Tonya Khoury, MD of South Africa’s foremost media intelligence provider, ROi Africa, the media monitoring sponsor of actor, Ivan Zimmermann and his participation in the 2015 Tour d’Afrique, says everything is on track for Zimmerman’s departure from Cairo to Cape Town today (9 January).  

Zimmermann is participating in the world’s longest and most challenging 12 000km mountain bike adventure, to raise 12 000 tins of  foods for Can-a-Kilo. 

Media coverage of his adventure, also sponsored by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) and Sage Pastel, will be monitored closely by ROi Africa for the duration of the journey. They will also be providing media insights about the undertaking through their Smart Technology system  which measures, amongst others, more than 200 million social media platforms. 

Zimmermann, who is planning to reach Cape Town on 9 June, says, “I have always dreamt to travel through Africa for a good cause. This adventure through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa will provide me with a platform to make my dream and many children’s dreams come true,” he adds. 

The 12 000 cans of food will be distributed by the Hanna Charity and Empowerment Foundation in South Africa and collection points for the cans can be found on  www.ivanzimmermann.com. 

Ivan’s progress can also be monitored on: 

TWITTER: @IvanZimmermann1, @CANaKILO (#leadersneverquit, #12000km, #tourdafrique, #12000cans)
INSTAGRAM:    eyevanzimmer
FACEBOOK:     /Ivan.Zimmermann 

FOR MORE INFORMATION 

NAME:             Tonya Khoury
E-MAIL:          This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.    
CELL:              073 874 5377
WEBSITE:       www.roiafrica.com
TWITTER:       @tonyaroi / @roiafrica
FACEBOOK:     Facebook.com/roiafrica

With the holidays just around the corner, Karl Smith, founder of Business Networking South Africa, reveals successful networking tips to enhance your business relationships, boost your personal brand and strengthen your bottom line. As people tend to be more relaxed during this time of the year, take advantage of these circumstances by reaching out and interacting with various individuals.

As a small business or a job hunter, you have the ability to establish strong face-to-face relationships, and the holidays are the perfect time to leverage that advantage. Most local industry organisations and business associations host holiday networking events. This is the perfect opportunity to go out, have fun, meet people and identify business opportunities.

Here are a few networking tips to help make the holidays even better for business:

Tip One: Attend Holiday Parties - While your tendency may be to take a break from networking events during the holidays, it's important for you to continue attending events. Many organisations and individuals will be having holiday parties rather than typical business events. Holiday parties are a great way to get to know people in a more relaxed environment.

Like any time of the year, accept people's hospitality. If someone offers you something, don't turn it down. By accepting people's generosity, you are showing them respect and will make them feel like they are doing something kind. The same business etiquette should apply. Have fun and consider these parties as your reward for working so hard during the year to build relationships.

Tip Two: Hold Your Own Party - It is essential to be generous, have a true spirit of giving, and make all honest efforts to liven up the holiday spirit of the people. If there is no party, be the party. If networking events are limited this year, consider throwing your own. You can have your own holiday party either at your house, a restaurant or a bar.

Having your own party is a great way to reconnect and keep yourself in front of people. A big part of networking effectively is keeping yourself visible. People will see you as a connector. Your party can enhance your personal brand and widen your business circle. It's also a great excuse to reach out to potential clients and high- level decision makers.Tip

Three: Send Holiday Greetings - In business networking, it is essential to find methods to stay connected continually with important associates. Thus, holiday greeting cards are a great way to register on your client's or contact’s radar. Whether by e-mail or post, it doesn't matter how you send your greeting.

As long as you send a greeting, you are showing individuals in your network that you are thinking about them. Try to send holiday cards out a bit early as many people take time off work around the holidays. In most cases a religion-neutral holiday card is appropriate.

Tip Four: Personal Networking - Reach out to various people during the holidays. For some people, business tends to slow down during the holidays and they will have the time to meet with you. Be proactive and reach out to people you haven't connected with in a while.  These individuals will appreciate being thought about and you will have the chance to build these relationships even more. Use the holiday time to have one-on-one meetings with your networking partners “to catch up", "swap some ideas", "pick their brains”, or "share an interesting lead".

