Brands use people to drive home their messages

Brands use people to convey their messages and there’s nothing as irritating like a brand that uses the wrong person/celebrity to convey its message. Some brands are more like friends, the more you get to know them is the more you get lost in the message. This tradition/trend is not new as a lot of brands plot these kinds of strategies, using people to convey their messages.

Today you get a plethora of brands that use celebrities to convey their messages. It’s more like using two brains with messages targeted at a specific audience. When a brand loses its touch, it becomes difficult for a message to resonate with that specific target market. It doesn’t matter who the celebrity is, if the brand is going through a crappy rough patch, the message won be driven home. This should serve as a challenge though because it takes years to build a brand but a few seconds to completely destroy it.

Using a celebrity to convey a message is not enough but you also need a brand that is strong. Branding is about identity, is also about increasing sales and getting the brand out-there for people to recognize and consume it. It’s about being noticed and drawing an association that is linked to that particular celebrity. Brands still uses people to convey their messages, they call it “celebrity endorsements” it becomes a symbiotic relationship between the brand and the celebrity. The brand pays the celebrity, in turn that celebrity must in a way increase sales of that particular brand. Why would a brand use a celebrity, primarily for this reason, to either create awareness or to increase sales of that particular brand.

It could either be a new brand that wants awareness, to be noticed and in turn using a celebrity to build its image as a result. Think of commercials, there are still actors on set that carry the brand message and convey the message that the brand wants to drive home.  At the end of it all, the relationship between brands and people is of paramount importance and one that will continue way into the future.

By:  Kamogelo Kginias Masemola

                                                                                     

Your “book” is the key to a creative career.

So you have graduated and are now qualified with copywriting, media, art direction, graphic design or multimedia design. But where to from there?

A C.V is not enough to get you through the door. That’s if you want to take that direction. (Some agencies nowadays only want your book. A C.V is for protocol. Your book will dictate, if you are in or still outside their door). What gets you through the door is your thinking and your book.

When I say your thinking I mean that you have to have initiative. Gone are the days when one used to get on the job training. You have to be ready to get the work done. Today, the learning curve is faster.  If you are a graphic designer out of college or varsity. And you don’t know a size of a business card. Then you are not serious about your passion. That’s another topic for another day.

Your book or portfolio is a collection of brand relevant work executed in either speculative or real life campaigns, one shots and content that shows how you think.

Your book or portfolio can come in many forms either as a website, blog, or a collection of pdf’s. It should also live as a hard copy for interviews. 

Your book is ever evolving and as you grow and accumulate more skills and experience, it will take new forms.  Your book or portfolio shouldn’t just showcase that you can be able to use photoshop, illustrator or other computer software programs. Any curious monkey with a computer can use those programs. Those are just tools that you use to build your work from and part of the creative process. Your work should be about big ideas and concepts. That’s where you start.

Your book should be able to show that you can think creatively and talk to different people, not just your own demographic. Your ability to understand a range of people, cultures, ages and perspective is important.

Enough said – your book is your entry ticket or should I say key. 

By Morrel Shilenge

The Potential of Video Editing

Anciently or originally, communication was mostly in a mouth to ear kind of exchanging thoughts and reaching different audiences, it then came to still images, then moving pictures.

And today, a moving picture tells a better story or lays out a great idea way better than a piece of paper or just a radio wave and that’s the reason why it’s more challenging than any other form of communication.

This article is only going to touch and tell you the most important part in the motion picture industry: VIDEO EDITING.

WHAT IS VIDEO EDITING?

Video Editing is a laying out of different shots on to a simplified sequence that can tell a long story in a short but yet detailed manner. If you are in the corporate world you can define it as an electronic representation of a story board. We have got two kinds of editing phases which are Offline and Online editing

Offline Editing is where an editor puts the shots together just to get an idea of what the whole story is all about, this can be done with the help of a content director. Say you have been out on a 3 day shoot for a 30 seconds commercial, Offline is where you breakdown the camera angles and shots used during the shooting of your commercial regardless of how long it can be. After laying out all most important shots, you think about the content, which is most of the time based on your story board like I pointed above and then work out your commercial to a timeline that best suites you, yes the 30 seconds. Now you have the story of how your 30 seconds commercial is, it is 30 seconds and you have now inserted all the musical tracks that goes with it. Remember, an offline edited picture cannot be on air or given to a potential client as the picture quality is not that good. For example, when you are on a location shoot, your pictures will vary according to the sunlight and that is not a good thing and it’s the reason why we have Online Video Editing.

Online Video Editing is more about grading the shots to look more professional and coloring the motion picture following the theme of the production or a brief given to you by a client. Putting graphics where needed. In fact an Online Editor has to be color conscious, must have a very good eye and ear because sometimes on lining may require somebody to follow both the video and the musical mode of the project. If the project is not going to audio final mixing, then it is the duty of an online editor to make sure that the audio of the project is broadcast quality. An online editor has to be skilled and familiar with the filters of the editing software that he is using.

By Ntwanano Ngoveni

Why creatives are unreliable at times?

