Speaking about the Ouarzazate region in Morocco, The Global Post reports:
Chances are you’ve unwittingly seen this region’s wild vistas in any number of movies. Among other locales, the desert was billed as Iraq in “Body of Lies,” dressed up as Jerusalem in “Kingdom of Heaven” and transformed into ancient Egypt in “The Mummy Returns.”
An array of ready-built sets, cheap labor and stunning landscapes has helped turn this sleepy provincial capital into a Third World Hollywood.
Production remnants abound, from concrete castles and plaster villages, to an American gas station falling to pieces beside a two-lane road. Featured in the horror film “The Hills Have Eyes,” its English sign offers non-existent beer to the Muslim drivers passing by.
But veterans of the country’s film trade say they wish more of their studios were in use this year. The global downturn has caused several big films to cancel or push back start dates, delaying cash upon which a growing population of technicians, actors and extras have come to depend.
The video below tells an interesting story of the North African desert’s draw for Hollywood.
A recent article in African Business magazine looks at the recent boom of modern African designers on the continent and internationally. From February’s ThisDay Arise Magazine African fashion event at NY Fashion Week to architect David Adjaye being appointed to design the new African-American National Museum in Washindton DC, the influence of modern African design in global culture continues to solidify. But while there are more and more role models for budding African designers, there’s still a long way to go before Africa itself recognizes and taps into it’s strong creative capital.
To become truly competitive though, the continent must do things in its own way, with its own brand of excellence and innovation. Africans can grasp the best of design worldwide, as well as the best the continent has to offer and transform it into something new, compelling, beautiful and sustainable. Small pockets of success show that African design development has reached the point at which it can play a very real role in addressing poverty and unemployment throughout the continent. From craft initiatives in rural villages to multi-disciplinary industrial projects that boast global collaboration, design can boost a nation’s GDP. (more)
CNN also reports on a new contemporary African design aesthetic in the video below shot at the 2009 Design Indaba in S. Africa.
Throughout my years as an entrepreneur, I have had to conduct endless market research and have found a serious lack of information about the African market. Drawing on my experience as a marketer myself, I am developing a new website called AfriMonitor to aggregate important research and information about the growing African market. While I understand that the African market is still very young, I feel that to help it grow and to encourage more entrepreneurs to develop products to help it grow, a product like AfriMonitor is necessary. While I still write about African business and culture trends at Annans Chronicles, much of the in depth analysis of trends will be posted there on AfriMonitor. To read more about direction AfriMonitor will be developing towards in the next few months visit the About us page.
AfriMonitor.com serves as a market research portal for the Africa-focused global business audience. The website aggregates pertinent information about African business, consumers, economy, companies, and products, as well as information on African marketing and advertising trends. AfriMonitor provides an overview of African consumer and product markets so individuals, agencies, and corporations can discover new opportunities and make the right business decisions.
As part of the beta launch of AfriMonitor.com, we have put together a trend brief focusing on the growing China-Africa relationship. The brief,”Exploring ChinAfrica: Trends in China’s 21st century push into Africa” , touches on many of the key issues surrounding the topic. It is intended to serve as resource for anyone who is curious about China’s 21st century push into Africa. The brief is available as a free download and you can distribute it to whomever you feel could benefit from the information included. I’ve also put together an interactive timeline with key dates for those who want more information.
I am launching AfriMonitor as a beta for now to get some feedback and begin getting some information to those who can make use of it. We will be working hard in the next couple of months to get you much of the information which will make the site most useful, so check back often or better yet, subscribe to AfriMonitor’s rss feed or sign up for automatic email updates. For now the News tabs currently contain aggregated content from all the major news engines and is updated many times a day. The news is broken up into three categories, All News, China-Africa news, and India-Africa news.
In the next few months we’ll be adding more insights and reports from various sources including African marketing agencies and featuring interviews with newsmakers. Please let any advertisers or marketers with information about the African market know to contact me to get their reports featured on the website. While some of the reports and briefs will be free, others will be available for a fee. We’ll also be updating our Resources and Events sections soon. Please feel free to submit a resource or event for inclusion in our directory or just contact us with any comments/suggestions. AfriMonitor is a work in progress so your input is always welcome. I hope the website gets you the information you need to make the proper business decisions.
I recently started reading a new book Beyond Translation; The Marketer’s Field Guide to Understanding Today’s Transcultural Consumer and so far am impressed by the perspective of the author Valerie Romley. Having only “met” the author online, I was interested to find out what marketers are beginning to think about diversity and multicultural marketing. What’s interesting so far about the book is the fact that the author calls for marketers to go beyond the usual census-based demographics data and focus more on doing their own research to understand the cultural norms of their target market. Though I haven’t quite gotten to the core of the book’s message yet, I am hopeful that the beyond translation message is something that more companies and marketers adopt in 2008. As someone who continues to follow the growing African market, I can see so many benefits for companies changing the way they develop products and market them. Gone are the days when a company need only market to the dominant culture and all others followed suit. Particularly in areas like the USA and Europe, the browning of the dominant culture is now the norm and new segments continue to emerge. Economists can point to many reasons for the rapid development for these new markets, but the bottom line is consumers now have many more choices, and the product/company they choose will be the one which genuinely speaks their language and is invested in their community’s growth.
In the December 2007 issue of Ebony Magazine actor Don Cheadle says:
One thing (African people) need is better p.r. If people in (the USA) think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won’t understand that these people are you and you are them
Entrepreneur Magazine has chosen to feature me and my company in the December 2007 issue. The article in the Doing Good section covers my outlook on Africa’s brand dilemma and how I am using my expertise to help solve the problem and encourage business. You can read the article in the issue on newsstands or online at Entrepreneur.com. Thanks to JJ Ramberg for the good conversation.
Recently, MTVU, the university station of MTV, organized a visit by best selling author Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking) and Ethiopian-born American musician Kenna to a University of Pennsylvania sociology class. The class was in the process of studying the chapter “Kenna’s Dilemma” from Gladwell’s book Blinkand the two men made an appearance to discuss the dilemma Kenna faces as an artist who, though heralded by many in the music industry as the next big thing, has yet to connect with a large enough fan base.
If you haven’t heard Kenna’s music yet, I encourage you to get familiar. Kenna, born Kenna Zemedkun, makes some of the most inspiring left of center music today. As a member of the Neptunes production duo’s (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) extended StarTrak family, Kenna’s sound is not what you’d expect pop music to be. Though his previous album New Sacred Cow, the subject of Gladwell’s chapter, had a creative video for the single “Freetime” and gained a 3 star review from Rolling Stone Magazine, it has not made Kenna the superstar he needs to be. Not one to be deterred, Kenna returns this time around with a new marketing strategy for his new cd Make Sure They See My Face. As with similar African-born western-raised artists such as K’Naan, Akon, Somi, and Chosan, Kenna’s comfort with balancing his African and western identities make his music uncategorizable for many. This time around though the combination of re-newed interest in ’80s-style music and fashion, the growth of the popular black nerd trend (Pharrell, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West) as an alternative to the blinged out hip-hop stereotype, and Kenna’s own growth as an artist and business man, position’s Kenna and his music for better commercial success. Kenna’s image and music adds another dynamic to the growing Afropolitan demographic. As Kenna and the Afropolitan demographic grows more confident in his/her own identity they are exerting incresing influence on popular culture through their art. Hopefully the only dilemma Kenna will face this time around will be how to live with his celebrity. I’ll be watching his rise, and so should you. NPR on Kenna’s career
Speaking about the Ouarzazate region in Morocco, The Global Post 
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In the December 2007 issue of Ebony Magazine actor Don Cheadle says: