By Marian Pike, Senior Lecturer: Media Studies
“I will have a cup of coffee,” I say waving the menu away. “Just coffee, please.”
The waitress pauses. She looks at me expectantly, with a though of irritation that says “I am busy, please don’t waste my time, just order, half-wit.” She nods, as if prodding further information.
I repeat, “I will have a cup of coffee. Thank you.” I add for good measure, after all I have already said please.
She launches into a monologue that I have some difficulty in understanding, “Latte? Gingerbread Latté? Mocha? Peppermint Mocha Trio? JavaKula? Brewed Coffee? Filter? Expresso? Hand Shaken ColdBrewed Originals? Café Alternatives? FruitKula Blended Beverages? Cappuccino? Milk or cream, nonfat milk, organic milk or soya milk? Sugar, Brown, White, Carmel or Sweeteners, or Syrup – there are 11 including including Valencia, Classic and Sugar-Free Vanilla? Short, Medium, Tall?” She pauses for breathe. “Just take a look at the menu and let me know. “
Whew, I think, blowing out like a whale. Who would have thought that ordering coffee could be so difficult? This is not a Monty Python movie – or is it? I am not that old school, am I? One would think this was a movie scene – with Sandra Bullock ordering 27 coffees en route to the cop meeting of Ms Congeniality. This isn’t even Starbucks. For heaven’s sake, it is Seattle coffee shop attached to the local Exclusive Book Store. Maybe I should have asked for tea, I conclude as I reach for the menu.
Designer coffee is so passé today. Who hasn’t ordered mocha latte tall or whatever? Sure it is all so last year, but what if we apply the same rules to PR. Tailor-made designer PR – wow. Designer PR however is new. This new level of PR puts PR on the same status as marketing, branding and advertising, if not higher. PR is at heart all about conversation and finally there, in that conversation, is the opportunity for PR to own the customer. Everybody knows that only 14% of people still believe in advertising, that marketing is all about sales and that branding is about perceptions – it is about what the customer says it is, not what the company says. Major shift alert – are you ready?
Imagine a world where PR is no longer second cousins to marketing, branding and advertising, PR – after drooling for so long – can now rule. Are you ready? Do you know what is out there – not only on the menu of Starbuck or Seattle coffee shops, but in the PR toolkit of conversation – listening, hearing, replying or initiating. Only four ingredients make coffee after all – coffee beans, water and with or without sweetener or milk.
This is a world of one-to-one marketing (conversations), niche marketing, long tail marketing or personalised marketing based on ‘people like me’, social media, social networks, virtual lifestyles and sharing your every thought, moment, fart and event on facebook, twitter, bebo, blueworld, myspace, Ning networks and so on and so forth. Yes it is a lot to take in. But it is today.
The rather untraditional move, unexpected move, but then ‘not even the wise know all the outcomes’ of moving a business discipline – public relations – from the Faculty of Business, to the Faculty of Informatics and Design has opened many more opportunities than it has closed. Business is so old school, so traditional, so bound up in rules and regulations, so hamstrung by ‘this is the way it has always been done’, that it is unable to acknowledge that the world has changed. Information is not scared, but abundant, it is all there at the click of a button. What hasn’t changed is the ability to use it, to shift it to sort it, to spot trends, to back yourself (Richard Branson would agree) and just go for it anyway. Designer business is a long way off. Designer PR is here.
I am quite pleased to be in a faculty that prizes flexibility, originality, innovation and new ways of doing things, new ways of looking at things, new ways of making my voice heard or new ways of listening to what needs to be done. I am especially pleased that if PR listens, learns and grabs the opportunities offered, PR can finally rule the roost. After all it is all about winning, isn’t it?
November 13, 2008
November 10, 2008
Unravelling The Grid
By Saadiyah Marks, 2nd year PR student
On Saturday, October 18, students and guests at the CPUT annual media conference were introduced to a new mobile social network service called ‘The Grid’. Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom, introduced the innovative service and demonstrated how you could use The Grid to stay connected with friends.
