Probably the most important element of any advertising one does is the quality of the visual images. So many people say, “What I’ve got is fine, people can get an idea what we offer.”
Now that’s nonsense. You are advertising, not a sloppy-sort-of-giving-an-idea. If that’s your attitude to marketing your business, it’s an attitude that’s bound to reflect your whole business… so think again!
Getting and using good images properly challenges most people. Here are a few tips:
Getting good images
You have two choices – either you take them or somebody else does.
If you are going to take them, don’t rush. Take into consideration lighting at different times of day and what you can do to take a better photograph. Time/Life photographers had an awesome reputation for getting the best pics – the famous Iwo Jima photo was actually a re-enactment of what had happened before any photographer arrived on the scene and another Life photographer asked the US Army to take one step back because it made a better pic!
If you don’t have an adequate camera or no eye for composing great photography, use others – guests, friends or a professional photographer. Maybe a local photographic club or friends will take a collection of pics you can use in exchange for product.
Images you can use
You need images that end with .jpg, gif or .png. A good rule to follow is that photographs should be JPG while graphics (like logos) are frequently better as GIF files.
You will probably need images for print and the internet, and these have completely different requirements – so always ask for and keep two copies of each pic – one high resolution for print and the other low resolution for internet.
The high resolution print copies should be as large as you can get. The low resolution internet copies should never be over 300Kb in size. Both can be 72 pixels/inch – that’s all the internet uses and your print version can always be resampled for specific uses which differ.
If someone supplies you with photos, ask for them on a CD. You can store that somewhere safely after you have loaded all your pics onto your computer in a marketing folder under “My Pictures”.
How do you tell the size? Hovering over a thumbnail will show the size in Kb as well as pixels (width and height). If you click once on the pic, it shows in the left hand column in MS Windows. You can also select the “Details” option in the way your window is presented.
Naming images
Image names should be simple with no blank spaces or characters like / or punctuation marks. You can use – and _.
Note this
If you try to load pictures that are too large onto the internet, or pictures that have spaces or incorrect characters in the name, your submission will probably fail and you may not get an error message telling you why.
If you load pictures that are too small, when they are going to be used at a certain size, your images will be pixelated – that means the dots show and the image quality is poor.
(CapeInfo’s image gallery in the Directory displays the larger pics at 520 pixels wide. If your image is smaller than that, it will appear pixelated.)
If you need to crop, resize or touch up
The free image editing application that comes with Microsoft bundles is really not up to the job and you’ll struggle to get anything done.
The best application is Photoshop Elements which costs about R900. It is something you’ll be able to use forever so it’s not a bad investment. You can buy it online in South Africa (Google it for suppliers). The full professional version of Photoshop costs many thousands of rands and most are unlikely to use all its features.
An alternative is to use Photoshop’s free online service (https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html) – you can store up to 2Gigs of images there as well.
If you are creative and have a good cellphone camera, you can try using that. There are times when a softer-focus image does work, especially if you plan to improve the image in Photoshop.
Most important, don’t ever bluff yourself that what you have is “just good enough”. Always ask yourself, is it compelling and does it sell! Remember, great pics have long legs and will be used elsewhere, giving your business additional exposure.
This is the first in a series which aims to help anyone who advertises on the Internet. I’ve listed about 10 topics so far, so a new subject will be added each week for some time to come. If you have comments or requests, please do have your say by clicking on the “Comment” link above.
We will cover generating great copy, working with images, using emails effectively and the importance of Team Tourism in the coming weeks.
Being successful is all about attitude. So if you’re a small guest house and your main raison d’etre is to help pay the bond, or right off some expenses against tax, getting your attitude right is the first step.
Do that and, apart from being successful, you’ll have more fun too.
So often, someone emails us and we know immediately we have a looming disaster on our hands. Here are a few examples:
Example 1
We advise people to visit our support forum first, so they know what’s required for adding a business. One person emailed us to say that he went to the forum but couldn’t see anything there.
After much puzzlement we discovered that he didn’t know that blue or underlined words meant that they linked to further information.
