte Blanche push the story on to their website? Whatever could not have been done on TV could’ve been carried over to their website, more integration, more solutions, wider audience and effective use of the tools available to them.

Secondly: Change the name of the piece of you couldn’t get the right information to fill the story effectively. Simple.

Back to the point. The essence of what I am trying to say is that mentality needs to shift in media organisations. Most, if not all major media houses have established and consistent audiences who use various media resources to gather information. Take a story and mould it in to three of four different beasts and set it free. More exposure from a wider audience.

I have made a decision to slightly change the angle of my blog, as you can see, I am heavily embedded in the media sphere in South Africa (as many of you already know) and I believe that this is where my passion and my experience lie. So that is what I will be focusing on. The posts might be less frequent, but will hopefully be more in-depth regarding the media in SA.