The Media Yearbook 2022

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INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AND OPINION

YEARBOOK 2022

THE BUSINESS BEAT

FROM THE EDITOR

L

ast year, The Media Yearbook was created along the theme ‘Revive, refresh, recalibrate’.

In the 12 months since then, the media sector globally has done just that. It has gone back to business, perhaps not as ‘normal’, but then again what was ‘normal’ anyway?

The media industry was already in a state of flux before Covid-19, battling digital disruption, falling revenues, new business models and extreme competition for ad spend, among a host of other issues.

This year, our theme is ‘The business beat’, because as we all know, Covid-19 pushed forward digital transformation by a good few years, and media businesses have risen to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Some are already talking about a ‘post-Covid-19’ environment, but perhaps it is still too early to look at the pandemic in the rear-view mirror. We are still grappling with slow vaccine uptake and, as a result, the issue of mandatory vaccines in the workplace remains front and centre for most businesses. And while virologists say they can’t see a new variant on the horizon, that doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the near or distant future.

Then there is the political environment, which always impacts the media. The effects of last year’s insurrection linger, and with an ANC elective conference at the end of the year, uncertainty will play its part in 2022.

The year opened with the South African Human Rights Commission conducting an inquiry into racism and discrimination in advertising. With the likes of the EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi punting a R50-billion (yes, BILLION) fine to be distributed among community media and black-owned media businesses, it is also perhaps time to revisit the regulatory environment. Moreover, the Marketing, Advertising and Communications Charter is being resurrected and dealt with once and for all.

Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele announced a MAC Charter Council to “monitor transformation in the sector”. Delaying real transformation only leads to more uncertainty, and that’s not good for the media business.

So many challenges ahead, but also many opportunities. We asked our contributors to look at media through a business lens, giving their thoughts, ideas and case studies that we hope will give the kind of insights and lessons that will be valuable to our readers over the next year. We thank them for the time and effort they have put in to provide these pieces.

As the writer of our opening overview, Accenture Interactive’s Haydn Townsend, says, “In 2022 the media industry will continue its post-pandemic bull run, resulting in greater convergence among the industry sectors and perhaps even a few media casualties along the way”. Certainly our writers are more bullish on the media sector overall. They are embracing technology and innovation, and thinking beyond digital. For example, Lyndon Barends, head of strategy, sales and marketing at Arena Holdings, posits, “The race is on for a fully print-digital-social integrated newspaper. A seamless journey from the one to the other would be ideal for the new normal”.

We do live in interesting times, and perhaps they are a blessing rather than a curse.

It all depends on how you look at it.

The Media.

Got to love it.

Glenda

2 I THE MEDIA YEARBOOK 2022

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INDEPENDENT INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE

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PUBLISHED BY Arena Holdings Hill on Empire, 16 Empire Road (cnr Hillside Road) Parktown Johannesburg 2193 Postal Address: PO Box 1746 Saxonwold Johannesburg 2193 Telephone: +27 11 280 3000 EDITORIAL Editor: Glenda Nevill glenda.nevill@cybersmart.co.za Content Manager: Raina Julies rainaj@picasso.co.za Sub-Editor: Anthony Sharpe Content Co-ordinator: Vanessa Payne Contributors: Ben Amadasun, Lyndon Barends, Fathima Beckmann, Lungile Binza, Josephine Buys, Jarred Cinman, James Cridland, Candy Dempers, Jacques du Preez, Remi du Preez, Mimi Kesaris, Mark Knocker, Aileen Lamb, Jude Mathurine, Pooven Moonsamy, Lindile Ndube, Thabile Ngwato, Razia Pillay, Shelley Seale, Bianca Sidelsky, Haydn Townsend, John Walls, WAN-IFRA, Jorja Wilkins, Tim Zunckel DESIGN Head of Design: Jayne Macé-Ferguson Project Designer: Anja Hagenbuch SALES Sales Manager: Tarin-Lee Watts wattst@picasso.co.za +27 79 504 7729 Sales Administrator: Neesha Klaaste PRODUCTION Production Editor: Shamiela Brenner Advertising Co-ordinator: Johan Labuschagne MANAGEMENT General Manager, Magazines: Jocelyne Bayer Copyright: The Media Yearbook.

No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for unsolicited material. The Media Yearbook is published by Arena Holdings. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Arena Holdings. All advertisements/advertorials have been paid for and therefore do not carry any endorsement by the publisher.

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On the record…

Story time Enrich your customers’ lives with internationally award-winning content marketing.

At New Media we tell the stories that matter most on platforms people love to use.

For real ROI on your marketing spend, contact us today at info@newmedia.co.za

2021 Eddie & Ozzie Awards (New York) 4 x golds, plus Editorial Team of the Year and Overall Editorial Excellence in Content Marketing 2021 International Content Marketing Awards (London) 2 x golds, including Best Use of Innovative Technology

Still telling it like it is.

Contents 2 ED’S NOTE: On the record

8 THE MEDIA OUTLOOK FOR 2022 Haydn Townsend looks at what is in store for media in South Africa

10 A LESS CRYPTIC VIEW Jarred Cinman drills down on crypto and blockchain, and what these mean for brands

14 PRINT ISN’T GOING AWAY Lyndon Barends reckons there is still plenty of space for newspaper advertising

18 A CONTINUOUS EVOLUTION Razia Pillay keeps track of the evolving world of digital advertising

20 DOUBLING DOWN ON QUALITY Jude Mathurine on news publishing and the search for the elusive sustainable business model

22 FAVOURABLE TRADE WINDS Mark Knocker believes there are opportunities aplenty for doing business in Africa

24 POWER TO THE PEOPLE Josephine Buys is of the opinion that zero-party data is set to become the most valuable data set of 2022

27 THE AGE OF DIVERSIFYING AUDIO Tim Zunckel reckons a golden age of audio is unfolding right now

32 THE BEAT-IT MINDSET Candy Dempers says agility and innovation are key to agency sales growth

6 I THE MEDIA YEARBOOK 2022

35 FUTURE-PROOFING THE AUDIENCE Mimi Kesaris looks into radio audience research after the Covid-19 disruption

38 THE ENGAGEMENT ADVANTAGE John Walls believes an audio strategy must take into account shifts in consumption

42 RISING TO THE OCCASION Thabile Ngwato says rapid adoption of Covid-inspired change showed the news team’s true potential

43 DIGITISING SABC NEWS Lungile Binza outlines the many initiatives SABC News has launched to modernise its newsrooms

44 DIVERSITY: A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE Fathima Beckmann’s global view of diversity in television gives deep insights into transformation

46 PLEDGING TO DO GOOD Aileen Lamb believes being there for employees and clients reaps solid return on investment

48 BUILDING A PAYWALL CULTURE Shelley Seale delivers a case study on how an African publisher effectively monetised content

51 BANKING ON AI The WAN-IFRA team explores the role of artificial intelligence in news publishing

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56 BUY, TARGET, SELL, DELIVER Remi Du Preez on the growing power of programmatic digital out of home advertising

62 A SUBSTANTIAL INVESTMENT Ben Amadasun discusses the rise of African content and audiences as streaming takes hold across the continent

64 BIG MONEY COMES TO PODCASTING James Cridland reports on the global growth of podcasting and its audience

66 MOVING INTO HIGH GEAR Lindile Ndube and Bianca Sidelsky believe people are a business’s most important asset, so developing talent is vital

70 ADD TO CART AND CLICK Pooven Moonsamy writes that the impending demise of the cookie requires out-of-the-box thinking for brands and agencies

72 MORE MOBILE THAN EVER Jorja Wilkins says out of home has rebounded, along with demand for digital out of home

74 AFRICA IS GROWTH CENTRAL Jacques Du Preez is bullish on out of home in Africa, especially in light of its multidimensional aspect

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The changing media industry

HAYDN TOWNSEND offers an overview of the media and marketing landscape across South Africa, the continent and abroad for 2022.

T

he boundaries that once separated the entertainment, media, technology and telecommunications sectors have fallen, merging them into one world through rapid digitalisation.

In 2022 the media industry will continue its post-pandemic bull run, resulting in greater convergence among the industry sectors and perhaps even a few media casualties along the way. We will see more streaming and fewer cable networks, more digital advertising and fewer traditional channels.

Overall, we can expect new waves of innovation and experimentation across e-commerce brands. Relationships with consumers will be built by crafting unique experiences, targeting methods, and a more hassle-free journey from product discovery to purchase.

FIVE KEY THINGS ALL MARKETERS SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR

Haydn Townsend

8 I THE MEDIA YEARBOOK 2022

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To succeed, marketers will need to be as agile as consumers. The pandemic accelerated omnichannel adoption and created hybrid behaviours beyond our shopping for products and services.

How we work, play and live is fluid, and consumers expect brands to keep up with the rapid pace of change. The 15th annual Fjord Trends report from Accenture provides practical guidance for marketers who want to deliver value and relevance to their consumers: 1. Come as you are. Pandemic restrictions have pushed people to look for greater freedom and expression in all aspects of life. They are starting to focus on what’s important to them due to a heightened sense of awareness, and openness to new ways of working and living. In designing brand experiences that

MEDIA OVERVIEW

work for African consumers, brands must make sure to strike a balance between amplifying collective mindsets and nurturing personal growth.

2. The end of abundance thinking?

Many have experienced empty shelves, rising energy bills and shortages in everyday services. While supply chain shortages might be a temporary challenge, the impact will persist and lead to a shift in ‘abundance thinking’ – built on availability, convenience and speed – to greater consciousness about the environment. As we adapt to this new economic reality, it is essential to understand that ‘less’ doesn’t mean ‘loss’ and look to indigenous methods for innovation.

3. The next frontier. Africa is home to a young population with an appetite for new technologies and innovation. The metaverse will be a new frontier of the internet, combining all the existing layers of information, interfaces and spaces with which people interact. It offers a new place to make money, creates new job types, and offers infinite brand possibilities that people will expect businesses to help build and navigate.

In Africa, immense opportunities exist for the many young start-ups, visionaries and entrepreneurs.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

IT IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER THAT ORGANISATIONS FOCUS ON DRIVING CREDIBILITY TO MITIGATE RISK 4. This much is true. People now expect to ask and have questions answered at the touch of a button or through a brief exchange with a voice assistant. The fact that it’s so easy and immediate means people are asking more questions.

With increased access to the internet, Africans are turning to the web to seek answers, but recent events have fuelled misinformation. It is more important now than ever that organisations focus on driving credibility to mitigate risk.

5. Handle with care. Care became more prominent this past year in all its forms: self-care; respect for others; the service of care; and the channels to deliver care, both digital and physical. It creates opportunities and challenges for

employers and brands, regardless of their health or medical credentials.

Africa is socially orientated, and her communities care as a collective. We encourage businesses to do the same.

SOUTH AFRICA’S MEDIA FORECAST FOR 2022 Research shows that South Africans have high demands, with consumers pushing for ethics and innovation. As screen time is at an all-time high, we all need to adapt to keep up with changes in media consumption and make sure we offer South Africans the content they want to see in a format that best fits the context of 2022. As the current patterns dictate, it is pretty reasonable to assume that in 2022 and 2023, there will be more South African-focused content on our screens.

At the box office, a recovery in attendance and rising ticket prices, along with improved offerings, will result in modest growth at a 3.5% CAGR through 2022. South African audiences are willing to pay more to watch big-budget movies with surround sound, flashy seats, temperature swings, strobe lights and so on. In addition to this, consumer income in South Africa is expected to grow at a robust CAGR of 7.6% through 2022, to R135.7-billion in 2022, and digital revenue alone will add approximately R41.3-billion.

Within South Africa the entertainment industry can capitalise on its presence, the best examples of which are live music concerts and the upcoming sports year, which offers vast opportunities for further growth of media brands.

Annual music festivals and events that didn’t even exist a few years ago give brands a significant opportunity to expand their audiences. The fashion industry is also growing, leading to more shows and related entertainment.

Improved connectivity and economic growth could also lead to more people travelling outside South Africa or within the country.

While online advertising will surpass traditional models by 2022, the South African television landscape will still have a solid conventional focus. However, since South African markets tend to follow global patterns, online advertising will far outpace TV advertising in terms of growth.

Fans will go where the content is, so media owners should invest in making themediaonline.co.za

sure their platforms are as engaging as possible and offer a variety of strong content.

ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE’S MEDIA MOVES We are constantly finding new ways of engaging with our clients and helping our customers create compelling and transformative experiences. The digital commerce market in South Africa is growing at an unprecedented speed, and we see the need to capitalise on this appetite by expanding our capabilities and capacity to meet demand.

We have been increasing our digital footprint across the globe with a mixed strategy of acquisitions and organic growth.

Our current investments are part of the company’s larger expansion plan in the African market.

The company recently made its first acquisition in Southeast Asia, Entropia, to help clients in customer experience, design and creative communications.

We also added Openmind, an Italian commerce consultancy, to the fold.

Locally, Accenture has acquired the King James Group, a highly awarded creative agency and our first planned acquisition in South Africa and Africa.

This move will strengthen our focus on putting creativity at the centre of experience-led transformation to drive relevance and growth for its clients. King James Group brings an impressive roster of clients, critical assets, people and skills to enhance our capabilities in meeting and exceeding the accelerated demand from our clients for differentiated and innovative experiences. KJG adds additional depth in brand strategy, creativity and digital marketing services to the business.

We want to enhance capabilities in South Africa to support our vision of transforming and reimagining our clients’ entire business through the lens of experience.

Haydn Townsend is managing director at Accenture Interactive. His focus is on combining the power of Accenture’s business consulting, creative, digital and technology capabilities to help organisations rewire their businesses.

Townsend is a cross-functional marketing and advertising professional with over 25 years’ experience that reaches across marketing management, sales, advertising, activations, sponsorship and digital marketing.

THE MEDIA YEARBOOK 2022 I 9

B

y now, chances are you have heard just enough about cryptocurrencies, blockchain and NFTs to navigate a dinner conversation on the topic. You know a) someone who has made millions by savvy crypto investments, b) someone who is mining their own Ethereum or earning currency by playing an online game, c) that some people are selling weirdly unattractive digital pictures for millions of dollars and d) that you should be paying more attention to this whole thing but just find it all rather confusing and faintly repellent.Well, here then is the primer you’ve been looking for.

Making crypto less cryptic The no-BS guide to crypto, blockchain and NFTs that you’ve been waiting for.

What does this mean for brands, asks JARRED CINMAN?

BLOCKCHAIN Starting with the basics, this whole craze really got going with the invention of a distributed ledger technology called a ‘blockchain’. It sounds fancy, but is actually just like a normal ledger that we used to write on paper or recently stored in a computer database (example: the deeds registry for a country’s property), which can now be written in one place and then copied into a huge digital file that is stored in countless places. It’s a clever idea because it removes the need for a central repository or ‘master record’ and thus offers true decentralisation of information.

Kind of. I mean the truth is that most of the actual hosting of these files is still on the same servers with the same big server farms that everything else is on. But there is undeniably a shift in control here from traditional institutions – mainly governments and banks – to at least a much wider set of noninstitutional players.

CRYPTOCURRENCY

Jarred Cinman

10 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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Digital currency, now largely just called cryptocurrency, is equally easy to understand. Any money is just a ‘token’ that represents value. What until recently was stacks of paper and is now mostly just database entries is an amount of buying power that you have to your name.

Maybe it’s in your wallet; probably it’s just accessible to you via some kind of digital transaction.

Fiat currency, as it is called, is the money issued by a country’s central bank. It is a highly centralised system: the government knows (in principle) how much it has issued and where that

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money has gone to. By knowing this about every citizen and corporation, it can apply taxes, solve crimes, and generally try to control the value and movements in the economy.

Cryptocurrency differs from fiat not so much in that it’s digital (which most money is nowadays anyway) but in how it’s issued or ‘minted’. The clever innovation that Bitcoin heralded was the idea that crypto can be mined by having computers solve really difficult and unpredictable mathematical problems. Point a computer at the problem long enough and eventually a solution – or ‘coin’ – will be found.

There is nothing inherently meaningful about this method of creating scarcity, but it is convenient and can be trusted.

The cryptocurrencies with the most trust from buyers, let’s say Bitcoin and Ethereum mainly, have a lot of countermeasures to ensure they cannot be forged or hacked.

Okay, so far, so good. You have your computer set up and it’s busily solving maths problems, finding coins, and registering them in the blockchain ledger against your account. Hurrah, instant wealth!

True, but less and less true. A cunning feature of cryptocurrencies is that they become harder and harder to mine over time. This essentially makes them scarcer as they become more valuable.

Cryptocurrency exchanges work just like any normal currency or stock exchange, the main difference being that you can freely move your money from one crypto to another unimpeded by a nation state (once your money is out of your own currency, that is). Exchanges have become increasingly scrutinised by governments and tax authorities for precisely this reason.

Okay, with me so far?

NFTs So one more concept to land here is the NFT: a non-fungible token. This is a super-confusing way of describing an object that cannot be duplicated. Money, both fiat and crypto, is fungible. One rand is one rand; one Ethereum is one

CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGES WORK JUST LIKE ANY NORMAL CURRENCY OR STOCK EXCHANGE, THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BEING THAT YOU CAN FREELY MOVE YOUR MONEY FROM ONE CRYPTO TO ANOTHER UNIMPEDED BY A NATION STATE Ethereum. It’s the quality that matters, not the individual coins.

An NFT is simply a ‘coin’ that is unique.

You can think of it as a collector’s item.

Art is a good analogy, although also too easily conflated with NFTs since they can be anything. They can be artworks but they can also be any rare digital item. It’s no wonder the gaming world has pounced on this so fast, because games where you can buy and sell ‘land’ or ‘gear’ have the easiest time of turning these in-game goods into NFTs and thus being able to confer a much more permanent ownership of these items to their players.

SO WHY IS EVERYONE GETTING SO RICH? The truth is (the truth always is) that only a few people are getting rich mainly: 1. People who were fortunate enough to get in early: Someone you know was bound to have bought a bunch of Bitcoin five years ago and is now rolling in some cash.

2. People who are already rich or famous: When Beyonce releases an NFT, suffice to say it’s in more demand than yours.

3. People who own huge servers that can mine a lot of new coins (see ‘already rich’ above).

4. People who spend a lot of time ‘playing the market’: It is possible, of course, to buy things that are in demand and sell them for a profit. But since there are few fundamentals to analyse here (listed companies, by contrast, have to release results and deliver some kind of performance), this is not something you can dip in and out of with anything more than luck.

5. Criminals: One of the huge beneficiaries of completely untraceable and anonymous transfers of large sums of money are (surprise!) people selling illegal goods.

If you have a few hours to spare, install the Tor browser and spend an amusing afternoon browsing an e-commerce marketplace where you can buy cocaine,

THERE IS UNDENIABLY A SHIFT IN CONTROL HERE FROM TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS – MAINLY GOVERNMENTS AND BANKS – TO AT LEAST A MUCH WIDER SET OF NON-INSTITUTIONAL PLAYERS themediaonline.co.za

weapons, organs and hacking software.

The payment method? One hundred percent cryptocurrency.

6. Which brings us to the last group: People who are just plain lucky. Luck, I’m afraid to say, is a profoundly significant component of what makes this world tick – the world of crypto, and also the world in general. You can’t buy luck, sadly, or earn it or get a hot tip to conjure it. Statistically, some of us will be lucky some of the time.

This is not investment advice. If you think buying a highly volatile and thus potentially highly lucrative asset is for you, then it’s extremely easily done.

But know that SARS will be watching and know that there is a strong chance you will lose it all or at least weather periods where you are completely wiped out.

SO WHERE DO BRANDS FIT IN? By and large, the opportunities for brands (and artists) are in the NFT space. Being able to create unique, collectible things whose value may increase tremendously over time is actually a powerful tool in creating fan experiences and loyalty, incentivising behaviour, and adding value to purchases, repeat purchases and just about anything else.

The world’s most innovative brands have already offered unique NFT prizes and collectibles, bought virtual properties in popular games where they can promote themselves, and launched ingame merchandise and items. Remember, just because something isn’t ‘physical’ doesn’t mean it’s not real.

The NFT art stuff is making the headlines but the truth is there is much more general utility here. We live so much of our lives in a digital world that digital goods are, indeed, of essential importance to us. NFTs give you an excellent way to establish uniqueness, and it should be obvious that being unique, feeling special, and having something no one else does are key drivers in the digital economy (associated psychological problems aside).

I’m not going to try and spell out an NFT strategy checklist here. In my T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 11

opinion, it’s best not to focus on the NFT, but rather to think about what value you could offer your customers if only you could make that value unique, rare and desirable.

Not only is this not a ‘fad’, it is a missing ingredient in the marketing mix that cannot but have a deep and abiding impact on the industry. It also could, might and probably will help artists, musicians, sports teams and others earn extra revenue from their fans, although this requires removal of the same middlemen we have been told from the dawn of the internet are going out of business.

The recent purchases by huge labels of the catalogues of many classic musicians seems to point firmly in the other direction.

IS THE FUTURE THUS A BLOCKCHAIN UTOPIA? Extraordinary claims, as Christopher Hitchens memorably said, require extraordinary evidence. The people who suggest blockchain will upend the

entire property market or remove the need for lawyers or governments, and that cryptocurrencies will replace fiat currencies and central banks, are wrong. Probably.

The same kind of language hovered around the emergence of social media, which was going to make journalism democratic and fascist regimes impossible. Fifteen years on and the big winners in the social media revolution are not the ordinary guy or the population of China or Afghanistan; they’re Meta, Google and Twitter, companies that may well have been the decisive forces behind the fall of democracy in the US and elsewhere, along with Uber, Airbnb and Lyft, which may have created a whole new kind of benefits-free labour.

And 15 years before that, the visionaries and utopians of the early web imagined similar things. Which is not to say the internet didn’t entirely change the world, or that social media and services haven’t disrupted 1 000 industries, or that there aren’t mountains of good done

by all of these technologies. But early adopters and enthusiasts never see the dark side and the downsides.

So I’m not being a naysayer, merely a stay-safer. This stuff is, if nothing else, a lot of fun. It will lead to some unimaginable and powerfully disruptive change: some good, some bad. But the hype in these things is almost always wrong and bereft of the necessary scepticism. As Elizabeth Holmes heads to prison, it’s worth remembering that things that sound too good to be true usually are, and can leave a wake of loss and damage behind them.

As the joint CEO of VMLY&R South Africa, Jarred Cinman co-leads the Johannesburg and Cape Town offices, overseeing the inner workings of the agency, and managing all departments from a business, HR and operational point of view. He previous served as co-chief operating officer of Y&R Africa Group, overseeing operations at Y&R South Africa and NATIVE VML.

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Get in the headspace of over 1.2 million loyal and affluent (SEM audience 7 to 10) listeners, who engage across our ecosystems at both our leading brands, East Coast Radio and Jacaranda FM.

2. Wide Reach

1 in 2 listeners engage with us on air and online, making us leaders in audience reach, engagement, and communication. This means we’re at the forefront of our audience’s terrestrial and digital activity, including web, podcast, video, and social media.

