Tag Archives: International Marketing Council

Brand South Africa new slogan “Inspiring New Ways” meaningless for tourism!

After many years of marketing South Africa with the senseless slogan ‘Alive with Possibility’, followed by the short-lived ‘More than you can imagine’, which had to be canned as it had been used by various other countries/cities/brands, our country has a new slogan: “South Africa: Inspiring New Ways”, which was approved by the Cabinet earlier this week.

Brand South Africa CEO Miller Matola said: “It’s a challenge to all South Africans, from business, government and civil society, to build on our reputation for inspiration and innovation”. The organisation conducted market research to test which one of five finalist slogans was most suitable, having consulted widely to create the slogan short list.

The organisation responsible for marketing South Africa, previously called the International Marketing Council, has itself been rebranded as Brand South Africa, and has a new CEO.  The company ‘lobbies and networks extensively among global opinion leaders to shift perceptions about the country and the continent’.   With TIME magazine Brand South Africa brought global business leaders to the World Economic Forum at Davos, to debate the role of Africa in global transformation.  Similarly, during the Mining Indaba held in Cape Town last month, Brand South Africa partnered with the Financial Times of London, to debate the future of mining in Africa.  International journalists are brought to South Africa, to connect with local government officials and business executives, to experience our local life and culture, and to learn about technological developments.

Although the new slogan has just been approved, Brand South Africa is patting itself on the back for its success already, in having moved up one place to 36th of 50 country names measured by Anholt-Gfk Roper Nielsen on tourism, culture, people, exports, governance, and investment/immigration, ‘confirming the steady improvement in the country’s reputation’!   Majola is quoted as saying that his organisation’s focus is ‘on positioning the country more as a business destination and an attractive emerging market on the African continent’.

One must seriously question the slogan and what impact, if any, it will have on the marketing of South Africa by SA Tourism. Our country appears to be developing a series of meaningless marketing slogans, no doubt developed by a branding agency at great cost to taxpayers!

POSTSCRIPT 9/7: Details of the new International Marketing Council TV commercial, flighted last week for the first time to launch the slogan ‘Inspiring New Ways’, have been made available by Bizcommunity.com. The TV commercial features better and lesser known South Africans that have ‘Inspired New Ways’:  ‘Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Baby Jake Matlala, Natalie du Toit, Trevor Noah, Lucas Radebe, Brian Mitchell, Greg Minaar, Trevor Rabin, John van der Ruit, Shaun Thomson, David Tlale and Khotso Mokoena and lesser known ones who have also defied the odds to become top achievers in their fields – such as Toya Delazy, Colin Thornton, Oyama Matomela, Andile Dube, Andy Higgins, Tebogo Skwambane, Nhkensani Nkosi, Emile Engel, Simon Ratcliffe, Zibusizo Mkhwanazi and Fatima Vawda’.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

Tourism Service Excellence standard an excellent initiative to enhance SA tourism competitiveness!

The national Department of Tourism has embarked on a welcome Tourism Service Excellence drive, and has released a draft document for comment from the industry until the end of February in developing a tourism service excellence standard and code, to enhance the tourist experience in South Africa.

The development of a ‘National Standard’ for Tourism Service Excellence by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) results from a 2008 National Tourism Skills Audit Report recommendation that customer care training in the tourism sector should be improved, when South Africa ranked 61st of 133 countries in The World Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report of 2009, coupled with inconsistent service delivery in tourism, ranging from very poor to very good.  The reason for this was stated as being the lack of ‘integrated standards and norms that can be used as a guiding tool in terms of customer service’. To improve customer service, it was deemed necessary to develop a set of policies, guidelines and programmes, to ‘ensure a holistic approach and collective ownership’ for customer service, thereby improving service excellence throughout the tourism ‘value chain’.  Such a standard would be developed for all businesses which come into contact with tourists, including the Immigration officials (criticised in the past for their unfriendliness), transport services, accommodation establishments, financial institutions, shops, and any other businesses and authorities which deal with tourists when they make bookings for their trip, when they arrive, and interact with them during their stay.

‘South Africa should be seen as the country that offers the best service, diverse experience and value for money.  The overall purpose of this document is to emphasize the importance of the spirit of “Ubuntu” in ultimately achieving the vision of tourism growth and development in South Africa’, states the draft Service Standard document.

According to the Service Standard draft, tourism businesses would be required to support the principles of accessibility, accountability, accuracy, capacity building, commitment, consistency, continual improvement, courtesy, responsiveness, safety and security, value for money, and visible marketing in displaying the logo for the new Service Standard, in running their tourism businesses and operations.  It is not only written for South Africa, but incorporates neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, as if they are service extensions of our country’s tourism product.