Now this is someone who plans to market their guest house on the Internet, but he didn’t have the first clue how it works. We’ve said over and over again, if you don’t know, get help! I learnt more about using computers when I had just bought an Apple when I sat alongside an experienced Apple user and just watched what he did.
If you are using a new medium, take time to explore… and use Google. Dammit, I should have a PhD from Google I use it so much! And no, I have never been on a computer course.
Example 2
Yesterday morning I had an email from someone who had just registered on the site. He wrote that although he had just registered, he has so many usernames and passwords (which he chooses) that he forgot what he used.
Now he wrote to us by replying to his welcome email, which asked him to confirm his registration. This email displays the username and password he had just used.
A few minutes later we had another email from him saying he can’t find his business on the website. No, he hadn’t added it and our first email to him started with the paragraph:
“Adding your business is really very simple and you are able to update content yourself as often as you like. Some people still feel challenged by using the internet. If you are one of those, do find someone to help you. With the Facebook craze, you are bound to find someone who would love to help… most kids are masters of the internet!”.
Example 3
We also received a new newsletter from Cape Town Routes Unlimited yesterday. Now one would expect to find marketing professionals and competent resources there. But the newsletter was unreadable. Copy was hidden behind photographs; images were the incorrect format; the whole layout was not adapted for newsletters. We guess that they tried to slap a PDF file within a newsletter template… pure ignorance!
Now you know why CTRU lost their guardianship of the Cape Town brand!
Yes, the most competent people do make mistakes, but competent people do test their work first. CapeInfo has never sent a newsletter out without first doing a trial run sent to Outlook, Hotmail and Gmail addresses. And we still got caught out by changes in the latest Outlook 2007!
We do say to everyone starting out that they are unlikely to get things right with the first effort. I always take great comfort from an article I read some years ago about Roald Dahl, the renowned author. He wrote his books in a shed at the bottom of the garden and said he rewrote everything seven times before he was happy with it. You have to work at whatever you do.
Good manners Hitting the reply button to an email you’ve just received isn’t the way to do things. In almost all cases, we find that people have not taken time and tried to resolve a problem themselves.
Every day we receive emails from our online form asking how to add a business. Immediately above the form there is a link for that question. Sending unnecessary emails is today’s scourge… are you guilty?
These emails really do just piss one off. If, on the other hand, we see that someone has tried, we do go out of our way to help. That’s true for everything in life. The harder you try, the more you get back.
Gary Player on luck:
You know, the funny thing is the harder I practice, the luckier I get.
Which brings us to your content… So often we see a few banal sentences strung together with bad grammar and incorrect punctuation. We’ve even seen air-conditioned gardens and views! What do these people think? There are about 1000 accommodation establishments listed, all competing for business.
Even the most humble flophouse must have something compelling to say, something to captivate the reader. Try a little humour; that can help too. We’ll see if we can be more compelling than the competition and come up with a mock business online. But that’s for the coming weeks.
Much has been made of politics in tourism lately, with CTRU attributing all their woes to political forces. Now that’s a cop-out because their performance has been less than stellar and they seem to put their foot in it more often than they get things right. The City’s decision was correct and the resignation of several of CTRU’s leading board members validated this.
Having different political parties running the Province and the City has meant that tourism has become increasingly polarised politically. The lack of political maturity and a politicised or weak bureaucracy adds to the malaise.
Unlike Province which receives it money from central government, the City earns its income from ratepayers and is more accountable for how these funds are spent.
One can’t help but feel that the greatest damage to effective municipal government was the introduction of party politics just over ten years ago. Before that, there was strong, visionary and professional management, with elected representatives providing oversight.
Today’s elected representatives are servants to their parties first. Before, councillors were only beholden to the voters in their wards. Gone are the days when elected councillors come and go, while a strong management team provides continuity and leadership.
In CapeInfo’s interview with Helen Zille shortly after she assumed the Cape Town mayoralty, she defended the replacement of top officials when political control changes, pointing to the US system. That may work well for politicians, but it certainly does not augur well for great municipal government. And do we really want to emulate US politics?
