2012 … The Year of Living Dangerously!

The year 2012 looms over the eastern advertising horizon, just like any other year. Except, it’s not like any other year! This is the watershed year which determines whether the local industry continues on the high road of media leadership in Africa or succumbs to the rapacious self-interest of media-owners, each convinced that the other is getting a better deal out of AMPS. Or perhaps more disturbingly, each convinced that they can do the job more cheaply.

The situation is dire. With the initial rejection by PMSA & OHMSA of the central SAARF levy funding principle and the subsequent, and understandable, withdrawal of NAB, de facto MAMCA (the industry body charged with effectively distributing the collected levy to SAARF and ASA) does not exist and must be disbanded.

In practice what this means is that, from January 2012, SAARF and ASA will have to be directly funded by media owners. Or to be more specific, those media owners who are prepared to pay into SAARF and ASA. After all, as Forest Gump says … cheaply is as cheaply does! Or something like that anyway.

Media owners will decide what they want to pay and what they want out of AMPS. Of course, whoever pays the piper calls the tune, so inevitably there will be a continuing erosion of quality data and ultimately the collapses of AMPS as objective media measurement tools. No, that’s not a grammatical error! I’m talking AMPS as in RAMS, TAMS, PAMS (Print AMPS) and OHMS. That will herald the end of the media industry as we have come to know it in Mzansi and we will be no better off than the rest of Africa when it comes to data and objective insights.

The ASA presents a slightly different conundrum, which I believe requires an objective industry investigation into the scope of ASA activities and its corresponding financial requirements. Somebody has to pay for ASA and media owners say that offensive or noncompliant advertising content is not their problem. After all, argue media-owners, they don’t make the advertisements. From their perspective, it is the marketers and the advertising agencies who should pay for the ASA. They certainly have a valid point but it’s also a point that has strong contra-indications of a severe bout of Pyrrhic victory.

Unfortunately, for some years now, the senior management of major media agencies has not vigorously participated in the various forums which manage this funding process. This fact, coupled to the reality that the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA) does not yet have the all-encompassing bite of its defunct predecessor (MFSA), means that media owners will, for the moment anyway, continue to do pretty much do as they please.

So, as you reflect on the year ahead, and on the assumption that you still have a sense of the shared burden of responsibility for our local media industry, could I please urge you to visit http://www.marketingsa.co.za and read the document Pending Industry Crisis. Without direct involvement of local media decision makers at the highest level, we in Mzansi media are all, like the rhino, officially on the endangered list. The only difference being that we will have deserved to be there.

Happy New Year!

No more Media Chocolate for you!

When I was recently asked by The Media to participate in an open forum at GIBS Institute, to “Demystify Print Media Research”, the proposed title of my opening address was “To be more effective we need to change some of the questions in AMPS”!

To my mind that’s a little like saying … “In order to lose weight I need to change the kind of chocolates I’m eating”!

No Gordon! Stop with the chocolates! I know they taste nice and they make you feel great but the simple truth is they’re not good for you. Go find a piece of celery or an apple.

Have you ever wondered why chocolate tastes so good? Apparently Chocolate contains more than 300 known chemicals. Scientists have been working on isolating specific chemicals and chemical combinations which may explain some of the pleasurable effects of consuming chocolate. Caffeine is the most well known of these chemical ingredients. There’s Theo-bromine, a weak stimulant. Phenyl-ethylamine is also found in chocolate. It’s related to amphetamines, which are strong stimulants.

AMPS is a little like a piece of chocolate. Packed full of interesting facts and marketing stimulants. And every year, or in the case of TAMS, every day, we get more and more slabs of information about the market. So when we turn off the Telmar switch in our brains at the end of the day, we feel really good about ourselves and our information rich media plans.

However, it is really worth noting that while stimulants contribute to a temporary sense of well-being, there are other chemicals and other theories as to why chocolate makes us feel good. One of the most interesting findings comes from researchers at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California. They believe that “chocolate contains pharmacologically active substances that have the same effect on the brain as marijuana”.  

This is my point. If you think changing a few questions is all that’s required to sustain AMPS’ world class status … and it is a world class product … then you must either be smoking something or eating too much media chocolate.

