Welcome to the year Two Thousand and Whine...

Everywhere you look, media commentators are doom laden, their every utterance laced with poisonous invective. Words like recession, cut backs, retrenchments, bail outs, dire, discombobulate....
Oops, that last word describes my present state of mind.

Churning out these words in a repetitive mantra is the worst that can happen. Everyone starts to internalise it and live accordingly. It becomes self fulfilling.

It’s best to affect this mood early, by searching out where the opportunity lies. After all, aren’t we paid to IDENTIFY the PROBLEM and to come up with the SOLUTION?

So what’s the problem?
Money!!
Isn’t it always?
Yes, but this time it may be for real. Nobody’s convinced that there is enough of it around which leads to the deathly response of holding on to whatever one has. You think that less will come in, so you spend less in response which results in there being less of it around, choking everyone.

What to do?

Perhaps let everyone know that the Mayans foretell of an end of an epoch on 21 December 2012. When the end comes, money will be no more than textured paper or an endless binary blink on screens. Perhaps, believing this now will result in everyone spending lots of whatever is available before it becomes meaningless and worthless, hence, stimulating an economic recovery. It’s called ‘spend like there’s no tomorrow..’

How about ‘How can we help’?
What if we really meant it when we say it?
Does it make a difference to go to Unilever, Tiger Brands, FNB, ABSA, MTN and ask them whether 2009 is about building their future market share and a healthier bottom line when the good times return.

It’s taking Jacaranda’s ‘Pay Your Bills’ campaign a little further to encompass all sides of the sales equation. Here is a media company saying that its listeners and South Africa’s consumers are in deep trouble. They need a break!

Jacaranda is in the privileged position of owning a medium and therefore drumming up enormous goodwill with their cash strapped listeners by paying their listeners’ school fees bills, medical aid subscriptions, water, lights, car, bond, you name it.

It’s not the time for huge brands like Coca Cola and KFC to hold back. It is time for them to help the people who made them enormously profitable in South Africa. It’s time for the corporations to bail out consumers and know that in doing this, their reward when the tide turns will be incalculable.