Following its success in 50 countries across Africa, The Real Housewives of Durban S1 has also launched in numerous international territories  

We’ve seen what The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Jersey, Durban and Melbourne get up to. Now it’s time to take a peek inside the opulent lives of some of the most affluent women in Lagos.

The Real Housewives of Lagos (RHOL) will be the first Nigerian instalment of the award-winning franchise, which is distributed internationally by NBCUniversal Formats, a division of Universal Studio Group. This also marks the 16th international version of The Real Housewives format and the third to be adapted in Africa.

RHOL will build on the success of the first two African editions. The Real Housewives of Johannesburg was one of the 10 most streamed local series on Showmax in 2019, while The Real Housewives of Durban (RHOD) broke records when it launched on the African streaming service in January 2021. RHOD has since launched with success in 50 countries across Africa, as well as on hayu in 27 territories internationally, including Canada, UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and the Philippines. Season 2 of the hit show will return to Showmax early next year.

“We’ve seen audiences across Africa devour The Real Housewives of Johannesburg and The Real Housewives of Durban,” says Candice Fangueiro, Showmax’s head of content. “The Real Housewives franchise lends itself to localisation and we know our audience is going to love seeing the show reinvented Naija-style. We can’t wait to show the continent – and the world – another side of Lagos, with all the drama, high fashion and luxury you’d expect from The Real Housewives franchise.”

“We are so proud to build on the international success of The Real Housewives of Johannesburg and Durban with our partner Showmax,” added Ana Langenberg, SVP, Format Sales & Production, NBCUniversal International Formats. “The vibrancy of Lagos and its rich culture, fashion and opulence makes for the perfect setting for the show. We also can’t wait to see the second season of Durban come to life and deliver fans all over the world even more extravagance and entertainment.”

RHOL will be produced by Livespot 360. RHOD is produced by Let It Rain Films, with Thumeka Hlotshana attached to direct Season 2 and Emmy winner Lee Doig (Survivor USA) creative directing.

RHOL and RHOD S2 will be available first on Showmax in more than 40 African countries in early 2022.

RHOL will be the second Showmax Original reality series in Nigeria, following on from the success of I Am LAYCON, starring Big Brother Naija S5 winner Lekan Agbeleshe, which set a Nigerian first-day record for Showmax when it launched in February 2021.

Audiences can relive the drama and excitement of Seasons 1-2 of The Real Housewives of Johannesburg on Showmax here and S1 of The Real Housewives of Durbanhere.

In 2021, it is especially important for B2B marketing to implement digital strategies and create online experiences. The active digitalization of B2B businesses is making personal offline meetings with company leaders of secondary importance. Now it is much more important to attract the attention of decision makers online and guide them through the sales funnel to conversion. The B2B space is evolving and the influence of B2C marketing is increasingly felt. There are certainly many more trends in B2B marketing that will continue to grow in popularity. We’ve compiled a list of ten top B2B marketing trends to watch out for in 2021.

Omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing involves establishing seamless interaction with existing and potential customers, regardless of channels and devices. The number of possible communication channels is constantly increasing. Whereas previously consumers used 2-3 points of contact in the buying process, now, before making a transaction, the buyer goes through 4-6 points of contact. At the same time, customers expect constant and continuous interaction. Omni-presence is very important. If you are in the video space, then you should forget TikTok and Twitch along with YouTube. Start with Twitch, is the latest trend in video space. Create separate content and streaming topics for the platform. Buy Twitch followers to have some presence before people find your streams. Be on every possible platform, so fans know that they can connect with you anywhere. 

B2B companies that care about customer retention must ensure brand consistency across all environments. The marketing strategy should cover and connect all the channels used: the company’s website, pages on social networks, instant messengers, other digital channels, offline branches.

Strategic approach to the marketing 

Digital technologies are constantly being improved, which leads to the regular emergence of new tools, tactics and methods. Marketers are faced with a difficult choice – a lot of good things and they want to apply everything. As a result, an overabundance of even very good tools leads to poor performance and chaos in general.

In 2021, B2B marketers will rethink the waste of time, energy and resources. Instead of thinking about what can be done, they will start thinking about what should not be done. This approach will partly reduce marketing reach. But on the other hand, more attention will be paid to real sales as the final goals. B2B marketers will become less obsessed with classic metrics and will focus on bottom line results. For this, selectively applied MarTech tools are combined, which ensures the best integration and, as a result, reduced costs.

The use of AI (Artificial intelligence) 

The ability to analyze large amounts of data in real time is becoming increasingly important for B2B businesses. This allows you to better understand the target audience, timely implement the necessary marketing technologies and optimize your strategy. 

Managing the growing volume of data collected and transferred manually becomes almost impossible. Artificial intelligence comes to the rescue. Implementing big data analytics and machine learning will increase your marketing campaign ROI. Artificial intelligence will provide the ability to build customer interactions based on accurate information, rather than guesswork and guesswork. For example, having audience data can help increase the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. 

AI can automate processes that used to be dependent on humans. This will increase productivity and save the company’s budget. For example, the introduction of chat bots will improve the quality of customer service and eliminate the cost of maintaining a large staff of operators.

