April 15, 2014 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
With more than 81% of employees using personal devices for work, your customers need to ensure the same security standards are applied to mobile devices….
Even Mobile Phones are Prone to Phishing
Phishing relies initially on human gullibility. This means that devices users often think of as ‘ ‘immune’ to cyber attacks – such as smartphones – are in fact the perfect vehicle for phishing attacks. Some tips for avoiding phishing attacks on your phone include:Don’t click links in bank emails
☻ Don’t click links in bank emails
☻ If you’re not addressed by name, it’s probably fake
☻Telephone numbers aren’t a guarantee an email isn’t fake
☻ If your IT Department emails, they won’t need you to confirm your password
☻ Be wary of unexpected good news
The Risk Implications of a Device being Compromised
Employees using mobile devices, even if their own device, will invariably have some corporate information on their phones. Sales people will have all their customers’ in their contact list. Or worse yet, corporate emails. Yet still, 40% of businesses believe BYOD is not important.
The fact is that legislation governing confidential corporate and personal information (e.g. POPI) means that should mobile devices be comprised (e.g. via malware or theft), the business could face hefty fines.
Try It: Ask our Team for an ESET Endpoint Security for Android trial for you as our customer.
January 28, 2014 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Part 2 of our re-branding concepts, we bring concepts to local shores, with the telecoms industry now playing a bigger part in what we visualized as a more complete, and convincing, alternate universe inspired design.
MTN’s brand is influenced highly by Deutsche Telekom AG buying out the company instead of Vodafone buying out Vodacom.
Please Note: We do not own both brands or are associated with Vodacom or MTN. Ads are real world campaigns by both companies. Re-branded application are the only changes.
November 11, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
In between all the work we do for all our clients, we do sometimes just keep doing conceptual work to either test new technologies or design philosophies (hey in our defence, even Student Commune started off as conceptual art).
We kept everything consistently simplified in line with our visually appealing philosophies.
You can view the project as well on Behance
Disclaimer: All Orlando Pirates Football Club associated branding and sponsorship branding belong to their respective owners. This is a personal project by Purple Online Media Solutions and does not reflect the views or opinions of Orlando Pirates Football Club or its associated sponsors.
August 26, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Visuals and how we perceive and interpret those visuals is a very important trait/skill we humans have, it differentiates the blue collar workers who prefer plaid shirts, to art connoisseurs who prefer a Rembrandt. Branding is based on this basic fundamental, visually appealing and consistently detailed symbols we can associate to.
Branding is an important part of any businesses. It helps make them more recognisable to the public and can have a major impact on their reputation and how they are perceived by people. While we have started to see a huge uptake of rebranding projects in South Africa, we wanted to take another angle to projects and concepts, and add a little Fringe mythology to brands, in a manner of “there’s more than one of everything”, to showcase our own skills and a peek to how brands might have looked in some alternate universe. It’s not about opposites but how a different vision would have resulted in a different outcome based on our vision.
To kick it off we going with probably the oldest and most in your face branding face-off we’ve ever seen: Coca-Cola vs Pepsi. What motivated this concept? We sat back and thought “what if Pepsi had won the Soda wars and Coke had to play catch up?”. Pepsi is a huge brand no doubt and has regained a lot of market share, but as far as in your face brand placements, Coca-Cola still seems to be king (FIFA World Cup anyone?). So we switched it up and created brands based on Coca-Cola being the underdog that needed to rebrand to keep up with Pepsi-Cola. So here we go, for more on the Soda Wars click here
Note: Ads below are real world campaigns by both companies. Rebranded application are the only changes
August 1, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Whenever we hear a client ask us “Why must we pay you to do something we can do” I tend to cringe, but get that from their perspective they have a point to a degree, doing the front end tasks for social media seems simple enough, post a picture, update a status message etc. I think even you as a client or potential client feel social media updates or content is easy enough, fair enough.
With the advent social media boom, the result has been social media strategists and “experts” claiming they can do ABC, without as much as measuring a company’s KPI’s or even knowing how to sustain campaigns long term, and thus sales pitches from these “experts” creates expectations actual agencies must either match, surpass or lose a client to. Take for example Twitter & Facebook; What is the general belief and expectations for a business when they open their first social media business page? “How do I get 1 million likes” right? WRONG!
Your focus should be on figuring first what will be the main purpose of this social media page and what you want to get from it. We personally focus on engagement and reach more than likes, because as our previous blog post on why you need to be social highlighted, newsfeeds/timelines filter how your message is conveyed (10-15% of your likes usually) to your audience based on various factors, and thus comes insights. So now if all those numbers above look like Greek, you at the first stage in understanding why you might need a digital marketing agency onboard. Facebook have just recently had an insights update, and with more data comes better efficiency in how agencies will be able to handle how to post and measure your content, based on when fans are online, which areas are people engaging from etc.
