Branding South Africa

South Africa has gone to great lengths to create a positive and united image for the country. In 2000, the International Marketing Council of South Africa was formed to do just that. It is intersting to think of a country as a brand, but the IMC of South Africa thinks of the country just like it would a product. They had a goal of creating a body that could cordinate and ensure that a standard and unified message was being portrayed to the world about South Africa. The IMC's main objective is the marketing of South Africa through the Brand South Africa campaign. Before this campaign, messages about the country were varied and coming from numerous sources of questionable reliability. That is what created a need for the council.

The council is focusing its efforts on Tourism, Trade and Investment. These three areas have tremendous potential for job creation in South Africa and by increasing employment they are attemping to put an end to poverty in the country. Delivering this unified image of South Africa through a clear, co-ordinated effort by the IMC will cost the country billions of Rands(SA Currency) in the form of brand building messaging reaching across the globe.

Credibility of Online Marketing

According to a press release on Business Wire, The Fournaise Marketing Group, one of the global leaders in tracking marketing effectiveness concluded that close to 70% of marketers who advertised online were unsure if they actually got what they paid for. Marketers seem to be having a trust issue with the reliability and the credibility of online advertising mediums.

Fournaise listed five of the top reasons that many marketers are having issues with online marketing and advertising. First, they don’t know if they actually get what they pay for. Second, marketers don’t know if they can trust the visitor or traffic profile that online media owners claim their sites have. Third, they have the feeling there is a lot of click fraud. Which means a single person or even an online bot is clicking banner ads thousands of times a day automatically. This is a particular problem with cost per click advertising methods. Fourth, marketers don’t know if their ads appear in the sites and/or sites’ sections where they should appear. And finally, they don’t trust the traffic and click-through reports digital media owners give them. This explains why marketers around the world are planning to take a skeptic approach and spend only a small percentage of their marketing budgets online in 2008.

All of these issues affect online advertiser’s view of online media and whether or not it is a reliable and trustworthy media to advertise in. The concerns are all very legitimate because it is very easy to commit fraud over the internet and it is becoming increasingly hard to find a websites that are trustworthy. Because of this skepticism in 2007, 40% of marketers around the world did not run online campaigns. Online media now has the immense challenge of winning the trust and confidence of marketers.

Be Berlin!!!

People and business leaders throughout Berlin and Germany see Berlin as trendy and full of life. However, abroad it's seen as proficient, orderly and serious. The Nazi regime, World War Two, and Communist East Germany all took their toll on Berlin. Because of these reasons, the city of Berlin and Germany as whole have gotten quite the bad reputation. This makes is hard to promote tourism and the city itself because people in many other countries want nothing to do with Germany.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit unveiled the "Be Berlin" campaign which was based on the "I Love New York" and "I amSTERDAM" campaigns. This new international campaign to promote the city of Berlin will cost the city 11 million euros. Probably the most famous example of this sort of campaign is the "I Love New York" campaign of the late 1970s.

Berlin is Germany's top destination for tourists, attracting more than 8 million visitors and earning between 8 and 9 billion euros from tourism annually. Berlin wants this campaign to expand this business even further.

A few Berliners have complained that the campaign is in English, not German and have scoffed that the slogan sounds like a stutter. Some people living in Berlin are asking themselves, “What would it mean to be Berlin?”

Smart Cars in the U.S.

Smart Cars which is a maker of microcars, manufactured by Daimler Chrysler/Mercedes is coming to the United States and is releasing a creative anthology, “Sideways: A Smart Art Project”, as a way to highlight Smart’s goals of making urban transportation a bit greener. According to Inhabitat.com, the project combines the diverse work of 100 international contributors in collaboration with 11 leading international magazines. The eco-based art submissions have been brought from the fields of photography, illustration, graphic design, painting, sculpture, architecture, and fashion. By drawing from such a broad base of mediums and addressing such a real topic, the “Sideways” project is bound to generate a great amount of buzz and popularity.