There has been a revolution in media. 20 years ago marketers believed that advertising worked and that all we in media needed to do, was measure the audience and put a price to it.  Now clients are asking us “does advertising work anymore?” and we are trying to fob them off by answering “I don’t know but here’s a million readers”.

We also need to recognise that the composition of the market has undergone a quantum shift. 20 years ago, if you went down Old Potchefstroom Road … now Chris Hani Road … you would have found a squadron of Ratels … now you can find Maponya Mall. You’ve been to Maponya Mall right? So here’s a piece of media celery for you to chew on! Would it surprise you to know that according to AMPS 2011BA there are only 2 LSM10 households in Soweto? RAMS 2011/4 tells me there are none.

Not one LSM10 household in the whole of Soweto? So who the hell is shopping at Maponya Mall?

That’s why I changed the topic to read … “to be more effective AMPS needs a total overhaul”. Because if you think there are no LSM10 households in Soweto then you must be eating chocolate!

Does the magic really live on MNet?

Before you read further, I’d like you to stop and list the primary commercial TV stations in Mzansi, as reflected in AMPS. Quickly! Top of mind!
If your list looks like this … SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3, ETV, MNet, DSTV and TopTV … then you’re in tune with the vast majority of media planners in this country. MNet still seems to command a place at the main ad revenue table. So much so, that the vast majority of TV schedules aimed at the Upper Middle-Class & Elite markets (LSM 8-LSM14 using the Muller Cluster Model) will include some commercial time on MNet at a massively inflated CPP premium. I’m not talking 5-10% premium here. I’m talking the nasty stuff with an extra zero on the end.
Why would anybody pay at 100%-300% premium to retain MNet on a schedule? What is the magic that supposedly lives on MNet? More importantly perhaps, is why does the magic cost so much & could we find the magic somewhere else at a reasonable price? Here’s a clue. This year, MNet celebrated its 25th birthday!
For many media decision makers, the FIBD principle (First In Best Dressed) has imparted to MNet some sort of mystical media quality. As if it’s still the proverbial viewing oasis in the SABC programming desert, that it used to be 25 years ago. There are even advertisers who still blissfully follow the Carte Blanche & Sunday Night Movie scheduling ritual irrespective of the evidence that clearly shows that, for pay TV households, family viewership no longer congregates around this viewer behavior pattern.
The release of AMPS 2011BA, and the expanded data set for decoder ownership & pay-tv viewership provides a totally different insight though. Of the +/- 3,1million households that have some form of Multichoice decoder in the home, there are only 116,000 standalone MNet decoder households. In fact, there are more TopTV decoder households (137,000) in the marketplace than standalone MNet decoders! Of the 947,000 adults who watch MNet every day, 785,000 (83%) watch it on DSTV. For 83% of MNet viewers, it’s just another channel on their DSTV bouquet.
So, here’s the question. Despite the fact that AMPS lists MNet as a “commercial TV channel”, does data mining really support the view that MNet is a primary TV station? Or is it just another content silo on DSTV? Well so what if it’s a channel on DSTV you say, it’s still the biggest & the best! Apparently not! Yesterday viewership on DSTV, relegates MNet to 13th position, behind channels such as Movie Magic, MNet-Action, ENews and even Africa Magic.
So what is the magic that supposedly lives on MNet and why does it cost so much? You could of course ask DSTV but they won’t tell you because, as you know, a really good magician never gives away the secret of the magic trick.
We all like a bit of magic but not at any price.

Enough with the fake accents … an all!

When the Truro arrived in Durban with 342 indentured labourers in 1861, few could have imagined the impact the Indian community would have on the destiny of our country. Over the past 150 years, there is no walk of life in which Indian South Africans have not made their mark. Commerce … Politics … Entertainment … Cricket. And of course cuisine! Basically the lot!
What immutable law of advertising exists then, which prevents the local advertising industry from using real Indians, with real Indian accents, in radio commercials? I mean, even the BBC found a South African to play the role of Ashwin Kumar in the Kumars at No42.
Personally, I blame fake Indian accents in radio commercials for the carnage on South African roads. There is not a driver in the country that can drive safely, whilst desperately attempting to change channels every time another Michael Naicker wannabe trots out his routine. Unfortunately, neither the Consumer Protection Act nor the ASA, has a code of practice which protects consumers from fake Indian accents in radio commercials, and so the death toll continues to mount. That’s why I am advocating that fake Indian accent commercials be legislated under the Road Traffic Offences Act.
I understand that not all radio voices need to sound like Naledi Pandor but if we don’t do something about this problem jaldi jaldi, we’ll be on the low road to radio chaos and before we even know it, we’ll have a bunch of inarticulate nasal twits anchoring our premier radio morning-drive shows.
Hang on?
Hmmmm …

Community Radio & RAMS … All quiet on the Western Front!