Tip Five: Don't Always Talk About Business - During any conversation, you shouldn't always talk about business because you want to get to know people on a personal level as well. In order to build relationships, you need to know various aspects about their lives.The holidays are a great time of year to get to know people on a more personal level.

When meeting people at holiday events or getting together with existing contacts, spend more time socialising and getting to know them outside of business. Remember networking is not socializing…it is relationship building. Small talk and social interaction is the glue in the relationship.

Tip Six: Show Generosity - During the holidays, people are generally in a good mood because they enjoy the spirit of the season. Spend more time with family and friends and look forward to starting a new year. You will find that many of these people are in the giving mood.  Make sure you are also in the giving mood. Take people out to lunch or buy co-workers, friends and colleagues holiday gifts. However you decide to be generous, make sure you are genuine and truly have the giving spirit. If you don't, people will notice. Remember it’s not the size or price that counts…it’s the thought that counts!

Tip Seven: Don't Drink Too Much - With festivities comes drinking and good times. While it's OK to enjoy yourself, do so only in moderation. Treat the holidays like any other time of the year by showing good behaviour. Don't go overboard with drinks because you still need to maintain your professionalism and composure. You don't want people to see a different side of you if you can't handle your libations.

Tip Eight: Don't Invite Your Entire Network to Parties - You should be honoured if someone invites you to a holiday party. For most parties, the host will allow you to bring a guest or two. A holiday party is a chance for the host to invite his or her network. It's not the time for you to invite yours. Don't take advantage of the host's generosity. Show respect to the host and don't invite your entire network or more than two people. After clearing with your host it is fine to do so.  

Tip Nine: Be Genuine - Personal networking has a bad reputation. The word "networking" conjures up images of someone wanting to "use" you, to take your time and connections without offering anything of redeeming value in return. If your motive to attend or host holiday networking functions or send greeting cards is self-serving, then you will harm your relationships rather than strengthen it. 

The motive that inspires the greatest trust in your relationships is genuine caring –caring about people, caring about purposes, caring about the quality of what you do, caring about society as a whole. Think about it: Are you going to build relationships or trust someone who couldn’t really care less about you? Interaction that is honest and reciprocal is what makes networking a level playing field. It is about giving rather than receiving, which is in keeping with the spirit of the season, right? 

Tip Ten: Have Fun - The most important aspect of the holidays is to remember to have fun. While networking is a serious activity, relax and enjoy yourself during this time of the year. Since networking is generally more social during the holidays, you will have the chance to interact with people in fun settings. As long as you still act professionally, you can let loose a little bit and have fun! 

Final Thought 

The holidays offer an excellent opportunity to build and maintain relationships. Networking is simple - but it's not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and do it well. But they don't. That's because it's a skill that can be mastered with the right knowledge, practice, commitment and consistent application.  

Happy Holidays!  

This article may be copied or republished with the following credit: "By Karl Smith: author, speaker and founder of Business Networking South Africa.

Website: www.karlsmith.co.za

South African consumers, business people and politicians are standing in disbelief as two major South African business brands count the costs of underestimating the plight of the consumer. Contrary to popular personalities like Julius Malema and Steve Hofmeyr who have both had their fair share of negative publicity, but whose popularity seems largely unaffected, one can attempt only predict what the effect of the Cell-C billboard, Chester Missing on Steve Hofmeyr and the Woolworths boycotts will be.

The Woolworths boycott case has been reported on extensively in print, online, radio, television and social media. Social media for the Woolworths boycott accounts for 85% of the media attention.

If one removes social media from the equation, online news accounted for 42% of the press and broadcast a massive 40% for the Boycott Woolworths Campaign over the past month.  The biggest peak was on 19 November and can be attributed to the shareholders supporting the boycott and the endorsement by Cosatu.

