South African Breweries (SAB) launched its first light beer in South Africa, Hansa Pilsener, at the end of 1975. While sales of Hansa were initially brisk, the brand’s subsequent performance was disappointing, and despite repeated changes of emphasis in the market positioning of the brand, Hansa struggled to find its appropriate target market. In the mid 1980s the situation changed, however, and sales started to increase. By the end of 1990, Hansa Pilsener had gained a sizable market share, and subsequently grew to become the second largest brand within the SAB portfolio.

In July 2015, Stefanie Pietzsch, guest relations and marketing manager of The Fairway Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort, a Johannesburg-based luxury city resort owned by property developer Guvon Investments, considered introducing a loyalty programme to reward her loyal guests. In recent years, hotels in Johannesburg had experienced the effects of slow economic conditions with an overall drop in room occupancy, which had resulted in increased competition.

By June 2010, The Coca-Cola Company’s (Coca-Cola) micro distribution centre (MDC) network in Africa had proven to be incredibly successful. Coca-Cola had built up the network to distribute its products through small, independent local entrepreneurs to even smaller outlets, enabling the company to reach markets that traditionally had been very difficult to access. Now social marketers were approaching Coca-Cola for permission to distribute their own products using the MDC network.

In December 2008, Charlene Lewison, marketing director of the Johannesburg-based family business, Birdi Golf Apparel, surveyed the company’s well-stocked shelves with pride – but also with a growing sense of unease. In the past 12 years, Birdi had become an established brand on both the professional and amateur golf circuits in South Africa.

The first thing Thandie Dhlomo, sales partner at the Rawson Property Group, did when she arrived home on a chilly Friday evening in July 2016 was pour herself a glass of red wine, kick off her shoes and curl up on her couch. She felt exhausted. Her last clients for the day had been Lunga Dlamini and his wife, Sonia. They were looking to move out of their rented house in Soweto and purchase their first home in one of the suburbs of Johannesburg. Dhlomo had helped them to narrow it down to three properties in three different suburbs: Linden, Parkhurst and Fourways.

In 2001, about 2 million people had access to the Internet in South Africa, and Absa, one of the major banking groups in South Africa had an Internet banking client base of 153 000. In a move aimed at doubling this client base and changing the bank’s image from one of e-laggard to e-leader, the group decided, in conjunction with UK IT company, Affinity, to offer free Internet access to anyone in South Africa. Despite widely expressed scepticism about the viability of the project, the uptake was enormous. The projected month-one target of 10 000 registrations was reached on the first day.

In August 2002, Desmond Makondo walked out of the Johannesburg offices of digital products manufacturer, Hewlett Packard (HP), with a digital camera, two printers and an undertaking that he would pay the company R8 000 for the equipment within two months. He had no idea how he was going to do this, but he knew there was no going back; he had no choice. He had to find a way to make this equipment make money. But how?

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It was December 2004, and Desmond Makondo had turned his photographic business, Digitally on the Move CC, into a profitable concern in the three years since he had walked away from Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) offices with a camera, two printers and no idea what to do with them. He had acquired a number of regular corporate clients and was photographing various events including golf days, corporate functions, conferences, graduations and more.

“We cannot just sit by and do nothing!” said Sebastian Olofsson to his uncle, Dan Olofsson, a Swedish IT billionaire and owner of a private game reserve in Hluhluwe (northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). It was February 2003, they were both at the reserve and Sebastian had just returned from a guided tour of the vicinity that had exposed him to the dire poverty in the area and the human suffering there caused by HIV/AIDS.

Dale Hefer, managing director of ChilliBush Marketing and Communications had started ChilliBush five years previously, operating from her Johannesburg garage. The business had proven remarkably successful, with billings exceeding R1 million after her first year of operation and reaching more than R18 million by 2003. However, Hefer knew that ChilliBush had to attract the big brands if they were to reach the billings target they had set of R36 million per annum by 2006.