Kavonic Hone. The First South African Ad Agency to Accept Payment in Bitcoin.

Posted on 6th December 20166th December 2016 by Gerard

Having been in the ad industry for a good 29 years, I’ve long had a passion for advertising. And since being introduced to bitcoin a year ago, I’m sold on this too.

Fortunately, I can indulge in both by announcing that payments for my advertising and design services can now be made with the crypto-currency.

Realistically, I’m not expecting a rush of clients to take me up on the offer though – for the simple reason that bitcoin is not widely known in South Africa, and not well-understood either.

In time it will be, but for now, it’s regarded by some as some sort of “fad” (which it definitely isn’t) or as a currency associated only with “illicit activity”. (A misnomer if there ever was one).

So what is bitcoin?

In a nutshell, bitcoin is a crypto-currency allowing for an incredibly inexpensive and quick way of transacting and making payments. All transactions are transparent and appear on the Blockchain – a global public ledger – as they happen. (You can see how many people are transacting in bitcoin as you read this, by going to www.blockchain.info and viewing scrolling transactions in the bottom left corner of the screen).

In the US, more than 200 000 merchants already accept payment in bitcoin, and one can pretty much buy anything with it – from airline tickets to sea cruises, and from a coffee at Starbucks to an ipad on Amazon.

And how does it work?

For bitcoin to work, people – or businesses – need to open a Bitcoin wallet.

Bitcoin wallets can be opened on a number of online platforms – of which www.localbitcoins.com is one of the most common. Once you have a wallet, you need to purchase bitcoin, which you can do on one of three sites in South Africa: www.localbitcoins.com, www.altcointrader.co.za and www.bitx.co.za

Once you have bitcoin, you can make payments from your wallet to another wallet at the click of a button. In seconds, you’re done – payment made.

In South Africa, there are already a number of merchants accepting bitcoin – most of them online shops. They include:

BidorBuy
Takealot
Raru
Gadgetshop
GrowGuru
Silver Bananas
Landmark PC
Appliance Online
SMACS
Runway Sale

In time, there will be MANY more.

With the price of bitcoin set to soar over the next few years (that’s a prediction, shared by many analysts around the world), more and more businesses will start to accept it as the uptake of the crypto-currency increases globally. Huge growth is already being seen in the likes of India, Malaysia, China and South Korea whilst a number of countries in Africa – particularly Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria – are starting to embrace blockchain technology, and with it, bitcoin.

As more South Africans become aware of bitcoin and its advantages (there’s lots of information on the internet), uptake will increase. That’s a given.

Until that happens though, I’m not expecting a whole bunch of clients knocking at my door, wanting to settle their bills in the currency.

For me, it’s good enough right now that they know that the option exists – and that by paying in bitcoin, they could get an up to 15% reduction on their bill – depending on the requirement ie logo design, brochure design, website design, radio commercial, TV commercial, billboard, street pole posters etc.

(And yes, I’d be happy to forward my pricing to anyone interested, showing pricing in rands and bitcoin (BTC). Email [email protected]

In the meantime, if you need help opening a bitcoin wallet or have any questions relating to bitcoin – or for that matter, the soon-to-be-launched bitcoin payment gateway, Coinpay – my contact details are below.

Gerard Kavonic is an experienced copywriter, conceptualiser of advertising ideas and co-ordinator of marketing projects, running a small advertising agency in Johannesburg. He is also an ardent proponent of bitcoin and is an active member of BitClub Network. He can be contacted on 083 444 9888 and emailed on [email protected]

Billboard Advertising and Outdoor Advertising. One and the same?

Posted on 17th December 201417th December 2014 by admin

Whilst those within the advertising industry would know the difference between “billboard advertising” and “outdoor advertising”, some marketers may not – judging from the volume of enquiries I receive for eg billboards when what they are looking for are street pole posters, or maxi posters.

So, a quick explanation:

Billboards are generally the free-standing boards you see on the sides of freeways or on main roads in suburban areas. They come in all shapes and sizes, and in portrait or landscape-formats. Of all the outdoor media-types, these type of billboards are normally the most expensive (together with building wraps) and can range from around R20 000 per month to around R70 000 a month – depending on their geographical location, and how many people would see, or pass by, the billboard in question in any month. In addition, there would a reproduction cost for printing the artwork, which would be a once-off cost, ranging from about R15 000 and upwards.