Another update is on Twitter, which now offers basic Analytics by accessing Twitter’s ads website. Here you can monitor mentions, follows, unfollows as well as tweet engagement. Coupled with other measuring tools strategists can create more efficient customer centric services.
LinkedIn has started rolling out promoted posts on its platform for business pages as well, another plus for emphasizing engagement on their social network.
All these updates are for the great of the business at the end of the day as these platforms realized that by giving us greater tools to help businesses, the more efficient you can convert brand awareness to sales and long term client relationships.
So do you have the time to do this all by yourself again?
July 26, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Purple Online Media Solutions is proud to announce it’s partnership with ESET, which will effectively mean clients can get ESET’s wide range of internet security products.
“The ESET partner program was devised to help you build your business with our award-winning products, offering industry-leading profitability and partnering plans to fit your core competencies. We invite VARs, solution and service providers, as well as OEMs, and other organizations to explore the extensive range of partnership opportunities.”
If you need any of the home or business solutions please contact us at info@purpleonlinemedia.com and we’d be glad to send you a quote 🙂
June 4, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Searching for friends in Johannesburg using Facebook Graph Search
A few days ago Facebook gave us access to their supposed game changer, Facebook Graph. Mark Zuckerburg and team promised the world a tool so immersive, so expansive; it would be the 2010’s reinvention of search engines.
With a few keystrokes, all of the information everyone has ever provided about themselves, had been indexed and cross-referenced, accessible to me. From the basic premise, it looked like Facebook Advanced Search version 2, and this tool with the correct privacy settings “is a great power that requires great responsibility” (Yes I twisted a Spiderman quote to define a new product, new low).With a more brand centric approach Facebook has taken, all those page Likes, all those Check-Ins etc are now the foundations of creating a whole new type of search engine. One that doesn’t search for news articles, images, videos, but for people with interests, places, likes similar to yours. Social media is all about the social experience, connecting with people, friends, new friends etc, and the old Facebook seems to have been the tip of the iceberg. Find friends and people who like Chinese food, or live in your area. In theory it sounds great, will it work practically? Do people want to know how many of their friends live in Johannesburg like Simply Asia? Then what will they do with this information? Organize a meeting with everyone and have a sit down?
For brands this is going to be a very great tool, how efficient and useful it will be in tailor making products and services for consumers? Only time will. It certainly will give Facebook a fresh lease on life if users realized the benefits of the tool, and somehow making it a part of their real world interactions.
April 30, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
These newsletters are not just for us to give tips on digital marketing and updates on our company, but we also love to congratulate our
clients on the great work they also doing in sustaining and growing their brands beyond expectations.
First up we’d love to congratulation Maitemogelo Consultancy on yet another accolade by being awarded the Hosmed 2012 Broker of The Year Chrome Award. The great work Mr Molefe and his team are doing is certainly recognized and we are glad to be associated with a multiple award winner in the industry.
From award winners to award shows, next up we would love to give a hearty well done to a new client that will be launching the first ever South African soapie awards. We’d love to thank the entire Indonsa Productions team for letting us being part of this project, and we certainly will be keeping an eye on the Royalty Soapie Awards in future. For more information on the awards you can visit www.royaltysoapie.co.za
April 29, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Update 31st May 2013: Since our blog entry Edcon finally launched their Red Square online store, and we did have a quick chat with David Gibbons, who manages e-commerce at Edcon. We will see more online stores from the Edcon group in future as well as a nice break down of how Red Square will position itself against the current online “juggernauts”.
“Red Square is the ideal brand to differentiate vs the purely online stores. Cosmetics is an interesting product category, very tightly controlled by the international brands and their local agents – because of that, no-one in the online space can come close to offering the selection that Edcon does. Beyond selection, I think the free sampling program and the ability to buy on credit with your Edcon Thank U account are two other differentiators that set our cosmetics offering apart online.”
So there you have it. Some benefits that will make Red Square stand out, even though they came in a tad later. What do you think? comment below.
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Kalahari, Takealot, Gumtree, Zando… All those brands mentioned have 1 thing in common; They have no brick and mortar stores locally, and strictly sell their items online (with some of them offering collections from their warehouses). So how did a couple of unknown brands become the biggest online retailers in South Africa, while your Edgars, Mr Price, Truworths, Makro lag behind in a R59bn industry (2% of SA’s economy)?
Online adoption is all about initial approach, and South Africa has always had the advantage of adopting what Americans and Europeans have already, and what works for them usually works for our market too. With this in mind, shouldn’t the bigger brands had foresight to see that a brand like eBay for example, surpasses Target or Walmart online, and used this to their advantage?
