24 Apr 2020

Insights Report On How the Coronavirus (Covid19) Is Having An Impact On The South African Consumer’s Lifestyle And Behaviour

JOHANNESBURG, 24 April 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic, has deeply challenged every aspect of business and personal lives. Topline Research Solutions (TRS) in partnership with Ganizani Consulting have designed a weekly research tracker survey (Project TopGan) to formally keep businesses and relevant stakeholders connected with people (the customers) so that products and services offered as well risk mitigation interventions remain relevant. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on March 23 2020 that the country will be going into lockdown for 21 days. The lockdown started on midnight March 26 2020 and was scheduled to end on 16 April 2020. This was further extended to the end of April. On Thursday 23 April 2020, the President further announced a phased resumption of economic activity. He announced that effective from the 1^st of May 2020, South Africa will move to level 4 lockdown, stepping down from level 5 lockdown which it is currently under. This research takes into account this lockdown period and future reports will track the behaviour beyond.

The current weekly tracker survey covers:

Level of optimism about life in general
Shopping behaviours
South Africans’ lifestyles, covering sport, entertainment, hobbies, church, live event attendance and more
Access to Information Communication Technology (ICT), at home, among South Africans
Media consumption and information needs

The research findings clearly confirm that it shall not be business as usual. The pandemic has brought about changes in consumer’s attitudes, behaviour, lifestyle, interests, media consumption and social and e-commerce platforms in the three provinces we tracked namely, Gauteng, KZN and Western Cape (which are also at the forefront in terms of numbers of those affected).

9 out of 10 consumers are worried about the Covid19 pandemic. For survival, businesses need to empathise with the stressed consumer, who is mostly worried about their health/Covid-19, the economy, cost of living, the future of the economy and understand prevailing pain points which are highlighted in this report.

Our data suggests that people are changing their behaviour because of the pandemic and the lock-down requirements set in place by Governments across Africa. People are developing new lifestyles, priorities, experiences and needs.

There has indeed been a change in life as we knew it from optimism, to shopping behaviour to lifestyles. In the past 6 months before the pandemic, our data suggests that 7 out of 10 people were optimistic about life in general, this has plummeted to 2 out of 10 in the past 7 days. This leaves people stressed out.

The data calls for a need for relevant engagement on keeping the stress levels down and motivations up, on connecting with consumers at a deeper, meaningful level on what it is that is keeping them awake at night, their information needs, their lifestyle needs. Messaging that informs and encourages would be welcome by all who communicate with people right now. Technological innovation taking into account the context that we operate in with our ICT capabilities.

Lastly, formal mechanisms that provide customer-experience feedback will be necessary to ensure that the ongoing corrective measures will be aligned and relevant. It is anticipated that those anointed as ‘essential’ services will be exemplary in all respects.

Brands and organisations can’ jump on the bandwagon’ and add brand/organizational specific questions over and above the current questions to our carefully selected panel. Project TopGan is both a telephonic and online survey with respondents drawn from TRS’s electronic database (panel) of adult South Africans across different demographics.

***ENDS***

Note to Editors:

Statement issued by Topline Research Solutions. For an interview, please call executive chairman Patson, on 083 423 4554 or Judith Mugeni on 0823166730. For more information or access to report, please email judith@ganizaniconsulting.com or download the report at https://ganizaniconsultingservices.co.za/default/covid-19-report/

For general enquiries, please write to Charity at the following email address charity@topliners.co.za

(TRS) is a reputable Pan African marketing and social research consultancy based in South Africa whilst Ganizani Consulting is also a reputable Integrated Marketing Communication consultancy domiciled in South Africa.

