IAN AND LISE MANLEY SHIFT INTO HIGHER GEAR FOR THE ‘NEW NORMAL’ WITHIN SOUTH AFRICA’S LOCKDOWN AND COVID-19 LANDSCAPE

South Africa, Thursday, 21 May, 2020, 2020 was set to be a milestone year for Ian and Lise Manley, owners of Manley Communications, marking 20 years of providing communications and branding services to the luxury lifestyle and tourism sectors of southern Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands.

And then the COVID-19 global pandemic arrived, shifting the world and business as we know it into uncharted territory.

South Africa’s extended lockdown has forced the business couple – widely acknowledged as leaders in the field of perception management – to regroup and reboot, beginning the new decade with a reimagined service offering tailored to the new business landscape.

ManleySocial will provide a crucial service within the relationship marketing, brand lobbying, brand alignment and digital public relations space, with a keen focus on the dynamic e-commerce industry.

When Manley Communications launched 20 years ago, public relations within premium leisure was all about clinching sought-after features in glossy print titles. While print will always be our first love, the reality is that successful marketing today is all about reach, ‘click-throughs’ and conversion. And ManleySocial is perfectly primed to help businesses achieve these goals.

Says Ian Manley; “South Africa’s lockdown has had a catastrophic effect on the country’s print industry; but we are fortunate that we had been offering our social media and digital marketing expertise to clients for some time, and the current global crisis has made these service offerings all the more relevant.”

“Some years ago Lise and I, together with our team, entrenched ourselves within the relationship marketing and brand synergy space with our social media support platform; taking the next step into a focus on digital engagement,” adds Manley. “A communication space where physical distancing is our collective new norm was the natural strike to remain relevant to both our current client portfolio, and for targeting future growth”.

Adaptability and a cool head in the face of crisis have been key to the past two decades of success for Ian and Lise Manley, and it’s a skill that’s never been more in demand.

“Our ability to identify marketing opportunities and to pivot perceptions has always been key to our successful business strategy with clients,” explains Ian Manley. “And while we know the post Covid-19 world is one we can’t predict, what we do know is that our full suite of agile digital public relations services can assist brands regroup and re-launch as soon as possible.”

Adds Lise Manley: “Our personal engagement with editors and freelance writers of both online and print media, and our skills at creating considered marketing strategies, will continue to play a key role in helping brands cut through the noise and reach their potential clientele”.

Fondly known in the industry as ‘Mr & Mrs M’, it is Ian and Lise’s inimitable approach to managing perception – and their ability to help brands adapt – that will ensure the cogs in each campaign wheel will continue to move seamlessly, in sync, towards their goal.

During this time of lockdown, ManleySocial has also been busy offering pro bono work to COURAGE, a dynamic Hout Bay organization that is coordinating a food parcel scheme to the most vulnerable of persons and families within the town’s communities; visit: www.courage.africa. ManleySocial is also working pro bono with the United Nations offices in Geneva where a free COVID-19 self-test App has been developed specifically for the general population of South Africa.