Surely there is case for a really strong administration that remains focused, no matter which political party is in control?
Today’s executive mayoral committee members have far more power than former exco members before politicisation. And the senior managers below them seemingly have far less to say than the City Engineer, City Planner, etc, that preceded them.
Nowhere is this more evident than in tourism. Yes, management decisions have been sound… up to a point. The City identified shortcomings in CTRU; it identified an alternative agency that it hopes will do a better job; but nowhere has it spelled out what its tourism vision is. Does the City have a vision or is it ruled by bean counters?
When CapeInfo asked Simon Grindrod for the City’s brief to CTT for their new marketing mandate, he replied that it would be unfair to expect the Board and members of CTT to read about their new brief in media before they agreed it. Now that’s a nonsense giving the way he’s used the media in the past. Is there a brief that will stand scrutiny? Does this mean that CTT will be writing the brief and that the City has abrogated its responsibility?
Why is Mansoor Mohamed, the City’s executive director for economic development & tourism, so quiet? Surely he should be inspiring all Capetonians and the tourism industry in particular with his bold vision for Brand Cape Town and Destination Cape Town? He has a personal vision (which he notes has not been adopted by the City). Click here to read it. One has to ask, is his department “providing leadership in the tourism industry” the Vision aims for?
CapeInfo has never, in its 10 years, featured a person on the home page. Well that’s just changed with Mariette du Toit-Helmbold’s photo which appeared there yesterday - a most deserving person to be number one. She’s driven Cape Town Tourism to new heights in her four years there.
We’re launching a new section called The List, where we have started inviting cognoscenti and celebrities to send us their lists on anything.
Our first 12 emails inviting people went out on Sunday afternoon and we had Mariette’s list just after 3am on Monday morning (that’s no typo!).
It was so good, we just had to share it with you immediately. Her passion for her “10 Great Getaways” is palpable. And that’s how you get to see a preview of what is to come.
The invited lists will go into our best lists category, but all readers will be able to submit their own lists soon too. These will go into the fresh lists category. And you will be able to rate the lists and see which are the most popular.
We invited Sheryl Ozinsky too and received an interesting comment in her acceptance:
Nick Hornbey in his brilliant novel, High Fidelity, painted an entire character for the reader, through the lists this character would make: “Top ten best love songs”, “Top Five best break-up songs” etc.
The things we list and the way we use lists can really illustrate the way we think, and more importantly the way we do things.
An open letter to Lynne Brown, provincial MEC for tourism, and Su Birch, acting chair of Cape Town Routes Unlimited:
Dear Lynne & Su
CTRU is going from bad to worse.
Their latest effort is a survey, paid for with taxpayers’ funds, that does nothing to market the province. It’s only aim is to discredit the City as the withdrawing funder. Click here to see the survey.
Please put party politics aside for a moment. Does this sound like an organisation that knows what it is doing; that is focused on the road ahead; or is it a chicken running around without a head?
How can they ask rural tourism organisations if they support the City withdrawing its funding? How stupid! Of course every town in the province would like to benefit from the City’s 50%+ funding of the provincial tourism organisation.
In giving a reason for the survey, CTRU says, “the City of Cape Town has announced their decision to withdraw their funding”. Oh please! That decision was announced a year ago.
This is a disgraceful waste of taxpayers funds. Don’t you agree?
That’s Calvyn Gilfellan’s take on the criticisms and reportage on Cape Town Routes Unlimited. You can read his full media statement here.
We believe that this extraordinary barrage of unfounded attacks being directed at us is not random or co-incidental and that it serves the selfish interests of a few.
The negative things that are being said about us are just plain lies.
We will not waste our energies on a tit-for-tat media game.
We will choose the time and place of communicating our good news to the world.
He doesn’t say what the lies are and one has to wonder why has hasn’t shot those lies down in flames to prove his point. Why didn’t he respond to Simon’s comments in this blog (click here - and it’s not Simon Grindrod) or anything that was said?