The Service Standard document identifies government departments, as well as associations and groupings of tourism businesses which should adopt the service standard, and encourages its usage amongst its staff and members, including the Department of Home Affairs serving tourists on arrival and departure at airports; SA Tourism and the International Marketing Council in marketing the country; provincial tourism authorities; municipalities in providing visitor information services, signage, and infrastructure; telecommunication companies providing cellphone services; SARS for customs clearance; airports; the Banking Association; the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa, the industry quality assessment body, not mentioning FEDHASA, the industry hotel association, and the guest house association; the Banking Association; the Restaurant Association of South Africa (although not all restaurants belong to it); the Tourism Business Council of South Africa; and shopping centres.

Tourism businesses are expected to introduce a quality policy, to make service their focal point, to train new staff in service, to offer friendly and professional service, and to review their quality and services regularly.  In running their tourism businesses, they are encouraged to focus on the following:

*   Product: it should offer quality, choices and alternatives, ensure that there is enough staff to assist the tourists (this is the biggest challenge to the tourism industry, and would require a complete work ethic culture change amongst staff), offer value for money (a very relative term), universal accessibility for the disabled, ensure the safety and security of their clients, ensure guest information confidentiality, be environmentally friendly in its operation, and not discriminate against any types of clients.

*   Service: should be friendly, professional, guest focused and driven, and offer an effective service recovery.

*   Marketing: should have a consistent message, be accurate, be updated regularly to create realistic expectations for tourists, be truthful and honest, and not be offensive.

Although written in an academic form, the draft National Service Excellence standard is an excellent step forward for tourism service excellence.  One is surprised that it has taken the Department of Tourism so long to work on the standard, and that it was not prepared in time for the 2010 World Cup.  Most (commercial) tourism businesses would argue that they already apply the principles of service excellence in running their businesses, our country receiving praise for its friendliness and for walking the extra mile, and that it should be the government departments and bigger corporates who have a secondary tourism involvement that should be adopting the new service standard.  The document contains a Tourism Service Excellence code for companies to use as a framework to design their own service excellence codes.  As with most such documents, it has not been widely exposed to the tourism industry in terms of the input and feedback the SABS is seeking.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

New R1/2 million marketing slogan for South Africa hits trash can!

Don’t you just love it when you read that a R140 million tender, which included coming up with a new international marketing slogan for South Africa, generated a slogan that is not any more creative than the previous boring slogan, and is not original, in having been used in other countries!   Now it has been canned!

Last week the government approved the new slogan “More than you can imagine…” for South Africa, reports the Cape Times.   The contract was handled by the International Marketing Council.  The slogan will be used not only by the International Marketing Council, but will also be adopted by S A Tourism for its marketing of South Africa as a tourism destination.   The new slogan replaces the meaningless slogan: “Alive with Possibility”, as it had slipped in its popularity rating to 64%, it is reported.

The only problem is that the slogan is not only totally generic, not creatively and uniquely defining what makes South Africa special, breaking a cardinal marketing rule in finding a positioning that differentiates one from the competition, but also is not unique to our country.   Other uses of the same slogan have been in Portugal, the state of Maryland in the USA, the county Clackmannanshire in Scotland, by a training company in Australia, and in an advertising campaign in the USA!

Themba Maseko, a cabinet spokesperson, said the cabinet did not know of the slogan’s use elsewhere: “When the cabinet approved the slogan, it was not aware it had been used by other countries.  Our understanding was that thorough research was conducted before the recommendation was made to cabinet.”  The International Marketing Council CEO, Miller Matola, defended his Council’s slogan choice on the basis that it has not been used for any other country!

Now the government has canned the slogan due to its use elsewhere, reported the Sunday Times.   “Once it had been brought to our attention that the slogan was not original, we had to investigate”, government spokesperson Vusi Mona is reported to have said.   Bodies that had been consulted in the development of the slogan included the Departments of Tourism and Trade and Industry, Nedlac, S A Tourism, and the provinces.  Excluded from the consultative process was the tourism industry! 

The slogan development is part of a four year R140 million contract to market South Africa via the International Marketing Council, and cost R470000 to generate.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com   Twitter: @WhaleCottage

South Africa positioned as world’s leading adventure destination

In the wake of the World Cup, which exposed South Africa to 1,26 billion TV viewers around the world, South Africa will be marketed by S A Tourism as the world’s leading adventure destination, said the Chief Marketing Officer of S A Tourism, Roshene Singh, at a presentation to tourism leaders at the Harbour Bridge Hotel in Cape Town yesterday.

The country’s R 800 million marketing budget will be focused on a number of different international and domestic marketing campaigns, which began prior to the World Cup, and are one year programmes designed for different target markets, to continue the positive momentum created by the World Cup to improve the country’s global competitiveness.   Those travellers that did not visit South Africa in June and July will be encouraged to feel that they missed out, and will be enticed to visit our country, given the country’s top infrastructure, great experiences and welcoming people.   Existing advertising campaigns with CNN, BBC World, SkyNews, EUROsport, Global Cinema, Conde Nast Traveller, Vogue, Vanity Fair and the Financial Times, combined with cinema advertising, social media marketing (including a Blog and Twitter), online media, Public Relations and websites, will continue in the next year, creating a reach of 1,4 billion consumers.  South Africa’s 130 embassies around the world can play a far greater role in marketing the country, it was said.

