Back in Joburg today and tomorrow for a brilliant couple of days run by MPASA. First up, a conference called The Business of Magazines - an overview, examination and futurisation of the magazine industry in South Africa, both in print and (the part we’re looking forward to most) online.

Tomorrow night, the best of the industry will be recognised and rewarded at the annual PICA awards. We’re joining the whole shebang as media partners, with video and photo coverage going up on Zoopy throughout the conference and after the awards tomorrow night. Not to mention glimpses of the super-exclusive Cosmo after party

As I’m typing, we have a rather esteemed panel on stage, including representatives from Weg magazine, 8 Ink Media and youth forecasting consultancy Instant Grass.

The Weg guy is punting the value of niche publications in South Africa. According to him, there’s loads of space for niches to share generous portions of the readership pie. Those niche Afrikaans magazines that are struggling need to focus on quality translation - or face impending closure. He also believes in ‘being’ the Joneses, rather than trying to keep up with them.

Ivan is from TNS Research Surveys and is looking at the much-hyped ‘Black Diamond’. He asks who in the room has been to a ‘presentation dealing with Black Diamonds’ and hands shoot up from over three quarters of the room. The phenomenon of job-hopping by black executives is rife and the ‘emerged’ (rather than just ‘emerging’) black middle class is larger and more diverse than most people think. LSM, occupation, personal income, education, aspirations and ambitions, roots and world view are all variables that come into play. And though the Black Diamond group encompasses over 2.6 million people, marketing to them as a single group is a mistake that will not pay off for mislead advertisers. The various groups identified are: Mzansi Youth (18%), Start Me Ups (18%), Young Family (27%) and Established (37%). His overarching point: ‘the future is looking rather black’. The room laughs. Nervously. Because they know he’s right and suddenly notes are being scribbed furiously en masse.

Greg from Instant Grass is next behind the microphone and immediately makes a strong statement: ‘these blacks again … we have to continuously talk about them’. The nervous laugh ripples through the room again. Greg says that the black market is misunderstood and, surprise: Black Diamonds do NOT equal the black market. Life is more complicated. Greg’s company tracks ‘tribes’ of people (not traditional ones, cultural ones). The Facebook generation, the BEE brother, the hustler, 100% Kasie, Jozi Queen and more. The problem, according to Greg, is that the Black Diamond is a convenient marketing solution. Black people now apparently go horseriding, quad biking and live in our neighbourhoods - making it easy for the lazy marketer to send messages much closer to home. Greg believes in walking in the market’s shoes, which doesn’t mean taking taxi tours to Soweto and looking at people through glass. It’s about talking to them, putting things in context and understanding the complexities by developing your brand through a small group of people, which can then lead to larger groups. Consumer engagement is the first step in the right direction.

Natalie from 8 Ink Media steps up. Their group runs National Geographic Kids, Seventeen and Real Simple magazines. She’s talking youth market. The fact that 45% of the country falls into this bracket and are collectively responsible for R75 Billion spend per year. That’s pretty big. Facebook surfaces again, just to prove the point of the power of youth. More stats: 67% of tweens own a mobile phone (89% of teens and 93% of young adults own phones too). And 5.8 million registered Mxit users. The iPod also comes up as evidence of youth gravitational force. Seventeen and National Geogaphic Kids mags have apparently had huge growth spurts, with a highlight being the Seventeen urbanScouts - 13,000 readers who feed trends back to the magazine, which in turn help the editorial team to focus on what’s hot and happening. The Seventeen website and mobizone are doing superbly, apparently. According to Natalie, their mobizone is the biggest (in terms of users) in the country. From their NG Kids survey, with 400,000 tween respondents, 70% of the kids said they had their own bank account and spent their money on: computer games, DVDs, clothes, movies and cellphones. The biggest spend went to toys and entertainment. The smallest being airtime and travel. Food came second - thank goodness!

Fashion guru Dion Chang introduces his Flux Tred Report for 2007. He believes the pendulum has swung from the one extreme (pre-apartheid) to the other (post-apartheid) and is now starting to settle in the middle. Chang’s new catchphrase throws a very interesting curve ball into the marketing mix: cultural commuting. He’s a third generation Chinese man, having gone to a private school and completed post-grad studies in France. In fact, he speaks better French than Cantonese. So although he looks Chinese, he can’t really be marketed to as a purely Chinese individual. There’s a duality for a lot of South Africans, coming from a completely different home/family environment to live/work in an entirely separate arena. Commuting from township ‘mentality and connection’ (culture of ubuntu) to suburbs (high walls and electric fences). Your neighbour might call the SPCA when you try to slaughter a cow for traditional purposes. So there is a very real physical and psychological commute that takes place on a daily basis for a large portion of our society. Gender and class divisions make the situation even more complex.

Lots more to come today. Next up: Mike Stopforth from Cerebra representing all of us in the online boat and hopefully helping these ink-and-paper guys catch up.