CapeInfo has tried to engage him and CTRU for four years with no success. So he gets CapeInfo’s “Global Award for the Tourism CEO who most needs to go on a Dale Carnegie Course.” CTRU has PR consultants and they have in the past, but they don’t know how to use them.
He also claimed that funding the transformation of the industry is not high on the City’s agenda. The City’s response to that came from:
Simond Grindrod -
Transformation in the tourism sector is best served from a platform of success. Perpetuating mediocrity and inefficiency in destination marketing will help neither the destination nor efforts at transformation within the sector as a whole.
Transformation happens at the sharp end of the business, not by having fancy seminars at expensive resorts or spending untold millions on gimmicky campaigns that nobody understands or supports.
CTRU’s most recent press release is a clear indication that their focus is everywhere but where it should be.
Mansoor Mohamed (a former member of CTRU’s board) -
If anything proves that CTRU has little to say, and nothing to qualm the concerns of taxpayers who fund them and tourism bureaux they work with, it is their silence after the stream of attacks in all the media.
On June 5, 2008, they issued a media release saying: “There will be further comment … about this new idea from the City for a “reconstituted Cape Town marketing body”. Likewise, (CTRU) will also respond to the unfounded and damaging allegations made in the media about CTRU.”
There has been silence since.
CapeInfo had an email from the CEO’s PA after they were informed of this blog’s content:
Kindly indicate your specific request to the CEO. What exactly do you require for him to action on and also indicate timeframe?
Please be advised that there are a multiple of important matters he attends to on a daily basis and by this communication I would like to ascertain the urgency of your request.
I am looking forward to your indicative response.
Well… if they can’t judge what they need to respond to, then they are being paid an awful lot of money for doing nothing!
We hear that their latest strategy is to ask Cape Town Tourism to outsource marketing to them. They need the money. Heaven forbid!
The City of Cape Town has announced that it has given up waiting for Cape Town Routes Unlimited to prove its bone fides and is transferring the marketing mandate for Cape Town to Cape Town Tourism.
A quick poll of tourism businesses around the city shows overwhelming support for the decision, announced by Simon Grindrod. Some tourism offices in the hinterland expressed concern, but went on to say they would probably seek closer relationships with CTT.
(You can vote too - in the right hand column - or add your comment at the link under the headline above.)
CTRU’s latest and biggest domestic marketing initiative, taking provincial tourism representatives into Gauteng shopping centres has been criticised by some of the bureau managers who participated, saying it was a waste of money and poorly planned.
The City’s process started 18 months ago and CTRU was given notice that funding would be withdrawn a year ago. Anyone who hoped for bright sparks from CTRU to demonstrate their ability was wasting their time.
The last CapeInfo News illustrated just how poor their performance has been. A leading hospitality industry marketer described results they trumpeted as a success, as “a pretty sad return”. CTRU’s marketing expertise ended when Sue Piper left the organisation.
CTRU’s biggest problem is the way in which it is tied to Provincial Government’s apron strings. A previous CTRU chair agreed that their biggest hurdle is the appalling corporate culture.
Tourism MEC Lynne Brown is largely to blame for this. And her response to the City’s announcement makes one think she’s either lost her marbles or that politics has addled her brain. Click here to read the hogwash.
It is truly sad that someone in her position displays such ignorance and has to resort to party-political drums. Decide for yourself:
She starts by saying, “CTRU has been running on a new financial model since 1 April ‘08 and will not miss a beat, despite the City’s cynical disregard for the interests of the Tourism Industry.”
Two paragaraphs later she says, “Slashed funding will hamper CTRU and there is no chance that we will be able to do what the destination needs to the fullest extent.”
Helen Zille is Brown’s nemesis: “Clearly this is part of a strategy in which Helen Zille is driving a narrow political agenda by withdrawing money from all areas of cooperation between the City and the Province to serve the DA’s political agenda.”
