Who Manages Brand Zuma?
Veteran journalist and political commentator, Allister Sparks, proposes in his last column before the elections (Cape Times, Thursday, April 16, 2009) that Zapiro should “scrap the shower and draw a dark cloud over [Jacob Zuma]’s head instead”. A few days before that, I had stopped to chat to a neighbor who swore to me that she would never vote for a man who gets drunk and falls stupidly on his bum. This, she said, was something that she had been told by someone else who saw an intoxicated Jacob Zuma dance at his last wedding in 2008. Read more >>
Defining Brand Africa
The Ivory Coast is the latest in a series of developments on the African continent that contribute to the constant running down of Brand Africa. Each time that Brand Africa tries to raise its head and look up in pride, something happens, within Africa by Africans, to mow it down to size, ensuring that it remains amongst the least respected geographic brand in the universe. Following the ongoing Zimbabwean situation, Kenya, the Sudan, Egypt, the ongoing South African process to limit freedom of expression and access to information through the widely condemned Protection of Information Bill, this continent simply refuses to be saved, one is tempted to think. Read more >>
Will the Tiger Woods Brand survive the turmoil?
It has been argued that people brands are more like moving targets because they are constantly changing, faced with all forms of stimuli and forced to react in one way or another to such stimuli. People brands are always confronted with the judging gaze of the general public through the media and unrelenting paparazzi. The attention of people from the opposite sex will always present temptations that may not always be easy to resist for any “sexy looking” people brand. Tiger Woods, because of his wealth, relative youth, vast media appeal and good looks, has always been in danger of falling into actions or reactions that would impact somewhat on his brand. The reason for this is simple. He is human.
Nobel Peace Prize for Brand Obama
The past decade of global politics have been characterized by conflict, mistrust and grown incidents of all manner of racial profiling, especially in the aftermath of the September 11th,2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre Towers in New York City, USA. Traveling through domestic and international airports became a nightmare for many people of non-Caucasian hues, especially Muslim looking types. Hatred for America and Americans grew in many parts of the world. Then emerged Barack Obama; a relatively unknown American Senator immediately from Illinois but, significantly, from Hawaii with more recent African-American origins. His story is unlike those of many African-Americans whose lineage dates back from the times of slavery. The racial and ethnic composition of Obama’s immediate and extended family would make it hard for anyone to convincingly pin him down to one racial allegiance, if such existed. This is also the mystery that makes Brand Obama so fascinating in a world that is obsessive with issues of racial identity
- A noter - La traite négrière divise les intellectuels africains | Slate Afrique http://t.co/VJY1Q29j via @slateafrique
- @miriammannak - you sleep tight too; Miriam! Sometimes clarity has to be extracted out of people!
- @miriammannak - Hmmm, Miriam...