Ideate

Marketing South Africa: A Proposed Strategy

by Fred Roed on 30/10/06 at 11:07 am
9 comments

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the effectiveness of this country’s efforts in getting the word out about South Africa. It has to be said that this is not an easy job, with three massive spanners preventing the cogs from turning:

• Crime
• HIV/AIDS
• Poverty

(You can probably add Zimbabwe to the list, but let’s keep it simple, shall we?)

Despite these not so insignificant problems, the bald truth is that the marketing of this country has been, quite frankly, a bit of a cock-up. The message is frayed and disjointed; there is no cohesion of strategy; and most importantly, we, the people of South Africa, have no idea what is being done – or how we can help.

Today the thought struck me: ‘Hey, I’m a marketing guy! Could I do a better job?’ So, without getting too bogged down in stats and research, here is my plan to clean up the mess that is Marketing South Africa’s feeble communication attempts.

Objectives:
1. Awareness – get ‘South Africa’ (what it is, what it means and where it is) in the minds of 50% of the population of the primary markets: US, Europe and the East.
2. Interest – create compelling reasons for those people to investigate further
3. Desire – make the benefits of this country evident in their minds.
4. Action – give people direction on how to interact with South Africa.
5. Information – make important facts easily accessible to anyone interested; alleviate common fears and misconceptions about the country.

Problems:
1. The big three as mentioned above.
2. Lack of a unified brand message that both the target market and the South African population can relate to.
3. Disjointed marketing team, lack of unity in focus.
4. Confusing marketing messages.

Solution:
Step 1: Internal Strategy (get all the stakeholders talking the same language)
Step 2: Brand Strategy (create one key message, then ensure it is consistent and pervasive)
Step 3: Information Strategy (key information is retained and imparted with efficiency)
Step 4: Ambassador Strategy (recruit key people who provide a conduit to large numbers of other people)
Step 5: External Communication Strategy (impart the brand message with humour and creativity)

That’s the short version. If you’re feeling really brave, click below if you want to read my suggestions in detail.

The strategy in more detail…

Step 1: Internal Strategy

• Align the various marketing departments together. Create better communication systems, and unify the message that is sent out. Scratch beneath the surface of many well-intentioned and well put together campaigns, and you’ll find a very disparate and disjointed team. I think this is a big problem with the current set-up, and is the first thing that needs to be fixed.
• Ensure that the goals, the mission, and most importantly, the message of Marketing SA are clearly understood by everyone within the organisation.
• Create a tiered list of most important markets to focus on (with USA at the top).

Step 2: Brand Strategy

• Create a simple brand message e.g. ‘Sensational South Africa’ (or stick with an existing one like ‘Alive with Possibility’, which is not too bad, actually).
• Ensure that this message is consistent in delivery (try to avoid ‘Stupendous South Africa’ or ‘Sensational Southern Africa’).
• Ensure that the visual delivery is also consistent (font, spelling, colour and layout must all be the same).
• Identify 5 ‘sub-headings’ to the brand message e.g. Affordability, Adventure, Diversity, Business Opportunity, Arts & Culture, and stick to these 5. These 5 sub-headings underline the benefits of the country.
• Ensure that the brand message and sub-headings are communicated correctly to all the stakeholders involved in marketing SA.
• Identify all parties currently involved in marketing SA and negotiate with them to start using the same brand message.
• Try and ensure that this message is used in all sectors of communication, from business to tourism and sports.

Step 3: Information Strategy

• Create a web-based information system that is comprehensive, organic and accessible to all who want to spread the brand message.
• Ensure that this system has the brand message and the 5 focal points on every page, in every section.
• Ensure that this system is kept up-to-date with all relevant information about the country, including negative stats like crime, HIV, housing and unemployment.
• All anyone to access this system.
• Allow strategic people to update this system, but do not restrict it to only Marketing SA individuals.
• Link this system to anyone who is actively participating in spreading the message, even seemingly insignificant ones e.g. bloggers, travel agents etc.

Step 4: Ambassador Strategy

• Identify all media who focus on SA, small (e.g. bloggers) and large (e.g. TNT in London), and actively feed them information about SA.
• Identify those who are actively slating South Africa (e.g. the 200,000 ex-pats residing in Perth…!) and lead them to the information system. Start feeding them facts based on truth.
• Identify key people who can provide a conduit to the world, and ensure they understand the brand message (and the 5 sub-headings).

