Non-Food FMCG
Food & Beverages FMCG
Best New Product Launch
Best Use of CSR
Banking/Finance
Best Youth Marketing Campaign
Automotive
Travel, Tourism & Hospitality
Media/Internet/Content Provider
Telecommunications
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5.11.09
GEMAS effie MENA Awards 2009 shortlist
Cannes Lions speaks out…finally
Statement From Cannes Lions On 'Scam' Entries
14 October 2009
Following detailed consultation and discussion with industry leaders, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival wishes to make clear its policy on entries into its Festivals which breach the rules.
There are many definitions of “scam”, and the issue is rarely black and white. As such, we want to develop a policy that is not only workable but also enforceable.
The role of Cannes Lions and its associated Festivals (Eurobest, Dubai Lynx and Spikes Asia) is to set the benchmark for creativity in communications, to celebrate creativity and to reward the industry for outstanding creative work.
Our role is not to come between the client and the agency; it is not to have a negative material effect on agency business; and it is not to penalise individuals from an agency who have not had any association with the work in question.
Our key rules in this regard are simple: “Entries cannot be made without the prior permission of the advertiser/owner of the rights of the advertisement. All entries must have been made within the context of a normal paying contract with a client. That client must have paid for all, or the majority of, the media costs.”
It is our policy that when a piece of work comes into question, we request clarification or further information according to the complaint raised. If it is not forthcoming or not adequate, we withdraw the award.
In future we will continue to withdraw awards that do not meet our entry criteria and announce that we have done so.
Our entry criteria include:
- Submitting full client details (including name, position and full contact details)
- A senior officer (CD, CEO or Chairman) from the entrant company must authorise the entry
Our checks include:
- That the client is legitimate and that the product corresponds with their portfolio
- Judges are offered the opportunity to raise queries with the organisers and information is gathered accordingly throughout the judging (media schedules, client authorisation, etc.)
We believe that banning agencies from entering on a wholesale basis is unfair on blameless individuals. There are many people who work in agencies who may not be involved with an erroneous entry and therefore should not be penalised. Our policy will be to ban the individuals named on the credit list if a scam is discovered.
The length and nature of the ban will be decided based on the seriousness of the case involved. We take the view that not all issues are the same and each case should be dealt with on its own merits.
In summary, the key issues which will guide us through this process are:
1) Was the work approved and paid for by the client and was it run using media space paid for by the client?
2) If an entry fails to meet this or other entry criteria, we will withdraw the award and make an appropriate announcement.
3) If we deem it is required, we will ban the individuals involved from entering our awards for a specific period of time which will be decided at that time.
- Ends -
For further information, please contact:
Amanda Benfell, PR & Press Manager
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, United Kingdom
Tel: +44-20-7728 4040; Fax: +44-20-7728 4044;
E-mail: amandab@canneslions.com
The role of Cannes Lions and its associated Festivals (Eurobest, Dubai Lynx and Spikes Asia) is to set the benchmark for creativity in communications, to celebrate creativity and to reward the industry for outstanding creative work.
Our role is not to come between the client and the agency; it is not to have a negative material effect on agency business; and it is not to penalise individuals from an agency who have not had any association with the work in question.
Our key rules in this regard are simple: “Entries cannot be made without the prior permission of the advertiser/owner of the rights of the advertisement. All entries must have been made within the context of a normal paying contract with a client. That client must have paid for all, or the majority of, the media costs.”
It is our policy that when a piece of work comes into question, we request clarification or further information according to the complaint raised. If it is not forthcoming or not adequate, we withdraw the award.
In future we will continue to withdraw awards that do not meet our entry criteria and announce that we have done so.
Our entry criteria include:
- Submitting full client details (including name, position and full contact details)
- A senior officer (CD, CEO or Chairman) from the entrant company must authorise the entry
Our checks include:
- That the client is legitimate and that the product corresponds with their portfolio
- Judges are offered the opportunity to raise queries with the organisers and information is gathered accordingly throughout the judging (media schedules, client authorisation, etc.)