Calling all App developers! If you love to code, build helpful digital products, and create or contribute to a variety of tech specific projects, then HUAWEI’s Developer Hub, the “DIGIX Lab” will become an empowering home for your curious and creative minds.

This Lab will allow developers to experience Huawei’s open capabilities and real devices firsthand, master and share knowledge about Huawei’s latest open capabilities through hands-on practice, and directly access the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem.

This new facility, a first of its kind from Huawei in the Middle East and Africa, shows the tech giant’s continued growth and investment in the Region, as well as its commitment to skills development and training. It will serve as an innovation hub for HMS App development on the African continent to drive idea exchanges, business growth and collaboration.

The DIGIX Lab will provide a home for developers to experience the full range of HMS developer resources such as training on: Huawei integration kits, marketing of Apps, technical skills assistance, and testing to help them reach new heights. This is in conjunction with the “HUAWEI Developers Programme”, which provides developers to participate in workshops, developer community and to receive newsletters and comprehensive support from the DIGIX Lab team. Huawei is empowering developers by putting their skills to use and giving them the platforms to innovate from scratch, building the entire App lifecycle from ideation to development.

One of the key services provided is HMS Core, which offers an extensive variety of 24 App services and capabilities such as Account Kit, Ads Kit, In-App Purchases Kit, Push Kit, and ML Kit (machine learning), which developers can integrate into their Apps on HUAWEI AppGallery to provide unique, high-quality experiences for users.

To date, AppGallery has rolled out more than 80,000 Apps, and this number continues to increase.

Huawei also has various platforms and resources in place that are helpful for the developer community, such as HUAWEI Developer Groups, which provide a space for in-depth exchange and collaboration among developers. Through these initiatives, developers all around the World get to connect and share ideas. Over one million developers have already registered on HUAWEI’s developer portal.

On 21 September 2021, Huawei Mobile Services will be launching the HUAWEI’s Developer Hub, the “DIGIX Lab” in Johannesburg. For more details visit our website by clicking here.

Days where the temperature exceeds 50C degrees have doubled since the 1980s, and now occur in more parts of the world, according to new analysis from the BBC.

The analysis was commissioned by the BBC World Service for their new series, Life at 50°C and carried out by BBC News’ data journalism unit. It reveals that temperatures reached 50C or more on 14 days per year on average between 1980 and 2009, but since 2010 the number of days that has surpassed the extraordinary temperature is now 26.

BBC News examined data across a forty-year period and found that the total number of days above 50C increased in each decade since 1980. The BBC’s research also found significant increases in maximum temperatures around the world.

Days above 50C mostly occurred in places in the Middle East and the Gulf. Scientists expect even more areas to break the 50C mark in future.

The BBC’s Life at 50°C analysis also revealed that the number of days over 45C has increased by around two weeks per year on average when comparing the same forty-year period.

Dr Friederike Otto, a leading climate scientist from the University of Oxford, told the BBC that she believes the increase in the days and places above 50C “can be 100% attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.”

Extreme heat can make disasters, such as wildfires and droughts more likely, and can have devastating consequences for human health. It can also parch the land as higher temperatures boost evaporation from the soil. Increasing temperatures could even lead to many parts of the planet becoming too hot for people to live in.

Heat stress conditions could affect as many as 1.2 billion people around the world by 2100 if current levels of global warming continue, according to a Rutgers University study published last year. This figure is at least four times more than those affected today.

The research was carried out to launch the BBC’s Life at 50°C. The series, which will run across BBC outlets and digital platforms, presents the reality of climate change through stories of people around the world and explores how communities living in cities and rural areas have had to adapt their lives to cope with extreme heat. It has been produced by BBC News Arabic, in collaboration with BBC News Mundo, BBC News Urdu, and BBC News Hindi as well as the BBC’s other Indian language services.

Highlights include four-half hour programmes on BBC World News TV channel and a collection of ambitious digital films on the BBC News YouTube channel, with stories filmed in Nigeria, Pakistan, Australia, Mexico, India, Mauritania, Iraq, and Gulf states.

Life at 50°C launches with Nigeria Burning. In the film, Farouk digs wells by hand in Kilankwa, central Nigeria. Joy cooks tapioca in the extreme heat of illegal gas flares in the Niger Delta. Now climate change is making their lives even harder; this year Farouk and his team have to dig down to an unprecedented 27 feet before they find water. Their stories show how ordinary Nigerians are exposed to the hardship of extreme heat. Haruna, who works with Farouk says: “When I was a boy the weather was not this harsh.” Digging the well exposes Farouk and his team to temperatures too hot for their instruments to measure, and while she knows it’s ‘bad’ for her health, Joy braves heats of 90C to cook by the flares to make income to help to support her family.

Watch Nigeria Burning here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-58549010  (3 mins)

With the massive and growing popularity of CBD in the United States, starting your own CBD company makes perfect sense. However, being an entrepreneur in an industry that’s still in its infant stages can be difficult. You have to find ways to generate revenue, protect your company and its assets, and compete in digital markets.

