RamsayMedia has a number of ongoing initiatives which can be described as conditional that happen without consulting the consumer. Our efforts in subscriptions marketing and competition participation have conditions attached that directly benefit the company, but may not be wanted by the consumer. For example, competition entrants are included as webletter subscribers as a condition of entry into a competition. While these entrants have the option of opting out of the webletter when they receive it, in terms of the Consumer Protection Act, this type of condition will be viewed unfavourably.

Our job over the coming months will be to define a more coherent strategy to deal with these issues, one that will encourage audience participation across the RamsayMedia platforms. It makes for an exciting marketing task, although it may result in lower responses and slower growth. The intention is to come up with more customer-friendly marketing initiatives that will also be better for our advertisers. It will be an interesting exercise in change management for the publishers within their marketing efforts and will no doubt give rise to some concern about the decrease in performance of some of our platforms, webletter subscribers in particular.

I think our focus will fall into two broad categories: business-to-business and business-to-consumer. There are distinct needs in terms of building audiences for each and both need to be catered for. Our challenge remains the integration of technology and, more specifically, the storage of data that can be used at a later date. That however, is a project on its’ own....

Our goal in the end is to have a robust audience development strategy specific to the relevant platform while providing advertisers with numerous opportunities to speak to targeted, responsive audiences. It is an exciting process to ensure that interactive conversation on one level and informative communication on another result in a meaningful experience when customers interact with RamsayMedia brands.

Watch this space.

Ian Dinan
Audience Development Manager

I was lucky enough to attend the quarter-final in Cape Town between Germany and Argentina. What a truly incredible experience! From the fan walk through town to the stadium – which must be one of the finest, if not THE finest, anywhere in the world – the city was alive. Estimates are that between 100 000 and 200 000 Capetonians were out in the city that day. Pubs poured beer as fast they could, fast-food vendors fell over themselves to keep up with demand. Everywhere I looked cash was exchanging hands. But that’s over now … or is it?

I polled Getaway’s vibrant Facebook and Twitter communities about their experiences of the Cup and their perception of the effects it have on SA tourism. Overwhelmingly, the response was positive. Well-known travel writer and former assistant editor at Getaway, Peter Frost, commented: "Good for future tourism, I think. During our Karoo trip we noticed in Nieu-Bethesda and Cradock a steady stream of overseas traffic. Good to see a lot of visitors self-driving and choosing interesting routes to their various games.

“There was a lovely moment in NB when it started to snow and the locals went nuts playing in the streets. The Portuguese and Spanish fans just looked at each other, shook their heads, then joined in."

And this positive impact was not only felt locally. Marié Joubert, a South African journalist friend of mine working in Korea, commented that "being a South African overseas, I can assure you that many more tourists will be coming your way. So many TV programmes on SA have been broadcasted here on local (South Korean) TV and more and more people now want to visit the country. Especially after they've seen that it's not as dangerous as the majority of the international media claim it to be. (Actually we didn't hear one bad thing about SA the whole time the WC was broadcasted!)."

Sentiment is, however, hard to quantify. Stadium costs are not. And as such we’re in for a bumpy ride as the hard news vultures pick through the bones of the World Cup looking for dirt. And I’m sure they’ll find it. From where I sit, however, the future looks good. Airports and other tourism facilities in South Africa have been upgraded and the tourism industry looks set to cash in on the long-term effects of what has effectively been a multi-billion rand marketing campaign for Destination SA.

That said, the SA tourism industry is heavily dependent on local tourism and it’s too early to tell how local travellers will respond in the coming months. I worry that all the international good will in the world may not help the industry if locals are ignored. This is the time to strike with special prices for South Africans and a carefully directed marketing campaign. Remember, a large number of South Africans opted to stay home during the month-long winter break in response to inflammatory press reports about anticipated high prices and limited availability.

Of course, there is concern about the costs of the stadia … and maybe the billions of rand spent will hurt us all in the short term. Remember, however, economists believe this expenditure is one of the factors that has helped save SA from the worst ills facing world markets today. All things considered, it’s been great for the world’s image of South Africa, and that can only be a good thing for tourism. The only real downside, in my opinion, is we’ll have to add “hello” in a few more languages to our repertoire. Then again, a good old SA smile has served us pretty well so far.

Cameron Ewart-Smith
Getaway editor

It’s a common reaction to a really scary situation. We know we’re in trouble. We know we need to move. But we can’t seem to convince ourselves, so we do nothing. Well, that’s the path to failure in this ever-changing media landscape. I remember the old saying: rather fail at trying than fail to try.

Traditional media marketers and content creators resist jumping in and exploring new platforms, especially when they can’t commoditise or monetise a platform – or think they can’t. If I told you five years ago that there would be these free marketing tools available to build an audience, build a brand and build business and they would be free, you would have vomited in your mouth! You would never have believed me. Social – no, business media – in the future will provide a field day for everyone with talent, because they will no longer be forced to exist within the confines of the old-guard institutions.

