My life as a movie

I was pleasantly surprised this week to see  M-Net's new ad campaign to re-position themselves in the market place. It's got all the right suff in. It is a human emotional rollercoaster, that invites viewers to be part of the journey. What I find interesting is that the brand is pointing out the dark and unpleasant sides of life. M-Net has moved on from the Tooth Fairy to real life. It is as if M-Net wants us to believe that magic does not only happens on the screen, but it is part of our everyday life!

M-Net: My Life as a movie 

(produced by Ogilvy & Mather in Joburg) 

M-Net: The Tooth Fairy

Women's Day - where is the 'men's day'?

I was thinking about  Women Day today, why is it that we don't have a 'Men's Day'? Why do we need a day to celebrate women's achievements from economic, political and social to general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women? 

The reality is that constant polarised gender messages in media have fundamentally anti-social effects. 

Skky Vodka: Passion for Perfection
(Source: www.skkyvodka.com)

Media education can play a crucial role in counteracting the impact of these messages. Helping people to understand that media construct - as opposed to reflect - reality; that they communicate implicit and explicit values; and that they can influence the way we feel and think about ourselves and the world, are vitally important lessons towards achieving a society in which women and girls are seen and treated as equal to men and boys.

According to Media Watch, in everything from advertising, television programming, newspaper and magazines, to comic books, popular music, film and video games, women and girls are more likely to be shown: in the home, performing domestic chores such as laundry or cooking; as sex objects who exist primarily to service men; as victims who can't protect themselves and are the natural recipients of beatings, harassment, sexual assault and murder.

Men and boys are also stereotyped by the media. From GI Joe to Rambo, masculinity is often associated with machismo, independence, competition, emotional detachment, aggression and violence. Despite the fact that men have considerably more economic and political power in society than women, these trends - although different from those which affect women and girls - are very damaging to boys. (Read more.)

There is a place for media literacy

Every day should be Women's Day...
(Source: www.picstock.com)

Media education can play a crucial role in counteracting the impact of these messages. Helping people to understand that media construct - as opposed to reflect - reality; that they communicate implicit and explicit values; and that they can influence the way we feel and think about ourselves and the world, are vitally important lessons towards achieving a society in which women and girls are seen and treated as equal to men and boys.

It's Women's Day again; Women's Month again - to all out there let's make every day Women's day!

Is traditional media still relevant?

I spend my Sunday following South Africa's premier endurance event, the Spec-Savers Ironman. It made its 8th appearance in Nelson Mandela Bay. Now, for the none triathletes, the Ironman forms part of a world circuit. The athletes have 17 hours to complete a 4km sea swim, 180 km bike ride and a 42.2 km run. 

What I found fascinating was that the Ironman, did not use traditional media to cover such a premier event -  Comrades and Two Oceans both used traditional media (Television Broadcast:SABC 2) to cover the respective events. Today, Comrades is a house hold name and one can argue that traditional media helped to establish the 'The Ultimate Human Race' amongst South Africans.

The Spec-Savers Ironman used social media (Twitter and Facebook) to keep followers updated, but more interestingly, they used Universal Sport Network for live streaming of the event. This for me is a clear indication that technology is forcing mass media to reconsider their target audiences. Technology makes it possible for and event, such as the Ironman South Africa, to broadcast to very specific audiences that have nothing else in common except that they share an interest in triathlons! That for me is focussed publicity.

Woolies and the hot cross buns

Halal Hot Cross Buns (www.iol.co.za)

Last week saw some members of the Christian community angried at Woolworths for putting a halal certification mark on packages of hot cross buns sold ahead of Easter.

In emails, Facebook messages and Twitter posts, the fired-up Christians argued that hot cross buns have special meaning in their religion, and so the halal symbol (which indicates the food is permissable for Muslims to eat, under Islamic law), should not be used, according to the Mercury. 

A tweet from Tony Seifart read: “Woolworths SA clearly has no respect for the Christian Faith to make hot cross buns halaal.”

Was Woolworths wrong to try and make hot cross buns available to all its clients? According to the Mercury article (29 March) people feel that Woolworths is not being insensitive to Christians. In fact, they are being sensitive to the food certification requirement to accommodate all communities by including the halaal and kosher marks.

We need to ask ourselves how important are symbols in our society? From a marketing/ communication point of view, we can not ignore the meaning of symbols in our multicultural society. It might not be important to us personally, but we should never loose sight of the bigger picture.

Did Red Bull over step the line?

(Clip from Red Bull Advert - Source: www.zalebs.howzit.msn.com)

A lot of comments, blogs, tweets and articles were written in the last week about Red Bull's Jesus advert -  if you type in   the words "Red Bull + Jesus advert" in Google search you will get 4,180 000 results!

The question for most people was, why would Red Bull use  religion to sell their product? In a country where the last census (2001) indicated that 79.1 percent of the country is Christian. Furthermore, 36 percent are Christians belonging to African indigenous churches - you are bound to offend somebody.

And let's be honest, Red Bull cartoons have always looked at well known themes with a twinkle in the eye, it is surely not their intention to offend anybody. So the question  remains - why did Red Bull go with the Jesus advert in a Christian faith dominant country? Did they analyse their stakeholders? Maybe the Communication team did have a close look at 'who' their audiences are and new that if they give them something controversial to look at, that we will be talking, laughing, debating  over the advert long after the advert has been removed...

Red Bull Princes and the Frog (Source:www.redbull.com)

Viral PR - what are we waiting for?

(Source: www.imagebank.com)

I've read an interesting article this weekend in the Mail & Guarding (March 16 to 22 2012, p 30): Viral sensation an effective antidote to social fatigue. The journalist explored the question of social media and asked the question what value, if any at all, does it add to our society? 

The article explored the value of viral sensation and the use of social media in non-govermental organisations (NGOs) and makes the reference to the Kony 2012 campaign. A USA organisation - Invisible Children - brought the attention to the long-standing Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, whose atrocities include using child soldiers.

Looking at the documentary, if you agree or not, played an important PR role - we have watched it and we have been talking about the issues the video raised and we have shared it. The viral campaign gave voice to the voiceless and got the message across. There are in today's communication environment place for viral PR!

Gender issues - are we making a difference?

I was taken back this week by a comment made by one of my first year students during a class discussion, "men can not be raped..". Needless to say, the discussion in class was heated. But this made me think of how much more we need to do to educate our society about such a sensitive issue. And how can we cross the cultural barriers?

I've looked at the "Slut Walk" campaign, which is an ant-rape campaign and the title has caught the attention of the world. However, what amazed me, was that even in a world recognised campaign there was no mention begin made to male victims and the campaign builds on an old perception that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised". 

We need a campaign that educates across the board because statistics in South Africa give us a very different pictures of rape victims. A study done in 2008 uncovered endemic sexual abuse of male children that was suspected, but poorly documented according to Neil Andersson and Ari Ho-Foster of the Centre for Tropical Disease Research in Johannesburg. The study highlighted:

• The survey carried out in 1 200 schools across the country asked 127 000 boys aged between 10 and 19 if they had ever been sexually abused and, if so, by whom.
• Forty-four percent of the 18-year-olds said they had been forced to have sex in their lives and half reported consensual sex.
• About a third said they had been abused by males, 41 percent by females and 27 percent said they had been raped by both males and females.

So maybe this year when it is time for the "Slut Walk" again, we will take the time to give voice to the opposite sex - rape does not happen only to females!

(Image: www.rapevictims.org.za)