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How Spaces Shape the Stories We Tell About Them
media update considers how the way we experience our surroundings can influence what we believe about them, and why changing that perception requires more than a fresh coat of paint.
Building a Data Profile: A Q&A With Melissa Mc Nally — Part One
media update talks to Melissa McNally about the assumptions behind audience research, from the limits of consumer personas to the risks of AI-led targeting, and how research can keep pace with changing needs and motivations.
Taking Local Global — What Durban FilmMart 2026 Asks of African Storytellers
Africa's leading film finance market returns this coming October under the theme Shifting Worlds: Turning Towards Ourselves. media update looks at how local stories reach global audiences without losing what makes them local.
The Human Edge in an Automated Communications Industry: A Q&A With Kevin Welman
media update talks to Kevin Welman about how agencies can balance integration with specialist knowledge, creativity with commercial value and technological efficiency with human relationships to build lasting credibility.
When Literacy Development Meets Easy Answers: A Deeper Look at South Africa’s Literacy Crisis
media update considers how our relationship with AI and the decline in reading for pleasure fit into South Africa's literacy crisis.
Taste as an Editorial Skill
media update considers how technology and trend culture shape our relationship with taste, and why developing discernment and an independent perspective remains essential to editorial judgement.
When Purpose Meets People — A Q&A With Tarri Parfitt
media update talks to Tarri Parffit about how the Smile Foundation communicates humanitarian influence and keeps people at the heart of the cause.
The Cost of Disconnected Marketing and Operations
media update considers what happens when businesses experience misalignment in marketing and operations by looking at the recent SPAR Chairman and Deputy Chair's resignations as case study.
When Local Language Meets Global Default
South Africa's multilingual reality can get lost when local languages present a challenge for developing language technology. media update considers what it means when the language we use does not fit the systems built to understand it.
Roots to Reinvention — The Editor's Note
Spring notoriously signals new beginnings, meaning most industries lean on this symbolism for their own gain. media update considers how publicity campaigns can offer an edge to an overdone story by rooting a brand's future in its own history.
For South Africa's township consumers, the customer journey no longer starts at the till. It starts at home, with whether there's electricity to keep food from spoiling, water to cook with or enough left in the budget to justify another trip to the shops.
After taking South African comedy to audiences around the world, Trevor Noah is returning home for a collaboration that celebrates the industry where his own journey began.
AI is often blamed for the homogenisation of creative work, the erosion of craft and the threat to jobs. But a new publication from creative production partner MikeTeevee argues that AI did not create these problems.
5FM has announced that DJ Tshepi and Das Kapital have been nominated for the South African Dance Music Awards.
Comic Con brings together exactly what marketers spend enormous amounts of time trying to curate: attention, passion, participation and community, says Ridhwaan Patel, Marketing Lecturer at AAA School of Advertising.
Ahead of World Tourism Day on Sunday, 27 September, FOUR PAWS is calling for the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in tourism and wildlife content, warning that misleading AI-generated images and videos could distort public perceptions of wild animals and encourage harmful wildlife interactions.
Conservation NGO African Parks has partnered with VML South Africa with the aim to share the stories, celebrate the partnerships and highlight conservation outcomes across its portfolio.
According to Harvard Business Review's analysis of recession-era marketing data, the evidence has exposed that businesses that held or grew their marketing spend through recent downturns came out of them growing 17% faster than the ones that pulled back.
The South African documentary Hearts Remember (Pelo ya hopola) will officially premiere in South Africa on Monday, 21 September, coinciding with World Alzheimer's Day. The film was recently presented at the International Alzheimer's Association Conference in London this past July.
South Africa's FMCG market has returned to growth in 2025, with consumer spending increasing 3.3%, a significant turnaround from the 2.4% decline recorded in 2024, according to the latest Brand Footprint 2026 analysis from Worldpanel by Numerator.
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