Well, 10 of them had their headquarters in SA. Of the 10, 2 confirmed that they advertised in local media. 3 produced their own in store magazines and one even had an in-store radio! The rest genuinely did not seem to know because these are well known brands which came to a very small market, it is almost like they do not have to try. However, the shops from here seemed to generally fall into the SME sector. Some of them had no clue about advertising and others just generally did not get approached to advertise. As a result of me being in a popular mall, one cafe shop did not advertise because of the popularity of the location. But they were not adverse to advertising and it struck me that there was an opportunity with such shops.

(below is an West-African ad from 1968 that I found online that I think is funny)

Based on the interview I did with the magazine owner and working at their publication, many people are going for the same advertisers-the big ones who can afford to buy more than one ad at a time. This makes everything quite competitive. Yet logic tells me that in such a situation there should be a good mix of major advertisers and smaller, local ones. There must be local gems, shops that people are proud of because it is local and produces good quality, that I could approach to find out about advertising.

I also realised that in order to get ads with the big retailers I would need to talk to SA. A website would be perfect in a long distance scenario but I would probably be looking at a face to face meeting at one point…but I am sure a PDF format would work to send relevent info like a media kit and ad rates + skype-who knows?

Bottom line the situation is not insurmountable

Since doing my market research proposal I learnt that the questions I hand out in a busy mall have to be short (10 questions is a good number) and closed (no open questions that take time to think about) and still be good enough to bring out the required information. Also the trick is for me the researcher is to ask the public and jot down the answers as they speak, which is why closed answers are a good idea. Also imagine being stopped at the mall to actually to answer a bunch of questions-annoying! So I have drafted those and the person called Emilia who(has worked with 3 publications here, one of them solely online) I gave it to, to look over made all these corrections-still I intend to test out this coming week so better now than later.

There are separate questions for the focus groups which are longer and more thorough because I am trying to build a profile of the kind of person who would be interested in my publication. So far I have 24 questions. I have changed quite a few questions from my previous (the one I used in the North). That one was based too much on the one I had drafted in the UK. Emilia says it is good but I just need to rearrange the sequence.

Then there are questions for the people I am interviewing this week, whose advertising I would potentially be seeking. They are not too many, I am aiming to get some sort of criteria for who they target and which publications meet those needs (therefore my competition in some way) and hopefully how much they spend in taking out ads in magazines.

This coming week is going to be busy with focus groups, interviews and questionnaires-fingers crossed!

To begin, according to the subject there are no real media laws here, therefore all they did was set up a company and took it from there. They bought the magazine from the former owner and they bought it because they felt it was a noble idea, it is about empowering the consumer. So his partner and him bought out the old owner.

On having a publication in this climate, in this country

First decide how much to sell it for, do you want to sell it (free publications). Look into overhead costs, production costs, distribution. For this specific publication since it is free, all the revenue is from advertising.

Today I did my first focus group and I am in the North! Okay just to set the scene, flying here was terrifying. You never know how much you take for granted in a normal boeing 727, or whatever it is called, this was one of those mosquito small planes! I made it out alive and managed to appreciate the scenery from between my fingers.

Anywho, I was expecting 8 women from 25 and above. So I prepared. My aunt, who is a social worker and does lots of research told me to get them drinks which I did. I then set up the table outside. My idea was to spread out all the women’s magazines that I could find that might appeal to them, especially the ones for African women, and have the women describe which ones appealed to them and which ones didn’t.  Then I had my 25 question questionnaire and my video camera all ready to go. They would come through the door at 5.30.

1. Cooking/Recipies
2. Race, traditional values, people’s expectations in African Society
3. Entertainment
4. Today’s African woman: career, family, traditions
5. Balance: fun & practicality

• Celebrities
• Crossword puzzles
• Fashion trends/tips
• Practical stuff: relationships-witty language
  • 25 ways to spice things up
  • Real, valuable advice
  • Dealing with in-laws, mean boss

1. Life after giving birth- being a school girl, relationships, marriages, sex advice, post sex pills, pregnancy prevention, STIs and HIV/AIDS which led to a LOVE YOUR BODY SECTION
2. Young girls with ‘sugar daddies’-addicted to power
3. How to leave a troubled relationship
4. Society’s double standards on single mothers and how it is a stigma
5. Issues concerning maternity leave
6. Polygamy
7. Gender inequity
8. Financial advice

Generally speaking, the topics I have in mind are along the same lines, but they took it deeper and more culture-specific than I could have imagined from my own experience.*

I also realised one something: it is one thing to conceptualise but another to truly understand the impact that media can have. I always thought it would be great to have a platform for women like me and like the ones I was talking to but to actually understand that people look to things outside of themselves for inspiration, for hope and even strength and that it could be the magazine I produce puts everything in a different context, it makes it more weighty.

With what I have learnt now, I can see a few things wrong though. Maybe the setting was too relaxed, even though I didn’t really have a choice although at the same time you can say maybe people were not intimidated and felt free to talk…I also think I was asking too many leading questions-I was trying not to put words in their mouth but you never know. I can see why a professional would be hired-they would have years of technique! Also things like a charged battery would have helped! and figuring out how to use the equipment before hand-for instance it took me a while to

(My 5 minute clip was rejected because the format is mp4!)