Billboards could be in the form of static billboards and digital billboards; the difference between them being that on a static board, only one advertising message could be shown at a time, whereas on a digital billboard, a number of ads could be shown one after the other. Digital billboards are becoming more and more popular as they are generally cheaper to flight, the messages can be changed quickly and the creative can be “walked” around a pre-determined area, so as to reach more people in different locales.

Outdoor advertising is a more encompassing term than billboard advertising and includes all outdoor advertising types – ranging from billboards, maxi posters, mini posters and street pole posters to building wraps, signage at taxi ranks, dustbin advertising, trailer advertising and bus shelter advertising.

Of these, the most expensive are building wraps where a side of an entire building can be branded if need be. Not only can this be impactful, it can be incredibly costly and can generally only be afforded by large marketers with expansive ad budgets. (Typically, companies in the banking, insurance, telecommunications and liquor industries).

Maxi-posters are also popular and are to be found between the north-bound and south-bound lanes of major freeways. These are extremely effective, so long as the creative messaging is kept simple and eye-catching. The rule of thumb here is to communicate the USP (Unique Selling Proposition). There’s no point in having a poster with a long headline that a motorist travelling at speed would have no chance of absorbing.

But this is true of all outdoor. You have to keep things simple, and understandable. Eye-catching is also good.

Take street pole posters. Generally put up in series of three or four, if the message is complicated, you’ll lose most motorists and your advertising money will be money down the drain. Street pole posters are cost-effective and hence popular with advertisers with limited advertising budgets. Anyone with R15 000 to R20 000 available could probably afford a series of street pole posters (depending of course on what an ad agency or design studio might for charge for the creative concept and design) although that said, one would normally get a better result by having more than one row of street pole posters.

Then there are mini-posters. Like street pole posters, they can work well. But their success is largely dependent on the creative.

In general, outdoor advertising is incredibly popular with marketers and probably always will be.

Many marketers will look at billboards in conjunction with radio advertising and as a strategy, this makes a lot of sense in a country like South Africa.

As with all advertising, however, billboard or outdoor advertising needs to be approached strategically and professionally and the process typically commences with identifying your target markets and researching their media consumption habits. There are ad agencies and media agencies specialising in outdoor advertising who can crunch the numbers. More than this, they could give you current outdoor availability in a specific area, provide reproduction and rental costings and recommend and purchase space on your behalf. Simplifying the outdoor or billboard advertising process as a result.

Whichever the outdoor advertising type, there will always be three costs:

The cost that an advertising agency will charge you to conceptualise the advertising message and supply artwork

The cost that the media owner will charge you to print the artwork

The cost that the media owner will charge you to flight your advertising per month

If you ever need help in this area, I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.

Nando’s Directional Sign – Street Pole Posters Successful Pointers

Posted on 26th February 201326th February 2013 by admin

Nando’s advertising is well-respected and well-known. Normally for stirring controversy. But between its TV ads, which invariably succeed in getting the brand on the front pages of newspapers, and its radio commercials and newspaper ads are street pole posters which drive traffic to its outlets.

In a discussion I had recently with someone who works on the Nandos advertising account, the street pole posters seem to be working well. Not at all clever or controversial (unusual for this often off-the-wall marketer), they are achieving their objective which is to point motorists to the nearest outlet and to get them to purchase.

From a marketing point of view, they also point to how a brand that is witty and irreverent can have TV, radio and print as its flagship mediums raising laughs and street pole posters doing the business of driving traffic to its stores.

At the end of the day, Nandos is in the business of making money and clearly not in it for the controversy it stirs in the marketplace, or the smiles and sniggers it puts on people’s faces. There is only one place it can make money and that is by getting people into its stores, of which there are now hundreds around South Africa in practically every shopping centre and on every second street corner.

Because they are seen by motorists everywhere, street pole posters are a perfect fit for this marketing-led company. More so because it’s an advertising medium that lends itself to creativity, it’s also one that’s cost-effective. Marketers wanting to get their brand “out there” and who don’t have marketing budgets that make television advertising, radio advertising or magazine possible find that advertising on street pole posters fits the bill in more ways than one.

