Churchill Chawane, the recently appointed head of public sector at Mediamark, provides content and insight into the public sector to ensure a targeted approach to campaigns providing the right messaging to the right audience at the right time.
What are government’s communication challenges and how do converged solutions address them?
Government communications have been challenged by broad messaging and perceptions. The communication up until now has been a one-sided conversation with the public. As media consumption evolves, it is crucial that a pull approach is adopted, that campaigns are engaging and encouraging participation and interaction with their specific audiences.
Media has become more interactive and targeted, with brands using data to personalise their messaging to customers and social media to drive conversations. Consumers increasingly expect government to not only talk to them using mass media, but also to listen and engage. This demands that government takes a more holistic approach to advertising and communications.
Rather than allocating spend to print, PR, TV, outdoor and radio, and measuring them separately, government departments need to think about them as a connected fabric that makes up the citizen’s experience with the public sector. With today’s digital media solutions, government can leverage data about its audience to target the right message at the right person, in turn improving return on investment.
Gamification is an example of a mobile solution that is available on both feature phones and smartphones. This approach has a wide reach, crosses all LSM groups, is entertaining, interactive and can measure the uptake and ROI on a campaign.
Mobile is becoming the first screen for consumers and an increasingly powerful tool when combined and integrated in your traditional media strategy. This means that consumers are looking at your brand on their smartphones before they discover your business on their desktops, laptops or through a television ad. Partnerships are in place to ensure our offerings include the best mobile and integrated options.
What are the latest developments with mobile communications for public sector?
In trying to reach the majority of South African/s, government has released an audience segmentation model, moving away from relying solely on LSM’s and instead, have used other contributing factors such as education, infrastructure, access to Health, ICT and other services.
This has moved the marketing objectives and execution of campaigns to where the medium is selected according to how accessible it is to the targeted audiences. In this light – communicating to audiences on mobile devices is rapidly becoming imperative to any campaign. With cities such as Tshwane and Joburg rolling out City-wide wi-fi, government is determined to give access to data and information to majority of audiences
Is government focusing enough on targeting right audiences with the right message in the right channel?
Yes. With the release of the its audience segmentation model, government is focused on ensuring that choice of medium is determined by the amount of consumption and access to the medium that the targeted audience has. Our job as media owners is to help them to bring audiences and channels together in the most impactful manner.
Churchill Chawane is head of public sector at Mediamark.
