Seems like all the stars were aligned for us last week here at Global Vision. The World Cup and a miraculous recovery from a foot injury (playing football nogal!) by our guest speaker enabled us to pull off a very last-minute event on Social Media Marketing in Cape Town and Johannesburg with fantastic attendance and feedback.

Forrester Research, US based leading business and technology analysts providing research and consulting services to marketers and IT managers, had agreed to host a joint-event with us on Social Media Marketing. Guest speaker Nate Elliott, a Principal Analyst at Forrester, was planning on visiting South Africa for the World Cup – a plan that was almost foiled by Nate’s foot injury suffered while playing a friendly game of football in London.

Nate –  a seasoned conference speaker and regularly quoted industry expert in media including the BBC, CNN, The Economist, The New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal - had agreed to make some time for us and some key companies while out here for the World Cup to speak about marketing in the Social Media space, pitfalls to avoid, and Forrester’s recommended approach to developing a solid Social Media Marketing strategy.

The half day event, held in Cape Town and Johannesburg over the past week, managed to draw over 70 attendees mostly from the Retail, Consumer Goods and Financial Services sectors, as well as a select number of SA’s leading digital and above-the-line agencies who were busy formulating their own strategies and approach to engaging with consumers across channels such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

A key take-away from the session was Forrester’s POST system – taken from the book “Groundswell” co-authored by Sr. VP of Idea Development at Forrester Josh Bernoff - to developing a social media strategy. The POST system outlines the four steps for developing and implementing a solid Social Media marketing strategy

1. People: determine first what the needs and capabilities are of the people you want to target,
2. Objectives: decide on the objectives of using social media to engage with your audience, such as to listen to customers , talk to them, collaborate with them or support them, etc.
3. Strategy: develop the strategy to outline why you want to use social media, how you are going to use social media, what processes social media will support,
4. Technology: decide on the technology relevant to your specified target, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Nate backed the POST system with a few real-life examples of companies following this process and successfully using Social Media channels to engage with their consumers and improve businesses processes.  Of course, the more fun examples were those of companies losing face online due to customers taking matter into their own hands using Social Media and causing damage to companies’ brands. One of the more memorable examples of this was United Airlines and the now famous “United Airlines Breaks Guitars” music video composed by an unhappy United Airlines passenger who happened to be a country music singer. The song has been viewed more than 8 million times now and the number keeps growing.

The final discussion point raised was that of the impact of Social Media strategies on the bottom line. At some point Management will ask this question before making more budget available to marketing via these channels. Marketers are looking for any metrics they can use to justify spend in Social Media. According to Nate, we need to focus on metrics that actually equate to real value. 5 000 people liking your brand page on Facebook means nothing until you can begin to relate the number of fans to the number of widgets sold. 

Facebook has changed the way as many as 400 million people are engaging with the Web on a regular basis, 200 million of them every day. Users are accessing Facebook to access “their world” on the Web. As a result, Facebook has now dethroned Google as the most accessed website in the US.  And with Facebook plug-ins being incorporated into over 250,000 sites already (50 of which are among comScore’s Global Top 100 Websites), the Web is increasingly becoming more and more relevant to Facebook users with each passing day.

I first noticed this on the CNN site when I accessed the home page and to my right I saw news pieces that had been recommended by a couple of my Facebook friends. Of course, the presence of these recommendations by friends on Facebook now makes my CNN experience seem more familiar, personal and, above all, relevant. And this seems to be what the next big wave on the Web, or let’s say Web 3.0, is all about. If we try and sum up Web 2.0 in one word, it was all about collaboration. End users creating their own content and interacting with each other on the Web. It was the wave brought on by wikis, blogs, social media and increased accessibility. A wave which became mainstream in 2006 when Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was “You”. “You” were now in control of publishing content on the Web. “You” were engaging with companies, brands and individuals on your terms. “You” could now get news, TV programmes, music, radio broadcasts, etc. when “you” want it. But don’t worry, Web 3.0 is still all about “you”. It’s just going to be even more so. With Web 3.0, it’s about the Web becoming smarter, getting to know you better from your browsing history (and all you’ve contributed to it during Web 2.0) and automatically delivering content to you that is relevant.

A recent article on CNN, “How Facebook won the Web”, by guest columnist Pete Cashmore from Mashable.com goes on to explain ways in which Facebook are working to personalise the Web and thereby extend their reach and dominance on the Web. According to Cashmore, Facebook is able to take Google’s search strategy one giant leap further. Where Google have based the ranking of their search results on the number of sites linking back to a page, or how relevant a page may be to “other” Web users, Facebook is in a position to deliver search results “based on your friendships and interests,” or how relevant search results are to your social network and you.