21 Apr 2020

GanInsights #Marketing Desk Episode 3 – Global Case studies on marketing during Covid-19 Pandemic

by Judith Mugeni | in Information Technology, Marketing, News

The #GanInsights #marketingdesk chats on the impact of #covid19 on the sport, entertainment, lifestyle, live events industry. Today’s spotlight in the entertainment world is on #virtualparties with #djnice #blackcoffeedj #DJZinhle #TylerPerryChallenge #socialdistancingfestival From brands Standard Bank SME Debt repayment holiday, #cocacolaphilippines redirecting advertising spend to on the ground aid, #Nike Play Inside campaign. Stay tuned as we find more case studies on how brands are engaging during this period of time. Please keep sharing your case studies with us as well #brandstrategy #marketing #sponsorship #marketinginsights #marketinginsightseries

Watch all the case studies on our YouTube channel:

21 Apr 2020

Thought Leaders – Integrated Marketing Communications: Episode 01: Judith Mugeni

by Judith Mugeni | in Uncategorized

Ritevac TV interviewed Judith Mugeni: Founder and Managing Partner-Marketing and Strategy at Ganizani Consulting Services, Strategic Marketing and Tech firm. At that time – the Business Director: Experienced Integrated Marketing Comms, Sponsorship Strategist and Researcher at Octagon.

The insights focused around the strategic planning tool 5ws and 1h tool for marketing.

Putting a Marketing Plan together? Ask yourself these simple questions as the first step:

What:

What are you?
Answer this in terms of what is you are offering the market? Describe your products and or services, using its Features and benefits?

Who:

Who are you offering i.e. your products and or services to? Ask who should be buying or using our products and services? Who is your target audience?
This is what we call segmentation.
This requires you to break down the market into different segments – sets – that would use your product and services and then choosing the viable ones (e.g. primary and secondary market).
Describe them as much as you can in terms of:
- Demographics (describe them using elements such as age, gender, income, marital status, ethnic group, LSMs/Socio Economic status etc) ,
- Pyschographics (activities, personality and values, attitudes),
- Geographics (local, regional, provincial, national, cities, towns etc),
- Behavioural (benefits, usage rates – for example once a month, three times a day, breakfast etc and patterns)

Where:

Where – where can you find your target audience – the answer to this gives you contact/touch points,
Thus where can they find you (distribution channels) – this is the P in marketing called place

When:

When – refers to timing (is your offering seasonal or is all year round)
When do you target your target audience and when do you offer your services?

Why:

For the company -it’s important that you ask yourself – what are your marketing objectives? Why are you doing what you are doing? What do you seek to achieve (for example increase sales, push foot traffic to the stores, traffic to our website)
And for the consumer – ask yourself why should they care? Why should they choose you?

How – After you have all the W’s put them next to each other and create the action plan? The tactics. How will you engage the target audience?

Application using our own company for example:

What: Ganizani Consulting services is a marketing and tech firm. We offer technology services such as digital to include digital marketing, mobile application, website design and development, cloud computing solutions, solutions architecture and software development. Our strategic marketing arm focuses on brand strategy (brand audit, brand CI including designing your logo and look and feel), strategy workshops, marketing strategy, market research, events marketing, integrated marketing communications, sponsorship marketing.

Who: Our main target audience are SMMEs – small to medium sized businesses, who are looking to grow their brands through technological advancement and marketing – getting the right product at the right price to the right place to reach the consumer.

Where: We operate on the African continent and our headoffice is based in South Africa.

When – our services are not seasonal, clients can call us whenever they have a need to grow their business. To get a hold of us, our offices are open monday to friday from 8am till 6m.

Why – our value proposition is in our name which is to think – we offer strategic solutions based on industry know how and based on client needs. All our solutions are çustom built. Our consumers care because we make it easy for them to defend the solution and offer return on investment in all we do.

How – to reach our target audiences above we use our website to communicate our offering, we use social media such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter (which gives us exposure to the African continent), we blog and appear as guests on podcast if needed).

That is the simple strategic planning tool – used properly it can provide reach insights into your business

For more watch the full video on RiteVac TV on:

11 Mar 2020

The Effect of the COVID-19 Corona Virus outbreak on the Sports and Entertainment Industry & thus Sponsorship

by Judith Mugeni | in News

A value based definition of sponsorship by David Ross states that “Sponsorship is a mutually advantageous business relationship between parties in which the sponsor provides benefits for the sponsored in exchange for a result that can be measured against pre-defined objectives.”

