The Farmers shoes and The communicators experience

image: The Elastic Troop

Food insecurity has been a major global crisis that hasn’t received much attention in some other countries but most especially our youth. The increase in poverty and unemployment plays an effective role within South African citizens from the economic crisis adding to the struggle of not affording to buy food to eat. Venturing in this particular task of knowing more about Food security and engaging with a local farmer, Mma Mathabo Tlaka from Soweto has enabled me to be more aware of the food that I eat and the process of planting and harvesting crops. This is not the only facet but developing ways to give back to the community which is through CSI projects.

Now possibly for those who are still unaware of Food security or Food insecurity, it all revolves around the ability in which people can obtain food on a day to day basis; and Food insecurity is the inability of people who are unable to obtain food on a day to day basis due to financial problems and unemployment. These two factors are some of the issues that lead to the increase of food insecurity within South Africa as well as other countries affected by the same factors.

image: Jabulie Radebe, separating spinach 

Mma Mathabo Tlaka is a humble and committed woman who is passionate about farming and giving back to the community as she understands how it feels like to grow up struggling and not having the basic needs to go through your day. On the 30^th of March 2015, in a group of seven students we traveled to Soweto to meet and engage with our farmer for the first time. The name of the group was called, The Elastic Troop. Our farmer welcomed us on the day to help her and the other farmers to clean up the gardens so that they can plant more vegetables. My experience of ploughing and understanding the process of planting was a way for me to get educated but the best experience I still carry with me is being the voice for these farmers and giving back to the community as well as creating business opportunities for the farmers.

image: Poster for community project

image: Hauweng logo

We were able to go to different markets within the area and create awareness through word of mouth marketing and posters about the farm. We also developed a community project to get younger individuals involved in farming and our first group was a youth from the Universal Kingdom church that were not far from the farm. I had the opportunity to do what I’m most passionate about to contribute to creating more awareness which is designing a poster and logo for the farmer to add on to their packaging. Language being a barrier I had to learn from my group how to respond to the farmers; and another thrilling experience I had was approaching the Machochonono Primary school to partner with the farmer in providing learners with vegetables to contribute to the feeding scheme which enabled me to learn how to communicate and present an idea which was acceptable.

Fun facts I have learnt during my experience at the farm:

image: spinach

• Did you know that the stamp of the spinach that normally people throw away is actually important because it is used as medicine to treat babies when they have constipation issues? 

• Did you also know the strategy used to scare away the birds if they are a problem in your farm?, you simply place sticks or polls by the sides or corners of your garden plot and attach plastics to the sticks which can be easily blown away by the wind to scare the birds.

DECODED BUT INTEGRATED

image: New York decoded                 

An invitation to an online scavenger hunt to find almost 350 pages advertised in different locations from New York to 13 eminent cities world-wide to launch an autobiography of Jay-Z titled “Decoded”; and to increase their significance and worth of the usage in Microsoft search engine Bing by attracting the younger audience.

 So tell me, what better way than partnering with Jay-Z to reach that type of audience. I personally enjoyed watching this clip of the analytic's of the Decoded Jay-Z campaign and the impact it had on old school advertising and social media. It gives the finest description of Trans-media storytelling, now I’m sure you wondering what the hell is trans-media, well… I did. Trans-media storytelling is a way of allowing a single story or angle to be told through a shared experience via multiple social media platforms which includes non-digital technology.

Bing reached to a mass audience by making use of newspapers, radio, TV commercials, and magazines; this means that they didn't exclude those who didn't have devices that make use of social media right?. Even though traditional advertising is expensive, I tend to believe that it allows you to build relationships with external stakeholders or clients such as Gucci and broadcasting companies.

Bing created an unforgettable experience by taking their audience through locations based on Jay-Z‘s life story where they would get to take pictures next to the advertised pages and post on different social media channels. Now to make it more interesting Bing ensured that this online game would ignite a competitive edge for the fans, so Bing would post clues of where the displayed pages might be on twitter, Facebook and on radio.

image: advertised pages

 Now take into consideration that these pages were not just advertised on billboards, they were advertised in swimming pools, restaurant plates, pizza boxes, cars, and Gucci designed jackets with the pages printed inside the jacket which gives a twist to traditional advertising. People who were unable to reach the located cities, they could make use of Bing maps to collect all the pages and make an online version of the book from the snip shots they took through Bing maps then win prizes.

Traditional advertising sparks the need from individuals to research more about the news they see on TV or hear on radio, and in this case  what I do to stay updated is to check on twitter and if what I see intrigues me, I share it among my friends. Bing understood what their targeted audience wanted and it enabled them to deliver the relevant message to their audience which enhanced audience’s experience and made use of USP.

To see the results of the award winning campaign check out this video and see that traditional advertising integrated with social media can make a difference.

  

                                          YouTube video :Case study on the analytic's of Decoded Campaign

Bloggers! #MeetSouthAfrica

image: Mzansigirl 

Are you searching for your next dream destination?,the iambassador #MeetSouthAfrica campaign should be of interest to you because unlike looking at different websites for people’s reviews on those locations you would like to visit; why not stay in touch with the #MeetSouthAfrica campaign for more insight.

The iambassador #MeetSouthAfrica campaign is based on creating awareness of South Africa and to encourage others who are prospective travelers that have the interest in visiting SA, through the use of the most popular social media channels such as YouTube, Google +, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Vine.

The partnership between South African Tourism and Cape TownTourism along with iambassador and Indaba began a project in 2013 to establish a historical travel blogger campaign by having 15 international travel bloggers to embark on a journey to explore different regions within South Africa which included Cape town, Johannesburg, Garden Route, Eastern Cape, West Coast, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga, Free State and reaching their final destination which was Durban.

Talk about the ideal opportunity to travel around the country with all of your expenses paid for, and as for myself the only provinces I've been to is Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and Limpopo; so just imagine the exciting experiences these bloggers had.

image: 15 travel bloggers

Want to a be travel bloggers?, here is a quick description of the job. Travel bloggers basically share various types of multimedia information/content based on their thoughts, experiences, and destinations on their professional blogs. This allows the campaign to reach their targeted audience, produce relevant or interesting content, to increase the social media engagement, to have online ambassadors, creating exposure and personal views to make it more authentic.

The impact on social media:

·         3.3 million Twitter accounts were reached.

·         1059 photos taken were posted on Instagram based on their experiences.

·         77.8 million Opportunities of twitter engagement.

·         31 500 single photos posted were viewed on Facebook by individuals who were not even the targeted audience.

·         And +60 000 viewers on YouTube

image:Graffiti

My thoughts, the best social media campaigns make use of their visual aids which is of interest to the targeted audience, and what follows is allowing your audience to engage or participate in the campaign which makes them feel like they are a part of the marketing/advertising team. Now let’s be honest, social media generated campaigns are the most cost effective campaigns even for a non-profit organisation, but most of the time audiences, like myself always want to be awarded for the time we take to share content, like videos or make videos of ourselves  and to advertise something on their social media platforms. So if I was part of the marketing team, I would look at what angle of publicity would I provide to my targeted audience?