We believe that banning agencies from entering on a wholesale basis is unfair on blameless individuals. There are many people who work in agencies who may not be involved with an erroneous entry and therefore should not be penalised. Our policy will be to ban the individuals named on the credit list if a scam is discovered.
The length and nature of the ban will be decided based on the seriousness of the case involved. We take the view that not all issues are the same and each case should be dealt with on its own merits.
In summary, the key issues which will guide us through this process are:
1) Was the work approved and paid for by the client and was it run using media space paid for by the client?
2) If an entry fails to meet this or other entry criteria, we will withdraw the award and make an appropriate announcement.
3) If we deem it is required, we will ban the individuals involved from entering our awards for a specific period of time which will be decided at that time.
- Ends -
For further information, please contact:
Amanda Benfell, PR & Press Manager
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, United Kingdom
Tel: +44-20-7728 4040; Fax: +44-20-7728 4044;
E-mail: amandab@canneslions.com
Cellphones banking
Cellphone overtakes PC for banking
JOHANNESBURG:- The number of people banking from their cellphones has exceeded that of people banking from their PCs in South Africa, with more than a quarter of bank customers turning to their cellphones for services ranging from informational transaction types such as balance enquiries to financial transaction types which include account payments.
This was one of the key findings from the consumer phase of the Mobility 2009 research project, released today by leading market research organisation World Wide Worx. The study was backed by First National Bank (FNB), leaders in cellphone banking in Africa, and Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry solution.
“It is encouraging to see that not only in FNB, but across the country, cellphone banking is now part of people’s lives,” says Len Pienaar, CEO, FNB mCommerce.
The Mobility 2009 study is being conducted in four phases, with the first three looking at the use of mobile technologies by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Consumers and Corporations, and the final phase exploring the Mobile Internet. In the second phase, announced at a press conference today, it was revealed that, while 16% of banking customers in South Africa use the internet for banking, 28% use their cellphones. A total of 34% of banking customers use one or both of these channels. Outside of the branch and ATMs, only 6% relying exclusively on the internet, while 18% rely only on cellphone banking.
“The fact that services like cellphone banking are taking off so strongly shows that consumers no longer see their cellphones only as voice and text messaging devices, but use them stay in touch with everything that matters in their business and personal lives,” says Deon Liebenberg,Regional Director for Sub Sahara Africa at RIM. “With a device like a BlackBerry smartphone, you have immediate access to financial information, your accounts and banking services while you are on the go, wherever you are.”
The study revealed that the main services driving cellphone banking were balance enquiries and notifications of transactions, with three quarters of cellphone bankers using these features. Just under half view statements on their cellphones, 35% transfer between accounts, and 28% pay accounts on their cellphones. In contrast, only 8% add beneficiaries via the cellphone, indicating both security concerns and set-up issues.
“Our research shows that South Africans are becoming comfortable with cellphone banking, but precisely half of general banking customers are still nervous of it, citing trust as their major concern,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. “However, this concern must be seen in the light of 34% also saying the issue is not knowing how to use the service.”
“Although we have made great inroads, two-thirds of banked people still don’t use electronic channels, other than an ATM,” says Pienaar.
At the same time, two thirds of cellphone banking users were satisfied with the security of the channel. This suggests that, once customers start using cellphone banking, they grow increasingly confident in both security and usability aspects.
“We have seen this rapid adoption driven by our USSD menu service, although I believe that WAP will start to play a more important role in future,” says Pienaar.
Liebenberg adds: “The success of cellphone banking shows that there is a strong demand in South Africa for powerful and easy to use mobile data services and applications that help people to save time and stay in control of their lives at all times. With mobile penetration at more than 114% in South Africa, we can expect to see the adoption of mobile banking and other personal services and applications ramp up quickly.”
The study also shows purchasing via the cellphone beginning to take off, with 24% of cellphone banking customers purchasing prepaid electricity and 21% making general purchases like movie tickets and flowers. Purchase of airtime still leads the way here, accounting for 61% of cellphone banking users.
