Cannes-meets-Africa in Durban
WHEN the sun came out on Wednesday, three days into the week-long Loeries Awards programme, bathing the Golden Mile in winter sunshine, Dale Tomlinson, chief executive of Durban ad agency The Boys, breathed a sigh of relief.
He’d been a proponent of bringing the Loeries to the city after it was hosted for years in Cape Town, arguing that Durban would offer a Cannes-meets-Africa backdrop to the country’s premier advertising industry jamboree.
And while plenty of good work had been done on Monday and Tuesday judging entries for the awards ceremony, held over two days at the ICC yesterday and today, the arrival of the sun spelled a welcome injection of warmth to the networking and party elements for which the Loeries is famous – some would say infamous.
The financial boost to the local economy of housing, feeding and entertaining 4 500 big spending creatives for a week will take some time to calculate, but Phillip Sithole, head of Durban Tourism, said there was little doubt that it would be significant. “The contribution to Durban’s GDP (gross domestic product) of the direct visitor spend as a result of the event is projected to be around R100 million with an estimated 178 jobs sustained in the tourism sector.”
Mayor James Nxumalo was equally bullish, saying the Creative Week lead-up to the weekend Awards would provide a platform for “knowledge-sharing and networking. Most important, all those in the advertising, media and branding industry will showcase their talent and be recognised for their innovative ideas.”
With this in mind, the city is expected to budget around R12.5m to secure the hosting of the awards over the next three years.
Leading ad industry pundit Tony Koenderman believes the Loeries will be a bigger bonanza for Durban than it ever was for Cape Town. “Durban’s ad industry is the smallest of the country’s three major advertising power centres, so more than 90 percent of the potential delegates will come from out of town,” he writes on his website, tonykoenderman.com
“By contrast, Cape Town, which has hosted the event for the past six years, is home to a guesstimated 30 percent of the ad industry… which meant that 70 percent of its delegates were out-oftowners. When Durban is the host, more than 90 percent will come from the rest of the country.”
Koenderman said the benefits of hosting the Loeries would extend well beyond visitor spending and that the huge visibility it would provide for the city and its advertising industry should not be underestimated.
“Durban tends to be forgotten by the advertising mainstream. But some major clients are located there. These include include Unilever, Tops Liquor, Spar, Rainbow Chicken, Sun International and Defy. Unilever has made a major sponsorship commitment to the Loeries.”
He said Durban agencies were increasingly specialising in design and experiential marketing, positioning it for a strong role in the emerging digital environment.
It’s clear from this year’s programme that digital makes up a bigger component than ever. Tseliso Rangaka, executive creative director at Ogilvy Cape Town, believes this trend will only grow.
“Much like in Cannes, we will also see the tech giants and ‘digital’ agencies stream in and, not so quietly, take more than just their seat.
“If you don’t believe me, take a look at the speakers lined up for the DStv Seminar of Creativity, where only two out of the seven are from traditional ad agencies. A sure sign of things to come,” he writes in an article on the company’s website.
Another sign of the growing digital influence at the Loeries is the timing of the Smarties Awards – which recognise best-inclass mobile marketing campaigns from around the world – during Creative Week.
In an encouraging indication of the depth of local talent, an innovative campaign by The Tribune’s sister newspaper, Isolezwe, combining traditional print and modern mobile technology was shortlisted.
The soccer-focused Asidlale campaign was created for the Zulu language newspaper by local tech company Always Active Technologies (AAT).
At a time when print media is under strain, the publication is enjoying consistent growth. Wanting to engage and reward its soccer-mad readers, it launched the competition, giving readers an incentive to make pool predictions for the Premier Soccer League.
The competition was powered by USSD, a feature familiar to many Isolezwe readers who use it to recharge airtime and to send “please call me” text messages.
AAT and Isolezwe chose to go the USSD route after precampaign research showed that the majority of the readers used basic and feature phones, mirroring industry research estimating that only 48 percent of South African adults owned a data-connected cellphone. USSD works on all cellphones. According to Alan Haarhoff, business development manager at AAT, the key to the competition’s success was ensuring that entering was straightforward.
With a copy of Isolezwe entrants would simply dial the advertised USSD number and enter their unique code from the paper. Following proof of purchase in real time, they could make quick predictions for the next day’s games.
The Isolezwe Asidlale campaign ran for seven months and delivered impressive results: 160 000 interactions over USSD, 61 500 pool predictions and 41 000 unique entrants.
Circulation increased by more than 4 000 on pool days and a total of R56 000 was paid out to winners.
The latest round of the Asidlale competition kicked off on August 6.
Andrew Taylor, circulation and marketing manager for Independent Media KZN said the company was “ecstatic” at the results of the campaign.
“Knowing that our Isolezwe readers in KZN are passionate about local soccer, we chose to run a football pool during the PSL season.
“Running it via USSD in conjunction with the team at AAT made for easy data collection and analysis and we were ecstatic with the overall results,” he said.
“Being shortlisted for a Smarties Award is the cherry on top. We are honoured to be among such big South African brands.”