SAARF has announced they will host a Community Radio Symposium in September. The aim of the symposium is to address issues related to the successful running of a community radio station. Issues such as managing and marketing a community radio station, using & understanding RAMS data, and research that should be conducted by community radio stations themselves.
That community radio has been totally under-marketed, and consequently under-supported, we all understand. According to RAMS, some 10million people listen to community radio every month. That’s about 1 in every 3 radio listeners. But these same stations pull only 1,4% of annual radio advertising revenue. Not even Pieter de Villiers has a conversion rate as bad as this.
So where does it go wrong?
Even if community radio stations did have the energy & the expertise to market themselves, the question remains, what would they use for information? Experienced marketers & media decision makers don’t need numbers to make every decision but the vast majority of media decisions are made by increasingly under-trained and inexperienced media planners & buyers. So, bottom line, community radio needs the numbers. They need numbers that more accurately reflect the vibrancy & viability of daily listenership.
So where might they get that data from?
There are two basic options …
Source 1: The Main AMPS report which comes out twice a year.
This is where we get the “big picture data” which consistently confirms that listenership to community radio (“yesterday” or “past 7 days”) is huge. So, strategically, the collective weight of evidence is that community radio is a crucial part of the mix. The problem is that when you tunnel into the data at a station level, the samples for each station are really unusable.
Source: 2 The RAMS diaries which come out 6 times a year.
This is where the pencil really hits the paper. This where planners move beyond the “yesterday” and “past 7 days” figures into the detailed average ¼ hour data which forms the currency for detailed media planning & scheduling. If the samples in AMPS are bad, at implementation planning level the community radio station level samples in RAMS are almost non-existent & essentially unusable. Try as hard as you might, you simply can’t extract data out of RAMS which could be used to sell individual community stations.
AMPS & RAMS data is financed by a levy on all advertising, which is nominally paid by advertisers and collected by media owners, who then pay this over to MAMCA & SAARF. This is of course a moot point and many broadcasters would hold the opinion, that this is their money. This issue is currently being debated within the advertising industry. The bottom line on this is that the commercial broadcasters are not motivated to use this levy to promote the interests of community radio stations. In fact, they have a vested interest in ensuring that community radio never reaches its full potential. So we continue to produce 6 diaries a year, where nothing ever happens.
The phrasing of the latest press release from SAARF regarding the release of RAMS2011/ 3 provides the insight …
In a world of ceaseless change, it’s good to know there are some things you can still count on. Like radio! The SAARF released RAMS June 2011, with stable listenership once again being the name of the game.That’s SAARF speak for “ho hum another round of incredibly boring radio data where absolutely nothing new & exciting has happened”! So what SAARF celebrates as reliable old radio data, is really just designed to entrench the same old “business as usual” approach.
In defence of SAARF, this is not a unique circumstance and highlights the limitation of the SAARF industry-funded research initiative. It is quite frankly impossible for AMPS & RAMS to cover the interests of every single media sector. We all understand that. With newspapers for instance, the AMPS sample does not hold up for scrutiny at a suburb or community level & consequently totally under-reports community newspapers, relative to primary daily & weekly titles.
That’s why the Caxton newspaper group pulled out of AMPS and established its own research study called ROOTS, where the sample is specifically structured to highlight the community level readership of local newspapers. AMPS under-samples Soweto and as a consequence, many newspaper titles such as Sowetan & Sunday World are totally under-reported. So, what Avusa has done, in order to better market its own titles, is to produce a study called the Gauteng Wealth Study with a more representative sample in Soweto.
Sound marketing responses from the big media players.
Well it’s the same principle for community radio. The only way community radio will ever get the ammunition they need to sell themselves, is to have a dedicated RAMS diary that comes out annually, with the appropriate sample for community radio.
There is, I believe, quite a simple solution, summed up below …
1] The current 6 RAMS should revert to quarterly diaries. Despite the protestations of commercial broadcasters, there is absolutely no value generated by an additional 2 diaries, which endless report “all quiet on the Western front”, other than entrenching the status quo & protecting existing ad-revenue streams.
2] One of the remaining diaries should be dedicated to community radio (CRAMS), with an appropriately constructed sample that will allow individual stations to stake a reasonable claim to exposure on the average radio schedule. This would be an annual diary and would form the basis of any future marketing of community radio!
To expect community radio to fund CRAMS out of their advertising revenue is unrealistic. They barely have the funds to run themselves, let alone create expensive research. When it comes to CRAMS, the other thing we know one thing for sure, is that the NAB & RAB are not going to push for this solution. After all, why would you feed the baby crocodile that is beginning to think your outstretched hand might make a very good meal one day?
So that leaves the MDDA or some other relevant authority with a stake in, or even responsibility for, growing community radio. Without external funding for CRAMS, either from within the advertising industry or externally, community radio in Mzansi will never get off the ground.
What about the second remaining diary? What the industry needs is a radio diary which is dedicated to improving the quality of data in the major metropolitan areas … Gauteng, Durban & Cape Town. (METRAMS) But that’s another story, so watch out for the next installment in this gripping tale of radio advertising intrigue.
Or brace yourself your another fascinating celebration of “stable listenership” and “things you can still count on” when SAARF release RAMS2011/4 in a few months.