(Depending on the geographical location, one could advertise on a street pole poster for around R1 200 per month. So a series of three or four posters, run consecutively, would set you back less than R5 000 excluding VAT which is a pittance in advertising terms. (Note that this a rental cost only. You would still need to budget to have the posters conceptualised and designed). Nando’s have street pole posters all over the place however so the costs can start to run away with you if you’re advertising on a national basis.

Just out of interest: a visit to the company’s new website www.nandos.co.za shows an impressive number of countries in which it is now represented, giving proof to the effectiveness of its marketing campaigns. Readers may be surprised to learn that Nandos now has outlets in Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Botswana, Canada, Cyprus, Fiji, India, Ireland, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Namibia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Swaziland, UAE, UK, USA and Zimbabwe… making it a truly global brand.

As an advertising agency, I’m often asked to produce “nandos-type advertising”. Clearly, it’s the sort of advertising that resonates with a lot of people. So hats off to its marketing department and ad agency Black River FC who has really set the benchmark for this genre of advertising.

Clearly, humorous and topical advertising has its place – and I’m all for it (where appropriate of course). In the meantime, here’s an idea for a street pole poster campaign that Nandos (or indeed one of its competitors) may like to consider.

“You’re warm. You’re warmer. You’re hot. Now you’re hot, hot, hot” with the first poster furthest from a Nandos outlet and the last poster closest to it.

Just an idea, but maybe one worth considering the closer one gets to winter?

Vox Telecom’s Street Pole Posters. Anyone Give a Hoot?

Posted on 13th March 201213th March 2012 by admin

You would have seen them: a series of street pole posters in the middle of the M1 North Highway, between Vox Telecom’s Head Office in Waverley and the Melrose Arch business precinct.

The posters read : Hoot if your blood runs green.

Now without sounding flippant, I honestly don’t think anyone gives a hoot. And doubt very much whether anyone will EVER hoot.

As a Vox Telepreneur (dealer) myself, I think that the good marketing people at Vox need to replace this message with one conveying tangible product benefits – and there are many. For the uninitiated, users of Vox products (the Vox Supafone for instance) can reduce their monthly telephone bills through the making of cheaper calls to cell phones (just 96c per minute to either MTN or Vodacom numbers) national numbers and international numbers – plus they can earn a rebate of 15c per minute on every call received on their Vox 087 numbers. (Similar benefits apply to Vox PABXs and switchboards).

Now these are tangible benefits. Especially to a populace battling to make ends meet in what has become a never-ending recession. Therefore, why not trumpet these benefits loudly and clearly?

The point is, many products these days are parity products offering only perceived benefits. There are not that many when you come to think of it that provide real benefits, such as money back in your pocket.

Yet this is what Vox products do. So why beat about the bush with something like “Hoot if your blood runs green?”. It sure beats me. As The Star newspaper proclaims, “Tell it like it is”.

But to be fair to the marketers at Vox (decent people if there ever were), the company has been advertising widely on TV and Radio and their advertising messages on these advertising mediums are spot on. They’re understandable and benefit-driven. People understand the “You and your ADSL” campaign through the accompanying analogies and as a result it is hard to understand why someone with an ADSL line would NOT want a Vox phone – especially as the product comes with no contracts. (Thirty days notice if you’re not happy and the phone gets collected from you, no questions asked).

Back to the street pole campaign however: the positioning of the posters is awesome. There cannot be too many motorists stuck in the morning traffic heading north to Sandton or Pretoria who don’t see the posters. I have been in this traffic many a time and as the posters are on a bend, they are hard to miss.

But I haven’t heard one motorist hoot in response to Vox’s urging. (At taxis and other motorists maybe, but not at the Vox advertising campaign).

So, to Maggie and Clayton at Vox Telecom: ditch this messaging and replace it with copy that will resonate with the passing traffic.

How about the following?

Just 96c per minute to MTN numbers.
Just 96c per minute to Vodacom numbers.
Cheaper calls to national numbers.
Cheaper calls to international numbers.
15c paid to you on calls received.
Now have a nice day.

Direct. To the point. Selling the benefits of a Vox product.

You can tell I’m a copywriter.