Let me state right upfront that I really do have better things to do than write about THAT poster. Four strategies (one of them for a campaign to celebrate our Constitution, which I’m excited about because it’s the closest yet I’ll get to putting the theory I explored in my thesis into practice). Various commissioned […]
Media
Posted inMedia
Can you defy the gods of marketing and win?
Every now and then, you see a marketing marvel, a product or service so obviously out of place, so spectacularly wrong, that you can only look on in amazement. Haute cuisine in Boksburg? That’s a bit like selling Dior in Delmas, or hosting a talk on Wittgenstein in the Kakamas town hall. Take the restaurant […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
There’s something odious about academic publishing
There is something terribly wrong about peer-reviewed scholarship and about academic publishing in general. It resembles an exclusive club of knowledge production where new knowledge is circulated among an elite group of scholars who confirm each other’s prejudices and biases and then pat each other on the back. In some ways, once new knowledge is […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
On loving our possessions
This is possibly the single thing I love most in the world. I cannot quite explain why, but when I look at it I am filled with love. I don’t get to look at it often, because it’s safely folded away in a cupboard, waiting for the day I have a room of my own […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The fallibility of memory
I am in the final stages of research and writing a paper on memory which I expect to submit for peer review and publication early in the new year. This paper has proven most difficult to complete, least of all because I started doing research about eight months ago — at the beginning of a […]
Posted inBusiness, Media
Christmas spending: where’s the money coming from?
Sandton City is a madhouse. The reports are disturbing: gaggling crowds of teens everywhere, shops heaving with bodies, zombies wandering from store to store, gift lists clutched in clammy hands. Some of my hollow-eyed acquaintances report that they didn’t even make it beyond the parking lot. Christmas is coming, and apparently South Africans are shopping […]
Posted inMedia
Did Durex screw its own brand?
Handing your Twitter account over to a complete doos is the PR equivalent of giving a loaded gun to a drooling moron. Jen Thorpe has written about the Durex Twitter cock-up from a feminist stance. Inevitably, there are those who can’t see anything wrong with what Durex did. But from a brand point of view, […]
Posted inMedia
How objective is the media?
By Ryan Peter The media continues to be under the spotlight, not just locally but also in the US where questions about objectivity are moving to the forefront. Perhaps if there is anywhere in the world where these questions must be asked it’s in the US where, in my opinion, so much of the media […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The rise of bling: What is the artist’s role in society
There’s a trend of new multi-millionaires who throw mega-weddings for public recognition. Tenderpreneurs like Robert Gumede from Mpumalanga, Shauwn Mpisane from KwaZulu-Natal, Fikile Bili from the Orange Free State and recently Limpopo property mogul David Mabilu. The thinking behind this is to make a statement that says “ses’fikile — we have arrived”. Depending on how […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Self-hating black writers — what gives?
There is a dangerous increase in books written by black authors and so-called intellectuals that give a negative portrayal of life under freedom and democracy. One can even judge the content of these by their covers because they, inevitably, have vivid and memorable titles that assault the integrity of the first legitimate and elected black […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Everybody loves Nonhle
Dear Nonhle I started writing this letter to you when I was in Germany last week, before I saw this Dear Nonhle letter and by then it was too late. So maybe we’ll just have to start a Dear Nonhle meme. Lots of people can compose Dear Nonhle missives and it can become a rite […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle, Media
Julius toppled by vaginas…and T-shirts?
Julius Malema has been toppled by vaginas and sexist T-shirts. Who would have thought that the posts that attract the most reads should be about plastic surgery for fannies (over 5 000, a record for me) and T-shirts bearing legends like “You looked better … from behind”. Admittedly, a lot of the comments would indicate that […]