MAD MEN. WHAT SOME WOMEN WANT …

I’ve recently been asked by a leading marketing journal to answer a few questions regarding the media habits of women in Mzansi. “What type of media (newspapers, radio and TV) & programmes are women likely to consume (read, listen to & watch) and why”?
There are two very simple answers to these questions …
1] What types of media are women more likely to consume?
Answer: Women are most likely to consume (i) media that are available to them and (ii) media they are interested in.
2] Why do they consume these media?
Answer: See point 1 above.
Let’s extrapolate from this simple reality of available audience and personal interest …
Women read newspapers they are interested in. Listen to radio stations and programmes they are interested in and watch those TV stations and programmes in which they are interested. Those who are interested in romance and intrigue watch Generations and those who are interested in news apparently watch SABC1 Zulu/ Xhosa News. At least that’s what the numbers from TAMS tell us. Of course women who are interested in tennis, watch Wimbledon (assuming they have DSTV) and those who are interested in crime, watch Medical Detectives (assuming of course they have ETV).
In this respect then, women are precisely like men. Men who are interested in rugby read Sunday Times or Rapport and those who are interested in soccer read Sunday Sun. Men who are interested in cinema go to movies and listen to Barry Ronge & women who are CEOs of companies read Business Day or Financial Mail. This is the essence of media planning, if not life itself. Find out what people are interested in and then talk to them about their interests, in a place they find interesting. It is of course very interesting to note that twice as many women listen to John Robbie as listen to Redi Tlhabi on 702. But hey, that’s available audience for you!
Posing such general questions about the media consumption of women is like watching an American TV ad from the 50s or an episode of Mad Men where female consumers are collectively referred to as “the little woman”. You imply some universality of economic and social circumstance, intellect, and of course media behaviour, which I believe does not do justice to the diversity of the role and interests of women in Mzansi. If I had posed these questions to some of my female advertising students, I’d be shot down in flames. And so should this perspective on media consumption by females.
Oh, by the way! Females who work in advertising are apparently quite interested in watching Mad Men! Strange isn’t it?

Signs of Life or Back to Square One?