If we look at North American spend by property type with data by IEG, sport has over the years maintained receiving the lion share of sponsorship spend (70%), followed by Entertainment (10% of spending or $2,4 Billion), Causes (9%), Arts (9%), Festivals/Fairs and annual events (4%) then Associations and Membership Organisations (4%).

While these property types can indeed by consumed digitally, most of them involve engaging fans/attendees on the ground. After all, “If advertising is an announcement, then sponsorship is a handshake.”

Headlines of events being cancelled or postponed amid the COVID-19 corona virus outbreak such as the below prompted the writing of this article:

“Coachella and Stagecoach Have Been Postponed Due to Corona virus Fear. The California music festivals were scheduled to be held in April, with lineups including Frank Ocean and Travis Scott as well as Thomas Rhett and Carrie Underwood. Coachella was set to be held in Indio, California, over two weekends from April 9 through April 19. Coachella will now take place the weekends of Oct. 9 and Oct. 16, and Stagecoach will take place the weekend of Oct. 23”
“Kigali City Suspends All Public Events Over Corona-Virus,” effective March 8^th till further notice.
“Corona virus Will Make This a Very Hard Year for Sports Fans. Teams are playing in front of empty stadiums in Europe. What does that mean for the NBA, MLB, NHL, and other major sports leagues and events?”
“As one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar, Africa’s Travel Indaba 2020 (12 – 14 May 2020) will go ahead as scheduled. However, with constant developments on a daily basis, SAT will continue to keep industry stakeholders updated on any changes affecting the event.”
“Cape Town International Jazz Festival goes ahead, despite withdrawal of Abdullah Ibrahim…The legendary artist’s decision was taken in light of concerns around travelling, due to the corona virus according to organisers. According to Festival Director Billy Domingo, the event will be going ahead as planned on 27 and 28 March 2020 at the CTICC, and a replacement will be announced: “as soon as possible”
“Arsenal place players in self-isolation and postpone Manchester City game due to corona virus”
“Corona virus: could the Tokyo Olympics be cancelled?”
“Advertising Week Europe postponed over corona virus concerns”
“The Ironman African Championships are expected to take place on the 29 March”

As someone who works in this industry and most of our clients host big events in the sport and entertainment industry, it’s very hard to not do a risk analysis of the current landscape. We have already faced a postponement of a global event we were working on, a maiden edition for Africa, that would have brought international and pan African delegates onto the South African soil. Thus for us the question becomes how does this outbreak affect our industry as agencies, as sponsors/brands, as rights holders, as fans/attendees, for tourism and more?

The Corona virus adds onto challenges that were facing the industry already. According to an article published by Julius Solaris in December 2019, the eventprofs survey already found that event owners were struggling with a few issues with regards to sponsorship:

Finding sponsors is a big challenge for eventprofs: Finding sponsors was the second most popular response, agreed by almost half (49%) of respondents.
Securing sponsors is a struggle for events: The concern over finding sponsors is likely due to the difficulty in securing sponsorship faced by events. A majority of event professionals (53%) agreed that finding sponsors for events is a struggle. Less than a quarter (22%) said that they weren’t struggling to secure sponsors.
Sponsor retention rates are also slipping: While 10% of event profs feel that sponsor retention rates have stayed about the same, 17% say they are decreasing, and 53% of planners agree that finding sponsorship is a challenge. This is a concern.
Measuring success with sponsorship: Of those surveyed, almost half (42%) said that sponsor satisfaction was used as a measure of success. Sponsorship revenue was also an important factor for around a third (32%) of eventprofs.