Ensure the Ambassadors are ‘representative’. Some examples that I can think of:

Business:
Tokyo Sexwale
Sol Kerzner
Patrice Motsepe
Mark Shuttleworth

Entertainment:
Charlize (of course!)
Freshly Ground’s Zolani Mahola (because she rocks!)
A model (pick one from a long list, any one will do)
The dreadlocked guy and the bald dude from Just Jinjer (because they rock!)
Miriam Makeba

Sport:
Francois Pienaar
Lucas Radebe
Ernie Els

Politics and Culture
Madiba
Desmond Tutu (because he’s actually pretty cool)
Pieter Dirk Uys / Evita Bezuidenhout (because he’s actually pretty funny)
Mark Banks (because he’s damn funny!)

Similar to the UN Ambassadors strategy made famous by Angelina and Brad, persuade these people to spend an agreed period, say 2 weeks annually, with all-expenses paid, attending publicity events to create awareness for SA.

Step 5: External Communication Strategy

Create an advertising brief and commission 10 agencies in South Africa to compete for the campaign. Essential components in this brief are:

• Getting the brand message in front of the target market
• Corroborating the brand message by highlighting the benefits of South Africa
• The delivery must include humour and creativity
• There must be a motivated new-media focus: website, web marketing, viral marketing
• Print and TV should link with the website.

• • Create an overall media budget for the tiered list in Step 1, and then start a ‘tap-dripping’ approach – i.e. keep the campaign going until the glass is full.
  • Stick to a consistent look n’ feel throughout all media.
  • Make all media, action-based. Give people something compelling to do, with clear rewards.
  • New York
  • Los Angeles
  • London
  • Berlin
  • Paris
  • Amsterdam
  • Tokyo
  • Sydney
  • Beijing
  • Delhi
  • Calcutta
  • Sao Paulo
  • Madrid
  • Buenos Aires
  • Stockholm
  • Moscow
  • The brand message must come through strongly.
  • It should be split into the 5 headings.
  • It must be interactive.
  • It should link to various sub-sites that are targeted towards different demographics e.g. youth, back-packers, business, entertainment, sport, etc.
  • There must be an official blog, with contributing writers comprising of various bloggers around the world.
  • The blog should link to all blogs, websites, and forums around the world actively promoting South Africa.
  • Film festivals (Toronto International Film Festival is a good one – this is where Tsotsi first wowed international audiences)
  • Wine festivals
  • Fashion weeks
  • Business conventions
  • Arts and Culture festivals
  • Music festivals (e.g. Roskilde festival in Denmark; Glastonbury in UK)

Above the line:Advertising

Below the line:

PR
Position specialist PR people in the following cities:

Feed these people the information on a daily basis. Ensure once again that the key message ‘Sensational South Africa’, and the 5 sub-headings, are clearly communicated through their efforts.

New Media
Create a website (or adapt one of the various existing ones) to be consistent with the brand message and all the sub-headings. It is my opinion that the current official site is actually pretty good. It has a clear brand identity, ‘Alive with Possibility’, but I think the sub-headings need to be worked on. The website must adhere to the following criteria:

Events
It has often struck me how ineffective South Africa has been in this regard. While travelling abroad, one always notices how, at events all over the place, the more marketing-savvy countries are jumping all over themselves to be in the face of the public. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and India move mountains to get into film festivals, music concerts, art exhibitions, charity events, culinary conventions and fashion extravaganzas. It’s not too late to jump on the bandwagon. People need to experience South Africa. A special fund must be set up and utilised in order to make this happen, and in return, participants must display the South African brand message prominently. Some examples:

Conclusion:

Phew! So that’s it. This is my longest post ever, by far. Not sure why I did it, but maybe a part of me says ‘Instead of just complaining about it, do something about it.’ This is my antidote to knocking our national marketing folk. It is probably naive in many respects, mainly due to the fact I’m not prepared to spend long hours doing in-depth research right now. Next step: I will e-mail a link to this post to Yvonne Johnston, CEO of the International Marketing Council, and see what response I get, if any.

I invite people to comment on this and tell me their thoughts, criticisms and suggestions.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.

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