3. Innovative (And Industry Leading) Campaign Management Our award-winning sales teams assist in producing highly effective campaigns and agile product development, which speak to your target audience.

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Long live integrated newspapers LYNDON BARENDS sees integration as key to the future of print media and its advertising effectiveness.

Lyndon Barends

A

fter more than two years of being locked down under Covid-19 regulations, we’re emerging cautiously from a low-touch economy, all probably having reassessed the way we did things for so many years.

Do we still want to hold newspapers after turning to iPads, smartphones and laptops to order services, view the news and indulge in the many streaming options?

A STUDY BY EFFECTIVENESS CONSULTANCY BENCHMARKING FOR NEWSWORKS CLAIMS THAT ADVERTISERS ARE MAKING THE WRONG DECISION

BY CUTTING BACK ON NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING Many have foretold the imminent death of newspapers and magazines, and of course there were plenty in print media (as in many other industries) that didn’t survive the period of isolation.

A study by effectiveness consultancy Benchmarking for Newsworks claims that advertisers are making the wrong decision by cutting back on newspaper advertising. The study, which covered over 500 econometric models to produce valuable and accurate information, seems to prove that placing ads in newspapers increases overall ROI by three times.

The study’s results show that advertising with newspapers increases overall campaign effectiveness and even helps other media become more effective. Newspaper advertising 14 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING

made online display campaigns four times more effective and television campaigns twice as effective.

Newspaper advertisements affect various industries’ campaign effectiveness differently than other types of advertising: • Finance is affected 5.7 times more • Travel is affected 3 times more • Retail is affected 2.8 times more • Automotive is affected 1.7 times more The study’s researchers suggest the optimal level of investment in newspaper advertising was 11.4%. In 2015, the average investment was only 7.6%.

Sixty-six percent of newspaper readers either always or regularly look at inserts. While having the digital version is nice, print copies carry all the hype.

So why in the digital era would people from all over want the print version?

Nostalgia. The print newspaper is memorabilia people can keep forever.

Your digital ad may get more views, but your print ads could get more attention, especially when something big is happening. Those who have a printed newspaper hold on to the paper longer, leave it somewhere for others to read, or keep the inserts relevant to them and their family so they can look through them to see if there is something they need or want on sale somewhere.

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YOUR DIGITAL AD MAY GET MORE VIEWS, BUT YOUR PRINT ADS COULD GET MORE ATTENTION, ESPECIALLY WHEN SOMETHING BIG IS HAPPENING Advertising in newspapers is not a thing of the past. Those who want their brands to get attention and see a large ROI should invest in an integrated marketing plan that includes both print and digital marketing. The race is on for a fully print-digital-social integrated

newspaper. A seamless journey from the one to the other would be ideal for the new normal.

AN INTEGRATED FUTURE The need for integration is a business imperative not lost on us at Arena, home of the country’s leading media titles including the Sunday Times, Business Day, Financial Mail, Sowetan, Herald and Daily Dispatch, as well as prominent associated sites such as TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE, WantedOnline and BusinessLIVE.

THE FUTURE OF NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING IS STILL POWERFUL WHILE MEDIA TITLES HAVE CURRENCY FOR READERS Arena Holdings delivers a strong advantage for our clients. Bolstered by broadcast assets including Business Day TV, The Home Channel, Ignition, Viva Nation TV, Vuma FM and Rise FM, we field a team of frontline staff who are available to foster deep, integrated partnerships that will assist any business in recovery or better success following the lockdown effects of Covid-19.

Emerging from the last two years and re-establishing a robust circulation and distribution network requires extraordinary effort. All of us have had to, and must continue to, search for new ways of skinning the proverbial cat. It has been a time of strengthening the resilience of our organisations, buckling down and moving forward. In AREna it was time to REthink, REset, Rebuild and REcreate, all in an effort to become even more REsilient than we’ve ever been before. We had to all REconsider a culture where the customer once again is at the centre, and how we will deliver to customers what they want and in a manner of their choosing.

Born to perform.

Designed to deliver. www.iProspect.com/en/za/

We are working tirelessly to connect all the group’s assets while providing clients with singular yet universal access to the various channels to carry content that informs, entertains and educates.

STRENGTHENING COMMUNITIES For newspaper advertising to thrive, we have to ensure we continue to provide quality content, engaged readers and credible environments. Thus, Arena has embarked on a clear ‘Subs and Clubs’ strategy drive to retain and build loyal members who feel they belong to one or more communities.

As we connect and strengthen these communities and verticals such as business, youth, women, motoring, education and luxury, targeted marketing and advertising become simpler. The availability of multiple channels, including below-the-line opportunities such as events that live off the pages, provides clients with a variety of ways to engage with their consumers.

With video at the centre and a cohesive social audio strategy, monetising newspaper lead opportunities will bolster revenue streams, not shrink them. In tandem with driving subscriptions, media houses will future-proof their businesses.

The future of newspaper advertising is still powerful while media titles have currency for readers. Brands built over time still have meaning, so whether the advertising is via print, digital, radio or below the line, the future of newspaper advertising remains bright, and print will still have a lead role within the media arena. Long live the integrated newspaper!

Lyndon Barends is managing director of strategy, sales and marketing at Arena Holdings. Barends is a results-driven change leader and former CEO with extensive experience in business restructuring, change management, organisational design, strategic planning, brand management, and general management experience acquired in media, IT, banking, education and sports.

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Being comfortable with ‘being uncomfortable’ is the new normal and it is within this context that a new era begins.”

– Clare Trafankowska-Neal, Managing Director, iProspect South Africa

This new future requires both magic and machines. Brought to life through the combined power of both Vizeum and iProspect; fusing: The expertise, precision & predictability of data and technology with the wonder of culture, content & storytelling - we’re redefining media and accelerating brands through a performance mindset.

Our foundation is firmly rooted in the dentsu infrastructure which sets us up for phenomenal success. The relationship gives us unrestricted access to talent and capability beyond our integral DNA, ensuring that we remain agile and supporting our passion for client-centricity.

In an iProspect Global Client Survey in 2020, the most important area in marketers’ roadmaps is the improved integration of brand and performance marketing which holds the promise of more consistent consumer experience, improved measurement, stronger insights, better budget allocation, and, overall, a more efficient marketing effort.

Cue 2022 and let’s face it ... we have never been more connected. Today, technology connects us to more people and communities. It connects us to virtually unlimited entertainment, informational and educational content from the comfort of our homes. It connects us to services like transport, food delivery and shopping with a simple touch.

Accelerating Growth At The New Intersection Of Media It connects our cities and our homes to address our needs more efficiently. All these increasing connections unlock new spaces for people and brands to flourish. In this context, growth now happens at the new connection points where culture, technology, data, content, and commerce converge. Businesses that thrive at these intersections grow fastest, and media is one of the most powerful levers at their disposal.

This is why we firmly believe that growth happens at the intersection of brand and performance, that all advertising is about performance, and that all advertising can and should build brands. Traditionally, performance agencies prioritised short-term returns, and media agencies left value on the table when treating performance as merely a tactical tool.

Today we need a new perspective.

At iProspect, we unite brand and performance to drive growth in a way that also builds brands through our new Strategic Planning framework called Intersections. It doesn’t sit on top of what we do, it is what we do we influence real life behaviours, finding the humanity in the signals, we think like surgeons, not architects we start with what brands already do, not from scratch. We always thrive for both optimisation + transformation. We are impatient practical thinkers – we create tangible ideas at speed and we learn from doing. We don’t think advertising is always the answer – we use media to lift barriers to growth, whatever they may be. We value both narrow expertise and big picture thinking – our different worldviews are our strength Backed by one of the Worlds’ largest media networks with a deliberate quest for local relevance and intimate client service. iProspect is deeply rooted in passion and performance across the entire media spectrum. Our unique perspective helps companies capture the value at every touch point of the consumer journey to drive sales, build customer lifetime value, and develop long term brand health. Helping us get better together, one moment at a time.

FOR THE PURSUIT OF SOMETHING BETTER

Our unique understanding of the intersection of culture, content, data, and technology powers how we build brands out of every moment of connection

Born to perform.

Designed to deliver. www.iProspect.com/en/za/

The continuing evolution of digital advertising In the age of customer-centricity and renewed privacy, digital advertisers need to highlight their human side, writes RAZIA PILLAY.

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t’s no secret that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has greatly upended the ways in which companies do business, with traditional advertising and marketing practices and models being laid to waste as new technologies and innovations emerge.

Two years ago, the world witnessed an acceleration of 4IR as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the globe. Lockdowns,

Razia Pillay

isolation and ongoing bans on store transactions, travel and movement forced a shift in consumer behaviour.

Audiences – even those who had previously been resistant to technological innovation – moved online amid changing socioeconomic and lifestyle conditions. In 2022, yet another shift is about to occur as privacy, mis- and disinformation, and customer-centricity take centre stage.

THE IMPACT OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND REGULATIONS When the pandemic hit, many South African businesses were still relying on traditional advertising and marketing practices. Few were using digital channels and those that were had only reached the tip of the returns that digital advertising offered. Fast-forward two years and digital advertising is once more undergoing a rapid shift. Where static, sales-driven approaches previously reigned supreme, 2022 embraces change to accommodate the need for more engaging, customercentric experiences that will be a defining factor of digital advertising.

In order to comprehend this evolution fully, it’s important to understand how digital channels in particular changed the ways in which audiences consume content. Just a few years ago, static digital advertising banners

were trending, with companies spending thousands to ensure their brands were front and centre on major news websites.

The role of this type of advertising had to change, with banners evolving from static words and images to GIFs and even video, and now becoming more personalised to consumers’ interests.

Standard email marketing was extremely popular, with everyone from large corporates to bloggers collecting email addresses and sending out thousands of mailers to audiences on a daily basis. Email marketing was so effective that the world’s most popular search and email platform, Google, even enabled built-in ads to appear as emails in inboxes.

Then, in 2018, the EU introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This provided guidelines for media and businesses as to the types of consumer information they could retrieve, collect and disseminate, as well as the ways in which this information could be utilised and the rights of consumers. Global companies scrambled to align their information policies with the GDPR while consumers in the EU rejoiced at no longer having to view unsightly ads or be spammed with email marketing. In 2021, South Africa’s own Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) was implemented, having already been delayed by a year due to the pandemic, and companies once more had to pull out all the stops to ensure they complied.

THE NEED FOR MORE ENGAGING, CUSTOMERCENTRIC EXPERIENCES WILL BE A DEFINING FACTOR OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING 18 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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DIGITAL ADVERTISING

PRIVACY IS POWER According to Statista, approximately 25-million South Africans are on social media (that’s more than one-third of the country’s 60.7-million-strong population), while 38.13-million are active internet users, with 36.13-million accessing the internet on their mobile phones. While many businesses had been plying their wares on social media platforms for years, with the first ad introduced on Facebook in 2005, the content these companies were posting to social media was mostly sales driven and directed at audiences. As brands continued to push sales on social media and with web banners, savvy consumers were downloading ad blockers and hiding ad-driven content from their social media feeds in order to enjoy a more personable experience.

IAB SA and Narratiive month-by-month data shows whereas audiences were quick to sign up for offers and consume media at the start of the pandemic, two years of working from home and constant digital connectivity have led to a ‘digital fatigue’ of sorts. That’s not to say there will be an entire shift from digital to realworld experiences. After all, many of the world’s systems rely heavily on digital technology. However, a growing trend will be a move from the static to the engaged, and to an expectation of boundaries, especially when it comes to audience privacy. To this end, digital advertising and marketing teams will need to learn to emphasise and highlight the more human side of their offerings, with less of a focus on the tactical and more on emotion, connection and flexibility.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

THE EXPECTATION OF TRUTHFUL, UNBIASED CONTENT If endless reams of content – any content, from written to static imagery to video – were the order of the day in 2020, 2022 will see the rise of more digitally savvy audiences who are selective of the content they consume. One need only to look at the drop in social media influencer trust in recent months for an example of this. Perhaps as a result of digital fatigue but also, to a very large extent, as a result of the mis- and disinformation experienced in the early days of the pandemic, audiences are now looking for credible sources and content that is truthful and unbiased.

Audiences and customers are no longer content with sitting back and passively consuming the ideas and information being relayed. Instead, they want to actively engage with content and the brands speaking to them, and feel that they are being heard by these brands. For a brand’s digital advertising to see success in the coming months, a renewed focus must be placed on a two-way engagement strategy and having a discourse with audiences and customers, no matter how uncomfortable it may seem at first.

A NEW FRONTIER FOR DIGITAL ADVERTISING While the majority of changes in digital advertising will continue to be more on the theoretical side for now, practical innovations have by no means slowed. In the past months, audiences and customers have been introduced to technologies such as mobile e-commerce, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and the metaverse, all of which will have huge impacts on the digital advertising space.

The metaverse, in particular, will further bring engagement into the spotlight. Virtual and augmented reality have already been flighted by many brands and will become more immersive in the metaverse, with approximately 85-million global users predicted to have experienced one or both of these technologies at least once in 2021. In the digital advertising and marketing realm, there is an expectation that the metaverse run parallel to real-world marketing efforts, offering experiential and immersive experiences as opposed to simple placement of ads on websites or social media platforms.

Examples of these include concerts and fashion shows held in the digital realm and revenue streams that originate online. The latter also relates to cryptocurrencies and the ways in which businesses are using innovations such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – a non-interchangeable unit of data stored digitally and associated with digital files that can be sold or traded – as entry points to the metaverse for their audiences.

Even digital out of home models have evolved, by adapting to and adopting a more omnichannel approach themediaonline.co.za

that involves programmatic media and a diverse selection of digital channels to engage with audiences and customers.

EQUIPPING A COMMUNITY At the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), it is our aim to understand and unpack these changing trends, and help our members and the broader digital advertising community in South Africa to embrace them. We want to equip this community to meet the challenge of implementing these changes in their digital advertising and marketing efforts. Digital advertising may once more be undergoing a transformation, but we hope that our concerted efforts in recognising and interpreting the changes taking place will be of use to those in the sector.

Our councils and committees, steered by digital marketing, media and advertising experts, are at all times keeping track of the constantly evolving digital media landscape to ensure that businesses are always relevant and thriving. Thanks to these councils and committees, we are able to help drive digital marketing forward.

We are a non-profit, non-governmental trade group that fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, publishers and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing.

Sources: Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/ marketing/top-search-engines#:~:text=1.,Google,the%20most%20popular%20 search%20engine.

POPIA: https://www.google.com /url?q=https://popia. co.za/&sa=D&source=docs&ust= 1648491051287109&usg=AOvVaw 1byG7D7piTxqKKWIIv765t Statista: https://www.statista.com/ statistics/685134/south-africa-digitalpopulation/ Influencer Marketing Hub: https://influencermarketinghub. com/metaverse-marketing/

Razia Pillay is the newly appointed chief executive of IAB South Africa, which manages The Bookmark Awards. She founded FOUIR Digital Academy, a digital academy that teaches women in developing countries the skills needed to navigate the 4IR future. Pillay also lectured and facilitated the Digital Marketing Employed Learnership programme at the Red & Yellow Creative School of Business.

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Diminishing choices in the post-Covid-19 mediascape

News publishers face tough decisions as business and consumer behaviours that began during the pandemic become trends, for better or worse, writes JUDE MATHURINE.

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n the late 1980s, most families where I grew up read a newspaper.

Flash forward to the present, and my recent poll of 180 Gen Z students about their print use for a media module at the university where I teach found that half the class didn’t read a newspaper in print and 36% read no magazines at all. They are awash in information and don’t much care where they get it from, as long as it is free. For my students’ generation, mobile phones have eclipsed the newspaper as a symbol of modernity and platform for information, education and entertainment.

Narratiive, which measures publishers’ web traffic in South Africa, estimates that four of every five users access South African digital content via mobile, which is expected to account for half of all online ad revenues in 2023, when digital ad spend is expected to outstrip TV and radio. Publishers have adapted to the logics of mobile use as revenues nosedive, advertisers flee to digital platforms and audience consumption and choices diverge. Research shows that most readers don’t know or care about the difference between news, opinion and propaganda. To them, it’s all content.

And that’s a big part of the global problem facing news publishers.

Making customers out of media consumers by monopolising their attention used to be the news publishers’ bread and butter. However, the trade-off between exchanging analogue rands for digital cents based has created

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trends that look set to continue as the struggle for sustainable business models remains elusive.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS The good news is that advertising is bouncing back in the third year of the pandemic economy. The bad news is that this doesn’t apply to print publishers. In South Africa, the PwC Entertainment and Media Outlook 2019 to 2023 predicted 10.2% and 5.9% ad share for newspapers and magazines respectively. Legacy news publishers also won’t necessarily benefit from a boom in e-commerce and online retail.

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT MOST READERS DON’T KNOW OR CARE ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEWS, OPINION AND PROPAGANDA In the US, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon account for 64% of all digital ad revenue share. In South Africa, a lack of transparency in reporting local revenues means pundits can only guesstimate their share of the digital ad market.

No media organisation can individually compete with the scale, customisation and personalisation of these platforms.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation results show that daily newspaper circulation was down 45% to 455 485 copies a day from Q4 2019 to Q4 2021.

The devastation in the daily market themediaonline.co.za

is typified by the bleeding circulation of the Daily Sun. The tabloid for the ‘man in blue overalls’, which in its prime sold about half-a-million copies a day, now sells just over 40 000 copies. The decline is testimony to the financial pressures facing South Africans in the lower socioeconomic measure clusters that bore the brunt of the pandemic recession as the economy shrank by more than 7% from 2019 to 2020. Total magazine circulation dropped by 55% to about 1.3-million copies over the same period.

A few newsrooms are doubling down on a quality-trust-value proposition to attract paying subscribers to premium journalism.

This involves recruiting heavy-hitting A-list journalists and columnists who offer specialised insight and analysis to bolster their subscriptions, along with context and analysis in new formats like podcasts. A study by Infinite Dial South Africa showed weekly podcast listening surge by 11% up to 20% of its research sample between 2019 and 2021.

Publishers will increasingly need to diversify their revenue streams as print sales and ad share shrink. The drive to get online audiences to pay is still a herculean challenge. In April 2021, News24, South Africa’s biggest online brand with an online audience, reported that it had 31 000 subscribers paying R75 per month to access its news and magazine content.

While this is nothing to be sneezed at, that figure represented only a quarter percent of the site’s 12.8-million unique browsers.

However, the fear is that subscriber models entrench already deep social

JOURNALISM OVERVIEW

inequalities between information haves and have-nots, as newsrooms may respond more vigorously to groups and interests that guarantee more commercial success.

Donor or crowdfunded operations remain an option for only a few outliers like Daily Maverick, AmaBhungane, GroundUp News, Bhekisisa or New Frame. These start-ups have harnessed the benefits of being digital-first, small, agile and focused, with journalism that is often thoughtful, valuable, concentrated or deep. However, questions of sustainability and media independence are frequently raised as a problem where donor funds are the prime or exclusive revenue solution.

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS Legacy news publishers should take a page from the net native playbook by harnessing the power of partnerships with civil-society organisations, tech start-ups or academics. As newsroom and capital resources shrink, there is even greater need for solidarity between media players on content, mentoring, technology, regulation and training.

Examples could be a local newspaper teaming up with a campus newspaper to report on issues affecting students, or a local chamber of business funding a metro beat column or working with a civic technology NGO like OpenUp to develop newsroom and data tools.

The major collaboration that will take place this year will be in the advocacy space, as the Publisher Support Services launches a fightback against Meta and Alphabet’s dominance of the digital advertising market and use of their intellectual property at the Competition Commission’s Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry. The hope is to secure mandatory payments from tech platforms to protect the production of public-interest journalism, ensure transparency on changes to platform algorithms and limit how content is included in some search indexes.

AS NEWSROOM AND CAPITAL RESOURCES SHRINK, THERE IS EVEN GREATER NEED FOR SOLIDARITY BETWEEN MEDIA PLAYERS ON CONTENT, MENTORING, TECHNOLOGY, REGULATION AND TRAINING local business. This means communities lose a precious weapon in the fight against corruption and malfeasance at a level where service delivery and accountability are most important.

Numerous academic studies show that newspaper use increases electoral participation and accountability, as well as efficiency in local government.

On the bright side, trust in print media is still up despite successive years of political players attempting to undermine public confidence in the press with their misogynistic and #WhiteMonopolyCapital straw men. Fifty-four percent of respondents in the Reuters Digital News Report said they trust news in general, while only 29% trusted news shared on social media.

The press has a lot to do to rebuild trust by ensuring independence and accuracy. The pandemic has left an expanded but battered mediascape with many survivors clinging to life rafts. The political economy Jude Mathurine

Jude Mathurine has worked widely in journalism education and media development in South and southern Africa for over two decades, and holds a Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies from Rhodes University. He lectures journalism and new media at Nelson Mandela University, and researches the fields of new media, innovation, media development and journalism studies.

REBUILDING TRUST

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

confronting publishers and editors alike is fraught equally with peril and possibility as individual titles and the sector at large seek to redefine a sustainable path to a new normal.

The closure of local news outlets and stratified access to quality journalism through paywalls looks to manifest ‘news deserts’ – cities and towns where there is no serious or useful coverage of policymaking, service delivery, crime or themediaonline.co.za

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Media business in Africa: Sometimes challenging, always rewarding The numbers are there, the markets are recovering, the media options are diverse.

There has never been more opportunity and potential pay-off for doing media business in Africa, says MARK KNOCKER.

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ny idea what the Swahili word harambee means?

In Kenya’s national language, it means: “Let’s all pull together”.

Harambee is a relevant and important concept in today’s world. Covid-19 has required us all to be collaborative, agile and resilient, perhaps especially in Africa, where the crisis has pared economies, stifled investment flows and slowed the pace of development in many countries.

As such, overall business conditions remain compromised. Infrastructure, regulatory systems, transparency and levels of corruption need improvement.

But aggregated African GDP rebounded to 6.3% growth in 2021. High-level stakeholders, such as the business leaders and managers I meet in the course of daily operations, are taking ownership of solutions. If anything, the crisis has crystallised the scope of opportunity in Africa.

FAVOURABLE TRADE WINDS

Mark Knocker

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Global mega-trends augur well. The accepted and understood importance of environment, social and governance principles will underpin improved business conditions. Shifting economic axes, already resulting in higher SouthSouth trade, will solidify economic growth. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement, (AfCFTA), signed in early 2021, is projected to triple intraAfrican trade by 2030.

Digitalisation, too, is transforming the continent. The StartupBlink Global Startup Ecosystem Index Report 2021 ranks Lagos, Nigeria, as the top start-up city in Africa, edging into the top 10% themediaonline.co.za

of 1 000 cities assessed worldwide for suitable infrastructure. South Africa, Namibia, Rwanda and Kenya compare well internationally. Already, online and mobile connectivity has streamlined communications for intra-continental media business. Today we are literally the press of a button away from initiating a proposal, finalising a deal or resolving a problem with any of our many media owner partners.