Domestically, the focus is on Sho’t left, which kick-started the ‘Fly the Flag’ and ‘Welcome’ campaigns, as well as a ‘Thank You’ campaign to thank South Africans for being proud hosts.  From next month, being Tourism Month, attractive travel packages will be rolled out for the next six months, to encourage South Africans to travel in their own country, supported by advertising on etv and all SABC TV stations.  Travelling will be built into the storyline of ‘Rhythm City’, an etv soapie, an outdoor billboard campaign, Twitter and Facebook communication, a mobi site on mobiles, and sponsorship of the travel sections of You, Huisgenoot and Drum are further means of boosting domestic tourism. Tollgate promotions, shopping mall promotions, and joint promotions with Thompson Holidays, Computicket, Flight Centre and Kulula, amongst others, have been planned.  Domestic tourism is the ‘bread and butter” of the tourism industry, said Singh.

Next month a new advertising campaign breaks, consisting of four commercials, following four couples who visited South Africa during the World Cup, each of the four couples having enjoyed 20 experiences in 10 days.  An Indian couple goes shark diving, bungie-jumping, motorcycling and enjoys good food. An American couple raves about the wonderful people they met here, the sunset safari they enjoyed, and the beauty of the country, saying that they will come back.  A British couple jumps down a “foefie slide”, goes shark-diving and kayaking, sees a rhino close-up, and expresses surprise about the many different parts of the country.  A Nigerian couple watches African dancing, has dinner in an aquarium, with sharks watching them, plays golf, enjoys wellness spoiling, and they say that their visit has made them fall in love with each other all over again.

To focus on the Adventure positioning of South Africa, the “Adventurers Wanted’ campaign with National Geographic seeks an “Adventure Ambassador” in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the USA.  Collectively, they will form an “Adventure Tribe”, and will enjoy an ‘adventure of a lifetime in South Africa’, which will be filmed by the magazine.

Asked when the boring, unexciting “It’s Possible” payoff line for South Africa will be replaced, it was promising to hear Singh indicate that the International Marketing Council is focusing on changing its positioning for South Africa, to “inspiring new and different ways”, which means that S A Tourism will adapt its payoff line to be aligned with that of the country.

Social media marketing will become a stronger focus, especially via Facebook.  Expedia, Tripadvisor and WAYN.com are websites on which South Africa will be featured.  All communication will reflect the “warm, friendly, welcoming, exciting, amazing, awesome, ubuntu, people, place, culture destination by deploying authentic WOM (word of mouth) ambassadors”.  The major message of communication campaigns will be “triumphant, excited, passionate and celebratory”.  It will say “We did it! Thanks for coming, see you again soon.  We made 450 000 new friends …. and you have made 48 million new friends”.

Country specific campaigns planned  by S A Tourism are as follows:

*   Africa:  A “Thank You” campaign in Botswana, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, President Zuma thanking fellow Africans for their support in making this the best World Cup ever and for showcasing the best of South Africa, via newspaper and radio advertising.

*   Germany:   Promotional and sponsorship campaigns, around celebrities sharing their travel tips and experiences of South Africa

*   Italy:   Italian travellers share their South African experiences on blogs, billboards, ads, etc, focusing on food, design and adventure.

*   France:   focus on adventure and nature, via a mix of above and below the line media

*   Netherlands:   Blog competitions, and treasure hunt promotion

*   India:   “Super Six” promotion, plays on the country’s cricket interest and our Big Six.  Multi-media focus.

*   China:   Travel fairs, photography promotion, social media.

*   United Kingdom:   “1001 things you did not know about South Africa” promotion with Lonely Planet, advertorials in Times and Conde Nast media groups’ publications, travel offers sent to 1,8 million Travelzoo subscribers, a travel road show to sustain the momentum by motivating agents to sell South Africa, a partnership with Emirates in an advertising campaign, and many more activities for this market.

*  USA:   Direct mail to Conde Nast database, promotion with National Geographic, and advertising campaign, inviting Americans to “go places you’ve never gone before, take the journey”.

*   Brazil:   Media invited to South Africa, to experience the country.  The SABC has been invited by Brazil to assist with the broadcast of the 2014 World Cup.

The visuals shown for the marketing campaigns have a strong focus on wildlife, the giraffe featuring most strongly to communicate this strength of South Africa.  Disappointingly, little of Cape Town is shown, Table Mountain, Blouberg and Boulders’ Beach being the most featured Cape Town images, and Cape Town was most prominent in the Chinese and Japanese communication programmes.

The Olympic Bid for 2020 is on S A Tourism’s agenda, said new S A Tourism CEO Thandiwe January-McLean, who took over the helm six months ago, having previously been the South African Ambassador to Portugal.  Dirk Elzinga, new Chairman of FEDHASA Cape, reminded SA Tourism that Cape Town has added on 25 % more hotel rooms in the past year, and that the city needs help in improving occupancy via events and conferences, which receive little focus from the marketing body, he felt.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com