Mobility 2009 included research among 1,000 consumers in metropolitan areas, 1,000 SMEs and 240 large enterprises in South Africa. - 3 November 2009
In a nutshell:
Services driving cellphone banking:
- Balance enquiry: 74%
- Notifications: 73%
- Buying airtime: 61%
- Statement/mini-statement: 48%
- Notification of account limit: 47%
- Transfer funds between accounts: 35%
- Pay accounts: 28%
- Buy pre-paid electricity: 24%
- Make a purchase: 21%
Campaign Vs.Conversation
This graph clearly and neatly map the differences between the two approaches and this RGA film talkes about the importance of long term brand platforms.
Campaigns versus conversations Infographic by Kenneth J Weiss
The danger, however, is that the believe that we can simply shine a spotlight on the conversation, abandon the campaign and leave consumers to it. It’s dangerous for a number of reasons:
- They may not be saying very much at all. Writing about launching “Brands in Public” Seth Godin observes “If your brand has any traction at all people are talking about you”. That’s partially true of course, but only partially. If you’re say a bread brand, a detergent brand or a toilet paper brand they may not be saying a lot. As Oscar Wilde so memorably put it “The only thing worse than been talked about is not being talked about”.Or is it…
- In the absence of something positive to respond to, the conversation may be dominated by customer service issues or by mischief making. The Skittles experiment is a case in point where without a conversation starter from the brand the conversation is effectively high-jacked. Indeed many brand owners’ reaction to the Brands in Public initiative seems to indicate that simply letting the conversation run without interesting brand stimulus and curation is problematic for any number of brands.
- Our brands become the guy with no opinion-the one who responds to every question with “I don’t know, what do you think?”
Skittles' Twitter Homepage Experiment
It’s very easy to see the campaign as the poster child for everything that is wrong with communications today-monolithic, monomaniacal and myopic. But do any of us really want to talk to a brand with nothing to say for itself? The people I want to talk to are the ones who tell me interesting stories, make me laugh or show me something beautiful. The brands people participate with most are arguably the ones generating the most interesting material of their own. So perhaps we need to re-frame the way we think about campaigns, seeing them not as egomaniacal, one-way rants but as conversation starters and stimulators-the jokes, stories and provocations that start a conversation, keep it going, keep it interesting.
Benjamin Palmer of the Barbarian Group in an excellent-and provocative-post on the subject of brands and conversations emphasises this need to do something worth talking about:
“I can’t help but feel that while we’re in a phase where our industry is looking at social media as a new marketing platform, what we should be thinking is that it’s just the newest place our audience goes to to talk about us when we do something worth talking about”
Smart and nuanced stuff, though I’m not sure I agree 100%. There’s no question that the age of the monologue is over. The conversations between brands and their consumers happen in the open today and we either embrace that or lose all control of the dialogue. Likewise, as media platforms fragment we need to create our own platforms; brand destinations delivering ongoing utility and entertainment. As consumers become ever more empowered and expressive we will want to embrace that expressive-ness and co-create with them.
Clearly, any smart social media thinkers will find ways of managing and directing the conversation. They will understand the role of content in giving shape to conversations, they will know how to associate brands with the subjects consumers do want to talk about, they will build in simple and scaleable ways of joining a conversation. They will find ways of aggregating the conversation into something bigger and more beautiful than the sum of its parts.
But we believe campaigns also have a pivotal role to play if we want our brands to be involved in the right kinds of conversations:
- Campaigns start conversations: Campaigns are the jokes, the chat-up lines, the anecdotes that get conversations started. Done right, they make our brands look interesting, sexy and funny-the kind of brand you want to talk back to. Campaigns bring people to platforms.
- Campaigns refresh and expand conversations: So you’ve started a conversation. People are talking about the brand, passing around branded content, buzzing about the campaign. You’ve used that buzz to draw some people into a deeper conversation, perhaps engaging with a long-term brand platform or utility. Now you want 1. to give those people something new to talk about and 2. to draw more people into that deeper relationship.
- Campaigns amplify conversations: You may have a hard core of loyal users who talk to you all the time. They’re fascinating individuals, they make excellent comments, they co-create some fantastic content with the brand. But they’re maybe 1% of your target audience. Campaigns can give these users and their content a much broader stage to play on.