“This sounds very impressive,” says Tonya Khoury, MD of Media Monitoring and Intelligence Company, ROi Africa. “But the pressing issue at hand is how do we measure the real effect the publicity had on the brand image? This is an issue that has been widely contested in global PR circles, but no definite conclusion has ever been reached. One thing that authoritative bodies like PRISA (Public Relations Institute) agree on is that the traditional measurement using advertising value equivalent (AVE) might not be the most effective way in measuring media publicity,” she says.

Due to a lack of a definite alternative, the majority of public relations practitioners use the Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) measurement method regardless of its lack of support by the authorities. This measure compares the cost of a paid advertisement with the same amount of space or airtime of an unpaid publicity item. Says Khoury: “Ironically, the ‘value’ of AVE is widely recognised as unreliable and invalid but many people still use it. It’s because they need to attribute a rand value to media coverage.” 

With diminishing advertising prices and hard earned content, AVE has often resulted in exaggerations due with the use of multiplier factors based on prominence, image impact, prestige of the media channel and other criteria.

This aside though, markets have become increasingly unsure about how to add a rand value to the successful minimisation of negative publicity or bad news. “One cannot say that the fact that a clever PR strategy kept a brand out of the negative media spotlight is worthless in rand terms,” Khoury says.

“My stance on AVE: it is rubbish!  It also does not take into consideration the monitoring of social media, which is an issue in itself. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. are overflowing with new users that interact with and follow brand profiles. Just think what the Oscar Pistorius Trial would have been without Twitter! There are so many more reasons why AVE is absolutely pointless, let’s take some examples from the case studies we’ve been doing:

The Sunday Times published an article about Woolworths titled “Humble Pie for ‘arrogant’ Woolies” The article appeared on page 9 of the main body of the publication in black and white, resulting in an AVE of just under R80k – is it true to say that R80k is the level of damage the article made to Woolworths?  Is it true to say that if Woolworths had managed to keep this article out of the press it was worth an extra R80k in advertising toward Woolworths? What exactly does R80k for the article mean? Nothing!

Social Media has been the primary vehicle for #boycottwoolworths, as there is no accurate measurement in terms of Rands for Twitter. Are we as a market saying that the hashtag campaign was worth no money at all? I believe Woolworths would beg to differ as would BDS SA.”

ROi Africa believes that each medium needs its own best measure and a host of other metrics that can ascertain the success or failure of your PR  

Khoury adds, “Changing the Public Relations industry’s perception is more than a tough task and for that reason ROi Africa still offers AVE, and actually we offer rands and cents measurement on all media including social. We do, however, hope that the market will move to global measurement over time. We are using Source Rank, Moz Rank, Target Sections, Circulations, traffic and so much more than AVE to measure thus giving the brand a more accurate view of what the actual publicity value truly was.”  

Oscar Wilde said “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” and in some instances that is true.  There is also positive bottom line value in some negative press. “Julius Malema is one controversial figure in the media space and he draws on negative qualities like fierce temperaments, controversial statements and much more and it works.  Media loves Juju, that’s a fact.  At ROi Africa we have often seen our charts and analytics painted EFF Red because of clever and largely negative PR.”  

But how would you measure your PR? And that of your brand? This is a question we need to find an answer to, especially if the consumers turn against you or your brand. Not everybody is a Juju or a Steve Hofmeyr.

Website: www.roiafrica.com

The festive season is the season for giving, while spending time with family, enjoying ample entertainment and receiving gifts galore. The sad thing is that there are so many children who will not be receiving gifts or love this festive season. In the spirit of generosity and the fact that children are such a huge focus of the Spur Group, Spur Foundation is coordinating a national toy collection drive to put a smile on some underprivileged children’s faces.

