Could online News sites out-Google Google Ads?

In a very quick scan of three of the bigger news domains in South Africa (Mail & Guardian, IOL and News24), only one was displaying Google Ads, as far as I could see. But it occurred to me over the last day or so that News sites might have the potential to out-Google Google when it comes to providing advertising that is relevant to their readers – especially in our local context in South Africa.

At the risk of creating a cost for what I have been trying to achieve for free (by issuing press releases with links to supporting materials on our website and/or providing those links in the comments on stories, where allowed), but in the interests of collaboration, sharing and the already somewhat symbiotic relationship that exists between us as a political party and the media, here is my idea as it evolved. (hopefully it will be rewarded with some free link love for the DA )

FB community honours murdered Professor

This afternoon, Professor Mike Larkin of UCT’s law department will be laid to rest in Rondebosch. He was stabbed and murdered for the briefcase he was carrying home from work last Friday evening, most likely resisting because of the exam scripts therein. From what I have heard and read of Prof. Larkin over the last week, the inconvenience the loss of these scripts would cause his students was probably foremost in his mind, instead of his own safety.

You might wonder why I am writing about this here on a blog about political marketing and new media (not withstanding the warning in my first blog that I might climb on a political soapbox from time to time), and not as a contribution to the DA’s Eye on Crime blog. There are two reasons…

The second (new) P

Last month, Dave Duarte pointed out on his blog, Marketing Geek, that the Wikipedia page on Marketing had a new subsection on “Web 2.0 and the new 4 Ps”, namely Personalisation, Participation, Peer-to-Peer and Predictive Modelling. This week, Tyler Reed posted a neat slide presentation on the same topic.

In political marketing, the second P in particular has always been important. After all, going out and casting your vote is the most basic (and all-important) participation in the political process. Participation is an end in and of itself. Respond to your voters’ wishes, and you’ll be rewarded. Ignore them at your peril.

Product marketing is measured in Rands and cents; political marketing is measured in votes cast. It creates a particular challenge, since the success of your brand is only truly measured twice every five years.

Groups, Pages and Politicians – marketing the DA on Facebook

I’ve been playing around with the new developments in Facebook (you can read about them here). I set up a ‘Democratic Alliance’ page. First problem with Facebook (clearly due to the US focus on the personality rather than the party): ‘Political Party’ isn’t an option in the organisation types when you create your page. I had to select ‘Non-profit’ as the closest description…

Mobile Websites made easy

One of the things I have been grappling with for a while is the need to tap into the Mobile Market in South Africa. We obviously want to optimise our traditional online communication and marketing, but the stats speak for themselves: 4 million people with an internet connection and nearly ten times that (~38 million people) with cell phones. What I haven’t seen yet, is data on how many of those cell phones are wap-enabled but, even if it’s only a third, that’s a huge market.

The problem is that the cost of building and maintaining a wap website worth visiting on a regular basis is still relatively expensive – the reason being that there are so many different cell phone models with no standard operating system, so you practically have to have a different website for each model. Not very efficient.

However, today a colleague informed me of a new innovation

What’s in a name?

This was going to be in my first post, but thought it was going to get a bit long, so let’s break it up rather.

Why Ant’s World? Well, there are a couple of reasons: firstly – and obviously – it’s short for Anthony, and it’s what my friends call me. (I had to add ‘SA’ behind it because someone got there before me – hardly surprising.)

Secondly, I don’t have a marketing or a politics background. I’m actually a zoologist by training. I did a B.Sc. (Honours) in Zoology at UCT, went to work as a research assistant and project manager on a collaborative research programme between University of the Western Cape and the then-Sea Fisheries Research Institute (now the research division of Marine and Coastal Management), and did most of a Masters before getting too distracted by a job in politics.

Another reason – related to the zoology connection – is that there are some wonderful analogies one can draw from nature about what we do…