Facebook’s “Like” button has been a key driver. Every time you “Like” something on Facebook, Facebook is getting to know you better. You can “Like” an ad, a posting, or a page set up by a brand, music, or organisation. And now Facebook has made it easy for 3rd party sites to add "Like" buttons to their content, so you can start letting Facebook know everything that you "like" on the Web.

Of course, Facebook already have your basic demographics: age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, language and location. As a result, the combination of these demographics, your preferences as defined by your “likes” and the “likes” expressed by your social network puts Facebook in a position to deliver highly relevant ads and search results. A position marketers would kill for, but can actually attain within their own market by replicating Facebook’s strategy using emerging channels and technology.

New channels such as the Web, social media, email, and mobile have now made it easier and quicker to track individual consumer responses to campaigns. As a result, marketers now have an easier time learning from their campaigns, understanding their consumers’ preferences, and building on these learnings to increase the relevance of the messaging to the right consumer segment. Sounds a lot like Facebook’s strategy, doesn’t it? Perhaps Marketing is in a very similar stage of development as the Web: the drive towards increasing relevance. Relevance is not only what Web 3.0 is all about, but what marketers should strive for in their engagement with consumers. Relevance gives consumers the sense that your brand can fulfill their needs better than a competitor. Relevance thus builds loyalty and marketing effectiveness.

As a marketer, is this not what you should be striving for?

The following is an Executive Overview of our presentation at AdExpo in Johannesburg, 25th March 2010.

The Web, email, social media and mobile communication have dramatically changed Marketing by making it measureable, immediate, more intimate and interactive. All of which are wonderful things for a marketer.

Unfortunately, as marketers, many of us are diving in head first - ready to take advantage of all of the opportunities and cost savings associated with marketing via new channels, without proper planning, foresight and technology to engage with consumers in a relevant and interactive dialogue via the most appropriate or preferred channel.

To avoid blowing the brand when using new channels for marketing there are 3 pitfalls to look out for:

1. Running email and SMS campaigns as a once-off campaigns: When we run once-off campaigns, we fail to take advantage of a great opportunity to begin an engaging, interactive and relevant dialogue with our consumers. We’ve gotten their attention and we’ve opened up a channel of communication when we generate a positive response via a new channel. Use the subsequent dialogue to get to know your consumers better by capturing and centrally storing their demographics, their media consumption, and their purchase behavior and product preferences. When we fail to do this, we risk blowing the brand by not building on available analytics to increase the relevance of subsequent communications. Check out our Levi’s case study to see how one brand is getting it right…
2. Running email and SMS campaigns via multiple vendors and applications: What tends to happen with multi-channel marketing is that we tend to use different service providers or applications to communicate via each channel. So we end up storing consumer data across multiple databases which creates silo views of your consumer – the opposite of the single view we all strive for. The problems with these silo views is that we limit our opportunities to get to know our consumers better and risk contact saturation, or communicating with our consumers too frequently, because we are unable to track how often we have communicated with them across the various channels. The result is that regardless of how interested they may be in hearing from us, if they hear from us too often, they’ll unsubscribe….and we’ve just blown the brand.
3. Running mass mailing campaigns instead of narrowly segmenting your base and running precision marketing campaigns: By failing to use existing consumer data to segment our list, we send out a generic and highly irrelevant message to our consumers. The more we segment our list, the more relevant we are able to make our messaging. With the exponential growth in number of marketing messages people are exposed to today across multiple channels, effective marketing is no longer about personalisation. It’s about RELEVANCE. Inserting a person’s name into the first line of an email or SMS is no longer going to cut it. Today’s consumer is expecting their brands to listen to them, know them and be relevant to them.

The overall result of any of these 3 pitfalls is that our marketing messages – whether they are sent via email, SMS, call centre, or direct mail – are being perceived as irrelevant and intrusive, which essentially equate to SPAM in the consumers’ eyes.

And a sure fire way of “blowing the brand.”

Global Vision is the first company in South Africa to adopt the Department of Environmental Affairs’ “2Wise2Waste” programme of energy conservation.

We are proud to be the first company in South Africa to join the “2Wise2Waste” programme and to align ourselves with the Department of Environmental Affairs objectives.  The objective of the programme is “to reduce the impact of the operations of an organisation and to entrench resource efficiency through changing the mindset and behaviour of personnel”

The initiative kicked off with a visit to our offices by two representatives from the Department of Environmental Affairs to welcome us to the Programme:

Gregg Adams, Principal Environmental Officer - Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning

Belinda Langenhoven, Assistant Director - Department of Environmental Affairs – Waste Directorate

Our own “Green Vision” sustainability programme is intended to:

1. Educate and instill a stronger appreciation of the environment
2. Cut costs and
3. Reduce the environmental impact of our business operations

Some initiatives already begun internally are the addition of Plastics and Paper recycling bins in our offices, switching off of lights and air conditioning in meeting rooms when not in use, switching off of air conditioning and lights at night, trial use of environmentally friendly cleaning products and an internal education campaign via an internal monthly newsletter. All small initiatives which bit by bit begin to make a big difference!