Looking at the calendar of some of sport, entertainment and lifestyle events in South Africa, up and coming events include: Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK) – 24-29 March, Cape Town International Jazz Festival – 27-28 March, The Rand Show, 8 – 13 April | Johannesburg, Splashy Fen Music Festival- 9 – 13 April | Pietermaritzburg, Splashy Fen Music Festival- 9 – 13 April | Pietermaritzburg, Two Oceans Marathon – 10 – 11 April | Cape Town, SA Cheese Festival – 25 – 27 April | Stellenbosch, Comic-Con Cape Town, 1 – 3 May | Cape Town Stadium, Huawei Joburg Day in The Park – 16 May | Johannesburg Botanical Garden to name a few

Current status of the COVID-19 CORONA VIRUS OUTBREAK

As of March the 11^th, 2020, 6:30 GMT time, global Corona virus Cases stand at 119,243, deaths sit at 4300, recovered at 66,578. The corona virus COVID-19 is affecting 119 countries and territories around the world and 1 international conveyance (the Diamond Princess cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan). The countries affected in top 10 ranking order include China (80,783), Italy (10,149), Iran (8,042), South Korea (7,755), France (1,784), Spain (1,695), Germany (1,565), USA (1,010), Diamond Princess (696), Japan (587). On the African continent – Egypt (59), Algeria (20), South Africa (7), Tunisia (6), Senegal (4), Morocco (4), Nigeria (2), Burkina Faso (2), Cameroon (2), DRC (1).

Sponsorship Spend

According to WARC’s report shared with marketing dive and published in January 2020, sports sponsorship spend is set to increase the most in a decade in 2020.According to the report, it is predicted that global spend on sports sponsorships by advertisers is to total $48.4 billion in 2020, up 5%. While according to Nielsen, South Africa spend on advertising and sponsorships totals R45-billion.

Below are further predictions by WARC on sponsorship spend in 2020:

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo is expected to garner $5.94 billion in sponsorship dollars, with $1.95 billion coming from Olympic partners including Coca-Cola and P&G, double the amount sponsors spent at the previous games.
- The report also predicts that local sponsors including Canon, Asahi and Fujitsu will spend $3.33 billion, four times the amount spent during Rio’s 2016 games.
The report also forecasts that brand investment in esports will total $795 million this year, up 23.1%, with $584 million going to sponsorships and $211 million to ad breaks.
The majority of investment is concentrated in North America, fueled largely by the financial services sector ($5.3 billion in 2019) and automotive sector ($.24 billion).
US brand associations with the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Basketball Association (NBA) will reach $3.97 billion in value in 2020, just over a quarter of total spend of $18.8 billion this year. The value of NFL sponsorship is forecast to reach $1.53 billion in 2020, up 4.9 percent from 2019. MLB partnerships are projected to increase 5.6 percent in value to $1.05 billion in 2020 and NBA tie-ins are expected to rise 7.1 percent in value to $1.39 billion for the 2020-2021 season.
In the European market, sports sponsorships will grow five percent to $12.9 billion this year, with Germany being the largest market and a projected value of $1.89 billion. Asia is expected to account for 23.9 percent of the global total at $11.6 billion, followed by five percent, or $2.4 billion, from Latin America.

With the above forecasts in mind, let us now look at whether these numbers will indeed be met with the fact that most of the properties either face postponement, cancellation or playing to an empty stadium.

A snapshot look at events that have been impacted by the COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