CHALLENGING MYTHS A fundamental of marketing – and thus of marketers’ use of media – is understanding populations and profiles.

People, after all, are potential users of services and consumers of products.

Africa has the world’s second-highest and fastest-growing population, projected to increase 25% to 1.7-billion in the next decade. Unlike many developed nations, the proportion of working-age people (aged 15-64) is rising, notably in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet overall advertising spend in Africa contracted 23%, to R76-billion in 2020. The continent remains the smallest advertising market in the world, out of sync with its population.

In its Lions (still) on the move: Growth in Africa’s consumer sector report, global consultancy McKinsey projected African consumer spending to reach R32-trillion by 2025. Setbacks, including regional strife and Covid-19, have since dented this prediction, but the premise still stands: Over and above the potential demographic dividend, Africa is an entrepreneurial and dynamic market. Smart marketers should be communicating with these consumers now.

MEDIA IN AFRICA

CUTTING THROUGH COMPLEXITY Interestingly, I often get asked about viewer or listener numbers, where the real question should be something else: “Can you mitigate the risks involved, and can you help put together an effective plan?”

The answer is a resounding “yes”.

Implementing media strategies in Africa is now supported by solid information, statistics and an ecosystem that is robust and reliable, if not always easy to navigate.

Furthermore, not only are most media owners flexible and eager to negotiate based on criteria such as volumes, commitments, first-time advertiser arrangements and payment terms, but they are also willing to assist with strategies, ideation and co-creation based on a brief from the advertiser.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

IMPLEMENTING MEDIA STRATEGIES IN AFRICA IS NOW SUPPORTED BY SOLID INFORMATION, STATISTICS AND AN ECOSYSTEM THAT IS ROBUST AND RELIABLE, IF NOT ALWAYS EASY TO NAVIGATE Still, outside of Kenya, one area of the media paradigm that continues to frustrate is the limited release of independent, standardised and comprehensive mediaconsumption data. To a lesser extent, the shortage of industry-wide advertisingspend information is also problematic.

Contextually, we should remember that even in the well-funded South African industry there have been significant changes in the collection and collation of this information, with strategists needing to adapt to large gaps in available data, fragmented sources and reduced synchronisation. The gist is that the importance of data and monitoring is well understood by the management of African media houses. The tools may be less sophisticated than the industry would like, but there are many information sources to guide decision-making. The Pan African Media Research Organisation, for instance, provides annual general reports on the media habits of African consumers, and publishes frequent country-specific trend bulletins. And GeoPoll, specialists in remote, mobile-based research in emerging markets, can rapidly generate

bespoke insights to tailor a media or communication strategy.

Besides, complexity is no excuse; challenges should be embraced. I believe we need to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable. We need to take a degree of risk, because every act of invention, each step towards a goal, involves it.

PARTNERSHIP APPROACH The concern that doing business in Africa is fraught with transparency and accountability issues and administrative hurdles is overblown – and has been for many years. Where valid concerns remain, media leaders acknowledge and actively seek to address them. For instance, pushback against government influence and control or restrictions to growth is strong. Electronic media industry bodies consistently lobby for open airwaves, light-touch licensing and regulation, and equitable government campaign spending – including on privately owned stations. Digitisation has helped trigger recent successes in Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia, among other countries, but my associates acknowledge this to be an ongoing journey.

In the print space, it surprises many people that six African countries rank higher than the US in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Nevertheless, I am encouraged that African media owners continue to express concerns about government influence within the media environment.

It means they aren’t being complacent.

Indeed, this is one of the most impressive aspects of meeting businesspeople in Africa: a sense of dynamism, always looking ahead, seeking improvements to their core business models. Many media groups, having accelerated initiatives in the digital space, are now diversified and offer advertisers bundled platform deals across combinations of TV, radio, print, digital and outdoor, or comprehensive, value-add, 360-degree arrangements.

It’s my experience too that media owners go the extra mile to help refine clients’ campaigns and drive results.

Perhaps because of the difficulties in sourcing regular data, they constantly probe for qualitative information. They are deeply insightful about their audiences or readers, and constantly themediaonline.co.za

strive to add value to them. In this respect I believe we have much to learn from our media colleagues in Africa.

MEDIA IN AFRICA REMAINS WOEFULLY UNDERUTILISED Building a marketing presence in Africa should no longer be considered optional.

Media strategists should be looking to redefine their contribution to their clients’ business growth, and reset objectives to include penetration of populations in markets with huge potential. In almost all African countries the media landscape offers opportunities for powerful, massreach strategy implementation as well as niche or test-market approaches.

Constructing a meaningful strategy – and ensuring its diligent fulfilment – has never been more doable.

As influencers and decision-makers, we should reframe our assumptions, and ask the right questions. Are we aligned with our clients’ business strategies in seeking opportunities for growth? Do we relate to and embody their values, which, I am almost certain, embrace inclusivity, empowerment, and equity? Are we in sync with a vision of fuelling the continental engine of economic growth, for the benefit of everyone?

THE CONCERN THAT DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA IS FRAUGHT WITH TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUES AND ADMINISTRATIVE HURDLES IS OVERBLOWN – AND HAS BEEN FOR MANY YEARS If we assess doing media business in Africa in that context, there are huge audiences to reach, major campaign objectives to be boosted, and spiked sales results to be generated. And yes, significant profits to be made, too, provided we pull together. If we practice the spirit of harambee.

Mark Knocker founded Marnox Media 20 years ago as a specialist media representation company, selling advertising space on behalf of media owners based in neighbouring countries as well as across the African continent.

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Consumers understand the value of personal data

With data privacy on everyone’s lips, marketers are turning to zero-party data to create personalised experiences for consumers, writes JOSEPHINE BUYS.

THE AGE OF PRIVACY With ZPD, compliance is not an issue as this type of data is volunteered by consumers who choose to share it “intentionally and proactively with a brand”, according to Forrester Research, which first introduced the term in 2018.

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Collecting ZPD has since become increasingly important for marketers.

This type of data can include preference centre information, purchase intentions, personal context, communication preferences and how an individual wants to be recognised by the brand.

An advantage for brands is that they can use ZPD to collect customers’ explicitly stated wants and needs to create hyper-personalised advertisements, all while enhancing the customer experience (CX).

With data privacy enforcement becoming stricter through laws such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation and our own Protection of Personal Information Act, it is crucial to start collecting ZPD immediately.

WITH ZPD, COMPLIANCE IS NOT AN ISSUE AS THIS TYPE OF DATA IS VOLUNTEERED BY CONSUMERS WHO CHOOSE TO SHARE IT ‘INTENTIONALLY AND PROACTIVELY WITH A BRAND’ Naturally, as the internet becomes more privacy-centric, the role of ZPD is growing in importance. The value of ZPD-type trusted-party data is that it is collected with customers’ explicit intent to provide it knowingly and willingly, while first-, second-, and third-party data are not given with consent.

This matters now, when data privacy concerns are at an all-time high, with increased government legislation and browser privacy features. Browsers are themediaonline.co.za

increasingly able to protect users’ privacy.

Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection, Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention and the knock-on effect of Apple’s widely publicized iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency update are all examples of Big Tech recognising their responsibility to place consumers in control of their own personal data.

While the Google-owned Chrome browser, which dominates two-thirds of the browser market, has delayed its timetable of phasing out cookies until 2023, marketers are already progressively being forced to stop relying on this kind of third-party tracking.

As Ad Age reports, the new era of privacy has created a catch-22 for marketers. Today’s consumer expects true personalisation, bespoke content and tailor-made product recommendations.

But this goal is tough to achieve when contrasted with government legislation for increased privacy, tighter data controls and the right to have information erased.

Capturing ZPD helps to resolve such a personalisation-and-privacy paradox.

NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS Forward-thinking publishers have already been building sustainable, multiplatform solutions for some time. This includes capturing ZPD by asking discovery questions at opt-in, preference centres on their digital assets for readers to choose the kind of content and cadence they prefer, and user-friendly microexperiences (such as short quizzes) to tailor readers’ online experiences. This naturally feels like a less invasive way to gather feedback. Email is also back in the spotlight (again) as a privacy-compliant

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n 2017 I wrote: “First-party data is information collected by digital publishers about their visitors’ behaviour. First-party data often includes CRM, subscription/survey and social media data. This type of owned data is often seen as more valuable as it typically has higher degrees of accuracy.”

It’s now opportune to update my opinion to predict that zero-party data (ZPD) is set to become the most valuable data set in 2022.

Consumers are increasingly wary of how personal data is collected, stored and used. Collecting consumer data to use for targeted advertising is thus becoming more challenging for brands and publishers.

The increasing prevalence of data breaches has not helped, with an estimated 18.8-billion data point breaches worldwide in the first half of 2021 alone.

These and other factors mean the data market for targeted advertising will change completely. For instance, due to the impending demise of thirdparty cookies, the type of cross-site tracking we are used to – the automatic background transmitting of customer data to advertisers via pixels – is no longer viable. The balance has shifted from invasive tracking and re-marketing to a more enlightened approach for customer interaction. Enter ZPD.

PUBLISHING OVERVIEW

communication method, as personalised content can be tailored effectively according to ZPD. By adopting a method of integrating results to create a more accurate picture of customer and audience segments, brands can be assured that ZPD is a highly effective, non-invasive market research tool. Combining ZPD with first-party data equates to tailored product recommendations and an enriched experience for existing and new customers.

Josephine Buys

While I believe in the value of first-party data, it’s clear the power lies in combining it with ZPD and integrating with existing systems to further enhance the data and add deeper insights. In addition, by aligning content and marketing strategy with overall customer data, while clearly communicating this value exchange, the omnichannel experience is enhanced for customer benefit.

PRO TIPS • What would you love to know about your customers that you don’t know from your first-party data?

• Is there information you genuinely need to know that would help you provide a better customer experience (and of course sell more)?

• How will you reward trust? Perhaps with a better website experience (for example, customers shaping their own preference centres), access to content, recommendations, or discounts. Be sure to use a value proposition throughout the marketing messaging to attract customers as ZPD prospects.

• Make sure your ZPD is compliant by design, not afterthought.

• Assuring customers they will have more control over their personal data (e.g. knowing where the data will be stored) engenders trust, making it clear that personal data will be used thoughtfully, with enhanced CX benefits as the result.

• Consumer data should be stored neatly and efficiently on an easily accessible platform for download by individuals.

• Data opt-in questions should be crafted with care.

These represent not only the first important step in a customer’s journey, but also a once-off opportunity to gain the richest amount of information with the least number of questions.

• It’s important not to overwhelm customers, especially with irrelevant questions. Always maintain a careful balance between getting enough information to improve customer experience and keeping the interaction friction-free.

• Keep a transparent ZPD collection process simple and clear from the start. Using the principle of triple transparency: Make it clear when (1) collecting (2) utilising and (3) letting customers change their ZPD.

COMBINING ZPD WITH FIRST-PARTY DATA EQUATES TO TAILORED PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS AND AN ENRICHED EXPERIENCE FOR EXISTING AND NEW CUSTOMERS POWER TO THE PEOPLE MEANS POWER TO THE BRAND By giving customers their power back and allowing them to create a more personalised experience online while being involved in developing their own experience, you can make them feel involved with a brand in an active way.

This leads to a feeling of loyalty.

So, there you have it. While ZPD is set to be a major buzzword in marketing this year, remember the broader strategic context. ZPD elements alone won’t solve bigger customer acquisition challenges.

It must be understood that they form just one layer of an effective consumer acquisition strategy, which should include data-powered personalisation for optimum media performance.

Media and marketing pioneer Josephine Buys (neé Swainbank) has always been at the forefront of change in the advertising and media landscape. Embracing a variety of industries and platforms, from publishing and entertainment to heading up Africa’s only IAB, Buys continues to drive digital transformation in ad land, consulting with publishers, agencies and brands.

themediaonline.co.za

T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 25

PARTNER CONTENT

Cutting the clutter around content

Creating the right message is one thing, but understanding how messages are received and how they should be curated will ensure that your content has meaning and value

What exactly is content?

From the late 2000s, the word seems to have taken on a slightly new meaning with the concept mostly used in the context of media and, by the late 2010s, having something to do with influencers on social media.

Content marketing, according to the Content Marketing Institute, could therefore be understood as a “strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

content to prospects and customers to help them solve problems or enrich their lives.

Radio is a brilliant marketing choice as it not only provides broadcast advertising and all its benefits, but also digital advertising with its targeting abilities, experiential marketing, influence or endorsement capabilities, and, through the use of technology, it can harness valuable real-time consumer insights.

This highly engaged audience is primed to receive brand messages to remain top of mind and to respond to call-to-action advertising.

Promotions have worked so well on OFM that advertisers have had to pull campaigns because they ran out of stock much earlier than anticipated.

However, in a highly competitive market, your message may get lost among the other 30-second spots. Moving beyond ad breaks can give a brand more “direct” access to potential customers. And, radio has been providing content marketing for decades.

Furthermore, to reach your target audience with the desired effect, you need to look at how the information you want to convey will be curated, filtering only what is important to them and translating it into a “language” that they understand. This will create meaning that has value for them, as well as the advertiser.

The Joyride on OFM with Nico, Aaron, Nikki and Jay-Bee

CONSUMER INSIGHTS AND THE POWER OF RADIO Instead of pitching products or services, advertisers provide relevant and useful 26 i T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

themediaonline.co.za

TRUST THE VARIOUS RADIO BRANDS TO KNOW THEIR AUDIENCES WELL ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND HOW MESSAGES AND EXECUTIONS SHOULD BE TWEAKED TO LEVERAGE SUFFICIENT RESPONSE TO YOUR INVESTMENT IN LARGER REACH

But be warned, one size does not fit all.

Only campaigns that relay universal truths with simple executions can succeed as “blanket” or national campaigns. Trust the various radio brands to know their audiences well enough to understand how messages and executions should be tweaked to leverage sufficient response to your investment in larger reach.

Even worse than being an order-taker is not knowing the menu – selling what doesn’t exist and then being unable to provide a return on investment.

At OFM, we believe foremost in not only providing, but also creating value. Like a personal trainer, we work with our clients to ensure the most favourable outcome. It won’t always be easy, there will be “robust discussions”, but we will continue to guide and encourage. We never give up. Your dream is our dream.

If it’s just about the bottom line and lining pockets, rather opt for a “frigid” medium that does not provide a direct point of contact between a brand and an existing or potential customer.

This is sponsored content.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

M

ovie buffs are sure to remember the quote, “If you build it, they will come” from Kevin Costner’s 1989 film, Field of Dreams, or the later reference in the iconic 1993 Wayne’s World 2: “If you book them, they will come”. However, many would agree that these so-called “spray-and-pray” tactics are best left confined to the world of fantasy.

If the fundamentals of marketing have not changed – find out what people want, give it to them, and tell them you’ve given it to them – then how come there is still so much “clutter” when generating and marketing content?

Media and marketing constantly deliver new buzzwords. For instance, one thinks of terms such as “big data”, “sentiment analysis”, “SEO”, and then words like “conversions”, “engagement”, “organic” and even “content” that have taken on new meanings in an ever-evolving media marketing landscape.

RADIO

Beating radio’s drum

Although there are always challenges to face and important questions to be asked, TIM ZUNCKEL finds that South African radio is in a good space in 2022.

B

eats have always added a lot of value to the radio business. From a bass-heavy club banger to usher in the weekend right down to the gentle heartbeat of every listener, different kinds of beats have the power to add an additional layer of emotion to what we do. You might go so far as to say that our existence as a connectioninducing medium is tied to these beats.

The same goes for getting the business of radio right, especially so during a global pandemic and in the age of diversifying audio. So how have we been doing in this regard?

BEYOND ALWAYS-ON Two years on from the first lockdown, the South African radio industry has kept itself alive and growing thanks to the swift response to the challenges brought on by the pandemic. In the wake of high levels of uncertainty, radio has stood strong and reclaimed its stake as a viable partner to both audiences and advertisers. It has put its hand up and said “We’re here”, ready to be a constant in people’s lives.

This goes beyond just being a medium that is always on and available. Radio content has adapted as the pandemic has changed, acting as a vital source of information, educational resource and companion to people who have felt isolated or are in mourning. Some of the same remains in 2022: it continues to be a tenacious, robust and valuable resource, especially for brands looking to use it to continue tapping into their target audiences.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

LOOMING THREATS TO THE BUSINESS That said, there are definite threats to the radio business too. Questions around whether or not the money is going to run out, or where the next revenue stream is going to come from, are hot on the lips of leadership teams.

Tim Zunckel

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T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 27

PRESENTERS NEED TO BE ABLE TO GRASP THE CONCEPT OF BROADCASTING WHILE HAVING AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE BROADER MEDIA ENVIRONMENT It’s good to remember that radio has always been bankable from a commercial perspective. The pandemic has led to many stations studying their audiences a lot more intensively than in the past, conducting their own research, and sharing their findings with their clients and – where appropriate – with the industry itself. This has set them up much better for answering the earlier questions and for making highly considered decisions. It’s also worth noting that the second Infinite Dial study from Edison Research, which looks at local patterns and consumption habits for all things audio, is on the way too.

Its mere existence signals that there is great interest in audio and radio in Africa.

Having access to reliable listenership figures helps with making better decisions too. After not getting new Broadcast Research Council RAMS figures to work from during lockdown, stations are once again able to measure their listenership relative to their competitors. This is a positive development and we do have obvious winners already. Sure, there are always going to be issues and criticisms around numbers of this nature. The change of methodology also means we can’t compare old figures to new ones.

However, the bottom line is that it’s good to know that there is once again an industry standard for measuring active listenership that can be used in discussions with potential advertisers.

THE COMMERCIAL RADIO LANDSCAPE Before diving into the state of commercial radio in 2022, we would be remiss not to ask what’s happened to The Beat and Rhythm FM. Despite ICASA rulings and promises made by shareholders and licensees, neither station is on the air. This means that audiences remain underserved in the Eastern Cape and Free State, where these licences were issued.

Although these have been ongoing issues for a great number of years, it’s a good time to ask where the buck stops and the beat starts. If these stations aren’t broadcasting, there must be 28 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

bigger problems at work, and listeners are the ones losing out as a result.

Line-up changes at commercial stations have been as commonplace as ever in the industry over the last 12 months. This shows that management teams are working hard to get the right mix of presenters to hook their audiences at the right times, in order to deliver value for clients. The metric for what makes a good line-up is fast changing across several stations.

There are different approaches to how stations choose their talent, always taking into account how influential said talent is beyond the radio landscape.

Presenters need to be able to grasp the concept of broadcasting while having an understanding of the broader media environment. We’re doing a good job of finding people who understand this and letting go of those who don’t.

Something we’re not doing so well at the commercial radio level is getting the most out of programmatic advertising, an approach to advertiser management that uses automated technology for media buying. At maximum capacity, it should help divert resources away from digital ad campaign management, freeing up time for brainstorming and excellent content creation. We simply haven’t done enough yet to embrace it fully. It speaks to what radio is really good at: agility and speed. There’s also money to be made here. Those who are giving it a go already, actively learning from their missteps and spotting new opportunities, are bound to reap the rewards over the next year.

SIGNS OF LIFE AT THE SABC No annual review of the South African radio industry would be complete without a glance in the direction of the public broadcaster. In contrast to previous years, the SABC should be commended for the efforts they have made and the steps they have taken to turn themselves around. It’s always going to be challenging to make an assessment around whether the restructuring process was the right call. It’s also always going to be easy themediaonline.co.za

to throw stones, purely because of the size of the organisation. They have generated some momentum and they are trying to be more relevant to their audiences, while better managing the spaces they hold. With such a mammoth operation, transformation isn’t going to happen overnight.

That said, it’s obvious that a somewhat lacklustre attitude in many areas of the SABC is still corroding their progress. It isn’t viable to have radio stations without key staff for more than two to three months at a time.

When you’re going on upwards of 18 months, it is simply unacceptable from a business perspective. Agencies aren’t able to sell to stations where there is nobody to initiate and direct campaigns.

Acting positions don’t encourage professional relationship development either. Introducing business unit managers was a good idea in theory, but are these simply station managers with new titles? Only time will tell, and we look forward to seeing what this means for the SABC from a revenue and listenership perspective.

TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INDUSTRY We’ve been talking about DAB+ for a long time and it continued to be a hot topic last year for panellists at Radio Days Africa too. The same questions still remain: What is its potential, and does it have a future in South Africa? While I’d love to have concrete answers for both, the reality is that it’s unclear what is happening with these conversations at higher levels. Frankly, it feels like things have gone a little quiet. Traditional broadcast groups want to capitalise on this, but my view is that they might be trying to keep everyone else out and indirectly stalling the process as a result.

In reality, the DAB+ opportunity goes beyond just the radio industry. It holds great promise for all parties that are interested in the digital space and tapping into underserved communities.

Nevertheless, I’m unsure about us approaching this opportunity with only the bottom line of the business in mind.

Although it’s an important aspect, there is a greater social opportunity with this technology to empower communities across the country.

RADIO

A COMMUNITY RADIO UPDATE I’ve always been fond of community radio’s ability to uplift listeners in a highly targeted way. Much has stayed the same this past year, although there are noteworthy observations to discuss. Most significantly, many community stations have been hard hit financially, and the sector deserves to be congratulated for operating under very difficult circumstances.

Commercial stations have the infrastructure to stay on the air.

Community stations have had to go the extra mile to do so, while also grappling with accurate reporting around campaigns, as well as answering questions about their potential for longterm sustainability. These stations have been able to shine by adopting a view of grassroots education and information, while consistently sharing Covid-19 updates too.

There is definitely an upswing in the amount of money being spent in the sector for infrastructure development, coupled with what seems to be more interest from a government perspective through agencies such as the Media Development and Diversity Agency.

This is a sign of promise for the years to come, although the sceptic in me still asks if building a free studio without making long-tern provision for training is a good thing, especially in the poorer parts of the country.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUDIO-ONLY TECH SEGMENTS Over the past year, technology has continued to change much of how our industry operates. The growth of the audio-only aspects of big tech platforms (such as Twitter Spaces, TikTok and updates at Instagram) has been an interesting experiment so far. As radio broadcasters, we’ve traditionally owned the audio space exclusively, but things are changing fast. We should remember that anything that enables us to use the power of audio or voice is a great thing.

All that these platforms are doing is allowing for more opportunity for us to play in a space in which we’re already highly skilled.

From a revenue perspective, we’re only scratching the surface of what tech can do for us. Podcasting is one space where this is obvious. It’s estimated

that 19-million people in South Africa will be listening to a podcast by 2024. Early adopters that are taking time to learn more now are already reaping better financial rewards. A blended approach incorporating podcasting, traditional radio broadcasting and digital audio could lay a foundation for great things in the future.

2022: THE GOLDEN AGE OF DIVERSIFYING AUDIO In an age of quickly diversifying audio, the radio business has a great opportunity to flourish. One could even go so far as to call it a golden age of audio that’s busy unfolding at the moment.