Between 1 December 2014 and 16 January 2015 collection boxes for new and pre-loved toys will be available at all Spur, John Dory’s and Panarottis restaurants countrywide. These boxes will be allocated to a Spur Foundation beneficiary per province. The beneficiaries are:         

• Gauteng: ASHA Trust: A South African NGO that establishes and supports formal and home-based early childhood centres in economically challenged communities by providing daily pre-school care, meals and educational stimulation for less-fortunate children aged 2–6.        
• Western Cape:    
  • Durbanville Children’s Home: A home providing a safe haven for children who have suffered from physical and emotional abuse.    
  • Umnqophiso Pre-primary: A nursery school and aftercare centre in the disadvantaged community of Lwandle in the Strand.   
  • House of Grace: Place of safety for abandoned and abused children who have been through tremendous hardship and previous neglect.        
• KwaZulu-Natal: Durban Children’s Home: A home providing love, care and shelter to abandoned, neglected and orphaned children throughout KwaZulu-Natal since 1905.         
• Free State: Botshelo Centre: A centre aimed to prevent HIV infection and distribute information relating to HIV/Aids.        
• Eastern Cape: Inn Safe Hands: A safe-house and foster home that cares for vulnerable children brought to us from abused, abandoned or molestation backgrounds.

Spur Foundation runs this campaign on an annual basis, due to their commitment to the welfare of children in South Africa. The Toy Drive, supported by CourierIT, Longstreet Media and Nampak, collected 77 boxes filled with toys in the 2013 period.

“According to a 2014 National Adoption Coalition Report, there are 18.5 million children in South Africa. Orphans are estimated at about 5.2 million children. Over 13 000 live in residential care facilities and an estimated 10 000 live on the streets of South Africa. And that excludes the children that are with their families, but in such dire circumstances where they cannot afford basic necessities, never mind toys,” says Ronel van Dijk, Chairperson of the Spur Foundation.

The Spur Foundation was founded on Mandela Day in 2012, with an initial R670 000 donation from the Spur Group. Spur’s value of generosity and focus on family will be carried through to the Foundation’s various initiatives throughout the year, which are committed to Nourish, Nurture, Now!

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

NAME: Ronel van Dijk, Chairperson of the Spur Foundation and Chief Financial Officer of Spur Corporation Limited    
TEL: 021-5555100
E-MAIL: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WEBSITE: http://www.spurfoundation.co.za
TWITTER: @SpurRestaurant #SpurToyDrive #PanasToyDrive #JDsToyDrive
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/SpurSteakRanches

On the dawn of Youth Dynamix’s 15th year anniversary next month, we reflect on how the youth market has transformed in this short space of time and how marketers have had to adapt to survive.  

There’s no doubt, the marketing of goods and services have undergone a profound transformation over the past 15 years. Regulatory advances, new technologies and increasingly open global markets have all played their part in changing how the youth react and interact with products and services.  

The information conundrum….

Children and young adults are more significant forces in the marketplace now. But, while new technologies offer more access to information overall, many young consumers today lack the necessary skills to cope with the increasingly complex, information-intensive marketplaces they’re faced with.  

With many companies struggling to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive open market, they’re forced to bundle related products and offerings, making it difficult for consumers to compare them. As a result, young consumers have had to learn more about markets in order to make good decisions.  

“Show me, don’t tell me”

The youth’s ability and willingness to trade with a company depends on their level of confidence in it. That’s why it’s so important you don’t ignore brand activations. There are very few marketing activities as powerful as brand activations. This because they involve experiential, interactive, emotive and sustainable involvements with the brand. Overall, brand activations offer a more holistic view of the product and allow for an emotive connection with the brand – you cannot offer using new technologies alone.

Be sure to get the most out of your budget…

All engagement and communication campaigns developed by Youth Dynamix (YDx) include an element of measurability.  This gives you the assurance that you’ve met your ROI and have made a relevant impact in the market.   YDx is a youth & family specialist research and marketing agency.

To activate your brand in the youth market, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 071 551 8200.

www.ydx.co.za

Have you ever tested yourself to the extent that you felt like giving up? That there is not a drop of energy left in your body, yet sheer willpower pushes you to persist and complete what you have started?  