The Cape Town Cycle Tour, the largest timed cycling race in the world, took place successfully in South Africa on Sunday the 8^th of March. The first case of Corona was confirmed in South Africa on the 5^th of March. The organisers had confirmed that a group of riders from Italy, where there has been a severe outbreak of the virus, informed organisers that they would not travel to the event because of COVID-19.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said professional football matches and other big sporting events will take place without fans present until April 3.
The Abu Dhabi Sports Council cancelled the last two stages of the UAE Tour after two staff members of an Italian professional team tested positive for the coronavirus. The South African-owned NTT Pro Cycling team also took part in the race
Corona spoils the Holmenkollen party – One of Norway’s biggest outdoor parties of the year was affected as local authorities ordered a shutdown of all arenas for Oslo’s annual Holmenkollen Ski Festival and World Cup competition this weekend. The ski races and ski jumping will go on, but the grandstands will remain empty after the public was told to stay away in the interest of public health.
FIFA 20 events cancelled due to Coronavirus fears: EA Sports have followed the lead of governments and footballing bodies by postponing or canceling a number of planned EA Sports FIFA 20 Global Series events, including the CONMEBOL eLibertadores online and live event and FUT Champions Cup stages five and six. With live events that form the EA Sports FIFA 20 Global Series involving international travel for numbers of competitive FIFA players from countries across the world, holding these events could have posed a risk to both competitors and organisers.
Super Rugby, which included four South African teams, has also been affected by the pandemic with matches involving the Japanese-based Sunwolves postponed. The tournament’s organising body, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby (Sanzaar), has put all participants on alert.
The Six Nations rugby tournament, Europe’s premier international competition, has also been hit with the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) cancelling Saturday’s match in Dublin against Italy.
PRO 14 tournaments, which also features the Cheetahs and Southern Kings from South Africa, has been disrupted because of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy.
The 2020 Olympic Games, which are due to start in Tokyo on 24 July this year, are also under threat.
On 13 February World Rugby took the unprecedented step to postpone the Hong Kong and Singapore legs of the 2019/2020 HSBC World Sevens Series due to the threat of the COVID-19 outbreak
The Chinese Formula One Grand Prix has also been postponed among numerous other global events, which includes Japanese J-League Football matches and the LPGA Blue Bay tournament scheduled for 5-8 March 2020 in Hainan, China.
Asian Champions League matches involving Chinese clubs Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai SIPG have been postponed until April and May.
The World Athletics Indoor Championships, which had been scheduled in Nanjing from March 13 to 15, were postponed until next year.
The International Tennis Federation moved the Fed Cup Asia/Oceania Group I event featuring China, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Uzbekistan out of Dongguan to Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan.But the February 4-8 event was later postponed and relocated to Dubai after Kazakhstan declined to serve as substitute hosts.
The elite women’s LPGA golf tour in Hainan – an island on China’s southeast coast – cancelled the Blue Bay tournament that was scheduled to be held from March 5 to 8.The PGA Tour Series-China moved its February 25-28 global qualifying tournament to Lagoi, Indonesia, from Haikou, a town in Hainan.
Formula One organisers have postponed the Chinese Grand Prix, scheduled in Shanghai on April 19.
The International Olympic Committee announced Jordan as hosts of the boxing qualifiers for Asia and Oceania after an event in Wuhan was cancelled. It will now take place in Amman from March 3 to 11.
The International Basketball Federation moved the February 6-9 Tokyo Olympics qualifiers to be held in Foshan to Belgrade, Serbia.The FIBA Asia Cup 2021 qualifying match between China and Malaysia, to be held in Foshan on February 24, will be rescheduled.

What does it all mean?

For agencies, revenue stems from servicing and leveraging the sponsorship properties. Leveraging is beyond the reach that the media gives but engaging fans/attendees at their most passion – in stadium or at the event. With the Corona Virus and empty stadiums/postponed events, there will be no one to engage with the elaborately planned activations – which to some means a loss in income.

To those agencies selling sponsorship properties, now is not the time where sponsors would be considering partnering as they would have to take the virus into consideration – would the events move out? Are the new dates suitable to meet the sponsor’s objectives? The impact again is unpredictable income for the seller of rights.

For the rights holder – they feel the impact from a loss of already spent money on event production (e.g. venue bookings, flights if necessary, overheads), if your event was a few days or weeks out, it means that you have already spent a considerate amount on suppliers and time). One would hope that the industry would take these factors into consideration and refund or hold already spent deposits. The postponement of an event means refunding those that had already bought tickets their money (revenue that helps with the planning) or holding the money for a later date. Would you still make the same money at the later dates? Are those fans who had already planned according to those dates now going to come to the event on the new dates? What about sponsorship revenue? Will you retain the sponsors at the new dates?

