Marketing & Selling

The creator economy is broken. The internet promised that creators would finally escape gatekeepers. Anyone with talent, persistence and an audience could build a career on their own terms. Yet many creators have discovered that visibility and income do not necessarily mean the same thing. Across music, video, publishing and social media, vast audiences often generate little financial security.

Connecting to a real-time payment rail is the straightforward part. Delivering an experience that genuinely feels instant is where the real work and the competitive advantage lie. There is plenty of excitement about real-time payment rails at the moment. Most of it is justified. Moving money in seconds rather than days changes what a business can offer the people it serves.

A brand runs an on-pack promotion: buy a product, find the code inside, enter it on an app, and you might win a prize.  The prize could range from a free lunch to an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris. Thousands of people enter, and a winner is drawn. The marketing team would love to announce the winner with a photograph and a celebratory post on social media. However, the winner would rather not.

There’s a subtle shift happening in the way we shop for food, and it’s happening on the back of the pack. Where once “low-fat”, “sugar-free”, and “high-protein” claims dominated decision-making, more consumers are scanning product ingredient lists instead. They are looking for fewer ingredients, fewer additives and far less processing.

For hospitality businesses, a reservation is much more than a booking. It represents a prepared room, a reserved table, an allocated guide or a carefully planned experience. When guests fail to arrive, businesses lose the opportunity to generate revenue from that space. Ultimately, the cost of an empty seat extends well beyond the booking itself.

The data on Connected TV (CTV)'s Return On Investment (ROI) is difficult to ignore. However, the slower pace of adoption is much harder to explain. Imagine a marketing channel that consistently delivers 30% higher ROI than almost every other medium in your media mix. Most marketers would naturally prioritise it. Yet CTV receives only 7% of total media budgets despite delivering exceptional CTV investment returns.

The recent amendments to the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) Regulations introduced a formal compliance framework for direct marketing in South Africa. The CPA Amendments took effect on 15 April 2026. For property practitioners who rely on cold-calling or other direct marketing methods, the rules have changed. These methods include SMS campaigns, neighbourhood canvassing, and outsourced lead-generation services.

Katy is a hugely successful American pop star. Her fame carried her to extraterrestrial heights and even extended briefly into outer space for an unforgettable 10 minutes and 21 seconds. Beyond her music career, she has established a suite of companies to safeguard her various commercial ventures. Killer Queen, LLC serves as the vehicle through which she protects and manages her intellectual property rights.

What is the biggest benefit of your customer portal? Is it the cost and efficiency savings you achieve by reducing reliance on call centre staff? Or perhaps it is the increase in customer satisfaction that comes from allowing customers to manage their accounts on their own terms, whenever it suits them?

Most editors recognise this pattern, even if they rarely call it out directly. The footage arrives, and the first assembly begins. Somewhere during the early cuts, it becomes clear that something is not working as expected. The pacing feels slightly off. The tone does not fully land. Moreover, a scene that looked convincing on paper struggles to hold together on screen.