I think that everyone who is screaming that magazines and newspapers are dead is insane. What has happened is that the old platforms are in trouble, but that’s the best thing that could happen to publishers and journalists; well the good ones, anyway. Social media is redefining the journalism landscape. It’s not new; actually it’s been around for five years and is easier to learn than most office phone systems. If you are not using these social media tools because you in the camp that thinks social media is stupid, you’re going to lose out and be left behind. As a marketer, that’s a dereliction of duty, because it is free, powerful and the eyeballs have moved there, so there is loads of money in play. If you can’t get your head around creating the content, brand interaction or building an audience on these platforms, then at least identify tools, applications, games or even just the conversational tone that you can apply to your core products. And remember, the primary goal of using social media has to be communication, not technology or viral marketing. Treat it like a network party: go in and work the room and bring your business into the conversation. If you provide a local garden service do not, repeat do not stand on the cocktail table and shout out, “if-you-have-grass-up-to-your-ass please come talk to me”. Treat the online world like you’d treat reality.

Everyone has heard of Facebook. In the past five years it’s become the fastest-growing social networking site in the world, attracting pre-teens keeping tabs on the next party to grandmas trying to reunite with their old school flames. Twitter has already become a verb. We all have voyeuristic tendencies; Twitter has legitimised it for us! Thank you Twitter! It’s has incredible endorsement power; Twitter is a huge research and development tool and press release opportunity; it allows businesses to have a closer relationship with their audience by responding to their needs. Search.twitter.com gets you to the pulse of anything happening in the world right now!

Media revolution? I think so. The biggest thing since the French Revolution? Maybe; just make sure you have a dog in the hunt.

So we have the digital platforms, but what about the content? Great content is based on a great story and yesterday’s model favoured originality. Be the first to break a story or write a fresh new take on life and the audiences would come, bringing with them revenue and sales. In the current model, originality and exclusivity are the kiss of death. SEO-driven advertising depends on knowing what people are already looking for, and delivering content that satisfies that desire; nothing more nothing less. SEO-driven content is the opposite of great storytelling and creativity. The barrier to entry has changed forever with user-generated content, bloggers, thought leaders and anyone and everyone publishing content. For media owners, the challenge has to be speed vs. quality: do we chase Google rankings, volume or SEO play or do we publish a spectrum of quality, trusted and credible content. I see three levels in play: brand content, eg. CAR, BBC, SKYnews, etc that offer high quality specialised content; a middle level of bloggers and opinionators, who are relevant and important to pull into your core products; and then the race to the bottom, the lowest denominator. The lower level plays a role, but remember, we learnt about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter, as well as Justin Bieber – like baby, baby, baby, ooh no, he is still alive – so facts are a little challenging at times.

What are we at RamsayMedia doing when everyone is shouting out as loud as possible that traditional media – especially print – will be defunct? We describe ourselves as an innovative traditional media company connecting across many relevant platforms. We will always include the word “traditional” because it has gravitas and charm, and it’s like the older guy who is always wiser.

Let’s talk MOBILE.

Ever been so scared you can’t move? It’s a common reaction to a really scary situation......

Dean Dicks

Associate Publisher, RamsayMedia Automotive

Most publishers see digital magazines as a way of saving money, not making money – no paper and print costs, no postage.... Investment in the format is limited. But if publishers don’t get behind digital magazines by investing some time and money, readers will never become engaged and advertisers won’t spend money. So how can we make our digital magazines more engaging and memorable for subscribers and, ultimately, advertisers?

Online, we scan and search for snippets of information. Offline, we relax and consume larger volumes of content at our leisure. The two experiences are completely different. Digital magazines can be made more appealing to readers by designing them for computer screens, using bigger fonts, using short-form content and changing individual page layouts to work as part of a horizontal layout. Reducing the number of pages and increasing the frequency of the issues will also help grow readers’ interest and they will return for new content that’s easy to consume. Multi-media such as video and audio, as well as the inclusion of interactive forms, links and social media bookmarks will keep audiences engaged and entertained.

Statistics show that when digital magazines are produced correctly, the average time readers spend consuming them is significantly higher than the time they spend on websites. Ads within digital magazines are less obtrusive and their large format and ability to be displayed as multi-media allow readers to engage with the ads, thus digital magazine ads have a 4-6 times higher click through than traditional web ads.

Digital magazines are still relatively new in SA. My view is that the advent of devices like the IPad, media-rich interactive digizines and greater internet accessibility due to lowering bandwidth costs will assist the growth of the platform in this country.

By Feerhan Fredericks, Web Manager

The explosion in media types and the amount and variety of content available has created thousands, even millions of niche media tastes. Media consumers today are faced with a mind-boggling array of content to choose from. Their challenge is not finding news and information, but finding news and information that fits their needs and lifestyles.