Actor, Ivan Zimmermann plans to add a new dimension to mountain biking – he will depart from Cape Town on 9 January 2015 and plans to reach Cairo by 9 May 2015 as part of the Tour d’Afrique 2015.   

Zimmermann will ride with a team of Tour d’Afrique, a Canadian group known for organising bicycling trip through Africa.  Tour d’Afrique has been recognised as the world’s longest and most challenging mountainbike stage adventure. This will be the 13th edition of the Tour d’Afrique – a test of a  mind, body, and bicycle that will stretch through ten countries.  

“I have always dreamt to travel through Africa for a good cause,”says Zimmermann. “I initially thought I would do it on a motorbike, but I have done several mountainbike races during the past year and have subsequently decided to cross Africa from one point to the other on a bicycle.”  

The main sponsors of Zimmerman’s venture are SAICA (the South African Institute for Chartered Accountants), who will be running an internal motivational campaign, Leaders Never Quit, in conjunction with the trip, and SAGE Pastel. Ivan will also attempt to raise 12 000 tins of food for the Can-a-Kilo initiative as part of the adventure.  

“I plan to raise one tin of food for each of the 12 000 kilometres covered by the Tour d’Afrique. This food will be distributed by the Hanna Charity and Empowerment Foundation in South Africa,” says Zimmerman. Collection points for the tins can be found at www.ivanzimmermann.com  

“At this stage I am the only South African in the group,” he explains. “I will be responsible for setting up my own tent and will have to service my bicycle myself, but there will be a support team should I need assistance.”  

Ivan says tongue-in-the cheeck, “I think I might need all the support possible to finish.  I know it is going to be tough, but I am determined not to give up at any point. Leaders never quit, despite how difficult the circumstances are. There might be days where I ask myself what I let myself into, but it will be on days like those that true leaders are born. Leaders never quit!”  

The trip to Cairo will stretch through Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Zimmerman will take photos and videos and will share that with media on a regular basis. He is also planning to follow the trip with motivational talks countrywide.  

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a dream that has become a reality,”says Zimmermann. A dream that will test me to my limits. But also a dream that will show the world that leaders never quit.”  

About Ivan Zimmermann  

Ivan was born free and with a great sense of adventure. He is known to the South African public as actor, for roles in Egoli, 7de Laan, Interrogation Room and Dit wat Stom is. He also starred in movies like Platteland, Verraaiers, the Egoli Movie and Spook van Uniondale. During next year he will be starring in Villa Rosa between January and March 2015 and in Vlug na Egipte between January and April 2015, both on kykNET. In his free time Ivan is a keen sportsman, participating regularlyinmountain biking, surfing and stand-up paddle boarding.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION  

NAME: Ilza Roggeband
E-MAIL: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.         
CELL: 083-448-2102
WEBSITE: www.ivanzimmermann.com
TWITTER: @IvanZimmermann1, @CANaKILO (#leadersneverquit, #12000km, #tourdafrique, #12000cans)
INSTAGRAM: eyevanzimmer
FACEBOOK: /Ivan.Zimmermann

Adding significant value to its already sterling reputation as a leading supplier of transformational business and individual solutions to the technology, consulting and financial services sectors, the Transformation Capital Group (TCG) has recently acquired Dracore Investments.Based in Honeydew, Gauteng, Dracore provides a diverse and dynamic set of market focused and business operational solutions to customers in the financial, data sciences, social media and communications spheres.

This provides its customers with the necessary resources and expertise to effectively manage their customer lifecycle at every level and maximise market penetration. The new management team of the enlarged TCG company is - Mike Eslick, Reg Bath, Richard Peasey, Chantelle Fraser and Francois Meyer. Dracore can now tap into TCG’s global resources and specialist skills to enable its visions to establish and develop all-encompassing business services and solutions for clients across Africa.