The fact that great content always wins remains true. Organisations that understand the value of investing in this alongside the right talent are going to set themselves apart from the rest. The reality is that we still need people to

BOTS CAN’T CREATE TOP-LEVEL, ENGAGING CONTENT; UNIQUE IDEAS ARE UNIQUE TO PEOPLE make stuff. Bots can’t create top-level, engaging content; unique ideas are unique to people. So the more unique people we have on air, the more unique ideas will get across to listeners. That’s a good business decision that benefits advertisers too.

Radio is in a healthy space in 2022.

If there’s a rhythm, we’ll happily continue to be its beat.

Tim Zunckel is the regional media business advisor for Sub-Saharan Africa at Internews.

He is an audio ambassador, trainer, creative and media mentor. He writes in his personal capacity and can be found on all popular platforms @timzunckel.

DS

N STAL BRA A O C E S OU

POWERH

lists Specia Market es c n - Main ie d or Au t - Superi gemen or Enga - Superi

Get in touch with our Account Managers for bespoke media solutions to reach our engaged audiences and grow your business. #BusinessReimagined connect@ghmediagroup.co.za

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THE GOOD MORNING BREAKFAST. Wake up with The Good Morning Breakfast, weekdays 06:0009:00, on OFM, the sound of your life! Shandor, Margaret and Sam get you ready to rise and shine on Bloemfontein’s favourite radio station* with Bloemfontein’s favourite radio show*, hosted by Bloemfontein’s favourite radio presenter*. Listen live at ofm.co.za or on our free mobile and desktop apps.

*Bloemfontein Courant Best of Bloemfontein Readers’ Choice Awards 2021

OFM is Central South Africa’s premier commercial radio The station serves the influential SEM 7-10 market with a footprint across the Free State, Northern Cape, Southern Gauteng and North West. The brand is synonymous with the people of Central South Africa and covers the full spectrum of listeners: from urban youngsters to retired pensioners, from working moms and dads to successful professionals, from rural communities to agricultural producers. As such, OFM agricultural programme, Agri news twice a day, entertainment and sports features.

MEDIA SALES

Beat it: Agility, innovation and transformation Brands and agencies with a forward-thinking, adaptable mindset have weathered the pandemic much better, says CANDY DEMPERS.

Candy Dempers

I

n 1982, a young Michael Jackson wrote and recorded ‘Beat It’ in his home studio. Eventually released as the third single from his now-timeless Thriller album, the track quite literally veered off the beaten track. A departure from the conventional pop he was known and loved for, its rock influences stunned music lovers all over the world, resulting in one of the best-selling, most-recognised songs of all time.

The song’s famous “No one wants to be defeated” line can be applied specifically to the attitude that most business owners have had to adopt over the last two years, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic making many pre-2020 business models and practices irrelevant.

The word ‘thriller’ is an apt description for what companies

have gone through. It’s not all bad news, however. These last two years have also stimulated great innovation and out-ofthe-box thinking, especially in the fasttransforming South African media sector.

COVID-19’S IMPACT ON MARKETING AND ADVERTISING It’s no secret that the onset of Covid-19 came at a time when the advertising and marketing industry was already in the process of reviewing its budgets with a fine-tooth comb. Things were already much tighter than usual, with clients doing whatever they could to turn every cent.

Then as soon as the pandemic hit, things really ground to a halt – fast. Budget taps started running dry, which signalled the first signs in the decline of tactical campaigns. Revenue streams from in-store activations and venue-based events were quickly replaced with smaller, more tactical online opportunities.

Thankfully, once the shock of the first lockdown wore off, the industry pulled itself together, realising that despite the global pandemic, not everything had to stop. Forward-thinking leadership teams realised they simply needed to become more flexible. This was a call to pivot and rethink essential in-house resources and the way they were being distributed.

A process of repositioning and restructuring followed with agencies redefining roles to maintain cash flow and complement a remote working environment. The pandemic was now formally calling for agility, creativity and 32 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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IMAGE: SUPPLIED

COVID-19 WAS A CALL TO PIVOT AND RETHINK ESSENTIAL IN-HOUSE RESOURCES AND THE WAY THEY WERE BEING DISTRIBUTED

MEDIA SALES

innovation – precisely what the “thriller” of these times will be remembered for by the marketing and advertising industry in years to come.

ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE PACK Organisations that already had an agile approach to their business models when Covid-19 struck in March 2020 had a significant head start when it came to transforming their operations, and were able to move ahead of their competitors quickly. Some set the bar and led the way for others. There had been a need for change for some time, and those that got there early have continued to do well over the last 12 months.

Specialist agencies such as MediaHeads 360 were quick off the blocks and ready to face the challenges presented by the pandemic, mostly thanks to being well positioned to adapt right from the first whispers of a possible lockdown. Key to this were the credible relationships built across the industry that we were able to leverage.

These opened new ways (and platforms) to monetise campaigns in what was fast becoming a wildly different advertising climate.

When airtime booking opportunities on radio became less frequent, bespoke agencies were able to create authentic conversations for their clients, mostly because they had developed real, oneon-one relationships with their networks in the preceding years. Conversations around money ended up being easier, media partner collaborations were as seamless as possible, and at the end of the day there was a mutual understanding of having to make it work equally on both sides.

CHANGING WAYS Still having to operate alongside the pandemic in the last year, brands have continuously been charged with changing their ways of thinking and doing. They’ve essentially had to fill marketing gaps wherever possible and appropriate,

BRANDS THAT HAVE MADE A POINT OF ADAPTING THEIR CAMPAIGNS TO COINCIDE WITH THE FAST-CHANGING NATURE OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR HAVE ALSO SET THEMSELVES UP BETTER FOR POTENTIAL SUCCESS

they did before. Highly targeted marketing campaigns – especially those taking into account the way consumer shopping and general consumption habits have changed – have brought success for businesses in a variety of sectors.

You might even go so far as to call these (early) e-commerce-optimised brands the lead actors of the commercial ‘thriller’ that has been the last two years.

WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS while also considering what they could practically do within the ‘new normal’ advertising landscape.

This is a space where smaller agencies have been able to step up their game too. Bespoke agencies have begun to walk an entirely new path with their client rosters, not only to ensure that they continue to stay front of mind with consumers, but also to allow them to tap into new advertising channels that might have popped up as a result of technological innovation.

Who can forget the early days of the pandemic, when webinars and Zoom conferences were all the rage? Agencies with a finger on the pulse of rapidly changing tech, along with fresh ideas for how to leverage databases and new platforms for marketing purposes, got to see their clients making headway in spite of the broader economic challenges posed by the pandemic at that moment.

ADAPTING TO CHANGING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR Brands that have made a point of adapting their campaigns to coincide with the fast-changing nature of consumer behaviour have also set themselves up better for potential success. They have quickly realised that there are entirely new rules of engagement to account for and factor into their broader marketing strategies.

In the trial and error of executing new campaigns during the pandemic, these brands may have picked up that they don’t have to spend as much now as

In spite of all the challenges presented

by Covid-19, it’s great to have witnessed the way that sparks have flown between digitally transformed businesses and bespoke agencies that have not only been attuned to their own needs, but have also educated themselves about each other’s needs too. The same goes for the needs of the actual marketing platforms that their collaborative campaigns have been run on.

Part of the role MediaHeads 360 plays is to work with both client and platform in sculpting an engaging creative that benefits both parties.

As we look ahead to the remainder of 2022, it’s clear that the media sector is far from giving up. Even though some have been faster to adapt than others, change has been accepted across the board. With the privilege of hindsight, most agencies now have a much better understanding of how the pandemic has affected their operational model, the well-being of their team, as well as the level of agility and innovation they must bring to each client in order to keep growing.

With the ‘beat it’ mindset in tow, things can only continue to transform for the better.

A sales and marketing specialist of 23 years, Candy Dempers’ first love was radio, and bringing brands and platforms together. She’s expanded into television and digital media, where she heads up the team at MediaHeads360, ensuring brands captivate consumers through amplified messaging and activated ideas.

AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT

A new frontier in radio audience measurement Leveraging both external and internal data can yield invaluable insights into what listeners want, writes MIMI KESARIS.

Mimi Kesaris

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

A

fter a transparent and robust process in appointing the new Radio Audience Measurement Survey (RAMS) service provider, the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa recently released the first set of RAMS data after much anticipation. The absence of an industry currency for the past 18 months has been challenging, with the ‘new dawn’ ushering in a future-proof and innovative methodology that bodes well for the future.

It’s still early days, with the diary for the period April to August 2021 drawn from 15 000 out of an annual sample of 36 000 respondents, but it’s a starting point. As the sample grows, so will stability in the data, with a level of volatility expected as RAMS builds towards a 12-month rolling sample.

The change from computer-assisted personal interviews to computer-assised telephonic interviews (CATI) and moving from a seven-day leave behind diary to a day-after-recall methodology has been well documented, so I won’t delve into that. A welcome inclusion to the RAMS CATI questionnaire is insight regarding the switching of stations with reasons for tuning out.

Something to look forward to is the 4 000-respondent online panel that will augment the 36 000 annual CATI sample 2022. This panel could be used to address the challenges around the Protection of Personal Information Act and recruitment of 15-17 year olds, due to the difficulty experienced in obtaining parental consent.

Its unique value proposition, however, will be a data set that not only measures radio listening but also a plethora of media including audio on demand, traffic across website URLs and social media channels, with TV included for good measure. For the first time, programmers, marketers, media planners and advertisers will have a holistic view of audience behaviour and time spent engaging as opposed to solely time spent listening.

Being able to overlay and measure the consumption of different media types could be exciting or daunting, depending on your adaptability to the ever-changing media landscape. If you’re wondering how this will be done, a panellist will download

an app and link to their phone with the requisite permissions provided for their user activity to be tracked 24/7 via the backend.

This is an innovative and positive step forward from the personal people meter technology that only tracks audio.

LISTENER INSIGHTS Back to the present, the inaugural Ipsos RAMS Amplify release saw Gagasi FM retain its position as the number one regional commercial radio station in the country by virtue of its past-seven-day (P7D) audience delivery of 1 624 000 listeners.

Gagasi’s primary audience of young black adults from KwaZulu-Natal is consistent with prior RAMS data, with 40% of the total age 25-34 and 654 000 listeners tuning in on an almost daily basis (six-to-seven days a week). The increase in the station’s P7D audience is supported by the growth across its owned media channels, which have often acted as a proxy to show the efficacy of the Gagasi FM brand in the absence of RAMS.

HAVING EMBARKED ON OUR PROPRIETARY DATA-GENERATION JOURNEY IN 2016, GAGASI’S ABILITY TO GENERATE CONSUMER INSIGHTS WAS WELL ENTRENCHED WHEN RAMS WAS SUSPENDED IN MARCH 2020 themediaonline.co.za

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ENGAGEMENT METRICS TO MEASURE THE RELEVANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF CONTENT AND CAMPAIGNS INTEGRATED BETWEEN ON-AIR AND DIGITAL ARE CRUCIAL

Having embarked on a proprietary data-generation journey in 2016, Gagasi’s ability to generate consumer insights was well entrenched when RAMS was suspended in March 2020. Zero- and first-party aggregated data has and will continue to inform decisions from a B2C and B2B perspective, with capacity having morphed into a standalone consumer insights department to generate insights at scale. With RAMS now a pivot augmented by proprietary data, leveraging a highly engaged Gagasi FM audience will result in an enhanced 360-degree omnichannel value proposition heading into the future.

For example, look at the insights in graph 1 from questions regarding Black Friday that were included in Gagasi’s Consumer Survey held in September (n=997).

Of the 84% or 838 respondents interested in Black Friday, the item types in graph 2 below were what they were on the look-out for.

We know that cash is king when it comes to competition prizes, but what is the next-best thing? Airtime or data would come to mind first for many.

However, 40% of the 194 respondents in a September survey (see graph 3) chose shopping vouchers as the next-best option after cash, which

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE BLACK FRIDAY SPECIALS IN NOVEMBER? Count

Percent

Yes

Answer

838

84,05%

No

159

15,95%

Total

997

100%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1

WHAT DO YOU MOSTLY BUY DURING BLACK FRIDAY? Answer

Count

Percent

Nothing

13

1,55%

265

31,62%

Appliances Perfumes

15

1,79%

Clothes

179

21,36%

Electronics

105

12,53%

Food

142

16,95%

Furniture

36

4,3%

Children’s items

81

9,67%

2

0,24%

Other

20%

doesn’t come as a surprise during these tough economic times.

In its October music survey (see graph 4), Gagasi asked respondents about their expected radio consumption for the upcoming festive season compared to the rest of the year (n=196).

Over and above the various forms of research conducted, Gagasi FM’s app has also become a rich source of data and analytics since its launch two years ago.

To date, 94 000 people have downloaded the app, with 70 000 registered users reflecting an impressive 74% conversion rate. Of the registered users, 60 200 have push notifications enabled with targeted messaging a click away. Advertiser billboards on the landing page and prerolls to the audio stream are some of the digital solutions available to clients, either as part of a bigger campaign or as a stand-alone option if budget is limited.

Measurable metrics include but are not limited to standard streaming, audio on demand, time spent engaging, and tracking engagement across the stand-alone show channel communities. It’s worth noting that 68% of total streams are from outside of KwaZulu-Natal (the majority from Gauteng), with reach extending beyond our borders.

UNDERSTANDING ENGAGEMENT

40%

2

Engagement metrics to measure the relevance and effectiveness of content and campaigns integrated between on-air and digital are crucial. In an age where broadcasters compete for a share of attention fragmented like never before, it’s critical that ROI is supported by data.

RAMS provides a macro view of the lay of the land, while digital metrics are

WHAT PRIZE OTHER THAN CASH, WOULD YOU ENTER A RADIO STATION COMPETITION FOR? Pick one

WHAT ARE YOUR RADIO LISTENING HABITS OVER THE FESTIVE SEASON COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE YEAR? I listen to MORE radio over the festive

Gift/Hampers: 12,95%

65,31%

I listen to LESS radio over the festive

Bulk Airtime/ Date: 7,77%

4,08%

Same amount of time spent listening, just different shows

VIP Event entry: 5,70%

17,86%

Nothing changes, listen the same amount and to the same shows

12,76% 0

10

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Scholarship/ Bursary: 25,91% 20

30

40

50

60

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70

3

4

Other: 1,04%

Mall/ Online Shopping vouchers: 39,90%

Exclusive radio station merchandise (T-Shirts, Hoodies etc:): 6,74%

AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT

real-time success measures. Advertisers under pressure to deliver in a tough economic environment demand a measurable ROI on campaigns. Stations

that can deliver on this while being able to share meaningful and accurate data quickly and effectively set themselves apart in a highly competitive market.

Below are some of the widgets Gagasi used to track the efficacy of the social media component of campaigns, be it programming or client related.

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT ACROSS OWNED SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS P30D

ENGAGEMENT BREAKDOWN ACROSS OWNED SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS P30D

TOP THEMES P30D (INCLUDING HASHTAGS, KEYWORDS AND EMOJIS) CAN BE CAMPAIGN SPECIFIC

Radio as a microcosm of a fluid and ever-evolving media landscape requires the agility to be able to adapt to change.

Its death knell has been constantly sounded since the first commercial radio broadcast in 1920, yet it has weathered the storm, adapted and evolved into what it is today: a media business with an array of components leveraged to enhance the audience experience.

SENTIMENT KEY DRIVERS P30D ACROSS EARNED, OWNED OR PAID SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Previously head of programming, Mimi Kesaris became head of consumer insights and technology at Gagasi FM in 2021. He began his career in radio as a weekend DJ on P4 Radio Durban and stayed in various capacities until it was relaunched as Gagasi FM in 2006.

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T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 37

AUDIO STRATEGY

Take advantage of the audio revolution Technology and the pandemic have created an opportunity for brands to reach audiences through audio like never before, writes JOHN WALLS.

ENGAGEMENT IS ADVANTAGE So how does your business take advantage? By developing an audio strategy. As with any marketing strategy, there are two key questions to answer: How do I access all those ears and how do I engage them?

Radio has always been the master of engagement. We love our presenters and stations; we trust them and connect with them. Podcasting is probably even more 38 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

podcast as they drive home and at gym through music streaming. The good news is that this is very possible to do, even though the digital audio landscape can appear rather daunting.

There are some challenges. South African radio has never really been bought as an audience-buy based on cost per thousand (CPT). Digital audio is already sold on a CPT basis, so radio needs to follow suit if we are to harness the power of integrated audio. The only way for audio to compete with TV and display digital is to apply the same metrics and accountability that they do.

John Walls

engaging – 60% of listeners reported taking action after hearing an ad in a podcast (Nielsen Scarborough 2021).

When you advertise on audio, talk to the listener in the same way the presenters talk to them – as their trusted friend. Don’t shout at them, don’t bore them. Make your 30-second ads entertaining. Develop a sonic identity for your brand and achieve instant listener recognition. Create your own branded podcast. Pay the presenter to endorse your product on air and through platforms such as Instagram or TikTok.

DEFINE YOUR MARKET Before you engage the listener, you need to access them, which is the other pillar of an audio strategy. Define your target market and then reach as many of them as possible as often as possible no matter what they’re listening to. Catch them in the morning on radio, through a themediaonline.co.za

RADIO AND DIGITAL AUDIO LISTENING EXPLODED WORLDWIDE DURING COVID-19 AND IT APPEARS THE BUMP IS PERMANENT That issue aside, there’s a great opportunity for companies with early adopter mindsets to gain an advantage by developing an audio strategy now. Most significant media consumption shifts that we’ve seen in the past tend to be ignored until they can no longer be. Then they mushroom and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

With 30 years’ experience in creating radio solutions for marketers, John Walls created a leading independent specialist radio and audio agency, Ultimate Media, which has worked with nearly all of South Africa’s top brands over the last 11 years.

Facebook and Twitter: @UltimateMediaZA, Instagram: @UltimateMedia_ZA, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/ company/ultimate-media

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

T

he audio revolution has become an indisputable consumer trend – and the statistics back it up.

Eighty-two percent of South Africans listen to radio every day and of those, 28% also stream music and 19% listen to a podcast daily (Broadcast Research Council of South Africa Radio Audience Measurement Survey). Over 8-million South Africans stream content through Spotify. The doomsayers have got it wrong. Digital audio is not going to cannibalise radio; the cake has expanded.

More listening options mean more listening, simple as that.

What caused this explosion in listening? Technology and lockdown.

A proliferation of audio tech including smart speakers, earbuds and Bluetooth speakers has greatly simplified accessibility. Lockdown, meanwhile, saw people turn to radio for comfort and connectedness, and to podcasts to expand their horizons. The omnipresence of Zoom led to serious screen fatigue so people chose to give their eyes a rest by using their ears. Radio and digital audio listening exploded worldwide during Covid-19 and it appears the bump is permanent. The UK has just seen radio listening and radio advertising both reach all-time highs (Radiocentre).

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Khaya is then thrust into a seedy world of sex, drugs and tender fraud, now that he is forced to pay back the money his brother evidently stole from his boss. Will he agree to be a sex worker and make big bucks at The Black Door to save up for their bus dream ... or will he suffer the same fate as his late brother?

What happens in the dark, will be revealed in the light.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ITS HISTORY, THE BHENGU FAMILY RUNS THE RISK OF BEING A FAMILY DIVIDED

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Left: Khaya as Zamani Mbhatha, Right: Mam Rebecca as Linda Sebenzo

KHAYA IS THEN THRUST INTO A SEEDY WORLD OF SEX, DRUGS AND TENDER FRAUD, NOW THAT HE IS FORCED TO PAY BACK THE MONEY HIS BROTHER EVIDENTLY STOLE FROM HIS BOSS

Jailoshini as Nirupa

Raphael as Zithulele

Sandile as Phakade

The mighty oil barons of KwaZulu-Natal, the Bhengu family’s future hangs by a delicate thread. Since the death of the patriarch, Zimele Bhengu, the question of ascendancy has been a sensitive one – and one best left alone. The discovery of natural gas on family land in Umbumbulu brings this diplomacy to an abrupt end.

Divisions are drawn between Zithulele and Nkululeko, both legitimate successors in their own right, forcing the Bhengu matriarchs, Mandlovu and MaZulu, to choose sides. This life-changing discovery threatens to destroy something the Bhengu family has long sought to protect – its unity. For the first time in its history, the Bhengu family runs the risk of being a family divided.

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Brenda Mhlongo as KaMadonsela

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T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 i 39

THE GIFT & THE CURSE

With a Dangerous Dream

TELEVISION NEWS

Covering Covid-19 showed our true potential In the face of great upheaval and adversity, THABILE NGWATO saw the Newzroom Afrika team rise to the occasion.

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hen the Covid-19 pandemic hit, reporting on it was both an enormous responsibility and an opportunity to show what we could do.

People struggling to make sense of what was happening turned to news media for information they could trust, and Newzroom Afrika’s audience share grew almost overnight.

Thabile Ngwato

IN IT TOGETHER

RAPID ADAPTATIONS We learned a lot in those early days about adapting fast to new situations, as lockdown regulations changed from week Thabile Ngwato is the co-founder of Ngwato Nkosi Holdings, which wholly owns Africa’s fastest-growing and independently owned 24-hour news channel, Newzroom Afrika. With a background as reporter, producer and anchor, she currently runs the operations of the channel as CEO, a proud first for a South African woman.

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to week, or staff fell ill or had to isolate, yet our duty to be on air at all times remained constant. We created a special slot in our programming for Covid-19 news and analysis, giving viewers a daily snapshot of the latest developments.

We found ways to minimise the need for staff to be on site. Instead of arriving at the studio for diary meetings before heading off on stories, our journalists had virtual diary conferences, went straight from home to the story, and filed remotely.

We found that we could do more with less by taking full advantage of the technology we had. These are efficiencies we will explore further to future-proof the business. themediaonline.co.za

Communication was critical to this team spirit and maintaining morale. We made sure our people had everything they needed to be safe, that they knew we had a plan, and that they could see and speak to the leadership at all times. The simple reassurance that we were all in it together made a big difference.

We also increased our employee wellness support and extended it to family members to ensure people had the counselling and support they needed.

It has made all the difference and will be a continuing focus.

From the beginning, we made a clear commitment that no one would lose their job or face a salary cut. The fact that we have kept this promise, in an industry where jobs were under threat, is a testament to the robustness of our business model, despite the large unanticipated costs associated with managing Covid-19.

THE SIMPLE REASSURANCE THAT WE WERE ALL IN IT TOGETHER MADE A BIG DIFFERENCE Newzroom Afrika has grown in leaps and bounds over the almost three years of our existence, and so have our people.

It’s been inspiring to discover that we are capable of so much more than we realised, all thanks to the passion of team 405.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

WE FOUND THAT WE COULD DO MORE WITH LESS BY TAKING FULL ADVANTAGE OF THE TECHNOLOGY WE HAD The trick since then has been to make sure we retain those viewers by continuing to be a source of credible information and relevant analysis.

Fortunately, we were better prepared than most. Since it is our job to know what is happening before anyone else, we had kept track of developments in the rest of the world, ordered PPE and put business-continuity plans in place long before the lockdown was announced in South Africa.