For the attendee/fan – there is the fear of ‘is it safe to come to the event’ which already prompts the ‘go or not going ‘response. For those events that involved travel, would you be able to get your money back on transportation and accommodation already spent? The new dates that would be proposed are they relevant to you? Will you ever get over the fear of being infected? Will you ever be in crowded places again? Will it be the same while watching it on TV or listening on radio or streaming?

For the sponsor:It is now a question of ROI and looking at objectives. If sponsorship is about engaging the fan at their passion – the question will now remain whose hands are you shaking now – if there are no potential or current customers to shake at the event? Is the sponsorship still worth it? This will obviously always depend on what the sponsorship objectives were. If it was reach – there’s always televised matches in the case of the games if its sports. The ‘priceless’ moments of locker-room/backstage access, meeting the players/artists etc now are not possible to leverage. The uncertainty of for how long also lingers as businesses have revenue cycles to consider?

Is Digital and Broadcast the solution?

The new solution available to us would be to look at digital and broadcast solutions. As per the sports matches – play to a stadium with no spectators but the fans still get to watch the game on TV or stream online.

For conferences, festivals etc the same might not easily apply but the option exists. Do we broadcast the sessions? And let people stream online or watch the sessions on television or listen on radio? This is of course assuming that the artists/speakers would be allowed to be in the country to begin with (in the case of those artists/speakers that have to travel).

Either ways what the virus is saying to us is to be creative in an industry that already faces other challenges – showcasing ROI.

By Judith Mugeni

Managing Partner Ganizani Consulting – The Marketing and Tech Firm

Email: Judith@ganizaniconsulting.com

Sources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe7m4/coronavirus-will-make-this-a-very-hard-year-for-nba-nhl-nfl-mlb-soccer-sports-fans

https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/03/05/corona-spoils-the-holmenkollen-party/

https://www.goal.com/en-za/news/fifa-20-events-cancelled-due-to-coronavirus-fears/1dfrrfxu7y50f151gdpro4v6s1

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-02-28-covid-19-impact-on-sport-comes-closer-to-south-africa/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/sports-events-hit-coronavirus-outbreak-200212053839546.html

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/11/arsenal-self-isolation-postpone-game-manchester-city-premier-league-coronavirus-covid-19

https://taarifa.rw/kigali-city-suspends-all-public-events-over-corona-virus/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/olivianiland/coachella-2020-canceled-coronavirus

http://www.travelstart.co.za/blog/events-and-festivals-in-south-africa/

26 Feb 2019

Why AWS CloudWatch does not have Memory usage metric by default

by Jordy Mugeni | in Information Technology

Metrics that AWS provides are collected at the hypervisor level. But memory metrics (like disk metrics) are sourced from the OS level. A custom metrics are required to be periodically push to CloudWatch so that the memory and disk utilization metrics are visible on cloud Watch.

Monitoring Memory and Disk Metrics for Amazon EC2 Linux Instances

09 Oct 2018

Standard Bank Joy Of Jazz 2018 – through the lens of a marketing intern

by admin | in Marketing

By Sekelwa Mpambo

Standard Bank Joy Of Jazz 2018 – through the lens of a marketing intern

For a marketing novice who also happens to be a lover of jazz, working for the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz has been an experience of a lifetime, both personally and professionally. Even more rewarding was being a part of Ganizani Consulting, the team tasked with making a success of the marketing of an event as big and as prestigious as the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz which greatly changed my outlook on integrated marketing. The amount of work and sacrifice that goes into marketing an internationally acclaimed jazz festival is a lot. And to witness the sheer dedication and diligence from the Ganizani team has given me a new understanding of what it takes to be a successful marketer who understands their client and audience and immersing yourself in a brand.