‘Most significantly, TCG shares our long term vision of developing sustainable business solutions by focusing on sustainability, socioeconomic empowerment, profitability and communal reinvestment,’ comments Chantelle Fraser. ‘I’m happy to report that we’ve already made significant progress and, with our combined market knowledge and innovative approach, we’re perfectly positioned to offer any enterprise, large or small, the very best solutions to optimise future opportunities and generate combined benefit to both TCG and its customer base.’

For more information, visit www.tcg-sa.co.za

Your brand has value. You might not be sure how much or where it comes from, but it still has value. This value usually relates to the products, people, and reputation surrounding it. Brands can, however, be diluted and lose value when customers feel annoyed, cheated or disappointed – when the brand fall of its pedestal and is reduced to “just another ordinary” one.

With the help of media intelligence providers, like ROi Africa, your brand’s value can be monitored and corrective actions can be planned pro-actively, all by knowing what the public and media think and feel about you.

Besides Lance Armstrong, who is the one sporting brand that came crashing down during the last two years – from a R21 million per year icon to a shamed brand liability? Oscar Pistorius!

This famous Paralympic athlete, who even competed successfully against able-bodied athletes and was seen as a role model for people facing severe challenges in life, was recently sentenced to five years in prison on a charge of culpable homicide for killing his girlfriend, model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp.

His murder trial caused a media frenzy, in one hour alone (sentencing hour) ROi Africa saw over 110,000 unique items published in over 200 million platforms.

It was a landmark case in more than one way. A court application by media houses allowed for live coverage in the form of Tweets directly from the court room. On the top-yielding day of the trail, the verdict, over 400,000 unique items were reported mentioning the words “Oscar Pistorius” or “Oscar Trial”.

Tonya Khoury, the Managing Director of ROi Africa was the first media intelligence provider to start delivering reliable statistical analysis of media coverage worldwide, becoming a regular face on Channel 199 and SABC Newsroom.  

Mathapelo Matjokana, the producer of the Afternoon Talk with Ashraf Garda Show on SAFM, was one of the first media to use ROi Africa’s statistics on a regular basis, says that, “With the arrival of these statistics and analysis people were able to understand, for example, the Oscar Trial better as complex legal matters were broken down into simpler terms. It also allowed us to follow major events like these through a bird’s eye view with these analyses.”

“The Oscar Pistorius brand – like any other business brand – had to cope with the effect of an incorrect decision and the aftermath thereof. In the media coverage of the trial, it was evident how the media’s reporting affected Pistorius’ brand value. One can, as an example look at his sponsorships that have declined to zero. Well-known brands like Nike, Oakley, Thierry Mugler and BT have suspended sponsoring Pistorius, Nike came under fire after a 2011 billboard campaign with the wording'the bullet in the chamber” which proved to be almost prophetical.

The brands were mentioned regularly during the trial and jokes featured on social media which also negatively impacted Nike, resulting in the suspension of large sponsorships for Pistorius” says Khoury.

When looking at all media (news and social) over the past 100 days and in all languages, these four brands received the following publicity, in relation to Oscar Pistorius.

As the former sponsor with the biggest percentage of media mention, Nike’s coverage during the past 100 days can be broken down, the highest percentages of publicity was achieved on 14, 15 and 16 September, with all reporting on Nike dropping their sponsorship contract with Pistorius formally after he was found guilty by Judge Masipa and thus became a brand liability. These are insights that can be extremely valuable for any brand.  

“With these mentions, sponsors like Nike have gained publicity, but for the wrong reasons, which made Pistorius a brand liability. His brand value thus impacted negatively on a few other brands,” Khoury adds. According to media reports Oscar Pistorius was once the second most popular athlete, after Usain Bolt, but that is history now. During and after the case, he actually received more publicity compared to athletes that have experienced some kind of crisis in their careers,” she adds.  

OJ Simpson: 64.75%
Usain Bolt: 18.42%
Lance Armstrong: 9.04%
Tiger Woods: 7.78%

As with any other brand, ROi Africa also looked at aspects like who and what were mentioned most with Pistorius, which is also an indication of his brand value. Smart Technology, managed by knowledgeable analysts enabled them to generate new angles and comparisons,like these,to keep the media and readers engaged.