We found that being a lean operation made us more agile and adaptable.

Being a tight-knit team meant people supported each other; for example, we had desk producers putting their hands up to cover for journalists in the field if they were off sick or isolating.

NEWS TECH

Modernising the newsroom

The SABC is on a journey to transform its legacy assets and newsroom technology, writes LUNGILE BINZA.

S

ABC News is ranked among the top industry leaders and the most trusted news brands in South Africa, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021.

This success can largely be attributed to its partnership with the SABC’s technology division, which drives its technological enablement and advancement. Even though SABC News has its own technology news resources and operators, most of the news systems, vehicles, camera equipment, and studio equipment are supplied and maintained by the division.

SABC News has been successful at delivering events of national, continental and global significance to South African audiences, including political rallies, speeches of national importance, local and national elections, and funerals of former presidents and other critical people.

Many of these projects have been led by the technology division, working closely with news and current affairs to ensure strong technological infrastructure and operational excellence across radio, TV and digital platforms.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

ENABLING DIGITAL NEWS The digital enablement of the news and current affairs systems, facilities, and content is in progress. Having existed for more than 85 years, the SABC owns a library of legacy content that must be preserved, has workflows and infrastructure that must be enhanced, and critical news facilities that must deliver optimally.

The SABC has embarked on a process to digitise all its legacy content, with 166 842 hours of content completed so far. Of the 300 000 hours of remaining content, 180 000 belong to the news and current affairs division, as illustrated in the table above right.

TAPE FORMAT

EXPECTED HOURS OF CONTENT TO PRESERVE

1-inch C-format

20 000 hours (final 20k for TV)

Betacam SP

120 000 hours (100k for TV and 20k for TV news)

DV/DVCAM SP/LP

10 000 hours (10k for TV news)

DVCPRO

150 000 hours (150k for TV news)

These formats will be converted to those that can be played in the digital playout systems. Ordinarily, this would be a four-year project due to the limitations of most conversion technologies, which cannot digitise more than 50 000 hours per annum. Nonetheless, the news content is targeted for completion in the first two years.

NEWS DIGITAL WORKFLOWS AND INFRASTRUCTURE Technology, news and current affairs have embarked on a digitalisation journey for our outdated workflows and playout systems. This will see the news production system, newsroom computer system, and the branding and graphic playout system all being enhanced to meet the latest digital demands.

Internally, these projects are commonly

Lungile Binza

themediaonline.co.za

referred to as the triplets, and they will be completed by the end of the first quarter of the 2022/23 fiscal year (June 22).

MODERNISING NEWS FACILITIES The news production facilities are of critical importance to SABC News’ success. For this reason, the technology team has embarked on an upgrade of all news studios, provision of the operational news studio production cameras, and the replacement of news studio 10 and studio 12 mixer consoles. All these initiatives are at advanced internal approval stages and should be concluded by the end of 2022.

There are numerous projects underway to enhance SABC News’ offering through technology. As such, SABC News remains tightly aligned with technology to ensure that news content is delivered in the most accessible and sustainable fashion.

Initiatives are conceived and driven together with the aim of fulfilling the SABC’s public mandate and reaffirming the independence and impartiality of our news.

Lungile Binza is the group executive for technology at the SABC. Previously, he worked as a technology executive for banking and financial institutions, as well as a manufacturing company. He holds two master’s degrees, in Information Systems and Business Administration, and is currently finalising his PhD in Artificial Intelligence.

T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 43

Making all our voices heard

T

he unique diversity and culture of each market means Paramount’s approach, culturally and through legislation, differs from country to country and market to market.

Our approach is truly a global integration.

In our business, understanding different cultures and the legislation of each market is a major contributor to driving impactful content and positive change. Our many iconic brands and evolving platforms – from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET to Smithsonian, Paramount+ and Pluto TV – appeal to and reflect an extraordinarily diverse array of audiences globally.

We prioritise cultural education as a crucial requirement in the current climate, and encourage employees and industry to expand creative boundaries, while also operating embracing language, traditions and customs to have a positive and meaningful impact on society.

THE WAY GROUPS AND IDENTITIES ARE PORTRAYED IN TV SHOWS AND MOVIES INFLUENCES HOW THEY ARE PERCEIVED IN LIFE We are vigilant with regards to the territories’ socioeconomic challenges and varied legislature, as well as our responsibility to work closely with these markets to initiate change. While some markets have open constitutions that spearhead freedom, in other markets we need to respect the regulatory requirements around what content can be aired.

REFLECTING ME In partnership with our Office of Global Inclusion, the employee-led race and equity taskforce whose mandate is to 44 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

Paramount International knows that to be the best creators and storytellers, our company must reflect, celebrate and elevate the diversity of its audiences, which span over 5 000+ ethnic groups and 2 000 languages, writes FATHIMA BECKMANN.

ensure employees voices are heard with actionable impact when it comes to belonging, we recently launched a new global research study, ‘Reflecting Me’, on representation in TV shows and movies. Reflecting Me surveyed more than 15 000 people aged 13 to 49 in 15 countries including South Africa, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland.

The study revealed a desire for authentic representation and the importance of getting it right. The results have been incredibly inspiring and affirming, showing that diversity and representation on screen and off are a big part of this and should be part of the conversation.

Our research explored multiple aspects of diversity, encompassing ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexuality, disability and more. Almost eight in 10 people globally (78%) believe it is important that TV shows and movies offer diverse representation of lots of different groups and identities. This sentiment is even stronger among people with mixed heritage (85%), marginalised ethnic groups (86%) and black people (91%).

However, many do not see lives like their own reflected in entertainment.

Among those who feel poorly represented, 69% attribute this at least in part to their appearance – their body type, physical demeanour or dress. People of colour are four times more likely to feel poorly represented because they don’t see enough people with their skin colour or tone. Two in five people who feel poorly represented and have a physical disability say they don’t see enough people with their body type; a similar percentage of gender-nonconforming people share this sentiment. themediaonline.co.za

On-screen representation has an impact on perceptions in the real world.

Most of our global respondents (85%) believe that the way groups and identities are portrayed in TV shows and movies influences how they are perceived in life, showing that representation has the power to do both harm and good.

Poor representation leaves people feeling defeated and distanced. In fact, almost two in five of those who feel poorly represented say it makes them feel unimportant, ignored or disappointed.

This sense of alienation takes a profound toll, affecting their self-esteem and confidence, sense of belonging and opportunities in life.

ELEVATING NEW VOICES Good representation, on the other hand, can incite positive change. Among those who say they’ve become more positive towards a certain group compared to five years ago, the majority said that media representation and celebrity acceptance contributed the most to this change – more than news coverage, laws, or the opinions of friends and family.

Globally, 79% agree that there needs to be more diversity in TV shows and movies. This rises to 83% among people who consider themselves part of an under-represented group.

Audiences are also calling for more to be done to improve diversity off screen, recognising that this in turn has a positive impact on what they see on screen.

We’ve made consistent progress through a number of commitments centred on our belief that we can use our power as storytellers to transform the way people see themselves and each other.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

From our global expansion of BET’s Content for Change, to CBS’s targets for black, indigenous and people of colour representation in its writers’ rooms, to the work of Nickelodeon to support our communities of kids, we are focused on programmes that elevate underrepresented voices, and using our content and platforms to combat hate and bias.

We have activated new partnerships, invested deeply in existing relationships, and – together with our employees – worked to create more inclusive content, and raise industry standards when it comes to social and racial justice. We’ve launched new content and pipeline initiatives that aim to inject equity into our hiring process, expanded access for emerging talent, and supported creators and leaders who reflect the diversity of all our audiences.

Our ‘No diversity, no commission’ policy spans 180 countries as the measure designed to help promote diversity both on screen and behind the scenes on international networks including MTV and Comedy Central. The policy requires production companies to adhere to diversity guidelines before budgets are signed off and productions are approved to begin. This approach ensures that we are both reflecting our audience and elevating new, diverse and creative voices.

We focused on MTV’s values and solidarity, and the EMAs as a global music celebration for all. The campaign reached 4-billion people globally, with an ad value of R467-million, a powerful impact in driving education, awareness and content for meaningful change.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Just as this year began, we made a bold announcement to the world as we transitioned from Paramount to Paramount Global. This vision is our commitment to turning streaming into a sustainable business for the future, an exciting milestone in the history of our company. As an iconic global company, we are inspired by our iconic global name, one that reflects the power of our content, our role as stewards of a rich heritage, and our status leaders in the future of entertainment.

This year will also see the addition of peer mentoring as well as a deeper introduction to Nickelodeon’s culture and inclusive work environment, along

Fathima Beckmann

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

AMPLIFYING LGBTQ+ CAMPAIGNS Staying on the pulse of what is crucial for our society is a continuous journey, as recently demonstrated by our 2021 MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs). In July 2021, the Hungarian government passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation restricting certain media content.

With Budapest as the host city for the 2021 MTV EMAs, we decided the show must go on, sending out a powerful message of support for the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary and around the world. We expanded our partnership with All Out, the leading global LGBTQ+ advocacy group, to amplify their campaigns fighting for equality around the world. For the first time, the MTV EMA Generation Change Award was presented in the main show and recognised five young change-makers furthering love and equality while fighting against antiLGBTQ+ hate around the world.

ULTIMATELY, WE HAVE A CRITICAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ELEVATE THE VOICES AND ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST TO OUR EMPLOYEES, AUDIENCES AND COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD with talent initiatives including a global programme called Content for Change, the long-standing Paramount Writers Mentoring Program and Directing Initiative, ViewFinder Emerging Directors Program, Nickelodeon’s Writing Program and Artist Program, BET’s Project CRE8, MTV Entertainment Group’s First Time Directors Program, and the annual Showcase aimed at developing and sustaining a pipeline of underrepresented creators.

These programmes reaffirm our commitment to ensuring an equitable and inclusive pipeline that removes barriers to entry for under-represented storytellers and continues our work to change the face of content creation.

To quote our executive vice president, global head of inclusion and executive vice president for public affairs for Nickelodeon, Marva Smalls, “Diversity without inclusion is tokenism. Everyone knows what it’s like to be invited in. It is easier framing in terms of building a culture of inclusion, not about taking seats away, it’s about adding more seats and once you are at the table allowing your voice to be activated.”

Ultimately, we have a critical responsibility to elevate the voices and issues that matter most to our employees, audiences and communities around the world, while fostering a culture of respect and belonging for all.

As vice president for global inclusion at Paramount International, Fathima Beckmann is an executive leader experienced in mobilising and inspiring multicultural teams around a common purpose and vision with social impact.

Beckmann excels in driving diversity, equity and inclusion alongside business strategy, which is partnership-led across diverse territories across the world. Twitter: @Paramountco, @FathimaBeckmann. Web: www.paramount. com/inclusion-2021/introduction.

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T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 45

Your story matters

In a period where Covid-19 has disrupted ‘normal’ business practices, content marketing has really come into its own. Why? Because it’s inherently about putting people first, says AILEEN LAMB.

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econnecting with our humanity has been a key trend of the Covid-19 era. Businesses had to support their employees, ensuring they could overcome the unique challenges of working in lockdown. Our colleagues invited us into their homes via Zoom, allowing us to get to know them on a personal level. We saw a great sense of solidarity with frontline healthcare workers and an outpouring of help for those who struggled to put food on the table in a distressed economy.

The message was clear: We’re all in this together.

Being empathetic to the lived experience of others has been the core of our new reality, and all it took was a global crisis to get us here. Over the past two years, we’ve seen the world change, and with it the way we do business. As content marketers, we were primed for this moment. Our kind of marketing has always been about people rather than product. We don’t do hard sell; we provide useful and relevant content that helps people solve their problems. When we do this for a brand, it helps them build longterm relationships with their customers.

Aileen Lamb

SHARING STORIES THAT MATTER MOST Founded in 1998, New Media was one of the pioneers of content marketing in South Africa. Today, we have more than 30 clients and provide a suite of services from strategy and insight to full content production, business intelligence, web and app development, and ROI measurement.

So what do we think makes an effective content marketing agency in 2022? Sure, financial growth, awards and work with real ROI all matter. But, as the most uncertain times in recent history came knocking, we decided it was time to fall back on our inherent humanity and pledged to do good by our people. That meant really listening to our employees 46 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

themediaonline.co.za

CONTENT MARKETING

and our clients, and doing what it took to be there for them.

All around us, people have been facing uncertainty. As storytellers, we wanted to listen intently – and then share the stories that mattered most.

Through working with our client Mediclinic, we know first-hand the impact the pandemic has had on the healthcare industry. Mediclinic employees experienced enormous challenges during the Covid-19 peaks, supporting severely ill patients under emotionally demanding conditions. To align with our client’s new circumstances, we moved from monthly planning to weekly, switching in a moment from Covid-19 education to urging consumers not to put off potentially life-saving treatments between peaks.

Meanwhile another client, AB InBev Africa, faced with multiple alcohol bans under lockdown, needed to keep their employees informed and aware of the heightened risk to their personal safety during unprecedented times. Working with the company’s enterprise risk team, we developed a campaign aimed at keeping all employees safe: on the roads, in the streets and in the breweries themselves.

These are just two examples of why, despite seeing success in the traditional metrics, what we’re most proud of is how our humanity shines through.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

OUR PURPLE PEOPLE While our employees have strived to help our clients, they’ve gone through their own hardships. When the pandemic arrived, we knew we had to be there for them more than ever, so we examined our business and how we could really put our people at the heart of it.

The pandemic has been an opportunity to reimagine work. Since March 2020, New Media has worked entirely remotely, yet we managed to show remarkable engagement statistics in our 2021 annual spirit survey. Our net promoter score was 84%, up from 81% in 2020, and 95% said they were proud to work for New Media.

Now New Media is embracing the next stage of our reality. As a creative business, we require occasional ‘face time’ to thrive. The ability to bounce thoughts off each other in real life and real time leads to great opportunities and ideas.

However, we’ve learned through frequent surveys that most of our people prefer to only come into the office occasionally.

We’ve taken this into account, while being mindful of our business objectives, and introduced a hybrid working model.

This will help us maintain our culture of collaboration while continuing to allow our people to work in the way that best suits them.

WE ALL NEED TO LISTEN BEFORE SPEAKING AND COLLABORATE ON THINGS THAT HAVE REAL IMPACT IN THE REAL WORLD TO CO-CREATE OUR FUTURE VALUES ARE A CORE PART OF HUMANITY Our values inform our words and actions, and help us reach the future we envision.

During the pandemic, we authored a new set of values collaboratively with a cross section of our people. New Media’s new values are simple and really encompass who we are and how we achieve success: 1. We show up. This is about bringing your best self to your workday. There are many factors that influence an employee’s mindset, which is why we’ve placed a huge emphasis on empathy and understanding. We’re determined to provide solid support – whether that be through our employee wellness programme or our diversity committee initiatives – so that our people can be at their best.

2. We team up. This speaks to collaboration between all teams, on all levels of the business. We don’t believe in hierarchy, silos or the ‘correct channels’.

3. We speak up. With all the changes happening globally, we realised there was a vital need to empower people across our business to be brave enough to share their experience. Accepting differing opinions leads to growth, and we want to hear what everyone has to contribute. To help with this, we introduced the companywide Purple Collab, and are continuing to explore ways to give everyone a voice, and encouraging everyone to listen first and fully.

4. We level up. When all the above is in place, that’s when people truly get the chance to shine – and our people really do. The key to improvement is a solid foundation coupled with continuous learning and development. That way, themediaonline.co.za

all you have to worry about is reaching your potential. Apart from an overall increase in our training budget in 2021, we also launched our accelerated development programme specifically aimed at advancing people of colour in the business. All 10 candidates completed this course and have bespoke development plans in place.

The next intake has just begun and we are excited to grow with them.

These are New Media’s values, but they shouldn’t be unique to our business.

They are born of the times we are living through and reflect the world we want to help build. Indeed, we all need to listen before speaking and collaborate on things that have real impact in the real world to co-create our future. Where do we find common ground and unite? This is where showing up, teaming up, speaking up and levelling up transcend the world of business and shape the world we live in.

WE ARE PROUD OF OUR BUSINESS We’ve focused on our humanity since the pandemic started, because we value our people and what they can achieve.

Throughout this period, we’ve shown significant growth with our existing clients as well as won completely new work, and we’re raking in the awards.

In October last year, New Media won four gold Eddies and Ozzies in New York for Woolworths TASTE, plus the coveted Editorial Team of the Year and Overall Excellence in Content Marketing awards.

Then, in November, we were the most successful South African agency at the International Content Marketing Awards in London, winning gold in two categories, silver in one and bronze in three. Despite operating in a volatile and uncertain business environment, it was one of our best years on record.

Why? Because our people are firmly at the centre of every single thing we do. In 2021, we stood proud on the global stage but, more than that, we focused on our humanity, supporting the people around us and telling the stories that really matter.

Aileen Lamb has more than 20 years’ experience in all aspects of UK and South African media, and was the driving force behind the digitisation of successful brands including Eat Out, VISI and Woolworths TASTE. Since taking the helm of New Media, she has led the company’s transition from custom publisher to digital content marketing agency.

T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2 I 47

Personalisation and UX are key to expanding news subscribers in Africa During a recent webinar hosted by the International News Media Association on paywalls in Africa, Dr Anderson Uvie-Emegbo asked how publishers could increase their paying customer base.

SHELLEY SEALE reports.

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any news publishers in Africa have already started on the paid content journey, putting up paywalls, launching paid subscription services, and figuring out other ways to monetise their digital assets.

“How do you increase that base of paid customers?” Dr Anderson UvieEmegbo of China Europe International Business School asked International News Media Association (INMA) members during a recent webinar.

“I really want to start a conversation.

I want to cause us to reflect.”

To begin answering that question, Uvie-Emegbo, who is based in Nigeria, looked at four major companies – Jumia, PiggyVest, Amazon Prime and The New York Times – examining the number of countries they target, their addressable market, revenue, number of customers and penetration rate.

The most interesting number to him is penetration rate, which is as follows for each company: • Jumia: 1.2% penetration of a 590-million market in 11 countries

48 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

• PiggyVest: 3.4% penetration of a 104-million market in one country • Amazon Prime: 6.8% penetration of a 2.9-billion market in two countries • The New York Times: 1.5% penetration of a 298-million market in one country “I want to give you that as a background for our conversation,” Uvie-Emegbo said, before sharing a list of the most popular paid subscription news websites in the world.

The New York Times tops the list with 7.5-million paid subscribers, followed by The Washington Post (3-million), the Wall Street Journal (2.4-million), and Game Informer (2.1 million) – all based in the United States. But rounding out the top 15, more than half of the news sites still have a paid subscriber base of less than a million. The bottom four have only around 300 000.

“The New York Times leads, but if you look at the numbers as you go down [the list], it tells a sorry state,” Uvie-Emegbo said. “You can look at how poor the numbers are as you go down, and I’m sure in Africa it wouldn’t be a very exciting story.”

INCREASING SUBSCRIBER BASE BY UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY Looking back at the question of how African publishers can increase their paid subscriber base, if a publisher has an addressable market of 10-million

(based on the penetration rates of the four companies examined earlier), that publisher should have a target of 120 000680 000 paid subscribers in 2022.

“But what are your actual subscription numbers today?” asked Uvie-Emegbo.

“As we begin to think about this question, I want us to focus not on the technologies we are deploying, but on how we can understand the way consumers behave, which is consumer psychology, and the way they want to interact with us and with our content, which is consumer sociology.”

By focusing on consumer psychology and sociology, publishers can better translate results into the tangible revenues they want to obtain. To understand this, Uvie-Emegbo introduced the concept of ‘non-customers’.

Non-customers make up the first tier of the market – people who are perhaps interested in the content and offerings but haven’t signed up as a paid subscriber yet. Or perhaps they’ve tried a trial or offer but dropped off. He described three tiers of non-customers.

• Tier 1: ‘Soon-to-be’ customers at the edge of the market and perhaps ready to buy soon.

• Tier 2: ‘Refusing’, who are aware of the offering and have the ability to pay, but decide against it.

• Tier 3: ‘Unexplored’ markets that are distant from yours.

“In our case as publishers, maybe the ‘soon to be’ are young people,”

BY FOCUSING ON CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY, PUBLISHERS CAN BETTER TRANSLATE RESULTS INTO THE TANGIBLE REVENUES THEY WANT TO OBTAIN themediaonline.co.za

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

AFRICA PAYWALLS

Uvie-Emegbo said. When looking at the apps that young people have on their phones, browsers and social media are the most heavily used at 100% or near it, while news apps represent the smallest piece of the pie, at 10% or less. “That is challenging, but in five years’ time, this is going to be better. In 10 years’ time, it’s something that we can work on.”

When it came to the second tier, the ‘refusing’ market, Uvie-Emegbo gave several reasons why people refuse to buy: • Audience engagement and management are not good enough.

• They prefer their own online communities around their topics of interest.

• Content creation versus content curation and collation (news media should do both).

• The unique value proposition is not well communicated.

With the third ‘unexplored’ tier, UvieEmegbo pointed out that news media is not the only subscription service people can choose to spend their money on. Netflix, Apple TV and Disney+ are only a few examples, and he urged INMA members to think about what lessons they can learn from these highly successful subscription models. “These markets are very fragmented. How many media organisations can I possibly subscribe to? This is the challenge that we have. One way to begin to think about this problem and address it is to begin to say: It doesn’t matter how many customers we have now. If we have people who don’t pay for our services, we can focus on something called improving customer experience.”

By improving customer experience, publishers can begin driving more conversions. To do that, companies must understand the customer journey and their expectations at each stage of that journey. They also should examine the frustrations or friction points a customer may encounter at each stage. “For me, when I go to a media platform, the key thing is personalisation,” Uvie-Emegbo said. “I don’t want to see a general home page. If that’s what matters to me and you serve me what you think is authoritative, in-depth, quality journalism, and I’m just interested in the things that are customised to me based on my interests, you’ve lost me.”

“FOR ME, WHEN I GO TO A MEDIA PLATFORM, THE KEY THING IS PERSONALISATION. I DON’T WANT TO SEE A GENERAL HOME PAGE.” – DR ANDERSON UVIE-EMEGBO MAPPING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY At each stage of the customer’s journey, the publisher must match their expectations. Uvie-Emegbo explained how news publishers can map this journey. A focus group is a great way to help teams do this, creating a map that may look something like this: • Dream: The customer is thinking about what they want.

• Select: Customer chooses which brand to go to.

• Visit: Customer visits the website.

• Register: They decide to complete registration.

• Subscribe: They subscribe to the offer.

• Use: The level of engagement and how much they consume.

• Support: Refers to any customer support the subscriber may have.

• Share: Do they tell others about it?

• Return: This is about retention.

Do they stay?

To address this and create a better user map, publishers may need to remodel and redefine the consumer journey.

At the register stage, for example, companies can look at the information they gather from users to determine if it’s the right information, too much or too little. He suggested asking users about their interests could yield valuable information.

However, this information must be utilised at the step where the consumer is actually using the product.