Clearly, Brown does not have the facts. Tourism at the City is in Grindrod’s portfolio. He is deputy leader of the ID. There is little love lost between Zille and Grindrod. One of the conditions when the ID joined the multiparty government was that Zille would not interfere in Grindrod’s portfolio. The decision was driven by Grindrod and supported by his colleagues in government.
And for the crunch: “The City has shown total disrespect to the Constitution’s exhortation to work towards cooperative governance. And compromised the Western Cape Tourism Act. Using Cape Town Tourism as a marketing vehicle goes against the national position on regional tourism organizations - which are purely visitor services organizations.”
Grand schemes and grand policies all at Province. Thank goodness the City focuses on efficiency and accountability, not politics. Brown’s version of “cooperative governance” is doing things her way.
Worldwide, major cities are the gateways for their regions. Who knows (or even cares) what province or state London, Paris or Sydney are located in?
Brown needs to realise and accept that Provincial Government is not the top dog when it comes to destination marketing, the City is.
Province’s agencies - CTRU, Wesgro and CapeNature - have all become embarrassments. CTRU has failed to gain industry credibility; Wesgro has become politicised and caught in a scandal of improper governance; and CapeNature has been in a mess for three years. CapeInfo’s experience of the latter’s marketing efforts are abysmal.
Cape Town Tourism, on the other hand, has an enviable track record with broad industry support. It is constituted as a voluntary Membership Association and its Exco is is elected by members of the tourism industry to ensure relevance, integrity and accountability.
The City’s decision does not mean that CTT automatically gets the R24 million that used to go to CTRU. However, with their industry support, any City funding will be leveraged many times over with much more bang for the buck. CTT is now facing its most challenging period.
While the City asked Brown (and was refused) for equal representation on the CTRU board, doing the same with CTT as a membership association will make a mockery of that association. Presumably the City will have more faith in the democratically elected, non-political CTT exco.
CTT needs to come up with some ‘big ideas’ quickly. 2010 is almost upon us and CTRU’s cupboard is almost bare.
The City has lost an opportunity to address Brand Cape Town - one that addresses tourism, investment promotion and many other areas. CTT needs to take the lead in this.
The last CapeInfo News reported on the Nielsen survey commissioned by CTRU that showed the City’s brand recognition is far higher than CTT’s and every other option presented.
CapeInfo challenges Grindrod and CTT to give that brand legs… long legs. The logo is displayed on all municipal buildings, libraries, parks, nature reserves, beaches, etc… it is Destination Cape Town. Let CTT adopt that as the visual image for Brand Cape Town.
So why is CTRU irrelevant? Until they learn that the tail cannot wag the dog and that the tourism industry has no political masters (or mistresses), they will remain sidelined and marginalised.
Traumatised South Africans have risen to the challenge of their country’s darkest hour by opening their hearts and wallets to the crisis on the ground, after fast-failing national and provincial governments showed their incompetencies. This morning’s IOL daily email shows the national headlines:
Yesterday’s International Herald Tribune focused on the negative impacts. Writing about Cape Town: “One of South Africa’s most famous beauty spots is now a scene of disgrace.
“These attacks threaten to negate the gains we have made since the end of apartheid,” chief justice Pius Langa told a somber crowd in Cape Town’s cathedral.
“Are we as a society going to allow ourselves to be sabotaged?” said Langa, who like many in the congregation wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the word Foreigner.”
Cape Town has been the hospitable Tavern of the Seas for centuries and the horror of the xenophic attacks has hurt the Mother City badly.
IHT continues: “Cape Town authorities held a crisis meeting with representatives of the tourist industry and set up a team to assess the impact on bookings and cancellations. The fear is that photos of a burning Mozambican man that made front pages of newspapers around the world last week will displace Table Mountain as the face of South Africa.
“Nearly 1 million people — many of them foreigners — work in the tourism industry in Cape Town. The city is one Africa’s most popular destinations thanks to its iconic mountain, pristine beaches, spectacular vistas and rolling vineyards. Tourism accounts for more than one-fifth of the province’s income.