“This technology, combined with personal input, identified key trends across all media platforms worldwide - over 2000 print titles that are taken from hard copy to digital format - and converted using the finest global reading technology. Broadcast media is converted from the verbal word to text within 2 seconds of it being aired. Immediate coverage is drawn from an excess of 200 million platforms in online and social media,” explains Khoury.

She adds, “Keeping track of what is being said about a company or brand, their industry of operations or specific topics of interest, and even their competitors can provide a much-needed competitive advantage,” adds Khoury.

Media intelligence on key competitors, main issues in the industry, top journalists reporting on your brand, top-yielding regions, comparative timelines and trends results in valuable instant insight. The successful use of media intelligence during crises depends on the severity of the crisis – in some cases most of the damage cannot be undone, but can be managed – as in the Oscar Pistorius Trial. But on the other hand one wonders what the influence of media coverage was on the eventual outcome of the case,” she says. "In the corporate world one would have a much better chance of using media intelligence information to minimise the onslaught of a crisis.

In conclusion, what Google (as probably the most prominent search engine for online media) says about you has become an important part of brand value management in a digital age – and it is better to monitor and analyse media coverage in your brand than being surprised by an onslaught by a crisis.

FOR MORE INFORMATION  

Tonya Khoury: 073 874 5377
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Twitter: @tonyaroi / @roiafrica
Facebook: Facebook.com/roiafrica
Website: www.roiafrica.com

One of South Africa’s foremost media intelligence service providers, ROiAfrica’s website www.roiafrica.com has just been listed on the Drupal Site, as “Editor’s Pick” for the ‘best looking” sites.

ROi Africa’s site was developed by Adappt UK, headed up by Jon Antony, combining technical expertise, creativity and passion. ROi Africa is a unique company with a unique site, which can inspire innovative use of the Drupal technology.

According to ROi Africa Managing Director, Tonya Khoury, “The ROi Africa site was developed specifically to drive traffic to start a sales conversation, but also to showcase the ability of the smart technology we provide.”

“We are honoured to be showcased by Drupal, and more importantly we are delighted at the ease of Drupal’s functionality to keep our content fresh and relevant,” she adds. Drupal, an open source content management platform, powers millions of websites and applications worldwide. Drupal is used as a back-end framework of at least 2.1% of sites worldwide.

Drupal allows non-technical users to add and edit content without knowing anything about web design. This is perfect for an organisation, like ROi Africa, which operates in the media industry, and need to constantly update their site to link back to main news and social media items.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

NAME: Tonya Khoury
TEL: 073 874 5377
E-MAIL: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
TWITTER: @tonyaroi / @roiafrica
FACEBOOK: /roiafrica
WEBSITE: www.roiafrica.com

MAMMOTH BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI) NAMES LAUREN SHANTALL (PTY) LTD AS ITS PREFERRED COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA CONFERENCE

Lauren Shantall (Pty) Ltd is proud to be managing the social media and communications for the two-day Mammoth BI Conference held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) on November 17 – 18, 2014. The two-day conference and workshop will house some of the world’s foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence, Big Data and Analytics.

The Lauren Shantall (Pty) Ltd stable of clients also include top local décor and lifestyle brands such Plascon, Inhouse Brand Architects, Willowlamp, Indigenus, GreenFin/MediFin and Probio. Lauren Shantall (Pty) Ltd provides an integrated communications offering, spanning social, digital and traditional marketing and perception management, also focusing on design and environmental clients.

Head of Business Intelligence at Saratoga, Mammoth BI Founder and Curator and self-proclaimed alchemist at TEDx Cape Town, Jason Haddock said, ‘The focus for the Mammoth BI Conference is to build a strong BI community in South Africa, dispel myths around conventional ideas on Big Data, create, and harvest a local community understanding in Business Intelligence’.

PRESS RELEASE ISSUED BY: Lauren Shantall (Pty) Ltd