Apple may have been trying to showcase its new Apple Watch Series 4, but its one filming location in particular glimpsed within its new ad that piqued our interest. With "Hokey Pokey" playing in the background, the ad tracks the daily movement of people across the world, all doing what they seemingly love. However, if you look at little closer, you may spot a Table Mountain or two. A large portion of the advertisement was filmed in Cape Town. Bo-Kaap, the CBD, the Atlanic Seaboard, Hout Bay, and Camps Bay beach are all visible in the heavily-cut 60 second clip. "Apple Watch has...
Humans are visual creatures. Half of the human brain is designed to process visuals, more than the other senses such as touch and hearing. The brain is able to identify images in as fast as 13 milliseconds, and humans are able to remember more than 2000 pictures with at least 90% accuracy. So if someone sees a beautiful or a haunting image, they'll won't likely forget it. In the age of social media, a picture is truly worth a thousand words. If you want to stand out, you must have really compelling visuals in your arsenal. Online consumers are said...
If you thought Netflix nailing DStv was harsh, or Cell C mocking Rain's LTE service was crude, you're going to love Nando's shade at practically every brand in South Africa. In its latest ad posted to Twitter, the food firm takes aim at brands' lavish and often esoteric advertising campaigns. "Is this how we sell things now? Mxm. There’s more than one flavour to South Africa," Nando's chides on Twitter. Front and centre is an allusion to Absa's (sorry "African Nasti") recent brand refresh, adopting a similar logo and font. Aesthetically rich marketing campaigns are also slated, including those with face paints,...
Death and taxes are two big guarantees in life, and if you're running a business, then sturdy competition is another one of these certainties. Managing your brand is a constant balance between being the best possible version of yourself (or your business) while also ensuring you keep up to date on what the businesses around you are getting up to. The last thing you want is to fall behind on how they're promoting their products and services and appealing to customers. After all, competition is the fourth biggest cause of business failure for businesses. Beating out the competition these days is about...
Update, 22 August: Netflix South Africa's PR has told Memeburn that there's "no confirmation that Netflix will be rolling out the previews in our market". See the additional statement by Netflix in full below: At Netflix, we conduct hundreds of tests every year so we can better understand what helps members more easily find something great to watch. A couple of years ago, we introduced video previews to the TV experience, because we saw that it significantly cut the time members spend browsing and helped them find something they would enjoy watching even faster. Since then, we have been experimenting even more with...
We're seeing more and more brands coyly attack one another on social media. A good example was Netflix's swipe at Multichoice's DStv, and Huawei's recent dig at Samsung after the Korean firm's Note 9 was unveiled. This week however it was two South African companies who stepped into the ring: Cell C and Rain. The former dragged its new data-only rival through the mud on Monday with an advertisement posted to YouTube. Rain has come under pressure from users for "teething problems" and spotty coverage across South Africa's major cities. It seems that Cell C was keen to highlight these issues. We're blown...
In an extremely brave and risky financial play, Spotify may soon allow free tier users to skip audio and video advertisements whenever they want. At present, free users are not allowed to skip ads at all, but that could soon change according to a report by AdAge. The Scandinavian streaming service is currently testing the tweak to its free tier in Australia. Users Down Under are allowed to skip ads whenever they like, getting back to their voracious music consumption sooner. Spotify is also making note of which ads users of skipping, building up a playlist of relevant ads, if you...
If you love shopping online, especially for cosmetics, but always wanted to try things on before making that risky purchase -- it may soon be possible. Cosmetics brand L’Oreal, with the aid of its recently-acquired AR company ModiFace, has teamed up with Facebook to create augmented reality (AR) testing tool to help online consumers make informed decisions about their make-up. For L’Oreal, it's a play that opens up its product to various social channels, notably Instagram. "We are at that magical moment when technologies have matured enough and consumer appetite for using them is growing everywhere. We are very excited about that...
Over the past decade, the dazzling rise of digitally-driven technologies has had a profound effect on almost every industry. Within the broad sphere of media and advertising, new technology has been hailed as both hero and villain. Print media, for example, has faced a catastrophic decline in readership as audiences turn to online platforms. Similarly, broadcast media has been challenged to find growth in advertising revenue as digital platforms become more widely used. One of the oldest and most beloved of media platforms -- radio -- has also been under threat. Yet in the case of radio, and more specifically, radio...
It's safe to say that Netflix South Africa has adopted the Wendy's brand of guerilla marketing, this after its latest ad dropped in the country this week. Dubbed "Man in a Van" and starring South African comedian Jason Goliath, the 97-second long short pokes fun at satellite options' often convoluted installation methods. Okay, mainly Multichoice's DStv, to be honest. XD. Although it was off to a slow start, the ad has now racked up more than 44 000 views on YouTube since it debuted two days ago. On Twitter, it has also accrued a further 3000 retweets with more than 5000 likes. It's not...
You’ve just sat down to scrawl through your latest SEO report and your website’s rankings are finally blowing you away. After months of on- and off-page SEO efforts, you’re ranking well for the right search terms in your industry, your organic search traffic is something to boast about, your bounce rate is on a definite downturn and visitors are spending a respectable amount of time on whatever page they land on. It’s obvious that whatever you’re offering up to the search engine Gods is hitting the sweet spot. Not one to be complacent however, a new question pops into your head: I’m...
Congrats KFC South Africa, you're now 9GAG famous. The website laced with memes and funny videos posted a clip of KFC South Africa's pre-World Cup advertisement, featuring a footballer "making a meal" of a tackle. And no, surprisingly, Neymar isn't starring in it. The clip was published to 9GAG's Instagram account of some 45.6-million followers early Thursday. The post has since amassed more than 3.5-million views, 60 000 likes, and more than 13000 comments. KFC South Africa must be loving the free publicity too. Its Instagram account in comparison has just 24 000 followers in total. If you haven't yet seen the ad, watch...
"Data is the new oil" is a phrase we’ve all seen, in some variation, in conference presentation after conference presentation. Knowing everything about your customers, advertisers are told, means that you can target them with pin-point accurate messaging, saving you money and delivering real business results to your clients. While there is an element of truth in this sentiment, there is a tendency among those who express it to see data as a panacea for all of advertising’s problems. Those on the other side of the fence fear that a focus on data will ruin the creativity on which the advertising...
Wikipedia is one of the internet's most trafficked websites. We've likely all visited it at least once, and spent countless nights travelling through informational rabbit holes. But as the flagship project of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia is the key conversational pivot on which the Wikimania 2018 conference -- now just a month away -- will centre. Cape Town has won the rights to host the 14th edition of the event, and it's a pretty big deal too; the event moves from country to country each year, so it's likely that this will be South Africa's first and last time hosting...
Wikipedia is hosting its annual conference in Cape Town in July. Announced by the non-profit today, Wikipedia's Wikimania conference will be heading to the African continent for the first time, bringing with it volunteers from around the world and Wikipedia royalty. "Attendees will be made up of members of the global Wikimedia movement, including those who volunteer their time to edit and improve Wikipedia articles, create bots, or organise events and projects to draw more content onto Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects," the company wrote in a press release. "Other open knowledge advocates will also attend, along with local academics, teachers, heritage...
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