Well, the day is finally here. Sometimes we thought it would never come. Our intrepid Adora development team has finally done it. Adora, the latest version of our marketing software (formerly known as Eureka), was born in the early hours of this morning: 1.52 am to be precise. 

(Photo right: The Adora team celebrates the birth of Adora this morning. Click to enlarge)

As amazing as it has been to watch the team pull together these past few months and put in hundreds and hundreds of late hours to make sure we met our deadline today, it’s been even more amazing to witness these guys eat.

All that late-night work and dedication has required significant fuel reserves and a quick tally has revealed the following consumption figures over the past 7 months for a team of 20:

• Pizzas                                                  750
• Steers Beef Burgers                     220
• Nando’s Chicken burgers          550      
• French Fries                                  160 kg.
• Cigarettes                                  1 200 packs
• Coke                                                300 L
• Coffee                                             500 L
• Beer                                              Enough
• Brandy                                         Enough

 (Photo above: The Adora team above “feasting” on Nando’s chicken burgers on one of their many late nights at work. Click to enlarge)

Oh….and from last night’s last sprint and celebration: 10 bottles of Champagne and 48 Red Bulls

So, if you’re a young, naïve and starry-eyed start-up and you’re busy calculating the cost of development of your dream product, make sure to include a bit for fuel. Your team will need it.

(Photo right: The Adora team working into the night to meet our deadline)

Always up for a challenge, Global Vision and sister company, New Media Labs, teamed up this past  Saturday to brave hot, windy conditions in Gordon’s Bay, outside of Cape Town, and complete the Total Sports Challenge.

(Here we see Clyde Mallon, Global Vision Systems Analyst, and Paul Jenkins, Global Vision Sr. Project Manager, before their respective events)

The race consisted of seven events both on land and in water. Unfortunately, the first 2 events – 12 km surf ski and 1.5 km swim – both had to be cancelled due to windy conditions, leaving Global Vision’s Jonette Coetzee (Sales Manager) and New Media Lab’s Paul Cartmel (Founder) to cheer their team mates on.

Below a list of the events and the team participants:

• 50 km road cycle: Trevor Metrowich, husband to Global Vision Project Manager Jacqueline Metrowich, completed his race along the coastline to Kleinmond in 1h20 minutes despite headwind
• 13 km road run: Cedric de Sousa, boyfriend to Global Vision Sales Manager Jonette Coetzee, completed the road run to the Arabella Hotel & Spa in 1h18 minutes
• 13 km K1 canoe paddle: Paul Jenkins, Global Vision Project Manager, completed his paddle on the Bot Rivier Lagoon in 50 minutes – surpassing his own predicted time of 1h15 minutes!
• 25 km mountain bike race: Clyde Mallon, Global Vision Systems Anlayst, raced the rugged mountain ride in Kleinmond and finished in one piece in 1h45 minutes
• 9 km beach run: Jacqueline Metrowich, Global Vision Project Manager, hit the beach and ran a grueling high-tide, steep camber run on soft sand to complete the race.

All in all a great effort and great result – The Global Vision team placed 35th out of 125 teams. placing them in the upper third of finishers. End time for the entire event was 5h55 minutes. Well done, guys!

For more information on the Total Sports Challenge, visit: http://www.totalsports.co.za/challenge/index.html

Just down the road from Global Vision offices is a very special home for 26 previously disadvantaged men  between the ages of 16 and 24.

Beth Uriel, “House of Light” in Hebrew, offers a home and nurturing family environment to these young men wanting to make a positive change in their lives and follow a path towards independence and empowerment through education.
	Global Vision first heard about this home through one of our own people, Kevin Reid, who had already been giving of his own time to offer computer training to these young men. The hitch? Only 2 computers on site and in not so great shape. (Kevin stands here smiling on the day of the handover of the new computer room sponsored by Global Vision).
Global Vision decided to support’s Kevin’s initiative to make a difference by converting one of the rooms in the house into a computer room - complete with 10 computers, 10 new desks, a printer and Internet access.  We also made sure we made the place nice and cosy by adding a fresh coat of paint, fixing the leaky roof and adding new carpeting and curtains . :-)

Jon, our CEO, and the rest of the team involved, came through on the day of the handover last week to meet the guys and throw a little inaugural celebration complete with pizzas, snacks and drinks for the guys.

