Breakfast with Martin Neethling - Presented by SACSC KZN

Last Friday South African Council of Shopping Centres held an aspirational talk by Martin Neethling at the Durban Country Club. Nazrana Premlall, Chair for the KZN Chapter of the South African Council of Shopping Centres, chaired the event

Martin Neethling spoke about the low levels of aspirations that South African consumers are experiencing at the moment, and how the financial constrains are felt differently by different races and age groups in South Africa.

As an Associate at the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing, Martin has been involved in all the recent ground breaking studies on the South African consumer landscape since 2010, including Wake Up. Shake Up, Top End, The Majority Report, 4 Million & Rising, Connecting with Survivors and Winners & Losers.

The event was proudly and appropriately sponsored by one of South Africa's leading mall experts, Primedia Unlimited Mall Division, who are specialists in Communication, Media, Advertising and Marketing.

They have been successful in seamlessly connecting brands to shoppers with their unmatched bouquet of service offerings, all under one roof.

Primedia's, forward thinking approach focuses around four main areas, which are shopper marketing, digital solutions, activations and mall media.

They have long standing relationships with over 56 malls countrywide, reaching over 617 million shoppers annually, with the power to connect your brand to the right audience at the right time.

Nazrana extended a big thank you to Primedia'sMichelle Shelley, Bradley Knowles and The CEO, Molefi Molantoa, for their continuous support of the chapter, and the SACSC

In closing Nazrana thanked Martin Neethling and referred to Martins discussion and commented that they are seeing that the middle class group is growing faster than the upper class in the field or retail, hence greater success in middle to lower LSM malls and more emphasis on rural retail developments

She then referred to the young man interviewed in Martins presentation, 'Mzamo' and quoted him saying - "To be young, free and gifted is like hell on earth when you can't pursue this because of limited opportunity caused by previous discrimination, and therefore the frustration and anger felt by so many young South Africans

However even though we know this, it is still good to know that SA is rankedNumber 128 on the Happiest Planet Scale out of 140 countries, and it is so inspiring that despite this, there is still hope for a better tomorrow, and that is the greatest aspiration we can have as we come to the end of our 2017 calendar of events at the SACSC."

This was the last chapter event for 2017, a very successful and productive year for KZN with memorable events, great attendance and good involvement from sponsors, all thanks to members and loyal supporters.