SAMRA conference update

Keynote addresses will be delivered by Andy Rice, advertising and branding expert and founding partner of Yellowwood Brand Architects, Sifiso Mazibuko, Facebook national account manager at Cape Town-based Habari Media, Andisa Ntsubane, Microsoft SA marketing & communications director and Will Goodhand, BrainJuicer juicy evangelist.

Topics include "Organising a reliable and uniform brand health measurement system across Africa and the Middle East" which is of importance to many expanding FMCG companies, "Are we getting an 'A' for focus group recruitment?" "Engagers vs Lurkers: How social networkers engage with brands" and "Down the rabbit hole: A researcher's adventures in Big Data Land".

Workshop

Prior to the conference, the day-long ESOMAR workshop titled "Measuring Emotions - quantifying a love affair" by Goodhand, is expected to build on the success of last year's inaugural ESOMAR workshop.

"Enlightening delegates on how human beings think, he will reduce the ocean of anecdotes that is behavioural economics into three powerful reservoirs of marketing potential, which is the springboard for inspiring marketing that meet human beings as they are, not how we might wish they would be," explains conference chair, Kim Larsen.

The conference facilitators are Dr Sarah Slabbert, MD of the development consultancy, Sarah Slabbert Associates and honorary research associate of the University of the Witwatersrand, and Dr Nicola Kleyn, senior lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Conference bookings can be made online at www.samra.co.za.