Aside from the myriad of emotion and the plethora of emails, what does nine days till The Standard Bank Joy Of Jazz look like behind the marketing scenes? For Catherine Kapanga, accounts manager for Ganizani, “it constantly keeps me on my toes! Every day is something new! My problem and project management skills are being developed daily”.

Other than the opportunity to diversify my skill set, my biggest lesson has been witnessing that the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz is more than a festival and what it takes to encapsulate that sentiment when marketing it. As Nina Simone said, Jazz itself is not just music, it is a way of life and of thinking. It is our past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. Jazz can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art”.

An integral part of the campaign was to making people “feel the music and live the jazz”, Joy of Jazz launched the following compaigns, some of which where my highlights:

Road to Standard Bank Joy of Jazz with Oletta Adams and Wanda Baloyi
GelezaKleva and Learn
Colloquium – In Conversation With
Jazz Cares
Celebrating Women’s HeART

My Personal Highlights

Standard Bank Joy of Jazz: Gelezakleva workshops:

Youth in underserved communities who are interested in the various niches of the music industry, were afforded the opportunity to learn from renowned people in the industry through these workshops. I particularly enjoyed the Geleza Kleva and Learn workshops because I am passionate about youth development and the Geleza Kleva and Learn workshops are part of a development program that is aimed at empowering the youth with knowledge from music fundis. Topics ranged from, copywriting and composing to events management and performance – and the youth enjoyed the presence of artists such as Ntsika from The Soil who spoke passionately about the art of performing and Mantwa Chinoamadi, executive producer for the Joy of Jazz, who spoke about events planning.

Celebrating Women’s heART

Women celebrating women – those present and those who’ve passed, in an event that was aimed at commemorating and fellowshipping what it means to be a woman in art and to appreciate the role that each woman, young and old, play in making women in society free in not only their art but also in their respective lives – be it music or otherwise. Powerful women in music such as Letta Mbuli, Sibongile Khumalo, Nothemba descended on Constitutional Hill to celebrate womanhood and to pay homage to women who’ve paved the way for other women.

Jazzy Fridays

As part of the final build up to the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz, the Jazzy Fridays, in partnership with Tsogo Sun, were a chance to get a sneak peak into what the festival holds for audiences. For us, it was a chance to experience the fun part of working. This is where I came to learn why wine was dubbed “the elixir of the gods”. Gugu Shezi, Femi Koya, and Dudu Makhoba wowed audiences in an intimate affair for three nights only.

14 Sep 2018

Ganizani Consulting – The Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Tech Partner

by admin | in Marketing

It is 2 weeks to go till the the premier jazz festival – The 21st Standard Bank Joy of Jazz!

We have been honoured to have experienced this festival first hand – from behind the scenes. Ganizani Consulting is the appointed Tech partner for the festival – looking after the festival website and the mobile App. We are in our 3rd year developing the mobile app, the task of looking after the website was an added win!

Our task is not to just build another site but rather to use the latest technology to sustain this brand and keep up with its needs as the festival grows further. We will be able to give the user an experience not only of this year’s festival but allow the user to go back in time to the previous editions.

“Building a technology based company is not a once off thing, it isn’t built overnight, it is a process, the impact of all the work done behind the scenes will be seen in the long term. ” said Jordy Mugeni, Managing Partner.

From an organisational perspective, this has been a learning process for a small business. We have had to really put the word “agile” into practice. “In the world of marketing, things change very quickly, what is needed is a company that is agile enough to keep up with the pace, the team and the technology needs to deliver. Our customers are fickle, they will go straight to social media when their experience is somehow frustrating them,” said Judith Mugeni heading the Integrated Marketing Communications of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz and Managing Partner to Ganizani Consulting.

We adopt the view shared by Alice Bonasio that “such a large proportion of any company’s value nowadays resides in intellectual property, that it is safe to say that keeping your workforce’s skills up to date has to be the cornerstone of any successful business strategy – especially for technology companies.”

We continue to invest in our employees, ensuring that they are ahead of the game and can deliver solutions to our clients par excellence.

