Tag: Africa

I've been teaching in a high school in Europe for a few months now, I was recently asked by a colleague to come in and speak to her class about tourism in South Africa. The idea is that the students would be inspired by my talk and then create their own projects as imaginary visitors to the country, each describing their journey. It's not far off from South African Tourism's  recently launched initiative that invites YouTube (and others) users to put together an advert for the country, expressing their 'craziest' impressions of the place. This should make for a fun project, as some of the questions I get asked about South Africa reveal just how blurry and mysterious our continent and people are to the rest of the world. The video's are then posted on their YouTube channel for the next three months and the ones that get the most hits win an all-expenses paid holiday to South Africa. Nice thinking SATourism, exposing the cliches and stereotypes of our country (wonder if anyone will make a video not staring a lion, hungry looking kids or thorntrees) while trying out a great experiment in talking directly to your audience through social media. Read all about the competition here on TravelWires , see the YouTube channel here or simply enter here .  We invite you to get creative and inspire you with our photo from DVDMerwe of 'Ronnie's Sex Shop ' on Route 62 in the Cape. 

Today we're doing our bit for Breast Cancer by filling you in on what we believe is a double whammy of a fabulous concept in aid of 'raising awareness and funds in support of breast cancer' in South Africa. The first initiative is the life-saving 'Mobile Breast Check Unit', a mobile breast cancer screening unit that travels around our rural areas educating women about the importance of breast self-examination and early detection of breast cancer, further increasing access to life saving information among rural women. OF COURSE, for this Mobile Breast Check Unit to be able to spread the word, it needs funding, this is where the inspirational Design For Life campaign comes in:

In a JOVA first we attended a festival virtually, thanks to two cyberspace souls that were able to Represent us at the last minute at the PICNIC Crossmedia creative festival in Amsterdam last week. They've kindly blogged the highlights for us, big shout outs and thanks go to Laetitia Dam and Bertrand Robinne for hanging out on our behalf. Of special interest to us was the Suprising Africa day, that they covered in detail for us. See their photo-story here (video still to come) and read their review below:

 

A new Ecosystem conference

Being music lovers we first stepped in the Flexbar where “A New Music Ecosystem” conference took place. “The music industry is changing. Artists and developers everywhere are working on new ways of connecting fans and bands and developing new businesses along the way”. As MySpace users we were mostly interested in the presentation of new Music websites. The one that caught our ears was Twones introduced by the dynamic and young Tim Heineke. Twones is a music service and a new way to store, organize, find & share music played all over the web

If you're interested in conscious and communal living, hanging out in nature with people that like to think about their lives and how they live them, in one of South Africa's most beautiful valleys, get your diaries out and make sure that you and your friends and family get to the second Freewheeling festival in Standford Valley, Western Cape in February 09. There is a range of accommodation to suit all budgets and if you hurry up and book before the end of October, you get a lot more bang for your buck at this 3 day visionary event. Read more below:

All JOVA community members will have read the interview with eminent young South African furniture designer, Ryan Frank , whose latest fabulous creation, ‘Isabella’, was launched at the London Design Festival this September. It's an ingenious totem pole style stacking stool made from straw and wool. Drawing inspiration from traditional hand carved African seating, but wanting to avoid the use of exotic hard woods, the stools are made from a solid section of Strawboard.

 

How COOL are these Masai-warrior inspired shoes? Just looking at them makes me feel more comfortable. Based on "Masai Barefoot Technology", the shoes, Swiss shoe designer Karl Müller may be radically challenging the future of shoes with his appealing 'physiological footwear' approach drawn from years of research of Masai and Korean warrior feet and walking (on very hard uncomfortable ground). More than a million pairs are sold each year... is it an ingenious idea supported by a brilliant marketing team or an authentic innovation? We're off to the shops and we'll let you know. 

Pieter Hugo is a young South African born photographer whose much-vaunted photographic  exhibition entitled Street & Studio: An urban history of photography is currently on show at the Tate Modern in London until the 31 August. Check out the Michael Stevenson gallery/ art historian website where you can feast your eyes on his extraordinary body of work, Nollywood, that explores the vibrant Nigerian Film Industry: "In his new body of work, Pieter Hugo explores the multilayered reality of the Nigerian film industry. Nollywood is, surprisingly, the third largest film industry in the world, releasing onto the market between 500 and 1 000 movies each year.

 

 

All marketing roads lead to the second African Experiential Marketing Summit on the 3rd of September at Montecasino, brought to you by Exp and the Marketing Mix. Click on the banner on the top of our website to fly there and read all about it below:

 

The African Experiential Marketing Summit is one of the most respected industry events in Africa for Experiential and Sponsorship marketing. The objective is to provide marketers and advertising agencies with a better understanding of marketing through experiences, rather than relying solely on the more traditional mediums (television, radio, outdoor, etc) in their marketing campaigns. It aims to offer insights, learning and best practices through experiences of respected marketers and marketing campaigns, illustrating how carefully crafted experiential strategies can and have been successfully implemented.