“The xenophobic violence “will have an impact and it will remain with us for quite some time,” said Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, chief executive of Cape Town Tourism. “The image of the destination will suffer, that’s beyond question.”
True to form, it was once again Cape Town Tourism that took the leadership in addressing the issues with the formation of a task team. (They had engaged the UNWTO before violence started in Cape Town and elicited their full support and resources for media management.)
In contrast, the last communication from the Provincial tourism authority was on the afternoon that xenophobic mayhem erupted in the city:
“A picture speaks a thousand words and we would much rather that these images were eye-catching pictures of Table Mountain, Robben Island, Cape Agulhas, the Knysna Heads, West Coast wild flowers or the Karoo landscape. They have the potential to draw tourists, rather than to discourage them from visiting our extraordinary destination.
“Cape Town Routes Unlimited understands that the violent xenophobic attacks have not spread to Cape Town and the Western Cape and that our destination is still fairly safe for tourists to visit. We would like to encourage our tourism partners to spread this message, especially in markets like India, Japan, China and the United Kingdom where there is a degree of anxiety.”
Was that naivety or just tempting fate.
Whatever… the fact remains that the violence occured in the poorest of the poor areas, where government has failed citizens most badly. They are areas tourists are most unlikely to visit. Violence has not spread to other areas. Travel cautionaries are unwarranted and do more damage than anything else.
This is a time when South African needs the world’s help. Incompetent, inept and inane governments exist everywhere but it is always the triumph of human spirit that carries us all forward.
In Cape Town, mayor Helen Zille has acknowledged that local government alone is not equipped to handle the crisis. Responding to comments by the UN’s Arvind Gupta, she said “We require practical assistance even more, in the form of the resources and expertise of his international organization which has a large Department specifically resourced to deal with crises of international magnitude such as these. The City does not have such resources. We call on the national government to invite the UN to help us address the issue.”
The work of the City of Cape Town’s emergency call centres is being hampered by the large number of calls from well-meaning residents who want to provide assistance in some or other form to the victims of xenophobic violence, ” said Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, Head of the Disaster Risk Management Centre.
To report incidents of xenophobic violence contact 10111 or your local police station. To report any life-threatening emergencies call 107 or 021 480 7700 from a cellphone. These numbers must only be used for these purposes.
Members of the public who want to contribute to disaster relief operations can make a donation to the Relief Fund set up by the City or contact one of the City’s disaster relief NGO partners.
Donations to the City’s Disaster Relief Fund can be made as follows:
Bank: ABSA
Name: City of Cape Town
Account number: 4056584569
Type of Account: Current Account
Branch code: 631609
Branch: Public Sector, Western Cape
Reference Number: 190100012
The following NGOs work closely with the City of Cape Town and the Provincial Government of the Western Cape: Social Development Department. These organisations have well-established, transparent processes in place to distribute relief effectively and efficiently in affected communities, and their relief efforts are monitored by both the City and Province. Details are available on the City’s website at: http://www.capetown.gov.za/disaster. Click on Disaster Relief Partners.
The organisations certified by the City for this purpose are:
HDI Support
Address: 7 Transvaal Str, Paarden Island
Tel: 021 511 4153
Contact: Mr Andre Olivier
Cell: 082 935 3353
Mustadafin Foundation
Address: No 18 Belgravia Rd, Athlone
Tel: 021 633 0010
Fax 021 633 0057
Contact: Ebrahim Smith
Cell: 083 953 3231
The Salvation Army (Western Cape Division)
Address: No 85 Maynard Rd, Wynberg
Tel: 021 761 8530
Contact: Carolyn Correia/Neville Hitchcock
The South African Red Cross Society, Western Cape
Address: 21 Broad Rd, Wynberg
Tel: 021 797 5360
Contact: Michael Jacobs/Brian Davis
E-mail: mjacobs@redcross.org.za
South African National Zakah Fund (SANZAF)
Address: 22 Cornflower Street, Bridgetown
Tel: 021 638 5108
Contact: Abduragmaan George
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