The role of campaigns in conversation thinking
Of course, to do all this we need to be designing the right kind of campaign. Campaigns that provoke, entertain and inspire, campaigns that invite participation, campaigns that are designed to move consumers from buzzing about brand content towards a richer, longer term dialogue. We need to design in social features from the outset and incentivise social spread. We need to make a Campaign’s ability to drive participation a key metric, to try more things more quickly and see what catches fire. Campaigns have long been designed to be talked about, it’s time to start designing them to be talked to.
If we think of conversations as the fire and campaigns as the fuel for those conversations, it’s pretty clear we need both. There’s no fire without a spark. There’s not much heat without fuel.
Microsoft Soft Launch New MSN.com Home Page+MSN Rebranding
MSN Rebranding
MSN has done a major rebrand on its image. I gotta say that I like the direction it’s going with the thinner font, and the new upgraded butterfly. They have released a preview of the new site, which you can see here. If anyone has any more info on the logo please comment. What are your thoughts?
Microsoft Soft Launch New MSN.com
It has been reported that MSN.com is rolling uot a new version over time. You can preview the new version at http://preview.msn.com.
I never knew that more than 1/3 of all Internet users worldwide visit MSN every month. 400 million people per month. Thats nearly as good as Yahoo’s 600 million and killing AOL’s 80 million. But still, it’s the most popular Internet portal that no one actually ever goes to.
In the new version everything is a lot cleaner and easier to read. They have integrated Facebook and Twitter nicely and more videos. Additionally, you will notice the simplicity of the Bing search bar which provide no clutter.
Microsoft have also reported that more than half of their monthly visitors use Facebook on a monthly basis, as well as 15% using Twitter. These are the key reasons why these services are added but not much else.
4.11.09
Pfizer|Revision to its 18-year-old oval logo
Pfizer launched a new web site and introduced a revision to its 18-year-old oval logo, which was designed in 1991 by Enterprise IG (now The Brand Union). The new logo and comprehensive identity program has been designed by Siegel+Gale.The "Pfizer oval" was introduced in 1991. Over time, a great deal of equity was built in that logo, and it is widely recognized around the world. But today, Pfizer is a different company. It's changed through global growth, numerous acquisitions, entry into new therapeutic areas, and development of life-changing medicines. The new logo keeps much of the existing equity, but with the brightened color, approachable typeface, and tilted oval it signals positive change and forward momentum and asks people to take a fresh look at Pfizer because it is not the same company it was in 1991.
In addition to an updated logo, their new visual system also helps to signify this shift. The new dotted display typeface, illustration style, and bright multi-color palette work to communicate their larger vision of advancing better health for all people around the world.
— From Siegel+Gale
The new logo features redrawn typography, a color gradient and a tilted oval.
Siegel+Gale presented various redesigns to Pfizer but ultimately the decision was made to not stray far from the existing logo.
The new logo is a great improvement on the old one. Instead of a semi serif, the new typography is a sans serif which makes it feel more contemporary. The italic "e" that adds a lot of softness to the mark. The "z" is a little wobbly on its diagonal line but it works. And, overall, I like that there is less contrast between the thick and the thins, so the logo will hold up better when sized down on the back of a medicine box. The gradient… I guess, why not. I'm not a fan, and as the 1-color logos above show, it's not necessary. I also like the tilted oval, it's less symmetric and adds a bit of movement.
New identity applications
Siegel+Gale has put together a kit that allows Pfizer to deploy a variety of looks and messages. The first element is a dot typeface used for display purposes; it's nothing too fancy, but in the context of Big Pharma it's pretty out there. Following the dot appliqué is a set of moody illustrations that are at once scientific and playful. Add in a vibrant color palette and you have a recipe for real potential as the applications below — which are proof-of-concept and not final executions — demonstrate. With a few more hours of development the two designs underneath and to the right (green and pink backgrounds) would make Lester Beall and Ladislav Sutnar proud. This is not an easy project and the result is as uplifting as Pfizer's magic blue pills.
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