*Note I did not include all my finding here for privacy reasons and this being a business plan and all…

]]> http://gatheringlumina.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/what-people-want-to-read/feed/ 0 gatheringlumina interview http://gatheringlumina.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/marketing-doesnt-just-happen/ http://gatheringlumina.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/marketing-doesnt-just-happen/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:18:10 +0000 gatheringlumina http://gatheringlumina.wordpress.com/?p=11 ]]> I was just watching a re-run of ‘I want to work for Diddy’, as a guilty pleasure ahem, and though part of me was fed up with seeing his face (and how he constantly blows me away with such phrases as ‘no b**tcha**ness’), I realised that he is always around. Be it his name changes, or who he is dating, staged family outings, the whole personality basically is very deliberate. In general, we see what he wants us to see about him.In business terms, this is part of how he markets himself and maintains his brand. Today, we had a bit of an intro to marketing. It is funny because marketing does affect our lives in a way but we don’t necessary recognise it as that (well me anyway).

We began with a few definitions of marketing. According to Philip Kotler, the Neo of the marketing gurus I discovered today (slight exaggeration), ‘Marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.’

To be honest, I didn’t really get this quote. For some reason my mind refused to wrap itself around the concept expressed here. I guess this was partly due to the fact that I had always thought of marketing as a form of advertising. This economist article sums up his approach like this: ‘Kotler came to see marketing as being about the exchange of values between two parties and, as such, a social activity, not just a business one. He coined the term “social marketing”, defined by Wikipedia as “the systematic application of marketing (along with other concepts and techniques) to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good”.’

The two parties, I presume, are the business and the target audience. It seems that a dialogue has to be created between the two parties because there is going to be an exchange; the business has to ascertain whether or not its audience will respond to the product or service, is it needed? Will people need to be persuaded? You really need to know your audience and that’s why profiles on consumers/customers are usually created and updated as you need to stay in touch with their needs.

Another way to look at marketing is from David Carson (here is a look at his book). He came up with four stages of marketing: the reactive stage, the tinkering stage, the entrepreneurial stage and the proactive marketing stage. This last stage is quite interesting as it is very structured and planned, you need to investigate and plan before you go out there and market.

Marketing doesn’t just happen

It turns out that marketing is not about advertising the loudest. Marketing needs to be managed. Who are the audience? Do you know them? Look at ways you can get to know them; events, surveys, test audiences etc…this influences what you make or the service you provide. This is basically your market research, this is what will make you an expert in the area you want to develop. Audit your company, make a mission statement and conduct a SWOT analysis to help you highlight key issues. All this gives you a good basis on which to create a marketing plan.

You can now set SMART objectives & goals, this is where you breakdown what actually needs to be done and how you are going to do it.

The next step is the implementation of the SMART objectives. This is usually the part where you communicate with your target audience, as now you know how! So tools like advertising, networking, PR, email and direct mail wil have been considered and based on budget and efficiency you would have decided what best works for you. (This is linked to branding as well)

And finally, making sure to monitor and evaluate your actions and their results in order to check if the objectives and aims you originally set out have been met.

‘Safe is risky’

It is fair to say that coming up with a completely new product is not really going to happen but creating a special customer experience is going to go a long way for a business. That is not to say that people can’t be innovative but there has to be something special with your product or service because everything has been done to death.

This was the part I found the most interesting about today’s lesson because it is very realistic. I am not looking to invent something but in general repackage an existing product to an undervalued (in my humble opinion audience. This requires me to give them something extraordinary so as to differentiate myself, and in so doing make it difficult to imitate what I am doing. It’s like so many women can sing but how many Mariahs or Whitneys are there? There can never be another of either or them. So my audience will need to get given a purple cow; something special and rare and extra-hence the book by the same name penned by Seth Godin. Playing it safe in an environment where everything has been done is not just unacceptable, its also risky for your business. Brilliant! Simple but true.

And that’s a wrap! a summary of how I understood today’s lesson in media management.

I wanted so badly to do it and now that I am here I find I actually have to do work. The thing is, it’s not as if it is incredibly demanding but in order for you to get anything done, it requires you to be organised. Unfortunately, this I am not. This is one of my weaknesses. Lucky for me there is a whole module (Professional and Personal Development) that asks you, among other things, to sit down and come up with ways in which to determine your own weaknesses and then overcome them. My plan so far: become organised. How? By doing the following:

Get a diary. (use it)

Plan ahead.

Another one of my weaknesses? Forgetting things. Obviously this is a problem. *Sigh* Sometimes I feel so mindless. Like a zombie, I mean what is the point of a diary if you forget to consult it? How on earth did I get through IB and uni like this? And who were the people who let me? Surely somebody must have noticed this coaster mentality, I guess it was cute then. No actually, that is not true. I thought I was being clever, putting in the least amount of work until absolutely necessary. The only problem is now I am the real world as it were and I am beginning to feel a little silly because nothing is ever done to my satisfaction and I look inept.

So the plan is this: change my attitude.

It has taken me 9 weeks and a visit from a friend to get me here but better late than never. I never realised that learning from someone else’s mistakes actually works.

The point is so many of us start out the same way, and gradually as we get further along in life, for various reasons ranging form tragic to plain lazy, many people do not make it. I will not be on of those crushed under the weight of their potential. I figure I have to look at my MA in a whole new light. I can either take it for granted or I can see it for what it is to me: the knowledge I will acquire, the people I will meet, the opportunities that can be made which combined will take me to the next step: running a creative business of my own one day.

Here goes…