If interest information is collected, it must be used appropriately to deliver to the user a personalised experience. “How many news organisations in Africa can boast of having something that works this way?” he asked the audience. themediaonline.co.za

At the subscribe stage, the journey must be easy and as frictionless as possible. Crucially, payment options need to be closely addressed. Particularly in Africa, where people from different countries might be subscribing and might or might not be able to use various payment methods, offering enough ways to pay so the user is able to select one that works for them is important.

“At each of these stages, people can drop off, they can become frustrated,” said Uvie-Emegbo. “Their expectations have not been met. You need to map

Shelley Seale

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your consumer journey today and you need to redesign the right experience.”

The support stage is also critical in providing easy ways for customers to reach and get the help they need.

Uvie-Emegbo referenced Sterling Bank, which offers both traditional on-site chat as well as WhatsApp chat options.

WhatsApp is an important tool publishers can incorporate into their customer support. “WhatsApp is the most-used social media platform in [most African] countries,” Uvie-Emegbo said. “So the question is, why is WhatsApp not the dominant [support] platform in media organisations?”

At the share stage, Uvie-Emegbo suggested using a net promoter score to determine how likely a customer

is to recommend the platform to other people. He used the example of Netflix, which is constantly asking its subscribers to rate the shows they watch with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, using that information in its algorithm to adapt the content constantly to meet the user’s preferences and likes. “There are technologies for this. Are we using them?

Are we integrating them?” At the return stage, it’s all about retention and reducing the churn rate. This means publishers must revalidate their value proposition to their customers.

Uvie-Emegbo identified three types of buyers: • Inactive • Transitional • Active

“We must find a way of moving people from being visitors on our platform to registering them, from being registered users to subscribing, from being subscribers to repeat subscribers. But that means there is a lot of intention around understanding the consumer journey across all the stages – addressing the expectations and the frustrations.”

In conclusion, Uvie-Emegbo drew inspiration from a quote by the Dalai Lama, editing it to apply to news media organisations. “Give the ones you love (your customers) wings to fly (let them experience competitors if they want to), roots to come back (maintain an ongoing, healthy relationship), and reasons to stay (demonstrate how you have been loyal to them).”

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

Shelley Seale is a freelance content strategist, writer, and editor based in Austin, Texas, United States. She can be reached at srseale@gmail.com.

“WE MUST FIND A WAY OF MOVING PEOPLE FROM BEING VISITORS ON OUR PLATFORM TO REGISTERING THEM, FROM BEING REGISTERED USERS TO SUBSCRIBING, FROM BEING SUBSCRIBERS TO REPEAT SUBSCRIBERS.” – DR ANDERSON UVIE-EMEGBO

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GLOBAL NEWSPAPERS

The role of AI in the modern newsroom

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bout a year-and-a-half ago, the Germany-based consulting group Schickler approached the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) about collaborating on a research report to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) is being adopted and implemented by news publishers.

The report, AI’s Rising Role with Editing and Reader Revenue, is built around a global survey of commercial executives, editors and data specialists at news media operations. The survey features the most common use cases today for news publishers – restricted to reader revenue and editing – as we tried to gauge the current state of adoption, and the importance they place on AI within the next three years.

Attitudes are changing towards the deployment of AI in news publishing, opening up a host of potential opportunities, says the WAN-IFRA research team.

What is absolutely certain is AI and automation are clearly on the minds of publishers today. In general, more than 75% of publishers say AI will play a crucial role in the success of their business within the next three years.

Publishing has indeed come a long way with AI, even though the actual adoption rate is quite low globally compared to other industries. That is not a huge surprise. We recall when themediaonline.co.za

working on the News Automation report how Carl-Gustav Linden, a leading expert on the topic who spearheaded much of the research on that report, expressed his frustration with the way the industry was dragging its feet in adopting AI. The same message came from some of the AI providers trying to break into the news industry.

However, once that handful of publishers shows the way and the business case can be made, we’re off and running. At least that seems where we are today. What is refreshing is this is not relegated just to publishers with deep pockets, nor to the usual pioneers in the business. Small publishers all over the world are innovating, partnering and developing AI solutions for their companies .

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The virtual taboo once associated with AI as it pertains to journalism is clearly fading, as newsrooms and their editors lean into the clear benefits of automating mundane processes, which allows journalists to focus more on their core principles of creating quality content.

Moreover, as the surveys showed, the intelligence side of AI is also winning over editors and journalists as it pertains to reader revenue strategies.

A lot of analytics tools inform the newsroom about what stories are trending and when, but many of the AI tools already on the market and in practice today help to predict more accurately which stories will be read and, more importantly, which will convert and retain based on historical data around subscriptions and engagement.

“I think that [the reluctance to use AI] has completely changed, at least in our newsroom,” said Adrian Basson, editor in chief of News24, in a session dedicated to AI during WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in early December 2021. “Analytics is much smarter now than purely page views. Analytics and specifically AI tools help us to convert casual readers into subscribers and actually build a reader revenue business that tacitly has helped to increase the size of our newsroom so we can create better journalism. That is a beautiful cycle that The New York Times has championed for all of us to see: the more you invest in your journalism, through more subscriptions, the bigger your newsroom is, the better your journalism becomes.”

COLLABORATION AND CONFIDENCE

SMALL PUBLISHERS ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE INNOVATING, PARTNERING AND DEVELOPING AI SOLUTIONS FOR THEIR COMPANIES That confidence is crucial, as we have learned from even larger news groups that sometimes face internal battles with getting not only editors and journalists on board, but also their own dispersed tech teams. For example, perhaps they already developed a churn model built on not-socontemporary techniques and are reluctant to listen to a new set of specialists offering better modelling predictions. Then there is the challenge of budgeting squabbles: the data/tech team has to justify the investment in AI, but when it works and revenue increases, that is more respected (and rewarded) in the commercial teams.

With any ‘new’, game-changing technology, you need buy-in from editors alongside real champions in the newsroom to embrace the technology and show others the positive possible outcomes of such a tool and its concomitant working culture. Depending on how advanced a newsroom is in its digital transformation, there are likely to be analytics editors embedded in the newsroom already.

WAN-IFRA is the global organisation of the world’s press. Its mission is to protect the right of journalists and publishers around the world to operate independent media. It provides members with expertise and services to innovate and prosper in a digital world and perform their crucial role in society.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE REPORT Publishers banking on AI for business: Despite a slow rate of adoption, nearly 77% of publishing executives responding to the survey said AI would be important to the success of their business by 2024.

Reader revenue use cases abound: AI can help with surfacing content, placement on home pages, predicting churn, subscription propensity, automated content creation such as sports results that have a long-tail play in retention, triggers for subscriptions and dynamic paywalls.

The power of positive results: When newsrooms start to see these actions create positive results, it can have a knock-on effect of them buying into automation as a benefit as opposed to a threat. This generates more investment, whether in tools or resources.

The reality on the ground: Nearly 50% of respondents said they have not adopted AI usage thus far, 19% have implemented multiple cases and only 11% have fully implemented one case.

Core use cases identified: Most publishers have indicated that many of the key use cases associated with reader revenue and other editorial practices are planned to be in practice by 2024.

Data resource shortcoming: To reach AI goals, there needs to be a bigger commitment to overall data strategies and infrastructure, which means investment in expertise, finding champions within the organisation and getting data blueprints in order.

This is an edited version of WAN-IFRA’S report, AI’s Rising Role with Editing and Reader Revenue, with contributions from Ole Martin, Christoph Mayer, Simone Flückiger and Dean Roper.

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The key lies in collaboration, both internally and externally. Naturally, larger publishers might have in-house resources on their data teams to deploy AI tools, or they can hire those with such skill, or just work with an AI vendor more easily than a small publisher. But they should strongly consider tapping into and partnering with the vast ecosystem of start-ups, labs, universities and even other like-minded news publishers.

Regardless of the size, starting on one project that your operation can feasibly cope with but has a solid impact can lay the groundwork for successfully proving the worth of the tools, breeding confidence in both your newsroom and management.

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PARTNER CONTENT

From the desk of Dashni Dashni Vilakazi has made impressive strides in maintaining and elevating The Media Shop’s standing in the industry.

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t’s been just short of a year since The MediaShop Johannesburg welcomed its first female managing director – Dashni Vilakazi. Here are some of her observations.

Some would say the first month is the hardest, but that’s not always true. As a newbie, you will be cut a little slack. I took advantage of that and did what I needed to create an admirable impression.

After three months, I knew which rulebooks to hold dear to my heart and, more importantly, which would facilitate evolution. I gained impetus for ideas and initiatives that were already in place and those that required immediate implementation. Our team efficiently drove the itinerary into future-fit mode.

As a newcomer to the business, I had a fresh view on generating opportunities, culling bottlenecks and finding rapid solutions. I was amazed at what could be achieved simply by freshening up what was already in place. The team reassured me that if my ideas didn’t come to fruition immediately, they still had a fair chance as we collectively pushed the boundaries.

So far in my tenure in the media industry, a few facets have stood out.

VIDEO Viewers love its easy-to-digest, appealing panache, and marketers appreciate the vast return on investment it can generate.

Video creates a profound association and elicits strong emotional responses that make viewers want to share, comment, and like. It’s the winning format as we move through 2022.

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HYBRID The most used word today – the elegant movement of delivering information from online to offline and vice versa. While watching television, you can research an advertised brand immediately via a mobile device and continue along the sales funnel

I WAS AMAZED AT WHAT COULD BE ACHIEVED SIMPLY

BY FRESHENING UP WHAT WAS ALREADY IN PLACE convention for how to market to young consumers. Technology advances have made this more appealing. Marketing in the metaverse should be part of your content strategy.

BRAND’S TRADING PLATFORM

Dashni Vilakazi

to the online store or e-commerce site, all without leaving your couch.

INFLUENTIAL Influencers with acknowledged followers or ‘brand advocates’ can launch any content at the press of a button. They have built up trust with their followers over time. Their audience knows that when their trusted influencer backs a service or product, it’s for real.

METAVERSE This virtual reality space where users can interact with other users in a simulated environment is fast becoming the

We continue to invest in harmonious and constructive relationships with our clients as we delve further up the marketing funnel to place even greater importance on the end-customer’s experience of our client’s trading platform. Understanding this platform is vital to know how to attract customers as they embark on e-commerce and app trading. Nurturing relationships with our clients assures them that their business problem will be resolved by experts who can intercede to create ease of access for the end-customer on the trading platform.

CUSTOMER If this influential entity is not satisfied, the entire ecosystem of media agency and client will cease to exist. Unsatisfied customers will result in revenue and business growth challenges for both parties. Targeting and meeting customer expectations using the best media format will easily attract the right customer to the right trading platform.

This is sponsored content.

VIDEO CREATES A PROFOUND ASSOCIATION AND ELICITS STRONG EMOTIONAL RESPONSES THAT MAKE VIEWERS WANT TO SHARE, COMMENT, AND LIKE themediaonline.co.za

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SAFE BREEDS WORRIERS. BRAVE BREEDS ARRIORS.

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At Brave Group, we are many things. But safe is not one of them. Since our birth in 2010, our brave and entrepreneurial spirit has grown The Brave Group into a thriving BEE-Level 1, 63% black-owned business with 105 people across South Africa and R110+ million in revenue. Not to mention a business that embraces and implements new technologies and opportunities daily, all driven by our ethos: Great Country, Great Economy, Great Brands and Great People. So if your brand needs a passionate team who embody our core values of Show Love, Show Up, Live True, Be Brave and Stay Curious; and needs help from our Next Brave Action strategic philosophy to get to new levels – welcome to a brave new world.

bravegroup.co.za | No.1 Integrated Agency in SA, Scopen Report 2019 - 2020

OMNICHANNEL COMMUNICATION, BRAND-BUILDING AND DESIGN

INTERNAL CAMPAIGNS AND CULTURE STRATEGIES

DESIGN APPLICATION SPECIALISTS

B LD EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY FIRM

UX/UI DESIGN, E-COMM AND DEVELOPMENT

S LD YOUTH MARKETING AND MASS MARKETING

TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY, PLANNING AND BUYING

DATA-DRIVEN CAMPAIGNS TARGETING BUYERS TO DRIVE SALES, GENERATE LEADS AND INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS

The future of programmatic DOOH in South Africa

Offering the ability to roll out adaptable campaigns with a laser-sharp focus, programmatic offers a wealth of new opportunities for outdoor advertising, writes REMI DU PREEZ.

J

ust as with many other businesses and sectors reliant on consumer movement, outdoor media took a sucker punch from the initial hard lockdown. After all, what good is out of home (OOH) when consumers are firmly ensconced within their homes?

Cut to two years later, and the picture we see in South Africa is a very different one. People have returned to the metros, cities are buzzing, and festivals and sporting events are back on. For the outdoor industry, this means that our billboards and screens are once again attracting the gaze of consumers.

Throughout the pandemic, several central themes emerged that came to dominate the media and marketing arena.

THE KEY ADVANTAGE OF pDOOH FROM A MEDIA OWNER OR MARKETER’S PERSPECTIVE IS THE OPTIMISED PLANNING IT ENABLES The first was digital transformation, which accelerated at a massive pace as consumers turned to their cellphones and laptops for information and entertainment while stuck at home.

The second was flexibility, facilitated by this growing digitalisation. Particularly in the early stages of the pandemic, South Africans were required to abide by stringent rules, and marketers found themselves needing to adjust 56 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

their campaigns at the drop of a hat in accordance with this rapidly shifting landscape.

Finally, we saw a new thirst for information emerge. Why? Simply put, in uncertain times clarity is always needed, and with this came a growing demand for data that would inform and support decisions.

AND SO THE STAGE WAS SET Given these three core themes, it should then come as no surprise that digital OOH (DOOH), and specifically programmatic DOOH (pDOOH), stepped into the spotlight. ‘Programmatic’ refers to the automation of DOOH, leveraging machine learning to plan, buy, target, sell, deliver and measure advertisements on digital screens. This sees a shift towards audience-centric buys, using data to reach specific groups of consumers in real time.

In our world, we saw that DOOH advertisers needed the flexibility to step in and out of agreements when the situation on the ground changed. They also required the flexibility to change their flighting schedules on a day-today basis. Information was key, and we quickly realised that we needed real-time data to assist our clients in their decision-making.

Programmatic OOH has existed for many years but the global uptake has been limited. Historically, mature markets such as the UK and US have been slower to adopt. On the other hand, regions that are famed for their efficiency and themediaonline.co.za

embracing of cutting-edge technologies, such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan, are leading the way for the rest of the world.

I believe this disparity between developed markets has something to do with the way agencies are structured around the world. Many agencies, particularly those belonging to large global groups, are bound by red tape and subject to onerous procurement processes, which prescribe (and often limit) the way things are done and the technologies that are engaged.

While the pandemic has ignited interest and growth in pDOOH worldwide, it is fascinating to see that despite our country’s patchy internet penetration, South Africa is ahead of many developed markets in terms of realising the benefits it can bring to the marketing table.

Consider that in South Africa, DOOH currently accounts for around 20% of total OOH spend and is experiencing 25% year-on-year growth, while the first programmatic campaigns were rolled out in 2020 – and the current spend is expected to at least double over the coming year.

SOUTH AFRICA AMONG THE FASTESTGROWING pDOOH REGIONS Moreover, our global neighbours are watching and treating South Africa as a remarkable case study and success story, based on how rapidly we have embraced programmatic. Our rapid adoption and adaptation can likely be attributed to our innate agility and resilience, a

DIGITAL

Dynamic advertising enables an advertiser to be more contextually relevant by serving adverts only when certain events occur. For example, a weather trigger could activate an advert for a coffee shop when it starts to rain. The possibilities are endless – anything that has a digital footprint can be integrated into a campaign, creating another layer of relevance and excitement.

However, we need to be wary of the issues that plagued the traditional digital industry when it first introduced programmatic advertising.

Remi du Preez

EDUCATION IS CRUCIAL

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

EDUCATION IS CRUCIAL TO ENSURING THE FUTURE OF pDOOH, AND I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE ALL STAKEHOLDERS TO TAKE ON A DEGREE OF RESPONSIBILITY IN DRIVING THIS serendipitous side effect of the hurdles we have had to face over the past few years like load shedding, political and civil unrest, and a water crisis.

The key advantage of pDOOH from a media owner or marketer’s perspective is the optimised planning it enables.

We talk about DOOH as a ‘one-to-many’ medium, which refers to the large audience size it can potentially reach.

With the new tools and technologies available, we can be far more granular in terms of who that ‘many’ is, thanks to the new layers of data integrated within these platforms.

We can prove, with laser precision, whether someone came into contact with your campaign and subsequently walked into your store. Or if you’re an e-commerce business without a brick-

and-mortar shopfront, we can track whether people visited your website or downloaded your app after being exposed to your ad.

Programmatic platforms have advanced significantly, allowing deep omnichannel integrations with other digital mediums. Some can integrate cellphone tracking data, meaning it is now possible to serve an advert on a billboard and have that same ad displayed on someone’s phone when they open up their social media pages.

These new platforms allow advertisers and marketers to access billboards across a country and activate a campaign within hours, something that would historically have taken weeks of planning, with cumbersome coordination between hundreds of screen suppliers. themediaonline.co.za

Some misused programmatic buying as an opportunity to sell remnant inventory, which ultimately drove the price of internet advertising into the ground. While this has since recovered, it would be wise to learn from these mistakes.

Another threat is the lack of standardisation around audience verification. However, there are emerging technologies and integrations that could start moving us towards a global benchmark.

Slow-paced adoption could be seen as a threat too. If we miss the boat, it will set sail without us. Adoption will only rise once planners are more comfortable using the platforms, with a better understanding of when and how programmatic can be used.

Education is crucial to ensuring the future of pDOOH, and I would like to invite all stakeholders to take on a degree of responsibility in driving this. As media owners, we need to educate clients so that they understand how it works and the benefit it brings to their campaigns.

We need to educate marketers on how to engage programmatic strategically and creatively to its full potential, either as a stand-alone channel or seamlessly integrated into omnichannel roll-outs. We need to understand how we can best use programmatic to deliver truly impactful campaigns that demonstrate real return for our clients.

Remi du Preez is an integral part of Tractor Outdoor’s leadership team, occupying the role of commercial director. As one of the first individuals to introduce pDOOH to the local outdoor market, he cites his mission as making OOH more accountable through the use of innovative technology.

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PARTNER CONTENT

Wisdom and insights The changing e-commerce landscape

There is no shortage of complexity when it comes to commerce and at dentsu, we keep it simple. Therefore, we developed a clear, actionable report on e-commerce that helps brands embrace the potential of disruption in the digital economy in Africa.

E-COMMERCE COMES OF AGE The vision for commerce at dentsu is one where media investments do more than drive attention – they drive direct sales and personalisation; where every creative idea – on any channel – works harder to connect inspiration to transaction.

Customer relationship management connects data to supercharge the relationship value beyond conversation to conversion. This is total commerce.

For decades, consumers looked for sales on the shelf of retail stores, but the reality is that e-commerce has become democratised and we are seeing a convergence between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce businesses. We have observed channel after channel being made “shoppable” through social media.

The reality is that with all the product innovations we see today, shopping is occurring everywhere.

The same actions need to drive commerce behaviour. Our experience of e-commerce in Africa tells us that it is underpinned by four pillars: convenience, relevance, value, and trust. Trust is the foundational aspect and will be a key behavioural driver to propel commerce within consumer segments.

“Growing demand for convenience and safety has been the mother of invention

OUR EXPERIENCE OF E-COMMERCE IN AFRICA TELLS US THAT IT IS UNDERPINNED BY FOUR PILLARS: CONVENIENCE, RELEVANCE, VALUE, AND TRUST 58 i T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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and has helped us to overcome the ‘trust barrier’,” says Dawn Rowlands, CEO dentsu SSA.

WHY SHOULD THE WORLD TAKE NOTE? The African internet economy is one of the largest overlooked commercial and most impactful developmental opportunities of the past decade. The mobile internet is transforming life in Africa; it’s supported by growing local connectivity and mobility, and a dynamic, young urban population, the e-commerce report states. With a 28.5% compound annual growth rate of the African internet population since 2000, the internet economy is becoming even more critical for reaching and supporting the continent’s 1.3 billion people. And this number will only continue to grow.

According to the report, the projected population growth in Africa between 2020 and 2050 will rise to 87%. This presents brands with a unique opportunity to tap into an already engaged consumer base.

Looking at your present strategy and adapting it for the future will be imperative as the scramble to own the third shelf begins. To navigate a storm, you need a compass – let us be your GPS. This is sponsored content.

Scan the QR code to download the full report now.

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I

n March 2021, dentsu Africa proudly launched the dentsu wisdom series.

Our aim was to harness the talent of our African experts across our owned markets, capturing their perspectives and vast category knowledge, accompanied by the voices and opinions of external authorities, clients, authors, and academics.

The primary difference between insight and wisdom: wisdom involves a healthy dose of perspective and the ability to make sound judgments about a subject while knowledge is simply knowing.

Anyone can become knowledgeable about a subject by reading, researching, and memorising facts … wisdom is knowing when to say it.

The journey begins with a report titled, “e-commerce like never before”. In this in-depth report, we offer insights into the African e-commerce landscape and share frameworks from both global and local experts in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, among others.

The 2020 year was one of upheaval.

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted economies and businesses worldwide, leading to countless difficult situations.

However, one of the few silver linings was the forced acceleration of innovation around commerce. It’s no secret that e-commerce was rapidly expanding even before the pandemic, but with physical retail being limited or shut down entirely, many consumers turned to e-commerce, sometimes for the first time, as the only alternative. In many markets, this resulted in years of growth for e-commerce penetration in a single quarter.

FOR THE PURSUIT OF SOMETHING BETTER

Our unique understanding of the intersection of culture, content, data, and technology powers how we build brands out of every moment of connection

Born to perform.

Designed to deliver. www.iProspect.com/en/za/

PARTNER CONTENT

Building a future-proof business For more than 25 years, Primedia has been a trailblazer in the media and entertainment industry in South Africa and beyond.

P

rimedia’s broad portfolio of broadcasting and out of home assets has enabled the company to cover a variety of advertising opportunities and drive innovation within the industry.

We operate in an industry that requires an increased understanding of what our consumers want and how to provide the ultimate value and returns for advertisers. Therefore, we have invested heavily in understanding and anticipating industry trends. As a result, we have earned the reputation of being on the ball, innovative and providing tailor-made solutions that deliver the most desirable results for clients.

Changes in the media and entertainment industry have been accelerating at breakneck speed. The global pandemic has intensified this momentum, creating a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the industry. Furthermore, the lockdowns and various restrictions on people changed the way consumers interact with media and brands. In response, we had to understand our clients and be in a position to quickly adapt to new technologies and business models.

At Primedia, we pride ourselves on staying ahead of the curve.

We welcome the opportunity to channel our expertise and industry insights to improve tactics, uncover

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new technological approaches and, ultimately, provide advertisers and audiences with a more robust value perception.