Right photo, below, left to right: Martin (IT), Jon (CEO), Tersia (HR, and main coordinator of the project), Lindsay Henley (the Home’s “Mom”), Bukelwa (HR), Dave (Finance), Grant (Electrician) and his daughter, Lackson (Maintenance), Riva (Facilities), Kevin (Development)…..CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE.

Left photo, above: Tersia, Lindsay, Grant and the guys of Beth Uriel.

It’s nice to see a plan come together! A big thanks to Tersia, our Sr. HR Manager, for driving this project and coordinating everyone’s participation. Especially the following people:

• Frontosa Computer suppliers (Eddie and Frances) for the discounts they gave us on the computers
• Frasers Electrical (Grant Fraser – pictured above) who did all the electrical work for free
• Mr. Jumat who did all the repairs for free
• Florstore (Phillip Victor, Director) who laid carpet tiles for free
• Adriaan Steyn (our own IT Infrastructure hero, not pictured) for getting all the PC’s set-up and configured

It took a lot of time, passion and support from everyone mentioned to see this project to fruition. 

And a special thanks to our own Kevin Reid for his selfless initiative and making us aware of the need and the difference we could make. Glad we could help!

Well, it was that time of year again when the Global Vision  team and families hit the beach, play some volleyball / frisbee, and then head to Dizzy’s in Camps Bay for drinks, food and music.

Our end of year function was a blast – with an added special treat this year: Flat Stanley playing live for us! Compliments of our newest board member, the highly esteemed Mike Joubert of Brandsrock. 

      Left to right: Jon Jacobson (CEO), Shan Beerstecher (Client Services), Mike Joubert (Boardmember), Leanne Rosen (Client Services), Andy Mac (Flat Stanley)

The day started with a lekker Nando’s lunch in our canteen to get us ready for an afternoon on one of the world’s most beautiful beaches. (How lucky are we to work 15 minutes from here?) -----------------------------------------> We couldn’t have asked for better weather – sunny and warm, beautiful blue skies and a unusually “warm” sea (as in you don’t get an ice cream headache after standing 15 seconds in the our icy cold waters).

Aside from the fun, we also had Jon, our CEO give a short, yet great speech that summed up 2009 for us and what lay before us. Below some excerpts:

“It has been a long road that has got us here to the point where we are on the cusp of great global success. We have ridden everything anybody could think of throwing at us, dusted ourselves off and started again to the point where if I’m not being figuratively hit in the face I take that to mean something’s not right.” 

“I met the man (Hasso Plattner, co-founder and former CEO of SAP, the worlds 4th largest software company…And the biggest investor in Global Vision) actually last week Saturday and what a great role model for understated success. Global Vision is that kind of company we expect to be successful because we believe we are the best. We believe this to be so and perception is reality as anyone will tell you. However our people our culture and our values are what this business is all about and because of this we don’t brag, we are.” (I love that)

“As I was saying our people are the core of this business. We are a bit maverick I suppose but we’re nice, decent mavericks with a strong work ethic. I am incredibly proud of the people I work with on a day to day basis…”

And with that, the festivities continued and many embarrassing moments were captured forever on film, which guaranteed  will be e-mailed internally at whim throughout the year by GV staff when the time is right. :-)

So here’s to kissing the back-end of a global recession good-bye and coming out of it stronger than ever before!

As a company made up of many passionate surfers, we’re totally stoked to have added Billabong South Africa to the list of global brands using Eureka (Adora) as their relationship marketing platform. Below is a photo of us this past Friday finalising details of upcoming campaigns we will be running for Billabong SA beginning January 2010.

Left to right: Julian Diaz (GV Marketing Manager), Gerard du Plessis (Strategic Marketing Manager, Billabong SA), Leanne Rosen (GV Client Services), Caide Oxland (GV Client Services)

Gerard du Plessis, Strategic Marketing Manager for BIllabong SA, will be working with us to grow the existing consumer database, enrich the data and engage his consumers in multi-channel and interactive campaigns to increase involvement with and loyalty to the Billabong brand. 

Jon headed east to Bangkok, Thailand to present at the annual Microsoft Asia Pacific Partner Conference…and to catch a surf.

Jon’s presentation was aimed at Microsoft Partners wanting to enhance Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing functionality and thereby help them win more deals in the Retail and FMCG space, as well as add value to existing clients’ investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Feedback from his trip was that the surf was bad, but that the conference itself was quite interesting. Turns out marketers in the region are facing similar challenges to marketers elsewhere when it comes to making the move to digital marketing.

Although Jon got very little surf time, the trip was very worthwhile in establishing new partnerships in the region and solidifying our partnership further with Microsoft.

For more info on the event itself, visit: Microsoft Asia Pacific Partner Summit