Lagos, Nigeria was the backdrop for this year’s Pan African All Media Research Conference which saw the gathering of some of the globe’s most experienced presenters in the realm of consumer and audience measurement research.
The whirlwind three-day networking event served up a spicy mix of metadata, analytics, measurement and inspiration in line with the vibrant colours and flavours of its West African host.
Some takeouts from the presentations included:
Mobile and internet have changed Africa’s truth
Allen Kambuni (Bean Interactive) believes that when marketing to an African audience is about building solutions to answer real African problems and turning these solutions into products.
Typical customer experience journeys are built on what people can do, but the African customer experience journey is built on what people can’t do. “We need to reach audiences based on their need in the moment to provide simple solutions that change the way they live,” says Kambuni.
Digital and ecommerce can play an important role in this by providing on-demand two-way interactions through easy to use apps and addressable advertising. “In Africa digital is neither explorative or exploitative. It’s what we eat, live and need to survive. The companies that will survive in the next couple of decades of Africa need to delve deep into the data that defines this new population,” he says.
MetaData: A Message from the future
Brenda Wortley (3M3A). MetaData might not be the sexiest topic around, but with an ever increasing deluge of video on demand and other internet based video portals, it could become an essential component of total measurement.
Essentially metadata is the information carried along with a piece of video content and while there are some basic criteria – like Brand, Series, Episode, Title, Duration, Channel, Synopsis etc – but search results are not always consistent and usually far too broad. For example, a search for ‘The Big Bang Theory’ came up with completely unrelated shows, such as Breaking Bad, Sherlock, Friends and Black Mirror to name a few.
We have the opportunity to leapfrog ahead by designing a metadata process that employs greater intelligence and improved experience for viewers. The answer lies in creating and building interoperable systems from the very beginning in order to improve the quality of addressable and programmatic advertising.
Playing the advantage: 2018 World Cup brand communication lessons
Building an advertising campaign around large sporting events like the World Cup is a no brainer, says Akinyi Okulo (GeoPoll). But it gets a bit trickier when figuring out how to stand out from other brands who are trying to achieve the same thing at the same time with the same audience.
GeoPoll gathered an enormous amount of data over the 2018 World Cup and came up with the following suggestions:
Keep your eye on the clock Plan activities around the games most convenient in your specific time zone.
Anticipate deflections Bear in mind that global events like the World Cup attract a typical audience and strategy must reflect this.
Consider the whole team, not just star players Spectatorship is a team sport and so groups not individuals must be strategised for.
Prepare for an away game Not just a team sport, but an away game for many. The large number of out of home viewers means an additional opportunity to interact with consumers below the line AND the need to consider a distracted audience during content creation.
Mark the striker Keep an eye on Coke, they’re everyone’s biggest competition
Be best on field Don’t just show up, stand out – otherwise you may just be doing more harm than good
Don’t hug the line In terms of not just strategy but also channel, be reactive & topical, don’t just stubbornly work your way through a marketing strategy but adjust and react based on circumstances.
Building an African digital community for media insights
This year’s Best Paper was awarded to Dr Henk Pretorius (CEO of Columinate) and Sarah Hall (MultiChoice’s head of research for South Africa and MAL) for their case study of Switched On Africa, an app that was created to recruit media consumers (both subscribers and non-subscribers to DStv and Gotv) to take part in online and mobile research on media topics by signing up to a digital community. Altogether 156 719 people subscribed and were profiled across South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.
We spoke to Morne Bosch-Serfontein (group chief data officer) about the project.
What prompted MultiChoice to embark on this digital community platform?
The rise of connected consumers across Africa as well as the need for quick and cost effective studies with the ability to track individual responses over time.
What capabilities and skills did Columinate bring to the initiative?
A decade of experience in digital research and research community building with an understanding of how to create the right solution given requirements.
Were you surprised by the uptake?
We were not surprised, but the uptake did not happen without a lot of deliberate effort in crafting the right recruitment strategy. We also had the advantage of designing a community in a high interest category, of video entertainment, to consumers.
Share the challenges you overcame during the process of creating and engaging with the community?
As with all projects there are challenges along the way, but none of them significant enough to detract from the success of the project over the last 12 months. The main challenge always is ensuring high activity on the panel, and finding ways to counter attrition, which is a natural part of a community like this.
What technical advances do you envisage that may alter/enhance the current methodology?
Rising internet access is great for the future of a project like this, giving us access to a larger pool of people to engage with. As far as enhancements that we drive are concerned, we are constantly elevating the technical platforms we use to better serve community members.
Were there significant differences in your findings amongst the three countries?
There are differences across the countries, and we keep learning about them every project we do. One interesting feature of Nigeria and Kenya is the high mobile phone participation rate on the community, which is much higher than SA, where there is still a lot of access from desktop computers. This influences the way we design projects to be for example, short and compatible with small screens.
What successes has the community seen?
In just a year, over 60 successful research projects have been conducted across the three countries.
