IN A FEATURE CALLED The Top Tens – celebrating the first decade of the century – Tony Koenderman’s AdReview 2010 is looking for six lists of tens. And we’re asking you to nominate them. We want to identify some of the people, the agencies and the organisations that have embraced change and taken ownership of it.
The lists are: People who made a difference; Best ads/campaigns; Agencies of the decade; Innovators  at the cutting edge; Ideas that changed things; Magic marketing moments.
In every case we’re looking for people, companies and events that had an impact on the ad industry and on society at large. Please send your nominations, with a brief justification or explanation, to tonyk@finweek.co.za. Mark your submission clearly in the subject line: Top Tens.
Seldom has social change coincided so neatly with the start of a new century. And seldom has the key function of communication commanded such a powerful role in centre stage. AdReview’s mission is to reflect that.
Questionnaires are currently being emailed. If you don’t receive one within a few days, please ask for one from polokom@finweek.co.za.

Questionnaires are also available for download on this website – see the Questionnaires menu on the right side of this page.

A one-day conference on new marketing

November 9 (Cape Town) and 11 (Johannesburg)

The fifth Brainstorm Conference is about New Marketing, as we’ve chosen to call it. Thanks to digital and online, the marketing world has hit the reset button and started again. For the first time, silos really are breaking down. At the Cannes advertising festival this year, judges kept saying they couldn’t decide which category entries belonged in. Bob Scarpelli, worldwide creative chief of DDB, said we’ll soon have only one category of award, and present it to the best idea.

Although we are running it in collaboration with the Online Publishers’ Association, this is not a conference about online marketing. It’s about the new, multi-channel environment, in which new and old media both play a part.

So it’s called “Catch a Wake-Up!” and its theme is marketing integration.

Its purpose: to help South African marketers and advertisers keep abreast of the latest developments, and demonstrate how to take advantage of them. Our speakers have been told to address an audience of intelligent laymen in plain language, devoid of jargon and acronyms, with plenty of case studies and three or four calls to action that they can implement immediately.

Fernanda Romano and another of the world’s leading experts in online marketing, Chris Colborn, chief experience officer at R/GA New York, will be announcing the finalists of the Bookmark Awards at an Online Publishers Association workshop to be held in the afternoon. Both digital luminaries will detail why certain works have been selected, as well as discuss current digital trends. The actual Bookmark Awards ceremony will be held on Thursday evening 12th November 2009 Read More→

WHEN THE HISTORY OF South Africa’s media gets to be written in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time, there’s little doubt the currently infamous Zapiro cartoon will earn its place as a turning point. But which way will those future historians see us having moved?
The cartoon, depicting ANC party president Jacob Zuma apparently about to rape SA’s justice system – portrayed as Lady Justice, Justitia, being held down by the ANC and its Youth League, the SA Communist Party and Cosatu – is clearly offensive to many. But the test of true freedom of expression is the willingness to allow those with whom you disagree strongly to make their opinions heard. As Voltaire famously said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Noam Chomsky, a contemporary political scientist and philosopher, put it even more appositely: “Goebbels was in favour of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. But if you’re in favour of freedom of speech that means you’re in favour of it precisely for views you despise.”
Free speech is never untrammelled. Limitations are accepted in free societies when, for example, it amounts to hate speech, especially when it’s defamatory, racist or incites people to violence.
Hate speech is the objection most likely to stick against Zapiro’s cartoon. But it’s difficult to assess. If Cosatu goes on the rampage tomorrow, claiming it was incited to violence, you’d have to ask whether the cartoon or the union leadership did the inciting.