The Grid (Groups Radar Identity Dropzone) is, is similar to ever-popular mobile social network, MXIT but has location based advantages such as viewing on an actual map exactly where you are and what your friends found interested at that particular place. This service allows your cell phone to be located by triangulating its position between cell phone towers. It has been dubbed “Google Earth meets Mxit” and means that you could be at a party and send a picture, video, text or sound clipping to a contact and they would see your exact location as well as if the party is worth attending or not.
Video clips, photographs and comments you drop on The Grid is called ‘blips’ would be made available to your contacts to view. The Grid is that the usage is free although network data costs as charged by your service provider therefore you could minimise costs by making sure the file size of your data is small. The creators of The Grid has really upped the standard of social networking allowing users to stay connected with their friends by showing each other where they are and what they doing.
The Grid was initially launched in South Africa last year by invitation only through the country’s leading mobile network, Vodacom. The reason for the creation of The Grid is to buy into a share of the Mxit market, which as we know, is a huge population. Vodacom has incorporated social networking, differentiating The Grid from Mxit. The service is continuously improving as you can see on The Grid Blog and growing as it reaches more and more of its target market. By using the built-in radar function the user is able to find the content they are looking for as well as forward it to their friends, comment on it or rate it. In the pipeline for Vodacom and The Grid is an international launch so before we know it we would know more about the hotspots in other countries than in our very own.
The good news for public relations and marketing professionals is that The Grid is allowing small businesses the opportunity to advertise through the social network. The Grid allows people to share their experiences and stories, a perfect medium for creating an brand awareness.
For more information about visit http://www.thegrid.co.za/, The Grid on Facebook, The Grid Blog, or watch The Grid video on YouTube
To register for The Grid simply SMS “grid” to 33313 (Please not The Grid currently available to SA mobile phone users only)
On Saturday, October 18, students and guests at the CPUT annual media conference were introduced to a new mobile social network service called ‘The Grid’. Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom, introduced the innovative service and demonstrated how you could use The Grid to stay connected with friends.
The Grid (Groups Radar Identity Dropzone) is, is similar to ever-popular mobile social network, MXIT but has location based advantages such as viewing on an actual map exactly where you are and what your friends found interested at that particular place. This service allows your cell phone to be located by triangulating its position between cell phone towers. It has been dubbed “Google Earth meets Mxit” and means that you could be at a party and send a picture, video, text or sound clipping to a contact and they would see your exact location as well as if the party is worth attending or not.
Video clips, photographs and comments you drop on The Grid is called ‘blips’ would be made available to your contacts to view. The Grid is that the usage is free although network data costs as charged by your service provider therefore you could minimise costs by making sure the file size of your data is small. The creators of The Grid has really upped the standard of social networking allowing users to stay connected with their friends by showing each other where they are and what they doing.
The Grid was initially launched in South Africa last year by invitation only through the country’s leading mobile network, Vodacom. The reason for the creation of The Grid is to buy into a share of the Mxit market, which as we know, is a huge population. Vodacom has incorporated social networking, differentiating The Grid from Mxit. The service is continuously improving as you can see on The Grid Blog and growing as it reaches more and more of its target market. By using the built-in radar function the user is able to find the content they are looking for as well as forward it to their friends, comment on it or rate it. In the pipeline for Vodacom and The Grid is an international launch so before we know it we would know more about the hotspots in other countries than in our very own.
The good news for public relations and marketing professionals is that The Grid is allowing small businesses the opportunity to advertise through the social network. The Grid allows people to share their experiences and stories, a perfect medium for creating an brand awareness.
For more information about visit http://www.thegrid.co.za/, The Grid on Facebook, The Grid Blog, or watch The Grid video on YouTube
To register for The Grid simply SMS “grid” to 33313 (Please not The Grid currently available to SA mobile phone users only)
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