AlterSage

AlterSage is Now Neo @ Ogilvy

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Posted in AlterSage at 12:05 pm by Christine

So finally we can break our big news!

It is with great excitement that we reveal that AlterSage has officially partnered with Ogilvy and as of today becomes Neo@Ogilvy South Africa!

Neo is the digital arm of Ogilvy worldwide, and until now, Neo South Africa has only been offering mostly Mobile and Media Placement services in-house. AlterSage has built an incredible reputation as well as proven results over the last four years, which is why Ogilvy decided to bring us on board. In return Neo now affords us the opportunity to practice what we preach – strategic, holistic campaigns that tie online marketing together with more traditional methods.

We have moved offices and are now located in Ogilvy Cape Town.

We may be gaining a new look and a new name but also gain great additional services to offer true holistic, multi-channel marketing campaigns!

Good news is that:

Our campaigns and services remain as is.
Our prices won’t change,
Our team has grown,

And we’ll continue to provide excellent service to our clients globally with the additional backing of a powerhouse in the advertising industry.

We are incredibly excited about our new chapter and what we will now be able to offer to our clients.

Please note that our contact details have changed and you can reach us on the following number: +27 21 467 1000. You will still be able to contact us through AlterSage.com as well though.

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AlterSage’s New Chapter

Monday, August 30th, 2010
Posted in AlterSage at 6:05 pm by Christine

We have a big announcement that I am bursting at the seams to let you in on, but you’re going to have to wait just one more day till 1 September to find out what!

I have loved AlterSage ever since the very first blog post that I wrote on the domain so many years ago when this was still my personal blog. After a few years I thought I would give my own consultancy “a go”, and 4 years later AlterSage can boast that it has clients from around the globe, an excellent staff compliment, I’ve been honoured and recognised enough to speak at many conferences on the topic of Search, Social and Usability considerations, and through industry ups and downs we still stand. Proudly. And I still love every minute of it!

It took some thought and deliberation for me to make the decision that I have on where this incredible journey would venture next, but when it crossed my path, there was no hesitation.

We are still going to be doing great things. We will (primarily) still be the same team and offer the same services. We will still be providing excellent service to our clients globally (and so many new holistic areas!), but we will be moving premises and…that is all I will say right now.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in the AlterSage path.

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Tech4Africa Roundup

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Posted in AlterSage, Events at 11:31 am by Christine

Last week Jonathan and I attended the Tech4Africa conference in Johannesburg.

The brainchild of Gareth Knight, the conference was the first of its kind and had a really good attendance.

With the likes of international speakers such as Clay Shirky, Leila Janah and Alex Hunter – why wouldn’t it?!

It was quite funny as it seemed that the entire Cape Town had migrated to Johannesburg for this event, and it was not uncommon to run into a few of the attendees at the airport or at breakfast.

I was fortunate enough to be invited as a panellist together with Tom van den Berckt, Peter Brooke-Sumner where our panel discussed Search and the Enterprise and was chaired by Rob Stokes.

As with so many of the other panel discussions, we had planned a killer line-up including discussing Real-time and personalised search, Vertical Search, Mobile Search, Social Search, Googles Caffeine update and the affects on SEO and the combined benefits of PPC and SEO, but only managed to get through two in the hour we had.

It was great fun, and even though the panel was on the Friday at 4pm, it was still very well attended! Thank you to those that participated, and thank you also to my fellow panellists who made the discussions interesting.

As a delegate, I mostly attended the Business Track, highlights for me included:

Leila Janah – keynote, social upliftment through digital opportunities. “the internet is a platform for global meritocracy
Embracing Social Media chaired by Walter Pike (made remarkably entertaining by Andy Hadfield’s doodles, who also on the previous day became a new dad
UX discussion chaired by Allan Kent, where the emphasis was to encourage companies to understand audience personas in design and usability
Clay Shirky – keynote, social impact
And the best speaker for me was Alex Hunter. Passionate, entertaining speaker that cuts to the chase and does not entertain BS.

Take-aways for me from the conference:

Social media is hot, hot HOT! But many companies really just don’t know how to do it properly. As they begin the understand the true meaning “social media consultancy” will start to fade as the practice becomes more mainstream
Mobile advertising should not just be considered for emerging markets, it would seem that those with the most apps on their mobiles also have the best internet. Therefore it’s not necessarily one or the other.
Search (and when I refer to “search” it means organic and paid!) still feels like a bit of an after-thought, although it is the foundation of all content on the web. Companies should embrace it much more than they are.
South Africa is ready for more conferences of this nature and having been to SMX Advanced in June, we are brimming with talent and can hold our heads high as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best internationally in terms of our service offerings in digital media

If you missed it, catch interviews and round ups here:

1. Zoopy – Tech4Africa interviews

2. Browse through the Twitter hash for the event to see what people were thinking in real-time as well as post conference round-up links

Well done again Gareth, we will certainly attend again next year! Perhaps even hosted in Cape Town