Across all three of our divisions we understand, now more than ever, the importance of being a future-proof and evolution-focused business. This approach has allowed us to remain relevant in a fiercely competitive landscape over nearly three decades.

BROADCASTING With a cumulative weekly listenership of more than three million people, Primedia Broadcasting is home to some of South Africa’s most prominent media brands, and has, over the years, cultivated one of the most loyal and lucrative audiences. We are home to premium radio stations 947, 702, Kfm 94.5 and CapeTalk, as well as award-winning independent news brand Eyewitness News.

We are passionate about sharing groundbreaking, dynamic content and strive to create meaningful and sustainable relationships with our audiences. These relationships position us as an industry leader in content integration and a valuable partner in

achieving our clients’ sales objectives as our clients ingrain their brand stories into contextual conversations had by our influential storytellers.

We’ve successfully transferred and translated our strong presence in the terrestrial radio space to digital audio content creation, social media and online, which is being driven by our award-winning personalities and journalists. Our focus on digital audio became even more pronounced over the past two years as digital audio consumption during the pandemic increased among our audiences as it did globally. Notable current projects in this space include the development of various mobile audio content apps to widen our audience reach and offer another engaging advertising touchpoint.

Being agile and adaptive in a constantly changing industry requires insight, resources and talent. We can draw on a diverse group of highly talented individuals, from our on-air personalities to our programming, sales, marketing and research teams, to create innovative, robust and responsive solutions that unlock sustained value and enhanced relevance for clients.

ACROSS ALL THREE OF OUR DIVISIONS WE UNDERSTAND, NOW MORE THAN EVER, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING A FUTURE-PROOF AND EVOLUTION-FOCUSED BUSINESS

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We offer clients a holistic service that makes it easy to curate and develop relevant content that stands out and engages with the intended target audiences.

Our investment in research and big data analysis has created outstanding audience mastery. Recently released data from the Broadcast Research Council’s (BRC) Radio Audience Measurement Survey proves that our trajectory as a business is on the right track.

OUT OF HOME

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The future looks bright for out of home (OOH) advertising – a sentiment that rings particularly true for Primedia’s out of home division, Primedia Outdoor. The past decade has seen us grow in leaps and bounds through advancements in technology – primarily the emergence of digital billboards and the plethora of opportunities this medium brings.

The ease of access and immediacy of communication has brought about near-real-time advertising that allows targeted, time- and location-related OOH messaging to audiences on their path to purchase journey.

This division of Primedia has operations in nine different regions, boasting one of the largest networks of out of home assets across Africa. A holding of more than 15 000 traditional

advertising panels across South Africa and a further 4 000+ panels strategically located across the rest of Africa means we are uniquely positioned to expose brands to a far wider, international audience.

Primedia Outdoor, a leader in digital OOH solutions, has been pushing the boundaries on what is possible in the sector for several years. Our inventory of 332 digital billboards across the continent extends marketers’ reach into diverse environments with intelligent and streamlined applications, including industry-leading dynamic and programmatic capabilities, which facilitate contextual advertising that is engaging and relevant at a particular time and place.

As a company, we have kept our finger on the pulse of the outdoor space and are constantly exploring ways to enhance our digital platform and integrate it into the omnichannel offering. Brands are becoming more aware of the power of a synergistic marketing, communication and advertising approach, including the incorporation of the burgeoning digital OOH space, which has become synonymous with high-impact, memorable brand promotion.

RETAIL The global pandemic and its related lockdown restrictions have significantly

WE ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT SHARING GROUNDBREAKING, DYNAMIC CONTENT AND STRIVE TO CREATE MEANINGFUL AND SUSTAINABLE RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR AUDIENCES

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impacted consumer behaviour. It forced us to think of new ways to reach our audiences and develop better, unique ways for brands to advertise. Formerly known as Primedia Unlimited, Primedia Retail is an out of home media provider in South Africa. Launched in 2004, the company has made incredible strides to become one of the leading companies to specialise in targeted, innovative and strategic OOH solutions. Comprising five subsidiaries, we have been able to tap into one of the most diverse audiences to effectively drive brand awareness and engagement for our clients.

The company plays a vital role in bridging the digital gap in the media and advertising space. Although the global pandemic has increased online usage, a large segment of the population still interacts with our strategically placed media inventory, which remains steadfast in the post-pandemic world.

Studying consumer trends and understanding what influences these trends has allowed us to provide indispensable value to brands. Supported by our expert and results-driven talent, we have engineered a one-of-a-kind experience for consumers and brands.

This is sponsored content.

Established in 1994, Primedia is an African-focused media and advertising company that has become one of the country’s leading media and advertising houses.

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Championing the golden age of TV in Africa South Africa’s creative talent in the entertainment industry is at an all-time high, the internet has given rise to creators of African stories and audiences are in a position to stream authentic stories that resonate with them, BEN AMADASUN believes.

Ben Amadasun

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ur first original production from the African continent (made in South Africa), Queen Sono was released just before the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the entire world and audiences took to TV and streaming platforms during lockdowns.

During this time, productions came to a sudden and grinding halt as a once-thriving industry could not operate for months on end.

At the same time, Netflix was (and still is) merely at the beginning of our journey in South Africa and across the African continent, so we had to pivot in terms of our planned production and release plans. We also looked at ways to continue supporting industry workers, regardless of whether or not they were working on a Netflix production, through our Covid-19 relief fund to help below-the-line workers who found themselves without an income.

Now, heading into the third year of the pandemic, we have learned how to build our content offering for our viewers while at the same time offering more affordable and innovative ways for them to access our service. This has been done through a mobile-plan offering, optimising our downloads for offline viewing, and continuously innovating our adaptive streaming technology to bring our viewers the best possible sound and picture quality while using the least amount of data, compared with other services.

Most importantly, Netflix continues to invest heavily in the local creative community through upskilling, growing and nurturing the next generation of creatives who deserve to see their lives and stories reflected on screen.

STREAMING

With a 10% increase in internet penetration from 2015 to 2021, new talent has the opportunity to emerge. Committing to and investing in creative talent, while partnering with African content creators to bring local stories from the continent to viewers all over the world, represent the logical next step.

We’ve initiated numerous interventions to grow the sector. Other than the race for eyeballs on new content, there is a larger understanding by experienced creatives and investors that speaks to providing mutual opportunities that drive shared value for the industry and audiences.

Being part of the local creative community in Africa comes with responsibilities, in particular the need to develop the talent pipeline that gives new voices the opportunity to be heard.

A core belief at Netflix is that great stories can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere. This can already be seen through the creation of content collections available to subscribers across the continent and around the world, such as the Made in Africa, Made in South Africa and Naija on Netflix collections, which make it easier for viewers to find their next favourite African film or TV series.

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A CORE BELIEF AT NETFLIX IS THAT GREAT STORIES CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE AND BE LOVED EVERYWHERE Substantial investments have already been made in the African content space through Netflix Originals as well as the licensing of African content. Each of our productions goes a long way to supporting the economy and the local film industry. The opportunities are farreaching, impacting the lives of the entire value chain from directors and actors to stylists, make-up artists and even catering companies, thus creating a multiplier effect in the economy. Across the board, interest in South African and African stories has increased among local and international audiences, which has made investors sit up and take notice.

Our work in developing the local talent pipeline has led to the creation of the Netflix Black Creatives Empowerment Fund and the Netflix Creative Equity Scholarship Fund. These will invest in a combination of

external organisations with a strong track record of setting up under-represented communities for success in the TV and film industries, as well as bespoke Netflix programmes that will help us identify, train and provide job placement for up-andcoming talent globally. The creation of these funds also benefits students from other parts of the continent, particularly East Africa as well as West and Central Africa.

Another initiative aimed at supporting creativity and sharing authentic African culture with the world is a competition in partnership with UNESCO called African Folklore Reimagined. Africa has a rich storytelling history, with folklore tales passing traditions and values down from generation to generation. This competition invites people to reimagine their heritage and apply it to our contemporary societies. We want to find emerging filmmaking talent to bring these stories to life, on screen. Africans deserve to see themselves and their stories represented.

This is an opportunity for six winners to have their short films developed and launched on the service in 2022.

Funding up-and-coming talent is not new for us. A similar partnership with the National Film and Video Foundation in South Africa shortlisted projects and candidates for a joint film fund of R28-million. The fund provides 100% of funding for six micro-budget films, with four budgeted at R4-million and two budgeted at R6-million. We are very excited about the next step in the process after the announcement of the six films across multiple genres that will be produced.

Along with these exciting projects, we are also proud about the successful conclusion of our Episodic Writer’s Lab in partnership with the Realness Institute.

A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT Bringing best-in-class local and international stories to our audiences globally, investing in upskilling, and driving innovation, affordability, ease of access and payments in South Africa and across the continent are just some of the key focus points for us at Netflix.

We are also big on business development opportunities and partnerships with multiple industries including mobile operators, pay TV providers, internet service providers, device manufacturers, payment providers and even government agencies. themediaonline.co.za

In South Africa, Netflix partnered with South African Tourism to release the results of a cultural affinity study on how South African content on Netflix is perceived around the world. Netflix believes in the quality and global appeal of South African productions, and we contribute to the local economy not only by investing in local productions (original and licensed content), but also by bringing these unique and diverse stories to the world, increasing interest in travelling to and exploring the country.

AFRICA HAS A RICH STORYTELLING HISTORY, WITH FOLKLORE TALES PASSING TRADITIONS AND VALUES DOWN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION These investments demonstrate the long-term commitment Netflix has across the African continent to discovering new talent and helping to propel artists forward by providing access to training, mentoring and visibility on a global scale.

It also complements our growing slate of local productions, both in terms of series and films and documentaries from Africa.

We know that for the South African creative industry to reach its full potential, historically under- and misrepresented groups need to access funds, training and developmental support to unlock their potential and support the country’s efforts in reducing unemployment and poverty.

Streaming services and the internet have created a massive opportunity for creatives and content creators to tell their stories to new audiences, not only in their home country, but globally too. Those with the resources to invest in growing and nurturing the creative pipeline will reap the benefits while developing an industry for the next generation to explore their creative passions.

Ben Amadasun is the director of licensing for Africa at Netflix. He nurtures key partnerships and drives the licensing strategy across Africa. His portfolio includes sourcing local programming that is relevant for the region and acquiring global rights to shows and movies from Africa.

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The past, present and future of podcasting James Cridland

Almost two decades on from its creation, podcasting is open to listeners, content and huge growth potential, writes JAMES CRIDLAND.

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odcasting was born in July 2003, though it took more than another year for it to get a name. Nineteen years later, more than 40% of people in the US and the UK listened to podcasts in the past month, according to research from Edison Research’s The Infinite Dial.

Podcasting is expected to be a billiondollar advertising industry in the US, and globally it is nudging $1.4-billion.

FROM YOUTUBE AND SPOTIFY TO HULU AND NETFLIX, THE CONCEPT OF WAITING FOR A PROGRAMME TO START IN A BROADCAST SCHEDULE IS INCREASINGLY AN ALIEN ONE Online video has focused on a number of different platforms, with YouTube for user-generated content, and subscription content scattered around a variety of other apps and video services. In many parts of the world, households have more than one streaming video service: in Australia, as one example, many homes will have active subscriptions to Netflix, Disney+, Binge, Stan and Apple TV, each with their own catalogue of shows.

In contrast, podcasting has always been open. Technically, it’s pretty similar to the original podcast in 2003: an RSS feed with a link to an audio file. Apple’s adoption of the platform in 2005 added 64 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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some much-needed consistency, with a requirement for images and some additional detail. To Apple’s credit, they didn’t close the platform off, keeping an open directory for anyone to use.

So, unlike the world of video, whatever podcast app you use will give you almost all the podcasts out there. If you’re a fan of National Public Radio’s (NPR) news quiz, Wait Wait! Don’t Tell Me, you’ll find it on any podcast app. Downloads come direct from NPR’s audio servers, which has the benefit of allowing the broadcaster to keep accurate statistics and monitor advertising on its own services, but also has the drawback of sometimes inconsistent listening experiences, since there’s not really anyone in charge.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

IT’S NOT RADIO-STRENGTH, YET Podcasting may be popular, but it has a long way to go before it is as popular as the audio format that preceded it: live radio. Unlike podcasting’s roughly 40% weekly reach, radio still enjoys around 90% of people listening every week.

Radio has sought to benefit from podcasting by repackaging radio shows as podcasts. However, as the podcast industry matures in a given country, so the popular podcasts move away from reheated radio towards freshly prepared original content.

The future of podcasting appears to hinge on the lucky coincidence of a number of different things going on in the media. First, top 40 music is decreasing in popularity, as audiences splinter away from mass-market music toward more niche services.

The amount of speech-based audio that younger audiences listen to has significantly increased.

Second, the mobile phone has replaced the radio receiver. While listening to live radio is perfectly possible on mobile phones through apps, it’s not something that appears to interest many people. You’d expect that to be the case: it’s the most interactive device we have access to, with a beguiling colour screen and always within arm’s reach, so it makes little sense to use it to connect to an unchangeable, immutable audio stream that you can’t control.

Third, younger audiences expect on-demand content. From YouTube and Spotify to Hulu and Netflix, the concept

PODCASTING IN SOUTH AFRICA Most data will show you that podcast consumption in South Africa is currently behind countries such as the US and UK. Part of this is due to the higher price of broadband and mobile phone data in the country, which has a cooling effect on all online services.

Part of it may be the tight ownership rules for South African commercial radio companies, virtually guaranteeing a monopoly for them, though this could be seen as an opportunity for them to expand into the less regulated world of podcasting.

However, South Africa is also relatively advanced in terms of having a number of podcasting studio networks making branded podcasts, which are wholly produced for individual companies and carry advertising for them.

Former radio presenters are now making names for themselves as podcast hosts, like MacG, who is also similar to Joe Rogan in controversial subject matter.

For South African podcasts, however, perhaps the real long-term opportunities lie outside our borders.

As podcasts continue to grow everywhere, content that is popular locally could find an audience across the continent, or even further afield. Particularly for Englishlanguage shows, which have the majority of listeners, the world could be listening.

of waiting for a programme to start in a broadcast schedule is increasingly an alien one.

Podcasting, therefore, has seen significant growth, which will continue.

THE RISE OF NICHE VIEWS According to RAJAR’s Midas Audio Survey for winter 2021, headphones are now used to listen to podcasts (and their distant cousin, audiobooks) more than anything else.

Indeed, the same survey tells us that 94% of podcasts are consumed alone, themediaonline.co.za

significantly different to broadcast live radio, which is often listened to with other people.

There is also a lack of broadcast regulation on podcasts. They are still legally regulated, at least in terms of advertising law and that of libel, but since podcasts aren’t broadcast, the normal content rules that apply to radio don’t apply to them.

Thus, without regulation or overview, and knowing that they are unlikely to be overheard or commented on by others, podcasts can lead to more polarising views being given airtime.

The Joe Rogan Experience, which is a successful podcast that was exclusively licenced by Spotify for a reported threeyear contract of R1.5-billion – has benefited from being comparatively invisible, in spite of apparently attracting more than 14-million listeners per episode. The nonmass-media views on this mass-media podcast took Spotify by surprise when musicians queued up to give the platform a kicking for carrying views widely dubbed misinformation.

Rogan isn’t alone, though. If you want an easy story, just search a platform such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify for racially offensive terms or problematic subject areas. They’ll all be there, because of podcasting’s open ecosystem.

THE FUTURE Podcasting will continue to grow. It’s attractive to some companies because they can use podcasting as a content incubator and sell the IP of the shows that succeed to movie or TV producers (or books, or live tours).

The attraction for others is that audio can be easy to make: all you need is a microphone and some free editing software, and you can be on the same platform, and in the same app, as Joe Rogan or CliffCentral.

Podcasting’s history has been good to it and to audio in general. While we’ll see more big money in podcasting in future, that may just be hiding the true, grassroots nature of the platform.

James Cridland is editor of Podnews.net, a daily email briefing about podcasting and on-demand audio. He has worked in radio and audio since 1989, in the UK, North America and Europe, and now lives in Australia. Twitter: @jamescridland

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Shifting gears and making the leap Media agencies have had to wrestle with a huge amount of disruption, but the ones that’ve done so successfully are coming out both more technologically savvy and more human, write LINDILE NDUBE and BIANCA SIDELSKY.

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s humanity’s shell shock from the pandemic wanes slightly and some form of normality settles in, all industries are contending with the challenge of how to respond to rapid, exponential transformation of modern life by technology.

Worldwide adoption of smartphones has given rise to mobile connectivity and a scaled ability for ordinary people to share ideas with global audiences in real time. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the disruption of business services by intelligent systems are creating the perfect storm for a paralysing state of flux.

For good measure, throw the Covid-19 pandemic into the mix and you have a recipe for unforeseen changes in human history at an unparalleled pace.

Even though some companies have transitioned to this new reality well, the majority are still grappling with drastic changes that most business leaders thought they would only have to deal with 10 years from now. As an example: “Mastercard estimates that e-commerce made up roughly $1 out of every $5 spent on retail in 2020, up from $1 out of every $7 in 2019; while Facebook found that four in 10 consumers were buying things online that they used to in-store.” (Source: WARC Marketer’s Toolkit 2022.)

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Bianca Sidelsky

Lindile Ndube

THE MARKETING INDUSTRY IS ALREADY LOOKING INWARD AND TACKLING CRITICAL ISSUES, SUCH AS THE IMPACT OF THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY’S CARBON FOOTPRINT AND IMPACT ON THE PLANET One of the key trends of ‘today’ (because we don’t call it ‘the new normal’ any more) is this idea of people shifting away from unconscious consumption, and expecting a lot more from businesses in terms of purpose, wellness and making the world a better place. The marketing industry is already looking inward and tackling critical issues, such as the impact of the advertising industry’s carbon footprint and impact on the planet. themediaonline.co.za

Last year, Purpose Disruptors reported that the advertising industry in the UK could be adding as much as 28% to the annual carbon footprint of every person.

SeenThis found that media’s operating infrastructure is on par with that of the aviation industry when it comes to the emission of greenhouse gases. In other words, the creation of online content is hugely damaging to the environment.

What we can deduce from this is that people don’t just want us to appear to be

MEDIA AGENCY SOUTH AFRICA

better; they expect us to do better. Some agencies have embarked on environmental sustainability journeys. PHD Germany launched PHD Zero, an industry-first initiative aimed at reducing the carbon impact of developing, producing, and running advertising to real net-zero.

The complexities facing us are inspiring organisations to explore using advertising for good. Hollard, for example, started their Big Ads For Small Businesses initiative, awarding billboards to small businesses that otherwise could not afford them.

In the aftermath of last July’s violent riots, Primedia Broadcasting and CliffCentral came to the rescue of Alex FM by giving a donation and space after the community radio station was vandalised.

Meanwhile, other media owners such as JCDecaux and brands such as Nando’s, in collaboration with their communities, cleaned up areas affected by the unrest.

The MTN Group also donated R363-million to support the African Union’s Covid-19 vaccination programme.

THE POWER OF PURPOSE This type of activity is an indicator of players in the industry taking up shared responsibility in social issues and using their positions of influence for the greater good of humanity. What makes this trend even more interesting is that 58% of global marketers surveyed by WARC last year agreed on the importance of distinction when it comes to sustainability and purpose initiatives. Purpose is also a key driver of growth, as we saw in Zeno Group’s ground-breaking Strength of Purpose global study, which showed (across more than 75 global brands) that consumers responded favourably to brands with strong purpose. The study revealed that if a brand had strong purpose, consumers were four times more likely to purchase from it and 4.5 times more likely to advocate for it to their friends and family. These odds are too significant for any savvy marketer to overlook.

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THE RIGHT TOOLS The role of agencies today is way more nuanced than pre-Covid-19 times, because we need to integrate seamlessly with our business partners and help them make the necessary leap/s to keep up with a rapidly changing consumer

and media landscape. Therefore, it is important for agencies to invest in technology and build tools that give partners access to data. Moreover, these tools should empower them to hold transformative conversations with their internal stakeholders and get their teams aligned with consumer shifts happening on the ground.

At PHD, we collaborated with our marketing data science partner, Annalect, and built an award-winning productivity platform called Omni Studio. This operating system helps us aggregate all our data intelligence and nurture tech-driven collaboration with our partners at a global scale. Similarly, Wavemaker rolled out its own AI-based, multi-audience planning platform, Maximize, which promises to help planners target fragmented audiences end to end.

What these developments entrench is the notion that data makes our media agency world go round. Hence, agencies serious about future-proofing themselves need to invest in tools that can formulate integrated insights from multiple data touchpoints.

TALLYING THE TOLL Over and above tech investments, organisations need to understand the psychological toll that the pandemic has had on employees. For example, working from home hinders the formation of bonds that can only be achieved when teammates interact in person. This also presents opportunity for businesses to explore creative ways of creating happy work cultures.

In response, PHD South Africa has embarked on numerous initiatives to build culture and develop people, with a number of new practices adopted to help with overall health and wellness: • To connect better, we schedule a few early-morning socially distanced walks through some of Johannesburg’s most beautiful outdoor parks. This gives new recruits the chance to have watercooler chat in nature with some of the most senior staff and feel #proudtobephd.

• This pandemic has highlighted the importance of being human, so all our staff get an extra day of leave on their birthdays to help mitigate themediaonline.co.za

OVER AND ABOVE TECH INVESTMENTS, ORGANISATIONS NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TOLL THAT THE PANDEMIC HAS HAD ON EMPLOYEES the working at home/sleeping at work quandary and to celebrate being away from screens. This is over and above the office being closed in the festive week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. • Mental wellness has taken centre stage via a mindfulness coach, who has equipped all staff with basic meditation tools to aid personal development and transformation.

• ICAS International, a leading global provider of employee assistance programmes, health, and well-being services has been available on various platforms, with far more regular updates shared.

• During lockdown, our diverse employees complied two local Cook eBooks sharing our best-kept cultural heritage recipes and quips, a tasty and light complement to all the thought leadership work published in Shift in 2021.

People are a business’s most important asset, which is why it’s important for our industry to develop talent and breed world-class media experts constantly.

Ultimately, growth in today’s economy will be decided by an agency’s ability to synergise technology, data and talent.

Technology will improve efficiencies, data will improve the quality of decisionmaking and talent will help steer the business in the right direction.

Lindile Ndube is an applied intelligence practitioner, systems thinker, and a skilled complex problem solver. He works as a strategic lead at PHD. Bianca Sidelsky is a creative, analytical and strategically minded media specialist with more than 18 years’ experience.

She is strategy and client lead at PHD Johannesburg. Facebook: www.facebook.com/ PHDMediaSouthAfrica, Twitter: twitter.com/ phdsouthafrica, Instagram: www.instagram. com/phdworldwide/, web: www.phdmedia. com/south-africa/about-us/.

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Opportunities abound Innovation, evolution and integration are some of the exciting opportunities that the recovering media and advertising industry can embrace, writes KARABO SONGO and DASHNI VILAKAZI

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ike an infant that has just woken from an almost full slumber, there is boundless energy in the advertising industry as we emerge from the forced inactivity of the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no doubt that the pandemic has caused havoc across all industries, at home and abroad.

The Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2021–2025, released by professional services firm PWC, recorded a 3.8% year-on-year drop in total revenue in 2020 in global entertainment and media. This was the most significant decline in revenue in the report’s history. It has sadly led to irreversible casualties and permanent negative changes in the wider media industry, many well documented and some the subject of outrage as well as debate.

TIME FOR GROWTH Some trends emerging during this period have presented opportunities for media agencies to re-evaluate and re-organise the skills needed to evolve and adapt to consumers’ changing habits and behaviours. New rules have been presented for agencies to navigate as they continue to thrive or be defeated. As the saying goes, “never waste a good crisis”. Now is the time for growth for those that move to adapt and bolster the best decision-making.

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Dashni Vilakazi The Media Shop Managing Director

The evolution of media as not only a tool for delivery, but also an extension of creativity is an area that is seeing exciting growth. In the same way that April Greiman embraced technology as an extension of graphic design, or pioneers in the music industry took up Apple innovations and design as an extension of connection in music, so the role of media has changed! The megatrend histories are now written in media first because technology has become the indispensable launchpad for all communications to consumers.

Media is no longer just a channel for a great idea; it now forms part and parcel of the creative and contributes to the successful execution. A recent billboard by financial services company Nedbank fitted with mini wind turbines to drive home the message of sustainability is a great illustration. This is a typical functional strategic partnership that ticks the boxes for all stakeholders.

Clients are becoming more interested in exploring this area, and agencies would do well to stretch the boundaries of their creativity to deliver campaigns that push the limits of what is possible with the various mediums.

DEEPENING RESEARCH INTO WHERE CUSTOMERS FIND INFORMATION ON PRODUCTS AND HOW THEY ARE INFLUENCED

BY ADVOCACY IN THE DIGITAL REALM, FOR EXAMPLE, THE EFFECT OF NANO INFLUENCERS, IS REQUIRED

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AS THESE NEW OPPORTUNITIES EMERGE, AGENCIES NEED TO CRAFT THE ESTABLISHED ARCHITECTURE SO THAT THEY CAN OFFER MORE SKILLS AS A WAY OF RETENTION, AND ALSO FOR CAREER FULFILMENT This type of innovation in the media space is happening in other areas as well, requiring agencies to track the performance of campaigns in a lively and comprehensive manner.

Not only do traditional metrics such as the Net Promoter Score need to become precocious, but we also need to visualise better and train organisations across the board to sweat their assets and deliver a robust ROI. More richness is required in agencies’ reporting, particularly as the digital side of our industry grows in leaps and bounds. The fourth edition of Agency Scope Report 2021/22 reported a 7.6% growth in digital marketing and advertising in the last three years.

Deepening research into where customers find information on products and how they are influenced by advocacy in the digital realm, for example, the effect of nano influencers, is required. This approach can be strengthened when the marketing team has a similar reporting KPI, making it effective and beneficial for all stakeholders.

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CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION Career development of media professionals and transforming the industry are issues that need attention. Talent was listed as one of the challenges for creative agencies in the Agency Scope Report 2021/2022, and while it was not the biggest issue, it is one of concern and one that, if resolved, can rake up revenue easily.

There is an exodus of media professionals who consider a career specialisation in pursuing

Karabo Songo, Brave Group Group CEO

opportunities in the digital space. This is both an opportunity and a challenge, with more and more professionals seeking the shiny new digital-only space rather than the holistic hybrid strategic planning space, which includes both traditional and digital media planning.

As these new opportunities emerge, agencies need to craft the established architecture so that they can offer more skills as a way of retention, and also for career fulfilment.

We not only need to expand the skill scope of agency talent, but also assess the over-reliance on assuming

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that the chief marketing officer (CMO) fully understands the product, brand and objectives. This can create frustration when there is a skill and hierarchy mismatch between an agency’s specialised skills and the CMO’s tenure.

The approach to integration in the agency environment has been interesting, with mixed results.

Previously, there was a move towards dismantling integration by clients, with different agencies servicing certain specialist areas such as consumer public relations, digital, among others. This is reflected in the Agency Scope Report 2021/22, which showed that 51.5% of respondents (up from 47%) prefer the collaboration model, with more mentioning working with an integrated agency. This shows that some clients prefer a one-stop shop in an effort to save costs. Integration is returning, and the specialist approach, with its strengths, is a consideration for many clients.

While clients invest in improving their in-house production capabilities to save costs, this may prove costly in the long term. Running an advertising media business is an expert skill honed over a long time.

While in-house production has its place, it cannot replace the quality of seasoned management with many years of training (and blood and sweat).

No industry is without its problems, but there are still more opportunities than anything else in the media and advertising industry.

The past two years have been adequately eventful to promote a meta-agency model that will represent a durable collective agency culture that operates intelligently and can adapt to changing situations rapidly.

This is sponsored content.

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Evolving to meet the future POOVEN MOONSAMY sees readjustments and revival on the horizon for media agencies across the continent.

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e have all been affected by the coronavirus over the past three years, from salary and job cuts to being directly infected with the virus and lives lost across the African continent.

The corporate environment, especially in South Africa, has been hit hard, with many long-standing businesses closing their doors. Pre-Covid-19 we were starting to see GDP in many countries across the continent becoming stable and growing. 2020 started with a bang before the sharp declines of March/April.

However, with the strong entrepreneurial spirit of our people, markets are starting to bounce back.

Pooven Moonsamy

ACROSS THE AFRICAN CONTINENT, WE SAW CLIENTS CUTTING CAMPAIGNS AND MOVING BUDGETS AROUND, WITH THE NET IMPACT BEING AD SPEND DROPPING BY 6% Some markets across the continent have not endured strict lockdown restrictions such as those experiences across Asia, Europe, the US and South Africa. Curfewbased restrictions have allowed the open markets to continue trading to the best of their ability … and winning.

There is no doubt agencies had to rethink their approach.

Across the African continent, we saw clients cutting campaigns and moving 70 I T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 2

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budgets around, with the net impact being ad spend dropping by 6%. Traditional media saw the bulk of the decline while digital media channels took budget upswings.

This has in turn forced CEOs, management teams and media owners to rethink how they were positioned for future success and what delivery looked like for clients.

ADD TO CART, CLICK Under lockdown restrictions we saw a massive swing towards online purchasing.

Brick-and-mortar stores had to act fast to make sure their products were available in the digital sphere. In South Africa alone, there was a 37% increase in e-commerce penetration in 2021 and this is forecast to grow another 7% over the next two years. Yes, it was the Covid-19 social-interaction fears that drove consumers to online shopping, but now more and more are seeing the convenience of it and increasing their purchase frequency.

At OMG, many of our clients’ brands are strongly entrenched within the e-commerce space.

Our e-commerce framework looks beyond the retail

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landing purchase page and focuses on the entire consumer journey to the digital shelf – from behind the shelf (strategy and operations), at the shelf (product pages), to the shelf (within the e-commerce environment) and most importantly beyond the shelf (full funnel integration).

Massive digital adoption and e-commerce focus have brought the relevance of data front and centre, along with the ownership of first-party and thirdparty data. The use of cookies is almost a thing of the past, with the General Data Protection Regulation coming into effect. Measurement is becoming a bigger challenge, so brands and agencies need to think outside the box to ensure they can bring relevant messaging to consumers within the attention economy.

Innovative and creative thinking must be embraced to deliver optimal solutions.

UNDER LOCKDOWN RESTRICTIONS WE SAW A MASSIVE SWING TOWARDS ONLINE PURCHASING Getting closer to consumers and finding alternative ways to collect data is critical but we also need to be cognisant that the consumer may request a reward in exchange for premium data. At OMG, we have combined our research, data and analytics teams to bring together all data sources, so that we can ensure clients are making the most of the data that is available across all our markets. In Africa this is critical, as ‘safe’ environments are few and far between.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

MEASUREMENT IS KEY OMG has observed a decline in research, or the updating thereof, due to budgets being cut and industry bodies being unable to fund updated measurement studies. This has, to a degree, driven spend from television and radio to digital.

Through OMG’s omni-studio tool we can ensure reach across video/audio/

television, thus allowing us to migrate client spend to the correct channel without losing measurability.

This has driven an increased interest in programmatic (secure walled gardens) as opposed to open exchanges. Most global brands require us to ensure brand safety and viewability, which is difficult on the African continent (outside of South Africa), so a secure platform is gold. Should programmatic out of home (OOH) grow through digital OOH, we will see a massive shift into this area, as we know most people on the continent are spending the majority of their time on the go and are exposed to OOH daily, which aids purchase intent decisions.

We’re in the process of building an end-to-end solution for our clients spanning tech, talent and data to ensure process efficiency. This will free up more time to spend on strategic intent and optimisation of campaigns to allow KPI delivery, return on investment, and new technology innovation, which was somewhat lost during Covid-19.

WHAT IS NORMAL ANY MORE? The word ‘pitch’ sends shivers through agency corridors, especially when it’s for a client who has been with you for several years. Building trusted and longterm relationships with clients is critical for the future. Relationships where the team spends time with clients and key stakeholders within the business have taken a massive knock with everyone working from home and losing collaboration opportunities.

Even today as we slowly return to normality, the Covid-19 fear lingers on and there are hesitations about face-to-face meetings. Being vaccinated helps take us that step forward and, as the vaccine rollouts continue, we will surely soon be able to welcome clients into our offices again and restart that much-needed one-on-one collaboration.

The above is all well and good on paper but is only possible with the support of a strong team.

AS THE VACCINE ROLL-OUTS CONTINUE, WE WILL SURELY SOON BE ABLE TO WELCOME CLIENTS INTO OUR OFFICES AGAIN AND RESTART THAT MUCH-NEEDED ONE-ON-ONE COLLABORATION We have seen a mass exodus within various agencies during Covid-19.

Growing existing talent and attracting new talent to join the company and the industry at large is a key focus at OMG, part of our drive to becoming a full performance-focused agency.

Covid-19 allowed us to upskill and train staff across mediums in an effort to help them become agnostic strategists and planners, and to fully immerse them in technology requirements and back-end measurement metrics.

This was done through regional training sessions, with regular check-ins to allow collaboration between teams and across the continent, ensuring our African staff become one unified force. These sessions will continue to ensure that all staff are in the best position to perform at their peak. Through this approach, we have a clear sense of where our business and the wider media industry need to go, thus allowing us to answer client requirements.

Restrictions are starting to lift, and life is slowly starting to return to normal. With the worst of the pandemic behind us and the glimpse of a brighter future ahead, agencies need to evolve continually to stay ahead of the game.

Pooven Moonsamy has been in the industry since 1999. After 13 years on the agency side, he joined SAB in procurement across Africa. In 2018, he was promoted to global sourcing director for Anheuser-Busch InBev – Media based in Switzerland. He joined the OMG family in 2021 with a key focus on growing clientele across Africa.

bravegroup.co.za | No.1 Integrated Agency in SA, Scopen Report 2019 - 2020.

Top 5 Most Attractive Independent Creative Agencies to work for in 2022 (Scopen 2022).

2022 and beyond

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t’s been almost two years since we were told to stay at home and become ‘mute on’ savvy. We have all lost a lot during this time, but we have sure grown in leaps and bounds through digitisation of what we do on a daily basis and how media has developed during this time.

For marketers wanting to reach consumers on the go between their commitments, the opportunities abound as audiences are proving to be more mobile than ever. With caution and consideration included in the out of home (OOH) purchase decision, we should see positive growth for the medium in 2022.

The rebound of OOH has aligned with and been fuelled by digitisation.

Dentsu reports a forecasted growth of 12%, MAGNA 11%, and GroupM 15%, positioning OOH as the second-fastestgrowing medium to digital yet again, on the back of a positive 2021.

In 2021 we saw a growth in demand for both digital OOH (DOOH) and traditional platforms, but the former was the driving force. Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) became more prevalent as we saw an increase in media owners subscribing to supply-side platforms offering inventory through automated technologies.

In South Africa over the past year, media owners have seen an increase in OOH demand as publicly available audience movement resources, including Primedia Outdoor’s very own Prime(i), have seen audiences and their mobility across major OOH environments grow, signalling a move of people from their homes into the outdoors.

Marketers highlighted DOOH buying flexibility as essential in 2021.

In 2022, South Africa will follow

South African OOH audiences have returned en masse as they step out of their Covid-19 cocoons, kick off their fluffy slippers and slip into more formal attire for the workplace, says JORJA WILKINS.

Jorja Wilkins

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the global trends of DOOH revenue growth as networks expand and popular technologies are adopted to keep up with international benchmarks.

UNDERSTANDING THE OUTDOORS The indisputable brand-building visual capability of OOH will play a pivotal role as we see marketers sourcing prime locations across South Africa subsequent to the impact of Covid-19 restrictions 2020, which saw local and international brands remove key OOH communication placements across major cities. OOH is positioned perfectly as a mass targeted visual medium that offers marketers the opportunity to showcase their brands across a creative canvas located exactly where it is intended to target.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

SOUTH AFRICAN OOH ENVIRONMENTS WILL BE VITAL FOR MARKETERS TO CONSIDER IN LIGHT OF CONSUMERS RETURNING TO A SOMEWHAT NORMAL WAY OF LIVING AND WORKING South African OOH environments will be vital for marketers to consider in light of consumers returning to a somewhat normal way of living and working.

Some key themes to consider in the OOH environment are: • Business travel through airports may still be below pre-Covid-19 levels due to advancements in digital communication. However, people are still keen to engage face to face and will plan their business travel more strategically.

• The commuter sector continues to be a viable market as taxi ranks and stations (the ones that are still operational) are functioning at full capacity.

• In malls and retail there will be omnichannel enhancements due to e-commerce growth, and locationbased advertising is pivotal as the last point of contact before a physical purchase. Augmented and virtual reality will become a key product in this environment too, as shoppers are curious about new experiences.

• Roadside remains powerful as

audiences have become more flexible and increasingly mobile throughout the day, compared to pre-Covid patterns of inflexibility.

The value of an OOH placement and how a campaign is executed is and will be more important now than ever before.

For the past few years, we have seen an influx of billboards across the roadside environment, where scale and location irregularities are evident, making the decision difficult for marketers to choose OOH. When choosing OOH, ensure it is validated with credible data and strategic application to the brief.

MEASURING GROWS Measurement has been a formidable asset to OOH over the past few years.

We have seen the media industry adopt of ROAD from the Outdoor Measurement Council (OMC), with many more media owners joining in an effort to sell their inventory as the demand for measurement increases. As an industry, we are looking forward to seeing measurement being brought into more environments in the foreseeable future, increasing the value of these locations even further. In 2022, we will see the start of the static transit currency come to life with a newly formed joint industry council from the OMC. Thanks to measurement, we are able to deliver impressions for programmatic buys. Over the past 20 months, a number of media owners have adopted this product and proposed programmatic or automated buying to marketers on supply-side platforms. I believe pDOOH will be seen on more marketers’ schedules in 2022 as an ever-expanding pool of media owners and advertisers choose the capability of selling and buying DOOH inventory automatically.

THE NEED FOR STANDARDISATION However, decisions regarding audience measurement need to be made carefully, ensuring transparency in how an OOH asset is valued. There needs to be a level of standardisation in how audiences are captured and represented. New technologies allow for current data to be integrated with ROAD measurement to get an understanding of what is currently happening on the roadside, but media owners are utilising different sources and analysing the data differently. themediaonline.co.za

THERE NEEDS TO BE A LEVEL OF STANDARDISATION IN HOW AUDIENCES ARE CAPTURED AND REPRESENTED We have also observed this phenomenon on a global level, and we are all looking forward to measurement standardisation developed on behalf of the World Out of Home Organization by industry specialist Gideon Adey, of GUROOH consultancy.

Sticking with standardisation, an industry standard is needed for proof of play of DOOH inventory. According to Outdoor Auditors’ August 2021 audit, there are currently more than 444 DOOH screens in South Africa belonging to a number of media owners, each with their own reporting method or adhering to a specified structure from marketers or agencies. Reporting needs to be simplified and easily transferable across large networks and environments.

DOOH is one of the main driving forces behind OOH growth and will continue to deliver the results and expectations of marketers, but accountability must be a priority for 2022.

The recent introduction of Seedooh, an OOH verification company contracted to Outdoor Auditors, is a promising advancement in the accountability of DOOH for South Africa.

Finally, as marketers, agencies and media owners work towards a sustainable future, brand and corporate citizenship will rise in South Africa over the next year. It’s up to not only brands to stand tall in embracing concepts of sustainability and citizenship, but also to each and every member of this industry to support and participate in sustainable initiatives. As an advocate of sustainability and support for our communities, I look forward to what the industry will give back in 2022 and beyond.

Jorja Wilkins is currently the divisional executive for marketing and marketing services at Primedia Outdoor. With a media career spanning 15 years, Wilkins has extensive experience in both the agency and media owner space, including more than a decade of OOH strategy and implementation.

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Digitalisation of billboards is happening in informal markets across Africa.

Evolving OOH in a time of growth The OOH industry is set for substantial growth that will drive the modernisation of mediums and environments in the coming years, JACQUES DU PREEZ reports.

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ut of home is a wellestablished feature of the African marketing and media landscape, both literally and figuratively. It holds a greater share of advertising budgets in Africa than elsewhere and, along with digital media, has expanded in recent years: OOH media now accounts for 13% of advertising revenue in most key African markets. Furthermore, digital OOH (DOOH) is growing substantially in all African markets, with rapid digitisation of media assets across formats including digital billboards and digital place-based themediaonline.co.za

networks. And while the industry (particularly airport advertising and brand activation) was hit hard by the pandemic, 2021 saw it make a sharp recovery. We believe that this is just the beginning – and major growth is set to follow.

AFRICA IS GROWTH CENTRAL Sustained growth of 3-6% CAGR is projected for Africa over the next five-year period. Some of the social, technological and legal-political macroeconomic factors that will fuel the ongoing growth of OOH in African markets include: • Demographics: With about 1.3-billion people, this is the world’s second-mostpopulous continent. It’s also home to its fastest-growing middle class.

Moreover, 60% of Africa is younger than 25 years old. These factors make it appealing to brands, with the number of multinationals active across the continent a growing testament to this.

• Urbanisation: Africa’s population is urbanising at a much faster rate than that of other continents. By 2050, more than half of Africa’s people will live in its rapidly expanding cities. That’s the

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equivalent of the population of China.

Rapid urbanisation has important implications for how residents go about their day-to-day lives, as well as how businesses operate. Urbanisation marks one of the most significant opportunities for the OOH industry, as big infrastructure development and investments aid modern and innovative OOH executions.

• Mobile connections: Africa is a highly established mobile market with more than 800-million mobile connections across the continent.

OOH has a natural synergy with mobile media, so this development opens up fantastic mobile out of home opportunities, enabling retargeting strategies and powerful call-to-action campaigns.

• The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: Signed by 44 of the African Union’s 55 member states in 2018, this is expected to drive substantial growth on the continent.

infrastructure investment, along with the expansion of global and regional OOH companies, means that there is more pressure to formalise regulations and standards in key African markets.

As such, infrastructure build partners have increasingly initiated dialogues around concessions and legislature, with government and council officials displaying a growing hunger for knowledge, information sharing, and global best practice around the legislation of OOH formats and concessions. Many are demanding more from OOH media ownership, including sustainability, environmental beautification and public amenities.

PMG acquired Global Outdoor Systems in 2018, thereby expanding its presence across the continent,

Jacques du Preez

MANY ARE DEMANDING MORE FROM OOH MEDIA OWNERSHIP, INCLUDING SUSTAINABILITY, ENVIRONMENTAL BEAUTIFICATION AND PUBLIC AMENITIES It’s clear Africa presents a massive opportunity for the OOH industry, as long as we take steps to make the most of these developments. Ongoing development should also play a role in addressing some of the perennial challenges that confront OOH in Africa.

For example, developing infrastructure may well bring a more reliable power supply, enabling a faster roll-out of digital.

Then, as ever more big brands move in and OOH media ownership continues to consolidate, this should propel standardisation of OOH media formats and sizes, along with robust mediaefficacy data and enhanced campaign reporting, further driving industry growth.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

CHANGING LANDSCAPE, EVOLVING CHALLENGES One challenge that persistently confronts OOH is the extreme diversity in regulations and government policy concerning the medium across cities and even councils. However, the influx of themediaonline.co.za

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with an established footprint in 11 African countries. Over the last three years, we have significantly enhanced our capabilities in all our key markets by aggressively investing in systems, people and infrastructure.

In line with the growth and evolution of OOH in Africa, we have introduced our portfolio of OOH services and products into these key markets. Our ambition is to evolve and modernise OOH from a onedimensional, billboard-dominant sector to a multidimensional medium that captures a great number of audience and consumer segments, strategically spanning multiple formats and touchpoints.

We have several focused and strategic initiatives towards reaching this goal: • Cultivating Africa’s massive and vibrant informal sector contributes significantly to economies and employment while offering a huge

CULTIVATING AFRICA’S MASSIVE AND VIBRANT INFORMAL SECTOR: THIS CONTRIBUTES SIGNIFICANTLY TO ECONOMIES AND EMPLOYMENT WHILE OFFERING A HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR BRANDS opportunity for brands. We are therefore aggressively scaling our field merchandising, sales and brand activation operations by introducing our Field Force and Pro-Active portfolio within selected key West African markets. Our main aim is to modernise and infuse expertise within the route-tomarket and brand-activation segments where the informal market is booming and client demand is high.

• Developing fit-for-purpose and scalable innovation in key segments: We are introducing and developing dynamic, flexible OOH media formats that capitalise on convergence and transit

nodes, to effectively reach and service the substantial informal market in most African markets.

• Engaging with infrastructure developers and governments to introduce and launch new generation DOOH formats and networks that reach key audiences.

• Discussing the modernisation of legislation, spatial planning frameworks, and the role of OOH in the broader ecosystem with authorities, councils and municipalities, with a view towards launching longer concessions that will enable sustainable infrastructure investments and maintenance.

• Forming deeper collaborations and strategic partnerships with our PanAfrican media agency partners and multinational clients to drastically increase transparency and quality of media campaign reporting. This is alongside pioneering the ramping-up of OOH media executions across various OOH segments.

• Initiating dialogue with the key players in priority markets to drive the formalisation of measurement within Africa. These include Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, along with the respective industry associations concerned with launching and establishing standardised, industryaccepted audience measurement.

In closing, we believe that the continent offers unrivalled opportunities, and we are very excited by the chance to pioneer the evolution of the OOH media segment within this space. As such, PMG is investing heavily in both growing and modernising the OOH media industry across the continent.

It’s time for Africa to take its place on the global playing field, and PMG is committed to making that happen.

Jacques du Preez is CEO and founder of the Provantage Media Group, which operates in 19 African countries, with nine specialist divisions dedicated to airports, taxi ranks, train stations, street-side billboards, malls, street furniture, large-format digital and face-toface activations. PMG partners with clients to develop integrated media and activation solutions across multiple environments.

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