Here are a few pictures of the event showing Brand Strategy Navigator, Simon Grainger, teaching about brand awareness. After the presentation we usually have one of our photographers take a few snaps (you’ll notice the exquisite lighting conditions).

If you are in the pictures below and would like to tag yourself, you’re welcome to visit the album on the Official Vega School page on facebook.

Image by Michael Burnett. Left to right: Dr Charles Mironko, Tsepho Moime, Gordon Cook.

The first stage of genocide is classification of humans according to groupings such as ethnicity, religion, gender and culture. This can already occur in childhood where one group bullies another. Secondly, symbolism is attached to the classifications, such as the yellow star that Jews had to wear during the holocaust. In the third stage, the victimized group becomes dehumanised when terms such as rats, cockroaches and snakes are used to describe the group. They are thus not viewed as human but rather as animals. Organisation is the fourth stage of genocide where powerful leaders and militia begin to form groups and build their supremacy. Next, polarisation follows as the dominant group begins to distance themselves from the dehumanised group. The divide between these groups thus enlarges. In the sixth stage, preparation occurs by death lists being drawn up and plans being made to kill others. This leads to the seventh stage of extermination. The last stage of genocide is denial where perpetrators justify their actions and deny any wrongdoing.

Image by Michael Burnett. Left to right: Dr Charles Mironko, Gordon Cook.

None of us are exempt from genocide if we fail to notice the various stages, which might take decades to develop. We can walk blind and mute through each stage and find ourselves at stage seven being the victims or even on the side of the perpetrators. Genocide can be prevented if the early stages are dealt with effectively.

The central message to Dr Mironko’s presentation is this: Instead of being blind and mute citizens, let’s open our eyes to circumstances around us and let’s voice our concerns and opinions. What measures can we put in place to prevent or rectify each stage of genocide?

Review by Yolande Rossouw. Presented by Dr Charles Mironko at Vega Bordeaux, 09 November 2011.

What’s the inspiration behind the name? When we were busy putting the site together, the question was raised as to what the blog would be about to which I replied: “Everything from elephants to Easter… ” and so the name was born.

There has never been a set plan behind what to do with e&e, it’s a great way to play and  build a brand in a digital space, have a good time doing it and discover a whole world of daily/weekly/monthly cool. Our entry into the SA Blog awards I guess is just about exposure, the more people that read e&e the more we can do with it; grow the blog, it’s exposure and hopefully exposure to our local creatives as well.The SA Blog awards are an interesting beast: few categories, public vote go get the process going and effectively all of us gunning for the same piece of the pie… It’s going to be an interesting ride.

The South African blogging culture is growing, it’s vast and normally pretty entertaining, so if you think you have something interesting to say….join the conversation.

Feel free to mail us your hopes, thoughts and dreams or anything South African talent that we could feature: hello@elephantsandeaster.com

To vote in the SA blog awards, please visit your favorite South African blogs and click on their vote badge.

The work is on display in multiple rooms on campus, with guest speakers and a gathering of Durban’s top industry professionals looking to discover the next Bright Young Thing in Branding.

Light snacks and refreshments will be available, and an after-party at Sasha Nightclub follows the event.

The Showcase will also be open for viewing 8am – 4pm on Monday, 14 November.

Event Details

Friday 11 November 2011 from 6:30pm
Vega Durban campus (*for directions, see below)
Grid Building16, Imvubu Park Place (off Queen Nandi Drive)
Riverhorse Valley

More than a decade down and Vega’s vision of what business was to be has come to pass. In the process we have helped shape that environment and continue to help shape the future.

Vega constantly strives to embody wisdomwithmagic, to find ways for brands to not only exist as “Enlightened companies and CEOs… the purpose of business being the creation of value as uniquely defined to meet the needs and wants of key-value shareholders such as staff, customers and the broader community. A brand is the ultimate vessel to deliver this value.” Gordon Cook, National Brand Navigator.

The Durban campus consists of a tight group of students, lecturers and support staff who all add their own unique flavour to the world of branding. Lots of hard work and some fun have again seen fantastic results this year with a D&AD finalist going to London, flying with two Loerie awards and snapping the top NPC photographic award. Our students featured in and wrote newspaper articles, our graduate students held six exhibitions in galleries such as Gallery 415 and The Collective. Our talent is on display so join us for some inspiration and a few drinks.

