DIGITAL ADVERTISING
The dichotomy of digital in 2021: an industry galvanised by Covid-19 The stakeholders in the digital marketing ecosystem need to pull together to face its challenges and capitalise on opportunities, writes PAULA HULLEY.
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ith more than 346 million new internet users coming online globally, 2020 opened up the digital gates – including access, interactivity, and engagement. This phenomenal growth resulted in the equivalent of 10 years’ innovation in a mere six months. Local publishers saw a surge in monthly traffic, with News24, Fin24, the Citizen and Business Insider showing a month-on-month increase of more than 50% in unique browsers over the height of lockdown as we searched for credible updates in real-time online. This was combined with radical bursts of a global, collective energy that saw historical structures and ideologies being re-evaluated and recalibrated, redefining almost everything we know, even if we cannot fully articulate these monumental changes just yet. Our industry has been faced with equally significant challenges, and as the obstacles (and opportunities) of last year still hang in the air of this one like a thick fog, we find ourselves asking myriad questions about the nature of our businesses and personal lives: Do we move our business
Paula Hulley
completely online or keep our physical space as our primary customer touchpoint? Do we bring all our staff back to HQ or remain a predominantly work-from-home business? Do we stop using third-party data completely and move it all to themediaonline.co.za
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first-party? Do I keep my career path linear or do I specialise and branch out into an expertise-driven field? In my experience, and as we build the bridge to better fortunes out of the year that was, the answer is in fact to choose both. T H E M E D I A Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 1 I 53
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