Diagnosis 

Late payments of work are partly the cause of freelance creative’s unreliability. This causes stress which drains energy that could otherwise have been used for developing creative work. Hence a fruitful and trusting relationship between the client and creative needs to be developed that will benefit both the creative and the client. To create such a relationship, transparency needs to be present. An agreement that will allow the creative to do the work without worrying if they will be paid or not, has to be made. A stressful relationship where a client and a creative quarrel over deadlines and payments cause both the creative and client not to achieve results.

Other symptoms that lead to creatives being unreliable are: 

Routine – when a creative does the same thing continuously that in itself causes the creative to lose inspiration. But this is a responsibility of the creative to always stay inspired. Either by doing side projects that allows them to be free their mind. A creative needs to be interesting in order for clients to be interested.  A creative needs to continuously sharpen their mind, in order to think better, and to solve business problem creatively. 

By Morrel Shilenge

Innovation first in a global village

Innovation first in a global village

Innovation can be best described as anything that is new in a global village, and according to Michael Mumford this involves the production of novel, useful products. However, riding the crest of success is Mr. Apple and bringing forth “monster” innovations. Lead the way, be a trend setter of innovative ideas and create a “bang” and pop the balloon and expose those great ideas.

Being a proactive innovator means never to lay low but bursting those bubbles, like in a bath – tub. Being the first to innovate requires going through a sobriety test let alone a litmus test and passing it with flying colours. Talking of a test, the best innovators in the world, usually have the best executing brain and for the record, test your execution skills and exercise your brain.

The first maverick innovator to plant an apple, excuse the pun, is the one that brought you that little device that is so addictive today, you cant seem to live without it. This is just brain power in the case of Microsoft, it was more of the first person on the ball, wins the game. It’s that guy that you know very well, with a softmicro mind, blew you away like the rest of us with software that revolutionized the entire world. There is another guy, who started out as a record label owner and that’s how he broke his virginity and now makes flying look like a hot air balloon.

These guys all have one thing in common, they are all passionate maverick innovators at heart. (Simply put, don’t follow trends, create a path for them) Joint them. I will follow suit. Be one of them. Always be the first to innovate.

Go First. Go Innovation. Go and change the world.

By Kamogelo “Kginias” Masemola

Creative Careers?

People often ask me, what does a copywriter do?  Especially when I say that one of my skills is copywriting, they say…you copyright things? I harshly say No!! – I don’t copyright or deal with intellectual property laws and stuff. Lawyers deal with that. I create. I deal with Intellectual property of the mind. I come up with ideas, content, for various creative platforms i.e. Print, Digital, Outdoor, Television and Radio.

A copywriter colors outside the lines with their gift of creativity to captivate an audience with ideas. Careers in advertising are rarely known because schools or career guidance teachers don’t teach or know of such careers. Hence society doesn’t even know what a copywriter does.   Other times when I say that I also do illustration, art direction and photography….I still get the same questions, what is that? With photography being seen as not a career but a hobby of going to parties or weddings to take pictures. 

Why don’t people know about creative careers out there but they know about traditional jobs such as being a doctor, lawyer, or even a traffic cop but they don’t know what a creative director or copywriter does? What causes that? Are we as creatives not interacting enough with the general public and teaching them about such career options?

I remember when I had just graduated; I had a conversation with my little brother explaining to him what I do. From that day on; he changed his dreams from wanting to be a doctor to wanting to be a car designer.  He started seeing the possibilities of careers out there. Since that day, I started encouraging his drawing habit and teaching him how to do it.

People or society often interact with our creative products on a day to day basis without them realizing that the product was created by a copywriter, illustrator, art director or even a photographer depending on the medium the advert is placed. Being in advertising doesn’t mean that one appears in adverts; an advert is the end product of advertising.

I guess it’s partly our responsibility as creatives to start educating society about our careers, and what we do.  But firstly we need to encourage kids to explore their talents from an early age rather than succumb to pressure of what society wants them to be.

By Morrel Shilenge

The Death of General Dealers and the Rise of Specialists

Image credit: Lynne Lancaster

General Dealers are principles of ancient practices where you do everything, or in the case of a business offer all the services under the sun. I will not argue with the fact that it does increase profits in the business or helps an individual

make more money.

The future as I see it requires people to be specialists, this alone communicates quality over quantity. There is an old saying that when you try to do everything you become a master of none.

Generalists or General Dealers tend to have a perception that in order to be relevant you need to offer more to make ends meet. What I mean by these is that they offer more services which in the end are not even connected, creating a mash up of everything.

The thought of a company or an individual doing construction and catering at the same time without a dedicated division that does that, gives an impression that you don’t know what you are doing. The power of differentiation and division needs to come in.

My opinion is; be a specialist in one area then move on to the next. Not to say that a company can’t have many divisions or an individual can’t specialise in more than one thing. But in order to succeed as a business or individual, you need to focus in one thing for a while and master it to succeed.

By being a Specialist, as an individual or a business, it assists you to produce quality rather than quantity, it sets you apart in any field of operation.

When you have excelled as specialist then you become a master in that field –then you can pursue another passion to specialise in. It’s like a flock of sheep’s; the only way to differentiate them is by painting them.

What are You? A Generalist or A specialist?

By Morrel Shilenge