* Directions
To get to our campus from Durban, the easiest is to come along Umgeni Road, take the Connaught Bridge into North Coast Road, and turn left into Nandi Drive. Almost exactly 2km along, turn left at the robots at Imvubu Park Place. Proceed a short distance over a small railway bridge and three speed humps. Immediately after the third one, turn right into the Grid Eye Building. Through the security gate, sharp right and through the boom – go to the very end of the building and our entrance is on the left hand side. To get here from the North Coast / King Shaka International Airport: take the N2 South, and take the Queen Nandi Drive offramp. Turn LEFT at the robot at the top and continue until you reach the robots on the corner of Imvubu Park Place. Turn right and proceed a short distance over a small railway bridge and three speed humps. Immediately after the third one, turn right into the Grid Eye Building. Through the security gate, sharp right and through the boom – go to the very end of the building and our entrance is on the left hand side. To get here from Westville, the Highway area or Pietermaritzburg – if you are on the M13 coming towards Durban, turn left at 45th Cutting – proceed along, pass St Georges Hospital on your left, to the robots at Alpine Road. Turn left. To robots at Umgeni Road, turn right, take the Connaught Bridge into North Coast Road, and turn left into Nandi Drive. Almost exactly 2km along, turn left at the robots at Imvubu Park Place. Proceed a short distance over a small railway bridge and three speed humps. Immediately after the third one, turn right into the Grid Eye Building. Through the security gate, sharp right and through the boom – go to the very end of the building and our entrance is on the left hand side.

Great news! Two silver Pendorings for Vega Bordeaux.

Alison McAlinden for her digital entry: Beer, ‘n storie van…
Thabang “Tipi” Manyelo and Kirsten  Morgan for their truly South African entry: Young, gifted and 14%

It was a good evening – were are really chuffed with the students. Once again, I have noticed that it’s the hard workers, the ten thousand hour crafters, that will become the outliers (Malcolm Gladwell).

Great to see that Vega alumni of the years are doing well. We’re keeping a look out for work this year that could be entered next year.

More details on the Pendoring website.

-Roela

The International Society of Graphic  Designers, ISTD, is a professional body run by and for typographers, graphic designers and educators. As the name suggests, the Society has an international membership, all of whom share its mission to establish and maintain standards of typography. Members are highly esteemed designers, for example Erik Spiekerman.

The ISTD’s main education activity is the annual Student Assessment that, since 1975, has offered students the opportunity to gain ISTD membership. The assessments are run in England, Ireland, the Middle East, South Africa and Australasia. Students are assessed according to an assessment grid based on their process work, strategy statement, presentation and typographic interpretation.  Students who pass the stringent assessment receive either a pass, a merit or commendation.

By Dr. Carla Enslin

Vodacom announced in a press statement today (14 October 2011) that it will give all BlackBerry users affected by this past week’s outage the following compensation:

* 20 Vodacom to Vodacom minutes for use between Monday and Friday next week (17 October to 21 October)
* 20 SMSes

“RIM’s technical problems were out of our hands,” Vodacom’s chief officer of corporate affairs, Portia Maurice, is quoted as saying.

“Many BlackBerry users have been denied the service for three successive days, which is unusually long. It is only fitting that we do this as a gesture of appreciation for their patience.”

Vodacom said that they will not be able to offer such compensation every time a supplier has a problem, however.

“We do believe this is an exception,” Maurice said.

Article taken from http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/
To view the public response visit; http://bit.ly/nsyBRD

Suegnet van der Spuy, one of our BA Brand Building and Management third year students, suggested to Max Cluer Sports Marketing that they post the video onto YouTube after showing it to her lecturer and classmates.

Her brother participated in a mountain bike race at Albert Falls Dam and got accidently run over by a hartbees buck.  A friend, wearing a helmet with a camera in it, recorded the entire event.  Evan was knocked unconscious, but luckily by wearing his helmet his injuries were minor. The company took her advice and after a bit of editing posted the recording onto YouTube on Monday afternoon.  By Tuesday evening they had over 2.4million hits and the video made news headlines across the country, it even caught the attention of international news (such as Europe, America and Russia to name a few).  Evan has been interviewed, with more interviews lined up by news agents such as ABC News, Sky News, CNN, National Geographic and various local news agents!

We often hear from students that as part of their brand communications strategy they will do a viral campaign,  and often we tell students that viral has no guarantee that it will be effective.  I think this ‘case study’ is a prime example of the unexpected power of viral, and also that there is no one clear strategy for what could work.  More than my fascination with this overnight phenomenon, what I find most interesting, is our fascination with accidents, the ridiculous comments posted on YouTube from all over the world and also how brands quickly jump to the opportunity to latch onto the situation.  Already Evan is receiving all sorts of ‘sponsorship’ from various brands, whether their intention is ethical and sincere can be questioned, although we want to be hopeful that they end up contributing to his career.

Vega would like to wish Evan all the best in this overnight sensation, we trust that he is OK considering what he experienced, and that he did not get seriously injured.

Have a look for yourself: Mountain Biker gets taken out by BUCK

Post script:
Vega would like to state that we were not directly involved in the posting of the video. As a Brand Leadership institution we do have an opinion on developments in the local brand communications industry and our involvement was purely that of an interested industry commentator. We apologise for any confusion which our prior release may have caused.

by Naretha Pretorius