‘Feed’ the media

There aren’t many local companies who recognize the value of infiltrating certain pockets of people and communities online. A few years back when you invited ‘media’ to a function either you, or your PR company, looked up the relevant industry contacts from TV, radio and print and invited them.

These days the picture is quite different, I often discuss the concept of ‘who is the media?’. Consider that most bloggers, social networking ‘heavyweights, forum leaders, industry opinion leaders and online loudmouths have an instant, accessible soapbox from which to scorn or praise. Any smart marketer or PR person then realizes that these people sometimes need to be included as part of the ‘media’.

Over the past few weeks the Southern Sun group has been investigating and getting involved with social media and chatting to various people in the space in order to know more. They appreciate the value that online ‘Word of Mouth’ can add to their brand and have been careful to explore the new media space with smarts and strategy.

I recently spent some time chatting to Alison Mills who is Southern Sun Manager: eCommerce and MIS. I tried to give her some insight into what is happening in the social media space and we discussed some thought starters on how the Southern Sun group could start to integrate this ’stuff’ into their existing marketing campaigns.

I guess I must have said something right as a week later I received an invitation to a dinner to celebrate Southern Sun’s 40 years in food and hospitality. So, together with a few other far more important experienced food and travel journalists, I enjoyed an exclusive meal served by the some of the group’s executive chefs at the restaurant at the Sun Square, Montecasino.

Priya Naidoo, General manager Southern Sun communications kicked off the evening by showing a video of the groups major TV commercials from the 70s 80s 90s and 00s – iconic ads that stirred up memories and made me think we really should have more dancing in today’s TV ads Everyone was so happy and choreographed in the 70s and 80s, I miss that…

The obvious focus of the evening was the food. The four course menu celebrated food through the decades. Iconic dishes like prawn and Avo ritz, banana split, beef wellington were remixed and personally introduced by the exec chef responsible. It was exquisite, we enjoyed fantastic, delicious food and the perfectly matched wines; as a bonus the four different decades on a dessert plate was chocolate heaven!

We were treated like media royalty, it was a really special event I’ll always remember and have chatted about a lot since. But naturally I’m not an expert foodie journalist so I’ll leave the real food reviews and wine pairing details to the real journos I met.

Thank you to Southern Sun for having me – I’m definitely watching and listening to your online conversations and lusting after time to take advantage of your killer 40th BDay SunBreak specials.

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