If you want to play in Africa, you can’t afford to snooze. The growth in smartphones means more people have access to media content than ever before, says Peter Searll.
The African media landscape is changing fast. While TV, radio and outdoor remain the primary media, their audiences are faced with a plethora of new choices and formats.
1. Major global players gathering momentum
Major players like Facebook and YouTube are now firmly in the media space, with Facebook Live levelling the playing fields among media generators. Anyone can be a broadcaster and YouTube continues to thrive.
2. Opportunities and fragmentation
Rapid fragmentation poses challenges to media owners, buyers, advertisers and researchers. The opportunities are breath-taking; it’s necessary to stay wide-awake and keep abreast of fast-paced changes.
3. Electronic installations in OOH
There is a new wave of electronic installations showing multiple ads which can be customised for different audiences, at different times, lowering production costs and enabling rapid deployment of messages. This gives OOH the ability to become more interactive with QRS codes.
4. Influx of streaming and satellite entrants in TV
Satellite entrants and offers are coming thick and fast. Streaming services provide even more choice. The urbanites embrace these disruptors. Africa is still mobile first, but it is not far behind these well-developed trends in Europe and the US.
5. Streaming is becoming the radio star
Radio streaming options play an increasingly important role especially as data costs come down and wifi access increases. Web radio offers engaged and new audiences.
6. Print is going online
Newspapers are still widely read daily. However, digital production costs are much lower than print and more people are reading their news online.
7. Digital is the new black
Digital is a highly competitive arena, marked by innovation and a proliferation of new agencies. Content consumption is highly measurable, benefitting the owners, advertisers and buyers of ad stock.
8. The digital threat to traditional agencies and owners
Digital poses a huge threat to traditional agencies and media owners who are not coming to grips with its complexities. Increasingly customer engagement is via digital and this is the biggest upside for these platforms.
9. Media agencies can’t afford to snooze
Agencies desperately need to redefine their offerings to stay relevant and keep track with consumer trends and changes.
10. Combining the old and the new in market research
Market research innovation lies in combining traditional approaches with new ones. Africa is far from homogeneous and requires specialised insight in each market. Serious work will be done to integrate media research from a traditional and new media consumption perspective.
Peter Searll is managing partner at Dashboard Marketing Intelligence.