The “Sideways” art project will be accompanied by an international marketing campaign that’s aim is to “underline Smart’s view that it is possible to act ecologically without remotely neglecting aesthetic design concerns.” Smart’s Head of Marketing and Sales, Anders Sundt Jensen, has stated that, “Sideways looks at the issue of ecology in a new creative context, and it should therefore generate some interesting new takes on the topic.”

With gas prices at an all time high and only getting higher it is good to see that eco-friendly companies such as Smart Car are entering the U.S. Market. We are seeing more and more drivers switching from big gas guzzling SUV’s to more economical compact cars and even hybrids as they get more and more accessible. Developing greener urban transportation for the future is one of the Smart brand’s primary goals. This new international marketing campaign as well as the “Sideways” project by Smart Cars is a very innovative and creative way to promote the Smart Car brand. The campaign will also help spread the word of greener transportation and ecological thinking in urban environments.

“Sideways” will be presented officially at its U.S. launch on March 19 in New York and will subsequently be available in bookshops.

Junk Food Advertising in the UK

According to an article by the BBC, the World Health Organization figures, to 177 million children worldwide are threatened by obesity-related diseases, and it is predicted that 2.3 billion people over 15 years old will be overweight by the year 2015.

The chairman of the London-based International Obesity Task Force, Professor Philip James, said: "It is vital that, as well as governments, food industry leaders support the new standards we propose.”

The codes that the International Obesity task force as well as many other consumer groups are calling for are attempting to ban on unhealthy food promotion in schools and an end to the use of celebrities and cartoon characters. The Obesity Task force states that several billion pounds that are spent each year advertising food or soft drinks are at least partly to blame. Children are extremely impressionable and all the advertising towards the children is having a profound effect on the amount of junk food children are consuming. This can be easily proved by the rising cases of childhood obesity in London and though out the world.

The new codes concentrate on foods high in fat, sugar and salt. In addition to a ban on advertising between 6am and 9pm, the codes asks for a complete end to internet and new media advertising including celebrities or cartoon characters, competitions or free gifts. As a kid I personally used to love these contests and free gifts. I remember ripping off box tops and sending them into the company to get a free cartoon watch or whatever it was that I simply needed to have a that moment. I suppose all of that is coming to an end now.

The UK television regulator Ofcom has already introduced a ban on marketing unhealthy foods in adverts during shows aimed at children that came into effect in January. These new codes are simply trying to strengthen the existing bans and further restrict these advertising practices.

Untraceable Controversy

IGN Entertainment released an article about an online marketing campaign promoting the release of new thriller Untraceable by Universal Pictures is causing controversy after being shut down by social network Facebook. Universal received a message from Facebook explaining that the page had been removed on the basis that “pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed”.

The film, directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Diane Lane, records the search for a serial killer who has created an “untraceable” website where he conducts violent and painful murders live on the net.

To promote the international release, Universal created a KILL WITH ME page on Facebook. The more fans the page received, the more of an extended torture sequence from the film was made available to view. This was accompanied by a Facebook-only banner campaign, warning visitors not to visit the page in question.

This video promoting the Untraceable included clips of a supposed site member being abducted, tortured and executed. Even though these clips were fake, a moderator on the thought the clips were real.

This controversy was all part of the plan. Neil Wirasinha, director of International Advertising Media at Universal Picture International, commented: “We were prepared for the possibility that Facebook would take this action, but we’re disappointed to lose the many fans the page was starting to attract. Hopefully, they will pick up the clues to the new destination.”

Currently there are other Facebook groups dedicated to the movie but none like the controversial page that was removed. While I am on Facebook, I never personally had the pleasure of visiting the group before it was deleted from Facebook. I think is interesting and clever that Universal would put out videos like this online, basically with the intention of having them removed. Because of all this fuss with being removed from the Facebook page, Universal got a lot more media coverage and exposure for the Untraceable movie. Good work on Universals part I suppose.