Nobody with any real commitment to the media industry in Mzansi has truly enjoyed watching the meltdown at the SABC. The SABC serves an important market sector and we need the commercial arm to be firing on all cylinders. OK. Given the recent developments at Akward Park , perhaps “firing” is an unfortunate turn of phrase. But you understand what I’m saying.
Well, you can imagine my excitement when the first signs of commercial life came this week in the form of guaranteed audience packages for October. In short “SABC Television will guarantee a specific CPP against a pre-determined target market”. There are a few advertisers who have operated on a guaranteed audience/ CPP basis for a while but the broader application of this buying approach signals at least some awareness within the halls of SABC commercial management, that the old “take it or leave approach” to inventory management is over.
There are three packages …
Package 1 (LSM 5-8): R500,000 guarantees TVRS and CPPS as follows:
• 321 TVRS @ R1,558 against all dayparts
• 199 TVRS @ R2,513 against primetime
• 504 TVRS @ R992 against shoulder time
Package 2 (LSM 7-10): R500,000 guarantees TVRS and CPPS as follows:
• 234 TVRS @ R2,136 against all dayparts
• 138 TVRS @ R3,628 against primetime
• 330 TVRS @ R1,514 against shoulder time
Package 3 (LSM 8-10): R500,000 guarantees TVRS and CPPS as follows:
• 156 TVRS @ R3,214 against all dayparts
• 128 TVRS @ R3,914 against primetime
• 197 TVRS @ R2,534 against shoulder time
OK so far so good. Obviously advertisers will have to check these CPP levels against projected levels for conventional SABC discounted buys (because negotiated discounts don’t apply on top of these CPP parameters) but it’s a step in the right direction. Right?
I thought so too until I checked the small print.
Terms and conditions include the fact that “contracts exclude the ability to choose specific environments”, which in this day and age is no small point. After all, viewers call environments programmes and programmes are what they choose to watch or nor watch. I’ve never heard any TV viewers talking about their favourite dayparts.
And of course another relevant fact is that “in the event of SABC TV failing to reach the objectives of the contract for any reason whatsoever, any claim by the advertiser against SABC TV shall be limited to a rebate as prescribed by the advertising code and regulations”. So in other words, if the SABC totally under-delivers and the campaign doesn’t work, the advertiser will get back only the under-delivered portion of the investment. No small consideration.
Even these clauses advertisers can live with. They are, after all, not dissimilar to the clauses governing OATS packages on DSTV.
The one clause that, sadly, leads me to the conclusion that Fawlty Towers has not really come to terms with its loss of status in the market is that these packages only apply “when a terrestrial or complete television exclusivity commitment is signed”. Say what? SABC exclusivity when you are talking to LSM 8-10?
I can’t even think of an animal on National Geographic or Discovery Channel that can bury its head deeper than that.

Meanderings of a Media Madala.

You know you are turning into a media madala, when the people who come to you with questions look like they should be asking for help with their Matric homework, not their MBA theses. I was recently posed five questions by one of Mzansi media’s up and coming Doogie Howser impersonators. And those of you who don’t have to Google “Doogie Howser” to know who he is, will understand where I’m coming from.
Question 1: In your view, how has the landscape of advertising agencies changed over the last decade?
The landscape hasn’t changed, we’ve just moved to another planet. Return on investment means that ad campaigns actually have to work now. It’s not enough to give your client a statue of a really nice indigenous bird or tell them that they are getting a bigger discount than they did last year. They actually want to make more money in sales or enhanced brand value, than they invest in advertising and that’s really annoying. Nothing worse than being checked up on! Why can’t they just take our word for it and let things return to the way they were 30 years ago. And as for consumers, what’s their problem? Why don’t they just borrow money and buy the things we show them? Stuff the global recession! Where’s the consumer’s commitment to award winning advertising?
Question2: Are advertising agencies, structurally, in a healthy state?
Agencies, whether creative or media, have a simple problem. Their client’s don’t have confidence in them anymore. Unfortunately, clients are actually just getting what they pay for. Why is it that when clients buy cheap whisky and second-rate underwear, they are not shocked to discover that their drinks taste crap and they walk around with a wedgie all day, but when they buy cheap advertising, they are absolutely staggered to discover that it doesn’t work and that they have, in fact, got precisely what they paid for? So who’s going to blink first? If agencies don’t gear up they aren’t going to get the respect they desperately want.
My father taught me that there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who demand respect … and those who command respect! Agencies used to be in one of these two categories. Now they are in the other one. You can work out which.
Is that healthy? Perhaps you could research it? Research solves absolutely everything in advertising!
Question 3: What are your views on remuneration to agencies in general. Are retainer fees a sustainable manner of survival?
Is the agency retainer fee model sustainable?
Let’s see what Chris de Burgh has to say on the matter …
Chris: “Don’t pay the ferryman, don’t even fix a price, don’t pay the ferryman till he gets you to the other side”.
Agency: “But there’s trouble ahead, so you must pay me now”!
Chris: “Don’t do it”!
Agency: “You must pay me now”!
Chris: “Don’t do it … until he gets you to the other side”.
Fees are sustainable as a remuneration mechanism but not at the current level. It’s not the principal of the fee that is the problem but the size of the fee. On the other hand, you can’t charge clients for badly reasoned frivolous rubbish. Agencies have to up their game as well.
Question 4: Is there a resistance to the reengineering of the advertising industry as whole? Yes/No?
Yes, but only by the people who work in the advertising industry and people who don’t understand digital and social media! Don’t worry about the ANC Media Commission, what we need in Mzansi is a government commission to stop people from fast forwarding through TV commercials and playing about on YouTube.
“The people want UGC”, you say? Well, let them eat print!
Mayibuye media planning. Phansi YouTube! Phansi!
And finally, the big question.
Question 5: What is your opinion on a future model for a given advertising agency in South Africa?
You want to know what the future model of a given advertising agency in South Africa will be? Don’t ask me, mate. Google it!