In South Africa less than 1% of all retail purchases are done online (as of January 2013), and yet Kalahari.com (SA’s biggest online retailer, owned by Naspers) saw a 40% increase of revenue for the 2012/2013 Fiscal Year, while by end of April 2013, of the traditional big retailers in South Africa, only Woolworths featured in the “Online Retail Brands Report – South Africa 2013”. Is the online market too small a field for traditional retailers to consider? Is it a market “small players” like NASPERS should deal with, while they control the foot-through-door customers? Big brands in South Africa have started to seemingly stagnate when it comes to new innovations and markets, it’s usually a case of playing catch up (yes Mr Price, Makro, Incredible Connections, we looking at you), and the JD Group for 2012/2013 seem to have targeted the online space with their roll-out of refreshed mobile and online facilities for Incredible Connection and Hi-Fi Corp, which is still playing catch up to Takealot and Kalahari. Edcon seem to be a very technophobic parent company, with their brands lacking ecommerce facilities (surprisingly LEGIT has over 40 000 Facebook Likes, and just over 5 000 Followers on Twitter), and yet for a brand aimed at a younger always online, always mobile demographic, they still fall short in capitalizing on all these numbers to convert into online purchases (and credit card only purchases shouldn’t be an excuse anymore).
We had a presentation with a very big retailer about 2 years ago (won’t mention names), on how to capitalize on their established offline market (took us nearly 4 months just to get a meeting mind you), and bringing that online through ecommerce and online marketing platforms, due to us having seen another small competitor of theirs grasp the space so quick, and having grown immensely in the space of 2 years. So we had a sit down, the marketing guys loved the idea and vision and agreed with us this is something they want to consider, basically create the foundation now, and solidify their market share online too. The decision went to the boardroom suits and the deal fell through as they felt it’s not “viable”. We did some consulting work for the client thereafter but as far as the vision and ideas we created, they were never used. In 2013, nearly 2 years since the meeting, their online presence is still the same, while that small competitor has become a well known brand as far as providing this specific product. They had 2 physical stores back in 2011, and now have 4 stores altogether, international distribution services, as well as mobile apps, newsletters and consistent online marketing.
So why have online brands beat their real world counterparts in retail purchases? That is a question retail decision makers (i.e. boards) will have to answer to their investors and the public. Just like right now I’m about to buy a bottle of cologne and a few items that will be delivered to me while I’m at work, Edgars Red Square or Truworths will have to give a very convincing argument on why online shoppers are neglected and shoppers like myself are lost potential sales. Perhaps that -1% market share is small change to the big boys, innovation indeed!
March 26, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Google; a name synonymous with online search, which has literally become a verb (googling) to define searching online, usually using Google.com services.
What has become part of our everyday lives is a little bit more complex for a business, whose purpose is to be visible online in order to generate traffic or leads. The most common belief is that after your website is created, Google will somehow find your 1 website (amongst billions throughout the world), and somehow magically rank it on the first page, just because they like you.
This is where a SEO expert would come in and help your put your business on higher rankings than your competitors. One must always remember that your business is certainly not the first, if it is, nor last. A competitor will eventually come and create competition for your products, and clients. All we do as a marketing agency is leverage your terms and keywords to rank higher on Google’s search results, and remain there, whilst also marketing online using Search Engine Marketing (in our case, Google AdWords, which we’ll cover in the next post)
PageRank, like Facebook’s EdgeRank, is the algorithm that Google uses to determine how and where your website search results should be displayed on Google organically.
The key is consistency and quality (a humanized experienced), more than quantity, which is what Google is trying to eliminate with their constant search engine updates, this differentiates “the bad websites” from the good legitimate ones. We come in with a strategy to leverage your brand on search engines and keep at it till it fits into your market and therefore gives visual results even your competitors can see. Google can tell bad techniques used to “hack” their system for leverage (called black hat techniques), and we guarantee we use ONLY white label techniques, which future Google updates would leverage your brand online for, and black hat techniques get penalized for. Like our post last month, it’s about quality not inflated and fake quantity.
As a brand you need to understand the number of backlinks to measure your chances online as far as ranking is starting to become more and more irrelevant, it’s about actual site content and how your human audience interact with that content, and the QUALITY natural backlinks you get back. Above we have 2 screens for a keyword search and a brand search, in both instances, we have made sure we on the first page and higher rankings than even the “popular” publications and websites. For “student accommodation” our brand moved from the 60th page, to the 5th page to 1st position naturally, the last time the website went below 3rd position on Google was December 2012. Another instance we have a brand search for “Royalty Soapie Awards ” which were covered by major publications across South Africa, but because of strong SEO techniques, the brand’s website and our client profile didn’t get suddenly knocked off just because more people have access to these newspaper publication websites. Our content is created by humans for humans.
Your business must always know why they creating something as simple as a website first and foremost, once you have that, the marketing grand design comes into play.