As you can see, a lot goes into running a CBD business, but having the right resources will make running your company easier. That begs the question, “What are the right resources?” Well, you’re in luck because that’s the question we answer in this article.

White-Label Supplement Manufacturers

The CBD industry is growing rapidly, and new CBD brands are hitting the market all the time. Your CBD business might sell some of the top CBD brands in the industry, but have you ever thought of launching your own CBD products?

Starting your own CBD brand allows you to create products your customers will love and grow your brand. Many retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have their own brands on their shelves, and they offer them at lower prices than the “brand name” products they offer. You can increase your share of the CBD market by doing the same thing.

Nutritional supplement manufacturers all over the U.S. create quality products and provide white-label supplements like CBD oils, gummies, and CBD tinctures at wholesale prices. The good news is that these supplements often have lower overhead costs than wholesale products from brand-name CBD products, meaning you can sell your own products at more affordable prices.

Asset Tracking

If you have a sales team working on getting your CBD products on the shelves of other small businesses, you need to equip them with the tools to succeed. They might need anything from tablets to show customers different product offerings to smartphones to keep in touch.

Electronic equipment is expensive, and it can be hard to trust team members to take care of company property as if it were their own. In fact, depending on how responsible your team members are, you might not want them treating your equipment like it’s theirs.

With Cheqroom’s asset tracking tools, you can hold employees accountable when using company assets. With their asset tags, you can also track who has what, when they got it, and when it’s due for return. You’ll even get updates on the usage and condition of your assets. So, give your team the tools they need to soar without worrying about losing your investment.

E-Commerce Platform

Having an e-commerce platform is necessary to grow your business in the digital age. Most people shop online, even if only for small purchases. These days, you need an online store to encourage sales across multiple platforms and extend your market.

One of the best ways to grow your online CBD business is to offer special deals for online orders. After all, when people shop online, they look for deals they can’t get elsewhere. You know the law of supply and demand, so give people what they’re looking for when they visit your e-commerce store—great deals. A great way to increase online sales is by providing customers with deals they can’t find in your brick-and-mortar location.

The CBD industry is steadily growing, and you need the right resources to keep up with the rest of the field. With your own line of CBD products and an E-commerce platform, you can significantly increase your revenue. Furthermore, digital marketing is essential to growing your online presence and brand awareness. Finally, having a legal team and asset tracking tools protects your business’s integrity and operational equipment. Using the resources listed in this article will help protect your business and give it a competitive edge.

Absa Group, one of the largest financial service providers in Africa, will strengthen efforts to grow its digital partnerships ecosystem across Africa with the appointment of HYBR and SystemicLogic, which will help Absa identify potential collaboration partners. 

“We believe in the substantial mutual value that is created by connecting with key local, regional and global ecosystem networks that have extensive activities on the continent across multiple industries,” says Absa Group Digital Partnerships Ecosystem Lead, Andrew Davies. “HYBR and SystemicLogic’s skill sets and networks will augment our efforts to connect and collaborate with Africa’s innovators and entrepreneurs,” says Davies. 

Absa is looking to work with start-ups that have innovative tech-based solutions which could ultimately be scaled and deployed to benefit its customers.

An Absa Digital Partnerships capability was established in 2020 with support from global collaborator Elixirr to create the strategy, operating model and execution capabilities to collaborate effectively with innovative, mature start-ups from around the world. This capability has enabled Absa to set up, mobilise and deliver a digital partnerships ecosystem through which the Group now continuously sources collaborators to innovate with and rapidly co-create new value propositions and capabilities that align to business objectives.

With a notable combined reach, the three scouting partners boast networks and memberships within the African and global start-up environments.

“Our collaboration with Absa Group is a long time coming, having been exposed to Absa’s work in the innovation ecosystem across Africa over the past five years,” says HYBR partner Vuyisa Qabaka. “We’re looking for companies with which to build solutions to align with the Bank’s ambition to deliver financial impact that improves lives,” says Qabaka. HYBR is a scale-up advisory firm with offices in both West Africa and Southern Africa.

SystemicLogic is actively involved in contributing financial and mentorship support to various networks and individuals in several markets.

“Every entrepreneur needs someone to believe in them, and there is no successful business that scaled without some involvement from a trusted financial partner,” says SystemicLogic CEO Audrey Mothupi. “We’re thrilled to be able to continue working alongside the bank and offering opportunities to other companies like ours,” says Mothupi.

Absa is looking to accelerate its digital transformation through strategic partnerships which collectively form an ecosystem that will deliver improved customer experience, reduce costs and support revenue growth.

“We believe strongly in the power of open innovation and true value exchange between large corporates and startups,” say Chris Weiss, Partner at Elixirr. “Absa’s Digital Partnership capability ensures that they are able to effectively engage with potential partners to define what the value exchange will be, setting both parties up for longer term success. We are proud to have supported Absa on this journey and look forward to great things from our continued relationship.”

“We will be focusing on establishing a meaningful exchange of value between Absa and future ecosystem members, as well as our scouting partners – for the benefit of all involved, and the ultimate benefit of our substantial customer base,” says Davies. Davies invites interested organisations to make contact with Elixirr,  HYBR or SystemicLogic.