Tag: marketing

In this two-part series, I outline the skills that will be required by present-day HR Professionals – for now and into the future. Due to the increasing automated and digitised world in which HR professionals need to serve their stakeholders, as well as the added intricacy of a VUCA environment, all HR professionals will need to upskill and reskill themselves to meet the challenges of this Future World of Work. 

Seasons Greetings, the time for shopping endlessly has come and it is embraced by millions around the world who have been locked down/in for the passed two holiday seasons because of the dreadful pandemic that ravaged the world over. 

Being an entrepreneur is no easy feat, but with a clear plan, passion and hard work – a lot is possible. As we enter Entrepreneurship Month, we speak to entrepreneurs from different fields and industries about their success and ask them their key tips on achieving greatness!

The fact that 57% of marketing executives admit they often don’t have the data to understand customers or anticipate their needs is an existential problem. No matter the industry, customer data and insights are vital to helping deliver meaningful experiences, create strong engagement and achieve customer satisfaction.

I will open by saying, Heritage is essentially who I am. Yes, it is tradition, but it goes beyond that. As an individual, my heritage informs a lot about me. It informs what tribe I’m from and far more insightfully how I eat, what I eat, where I go, why I go there, who I associate with and why, how I speak, how I want to be spoken to, what I wear and what I don’t, how I wear it, what I care about, what I love, who I love, what I believe and don’t, and what matters to me et cetera.

From a purely scientific point of view, colour is simply one aspect of an object that is created by the forms or wavelengths of light it reflects or emits. But for us humans, there is so much more to colour than a dry scientific definition. When we see a colour, it triggers a variety of chemical reactions in our brain, leading us to experience an emotional response.

The new generation which brands are taking a keen interest in are called Gen Z or ‘Zoomers’, this refers to people born between 1997 and 2015, who are within the age range of 7 to 25 years old in 2022, representing almost 27.5 million people in South Africa.

The events of the last few years have hit the fast forward button for the South African e-commerce industry. According to Geopoll, e-commerce grew by 66% YoY (Year over Year) in 2020, while brick and mortar retail fell by 30%.

COVID-19 changed the world as we know it, and along with it, customer expectations. Everything is evolving and those organisations that want to thrive, add value, and solve customers’ challenges, will need to have a hard look at their products and services to accommodate the shifts that are happening.

Stop telling stories. Start selling them! The world is rightly obsessed with the incredible power of a good story. Unfortunately too many of us take that to mean that it is our own story that’s important. It’s not. The magic happens not when we tell our customers the story of our past, but when we sell them a new story of their future. One in which we play a part.