Archive for the 'blogging' Category

Let the Springleap Blogger Warz Begin!

Published
by
Dave
on April 1, 2008
in Announcements, Case Studies, Collaboration and blogging
. 1 Comment

Amazing Marketing MachineThe clever chaps at Springleap have come up with another killer idea to engage SA bloggers and drive lots of signups to their new site. It’s called Blogger Warz, where each month two prominent SA bloggers are pitted against each other to get the most votes for their t-shirt designs.

I’m up against Mike Stopforth (with his design called “Fit-Shan“) in the first round. The design I submitted was done my my talented illustrator friend, Ryno Van Niekerk. It’s called “The Amazing Marketing Machine“.

The story that goes with the design is as follows:

A mashup of potent technological innovations, The Amazing Marketing Machine will help any marketer be more intelligent, more playful, more out-of-this world! But if you didn’t know that you might just think it was a pile of junk. Ironic huh?

If you dig it, please go and vote it up on Springleap HERE (note, you need to register). Some lucky people might even get the opportunity to wear this awesome design if we win.

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The First of Many Official UCT GSB Blogs to Come : Women in Leadership

Published
by
Dave
on February 27, 2008
in Announcements and blogging
. 4 Comments

Women in LeadershipThe Executive Education unit at UCT GSB has broken rank from the tired and tested channels for promoting educational short-courses by launching a punchy new blog for the Women in Leadership programme.

It is planned to be the first of many blogs that UCT GSB will launch around topical subjects for business executives this year. It’s built on a simple Wordpress MU, using a slightly customized Kubrick theme, which will facilitate easy rollout of subsequent blogs.

With their new multi-user blogging platform, the Business School intends to bring the experience and insights of some of South Africa’s leading business academics to an audience that would not ordinarily be to exposed to them.

The blogs are also part of a broader social-media strategy which will include  participation in various interactive online channels, blogger incentive programmes and sponsorship of key sites and projects.

Often the most successful new-media campaigns flourish with the apparent disconnect between a young medium, and the perception of a staid industry. For example, Stormhoek, topped the wine marketing world by breaking ranks from the typically elitist wine media channels, and embracing the new world of online social-media. The GSB hopes to enahnce the marketing of Executive Education in a similar way.

Congrats to the brilliant Ms. Kaizen, who has been working with the UCT GSB team to get this project off the ground.

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Companies Who Respond: Nokia

Published
by
Dave
on February 25, 2008
in WOM, blogging and cellular
. 11 Comments

In response to my blog post on Friday, I just got an email from Siobahn at WOMWorld who represents Nokia in the social-media space:

We saw that in a recent blog post you enjoyed the Stavros site that’s currently running and that you’d like an N82. Currently we have N82’s available
for test and review, and would be more than happy to send you one if
you are interested in putting the device through its paces.

We take care of the logistics side of things, will arrange for the
device to be sent and collected etc, if you?d like to get involved let
us know as soon as you can and we?ll get everything arranged.

I look forward to getting my N82, and am feeling large amounts of goodwill towards these people right now.

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Hollywood at the Mercy of Bloggers

Published
by
Dave
on February 18, 2008
in Marketing, Media and blogging
. 4 Comments

Did you see this week’s Spit & Polish in The Sunday Times? In it, Barry Ronge eloquently lamented the subversive power of bloggers on Box Office takings – often to the detriment of great films.

He mentions an interview with the Mike Nichols, Director of The Golden Compass, a film which suffered, and failed, at the hands of fundamentalist Christian bloggers who denounced it as a “gospel for Atheists”:

Nichols [speculated] about how the Internet has become a determining factor in Hollywood’s choice of the movies they make and also the style in which they are made, because producers now have to please the blogosphere or fail.

Nichols expressed it precisely. “It’s a whole new critical world out there. I am all for everyone having a voice,” he said. “I just don’t think everyone has earned the microphone. And that’s what the Internet has done. It has given everyone the microphone, saying ‘Get a load off your chest’. Inevitably, the angriest or most outrageous voices get the attention.

Sadly, it’s not usually the most erudite arguments that get the most Attention online, it’s those that are most sensational and easiest to spread.

The challenge to South African marketers will be to engage and form relationships with the influential bloggers here, and to build relationships so that their story can be represented objectively ahead of the eminent flood of opinion that is going to be unleashed on them soon.

For bloggers, it’s important to acknowledge the responsibility that comes with an audience.

We can’t regulate the blogosphere, but we can be a more intelligent community by embracing fundamental journalistic principles.

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