02 Feb 2016

Strategy Simplified:Competitive advantage in the 2015 Races

by admin | with 2 Comments | in Marketing

Marketing Strategy
Judith Mugeni

Strategy Simplified: How to gain a competitive advantage in the ParkRun and Walking/Running races in 2015…

Let us begin 2015 with creating strategies using an analogy close to my heart: running to keep healthy. Many people ask what a strategy is (a plan of action not just a plan) or feel that only certain people are equipped to write strategies, while in some cases it might be true that expertise is required, in other cases any one can think in a strategic manner. Let me illustrate using a running analogy and strategic thinking using a situation analysis, objective setting and a strategic table (taking into consideration the Ws1H, why, what, how, and measurement and of course this is assuming you know who your target audience is and where you expect to find them):
Situation analysis:This section should define your potential customers, what your projected growth is, competitors for bench marking purposes and a realistic assessment of the current situation your business is in. Let us begin with the analogy:
There is a growing trend to get fit and healthy, I just have to look around me people are either walking for exercise or running formally in races or informally with their friends. I also believe that the number of young people that are dying of coronary diseases is on the rise (that should wake me up or in business sense its either an opportunity or a threat). My family, colleagues and friends have been running or walking for exercise in the past year and I have either been cheering them on or watching them with a glass of wine in hand. As I take a critical look at myself, the thought of exercise downright tires me, however I recognise a trend and I want to be part of it simply because being fit has positive benefits.
In January 2015, I entered the market and participated in my first 5kms Park run and that gave me a benchmark of my competitive position (brand position) after being ranked no 371 and finishing it in 56 minutes (don’t judge me), the stats of the Park Run I participated in (or my brand category) are as follows: Average number of runners per week: 363; Number of runners: 4,801; Biggest Attendance: 688; Average run time: 00:36:25). It is very important to understand the category you are playing in so that you can plan effectively and defend your position.
I understand that walking for exercise is the easiest space to play in, as I am currently unfit (I am choosing a category playing on my strengths), however I am also aware of the fun run space -5Kms, 10Kms etc.- as well as the serious running space-half marathons and marathons. It is imperative that you define your category correctly as per Levitt 1960, don’t suffer from marketing myopia, otherwise you will be blindsided and benchmark incorrectly.

This incorrect definition of category will lead to narrow thinking for example data could show that you are number one in your narrowly defined category when in fact you are competing with a larger competitive set (is ice tea in its own category or in the drinks category) or see Nokia case study are you in the Smart Phone vs. Feature phone category or in the phone category. Its important to identify your direct as well as indirect competitors as we are operating in blurred boundaries, (Africa’s prevalence of mobile money means banks compete with telcos is a cell phone a competitor to a watch? Etc.)

Okay I digressed.

So What!

Thus as a brand I have done a trend analysis and found a lucrative opportunity that I must capitalise on, but I also understand that compared to others I have a few weaknesses that I need to address in order to compete (competitor benchmarking in the RIGHT category is NB, am I competing with runners of parkrun or runners in general?)
Objective Setting: This is probably the most important step in strategy that if done incorrectly, I will be running in the wrong direction. From my Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT), my Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely (SMART) objectives are derived:
• Medium Term: To create prompted awareness of Judith as a runner (50%) amongst my peers and race events by the end of 2015 (only because I get bragging points)
• Short term: To set a new 5K/10K/marathon personal record against my current 56 minutes for a 5Kms by the end of 2015
• Long Term: To finish in the top 20 of all races I participate in by end of 2018 (my market share, with the right strategy it can be done)

Strategy (Why, What, How and measurement)

Now that I know what my goals are, WHAT in the world am I going to do to reach them (need to be careful here not to mix the strategy which is the WHAT and the how which is the tactics I will use and most importantly bench marking and measurement controls.
The easiest thing is to create a table from here onwards as crosschecking keeps you honest:

Marketing and Tech Consultancy in Africa