World Cup Opening Day – Delivering more than Vuvuzelas?

Now that the World Cup party is well under way, I guess we do have to go beyond tales of robust socialising and numbers of Buds consumed, and provide some kind of media analysis.
The big question of course is, did the national passion for the World Cup which expressed itself in massive supporter rallies and unprecedented sales of South African flags and Bafana Bafana memorabilia, actually convert into real TV audience gains on the opening day?
An AGB Nielsen analysis of TAMS data, using Arianna, reveals that the opening ceremony and game created significant increases in viewership. Total TV viewership, all adults, peaked at around 40 ratings during the Bafana Bafana opening game against Mexico. Compared to historical averages, this indicates an overall increase in viewership of 31% over the day. If we factor in “out of home viewership” (which is not measured in TAMS) in pubs and the myriad fan parks which are a feature of the Mzansi World Cup landscape, then it is quite possible that this figure might well have emulated the achievements of Super Bowl XLIV in pushing the 50 ratings barrier!

Understandably, as the conduit to the mass free to home TV market, which is the cornerstone of football support in Mzansi, SABC 1 accounted for the bulk of the increased viewership, with total all adults audiences peaking at about 30 TVRS. An overall increase of some 133% on the day.
Increases in TV audiences for SuperSport3 were equally impressive and although ratings delivery against total adults remains relatively limited, an average delivery of 19 ratings against the upmarket DSTV subscriber base shows the increased pulling power of international football against this market segment, and how effective the Multichoice decoder sales drive into the Middle and Upper Middle LSM market clusters has been. It is certainly an indicator that without access to top notch football, TopTV is going to have its work cut out if it wants to create critical momentum in these market segments.

Although there is some variance in terms of specific day part ratings, Telmar generated TAMS data shows a fair degree of consistency in terms of the macro perspective for World Cup opening day. Bafana v Mexico generates some 29 ratings on SABC1 whilst the opening ceremony comes in considerably lower at 15 ratings. Much the same pattern as indicated by Arianna.
The drop off to 17 ratings for France v Uruguay later that evening is entirely understandable. I guess we are like sports fans all over the world. We’d rather watch our own team than the other guys. But the fact that it still delivers higher ratings than the opening ceremony, is a strong reminder that this is the African World Cup in South Africa, and that most fans have a strong interest in the performance of other African nations in the tournament.
The degree of national fervour expressed in the past few weeks leads one to ponder whether World Cup 2010 hasn’t irrevocably shifted the axis of sports interest at the top end of the Mzansi market, in the same way that winning the World Cup Rugby in 1995 changed the destiny of that sporting code in Mzansi for all time?
In terms of the long term shift, the most interesting implications are found amongst total adults in the TAMS DSTV sample universe. Opening ceremony generates some 8 ratings, whilst Match 1 generates 19 ratings. As with SABC 1, ratings drop to 9 for France v Uruguay later that evening. No surprises here.
The really interesting insight is the one delivered the day after lift-off. On Saturday afternoon 12th June, within the South African sporting paradigm, we have a classic clash. World Cup Soccer v Test Match Rugby. The irresistible force meets the immovable object.
In terms of the perception of the “typical” DSTV viewer, historically there could have been only one outcome. Rugby rules, right! Well not during World Cup it seems. Argentina v Nigeria generates 9,4 ratings and the Springboks v France 10. The Boks might have pumped France on the day but, overall, I’d call that a draw.
I don’t know what this means for the long term future of football in Mzansi but one thing’s for sure, DSTV will never be the same again. If marketers are still limiting DSTV to the exclusive “top-end top-up” role which it has traditionally played then it is seriously time for a rethink. Certainly it flags the current limitation on TAMS sampling and the need accelerate alternative, and more broadly inclusive, forms of viewership iteration.

