The HeavyChef Project

Quick post today since we’re cracking on with all of it.

• Mike and Nicola on their way to the UK to look after clients over there, make some sales calls and to pop back home for a few days.
• I’m doing some brand workshops.
• Shaun is completing some bits and bobs on Cape Nature.
• Paul’s…well, Paul’s doing just about everything at the moment.

Just to show that we do actually do have lives outside of work, here’s a pic of me getting into the spirit of the Rugby World Cup. I played an old boys game last week Wednesday in a mud bath.

That’s me 5th from the right.

- Fred

The new guys (Shaun & Paul) in the studio have been doing some great work recently. Nothing like seeing a team develop. It brings a tear to the eye.

This one goes out to you fellas…

Last night, the 5th Heavy Chef Session was presented by a very special guest-speaker (guest-singer?) Verity came to tell us about her journey over the past 2 years since she embarked on her quest to get her songs recorded. Instead of signing her life away to a record label, she aimed to raise the R400 000 to pay for a professional production to be made. By selling her album in advance through her website, she has managed to raise an incredible R200 000 already - enough to start the production and give R30 000 to charity! We managed to co-erce a song out of her - do yourself a favour and check it out (click on the video below), and then head onto www.iamverity.com and buy your future copy now!

Watching with interest were Shane Dryden (from Live Alchemy), Lisa Griggs (Lisa’s Little Wine Shop), Rowan Jacklin (AV Direct), Eric Edelstein (from just about every IT company in SA), Frank and Anne-Marelle Meijer (Creme & Cacao), Jackie Cleobury (Cape Nature), Catherine Luckhoff (Mango-OMC) and David Murray (Cape Venture Partners). Thanks all for coming!

Have you heard of the singer-songwriter Verity?

Well, if you havent its time you point your browser to www.iamverity.com, because this girl is about to take off. Verity is getting a foot in an industry whose doors are not easy to open. And not via the front, mind you Verity chose to go down the uncharted, untested back roads of the internet to sell her music. World Wide Creative was fortunate enough to be there for the ride.

Veritys idea was simple, and it flew in the face of conventional thinking in the music industry. She would get her songs heard via the song player on her website, sell future copies of her CD via the e-commerce facility built by World Wide Creative, and raise enough money to record it without having to sign her life away to one of the all-consuming record labels.

We have often spoken of the powerful combination of the web and PR, and Verity is using a direct approach to her target market, combined with some aggressive PR and web marketing.

An impressive performer, Verity has now added motivational speaking to her repertoire, and is making a name for herself by combining the powerful emotive content of her songs to an uplifting message to a willing audience. Recently, Verity has been sharing a stage with John Demartini, Lisa Nichols, Bruce Muzik and Robin Banks.

Since launching her campaign 18 months ago, Verity has been featured in most of the national newspapers, been featured on Top Billing (twice!) and been heard on a number of top South African radio stations.

So, heres the scoop: Verity has agreed to talk at this months Heavy Chef Session and share some secrets on how she has managed to sell over R200, 000 of an album that has not been launched yet!

This is not one to be missed.

There are limited seats available, so email us here if you wish to hear this extraordinary personality in action. (For our UK and European clients, we will be podcasting the Session shortly afterwards on the Heavy Chef blog, so you wont miss out.)

Date: Wednesday 29th August 2007
Time: 5pm - 6.30pm
Location: World Wide Creative studio
Price: No charge for World Wide Creative customers, suppliers or BNI members. The normal fee for the Session is R950, payable in advance.
In the meantime go to Verity’s website, listen to her music and buy a future copy.

Look forward to seeing you there!

I’m going on holiday. OK, it’s a short one but it’ll be well worth it, after bouts of weird sicknesses and insane work schedules over the past two months. On Thursday, I’m taking the family for a week-long sojourn to Macgregor, a small out-the-way country town somewhere in South Africa (I’ve yet had time to consult a map). If you’re a client, don’t even THINK about contacting me. I may not know where you live, but I know where you work, remember?

In the meantime, our small agency is in the capable hands of the studio head-honcho and all-round Web Marketing extraordinaire Mr Mike Perk. This week is an exciting one, as we’re closing off a couple of projects, and we’re getting cracking with some brand new ones.

• We’ve just signed the account for an international wellness products company (nameless until we’ve signed NDA’s and all that) based in Australia and SA.
• We’re starting on a new golf estate website.
• World Wide Creative launched a press office on Biz-Community.

And, did I mention that I’m going on holiday?

- Fred

Which country has the highest ratio of internet users? Sweden, apparently, at a 75.6% of their population browsing away happily. According to this map the top countries are Sweden, Holland, Portugal and New Zealand in terms of per capita ratio population surfing the net. Interestingly enough, the big developing nations, India and China are sitting at a lowly 3.7% and 10.9% respectively. South Africa and the UK, by the way, are at 10.3% and 62.3% at time of press. [Click on the map to view.]

Ayyye caramba, not a lot other than hard slog really. We got loads on, new projects starting, new prospects to work on. On Friday, however, we’re excited to get started on a new accelerator project. I will be quiet on the topic, as we’re still in the ’sharpening the axe’ phase, but watch this space for a kick-ass new World Wide Creative branded projects coming soon.

Other than that:

• Congrats to Shaun for completing his first week unscathed by the madness that is the WWC studio.
• We’re still looking for our award-winning designer. If you know of anyone, send them our way!

Until next week!
- Fred

This is a common question raised by most and is answered briefly but nicely below by Google at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/08/server-location-cross-linking-and-web.html:

Does location of server matter? I use a .com domain but my content is for customers in the UK.

In our understanding of web content, Google considers both the IP address and the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .co.uk). Because we attempt to serve geographically relevant content, we factor domains that have a regional significance. For example, ".co.uk " domains are likely very relevant for user queries originating from the UK. In the absence of a significant top-level domain, we often use the web server’s IP address as an added hint in our understanding of content.

Therefore if your target market is South Africa you are better having a co.za domain.

- Nicola