Vuvuzelas and the power of Madiba Magic

Wow. What a whirlwind footie-fest. First round matches wrapped up today and I’m still reeling from the whole experience of the opening day! I can’t believe it has passed so quickly. I watched live. I’ve watched in the pub and on TV. I’ve listened on radio and been to Fanzones. And now, I can’t believe that I am off to watch Bafana Bafana taking on Uruguay in Round 2 tonight. At Loftus Versfeld nog al! The now undisputed home of South African rugby.
From a football perspective it’s a make or break game. But whether we make it through to the second round or not, we are all feeling like winners already. Sport in South Africa has never just been about sport.
In 1995, with a little Madiba Magic, we hit the peak at the World Cup rugby final. For many of us, it was the first time we truly felt complete as South Africans. A little more Madiba magic carried us to even further success in the African Cup of Nations the following year. Those were heady days indeed and, for a while, it seemed that anything and indeed everything, was possible for our fledgling democratic nation.
That’s a long time ago now. And many South Africans have become cynical about our prospects. Then in 2004 it happened. And once again, a little bit of Madiba Magic was called for during the judging process. South Africa was chosen as the host nation. For 6 years now, we have lived with the naysayers and cynics. “They’ll never be ready in time”. “They don’t have the infrastructure”! “There’s too much crime”. We heard the lot. And we just kept going.
And then came Friday 11th June. Maybe Hemingway or Tolkien could capture the emotion and grandeur of the opening ceremony & game on Friday but it’s beyond my craft capability. In any event, you’ve all seen the pictures! Heard the vuvuzelas in full cry! Football lover and rugby lover alike united for a day. Just like it was in 1995 and 1996. What a day to be a South African.
Of course, sadly, there was no Madiba Magic on the day, but Nelson Mandela’s legacy lives on and will live on whether he is physically present or not. That is his gift to us and our responsibility, as South Africans, towards him.
But it was also about the game and the party. Got there nice and early and was reliably informed by the caterers that I had consumed the first Budweiser of the tournament. I even got interviewed on radio for my efforts. Not sure if it’s true is but hey, I’m staking my claim.

The good news is that the Buds were cold, and, to my surprise, if you have enough of them, they start tasting pretty good.
Great game. Fair result. And after a week of draws, it’s looking more and more like a good result as well. And maybe because nobody was hurting too much, it was a pretty good night with the Mexican fans.
We even got to understand why Mexicans like tequila so much. I guess it’s a bit like Bud. If you have enough, it tastes pretty good.

Not much fun with the Argentinians at Ellis Park on day two though. Mexican fans, it seems, came to watch football and party. Argentinian fans came to watch football. It was pretty intense. I can’t help feeling that Robert Green should be really pleased he’s not playing for Argentina. I’m not sure that “Hand of Plod” jokes would have been enough for Argentinian fans if they had drawn with Nigeria because of a keeper error.
Anyway, I’m going to give the Argentinians another chance tomorrow. Going to watch Argentina v South Korea. Got to see Lionel Messi scoring. Got to hand it to Messi though, the wry smile on his face on Saturday told us all that he could see the funny side of having “one of those days”. And, unlike England, he didn’t blame the ball. I wonder how England fans will react if Wayne Rooney has “one of those days” against Algeria?
I guess that’s the difference between South African fans and the other nations. We don’t really expect to win and besides, it’s the African World Cup in South Africa. We’ve got another 5 tickets to the lottery. I’m not sure who got the biggest blast on the vuvuzelas this week. Bafana Bafana or Didier Drogba when he ran on for Cote d’Ivoire against Portugal. As long as there is an African team in the competition, the tournament will remain live for South African fans.
Maybe a little Madiba Magic can unite us now as a continent. Not just as a nation.