Unpacking the winning ingredients for the ultimate media mix in South Africa

We know that understanding media placements is getting more complex, changing media behaviour adds to the mix and it’s imperative that brands stay relevant in the right environment.

The Kantar Media Reactions 2021 study reveals the key ingredients for a winning recipe in 2022 and beyond by exploring how marketers perceive different touchpoints vs consumers, where gaps and opportunities lie and unpack why the fight for offline vs online is now non-existent…

First, there’s been a shift in how marketers claim to be allocating their budget, with 75% of South African marketers in our Media Reactions 2021 survey claiming they allocate budget based on preferred channels for their target audience. This aside, various touchpoint studies reveal that it is the role of paid, owned and earned media combined that delivers on brand strength, with the bulk of that pie sitting with earned media.

So, while paid media definitely has a role to play, marketers need to evaluate blind spots to ensure the success of any campaign. Because while every touchpoint across the spectrum drives brand strength, some do so more so than others. For example, it’s no surprise that TV delivers the highest average impact globally, with word-of-mouth following quite closely.

Most marketers (79%) also feel that optimising the media mix is one of the best ways of maximising ROI. In testing multiple campaign studies, we found that overall campaign success is driven equally by quality of creative cut through (50%) and exceptional media planning (50%). The media planning comprises reach (25%), frequency (16%) and media synergy (9%). This poses the question, are we investing enough time and budget to ensure incredible creative quality?

It’s also important to consider media synergy, which drives an additional 10% slice of the pie. So, if that strong creative is built consistently across touchpoints, you could argue that creative quality and consistency across channels accounts for 60% of campaign effectiveness. The reality though is that marketers only test their creative 31% of the time in a calendar year. Time pressure is the biggest hurdle in this regard, which again comes as no surprise considering how often creative briefs and production are rushed without knowing if audiences will engage with the content.

It pays to pay more attention to your creative quality

So, while we know that in-home media consumption took precedence in the last two years, TV is ultimately our main platform for success in the current context.

To succeed in this space, you need to ensure you are delivering strong creative, as ad testing proves this delivers both strong short-term sales and long-term equity. Our power contribution score is a summary of the ad’s potential to build or reinforce a brand’s meaningful difference, validated to longer-term equity-building effects. Brands with ads that have good power contribution scores grow their power share by an average 1.1% more than brands with poor scores, with a 1% power share increase having been shown to be equivalent to a 1% increase in volume market share, on average. So, it literally pays to pay more attention to your creative quality.

However, the context differs slightly in South Africa. Because although TV viewership has increased, consumers are checking out and struggling to recall TV advertising.

The ‘goldfish attention span’ myth aside, our mental capacity for advertising recall has clearly changed over the years. In fact, Kantar’s Adtrack syndicated study shows that the average recall of adverts was at 22% in South Africa 5 years ago. This dropped to 14% in 2020, despite more time spent glued to the tube. TV ads across all brands are failing to cut-through, more particularly in the lower market, with less than 2 in 10 ads seen as above average.

When it comes to ensuring media success, it’s important to create campaigns with multiple channels in mind. The proof is in the pudding as a case study review of 5,000 campaigns across 41 countries revealed campaigns across more channels delivered higher impact – this was as much as 35% when shown across 5 channels compared to 19% when shown across 2 channels. Little wonder then that 61% of marketers are confident they are now planning with optimal media mix strategies in mind.

This ties back to the importance of synergy, with campaign evaluations across various industries showing that 34% of campaign performance is delivered through synergy effects. When consumers are exposed to multiple campaign elements, they need to make the link that the elements are part of one campaign to deliver on multichannel reach. It’s therefore important to create opportunities for channels to work together through overlaps in reach, phasing and creative synergy. 65% of South African marketers are confident they have the right balance of synergies in play.

The digital synergy pay-off, explained

Looking at digital specifically, it can certainly be a lead channel but relies heavily on synergy effects to be successful. When looking at digital in your campaign, think about how its role can be complemented by TV. Online video, display and Facebook are key channels that win through synergy effects.

Half the battle is won if your campaign is integrated and customised to touchpoints, as these deliver 26% more impact. Just over half of marketers confirmed they feel confident that their campaigns’ content is tailored to channels. So, when designing with customisation in mind, think about adapting the ad across the different platforms, to ensure you’re running strong creative across different touchpoints that links back to the same creative idea. Ensure the look and feel of the campaign is recognisable for consumers and design the format to the context of how consumers behave with different media. Just over half of marketers understand that context has an impact on creative execution and ultimately cut-through.

You’ll need to work a little harder at this in the online space, as this is the consumers’ territory and video platforms have different requirements to social platforms. For example, people visit YouTube with a mission-based mindset, so engaging and enjoyable content is important to delay the skip. Social, on the other hand, is more personal, as the intention is to check out what friends are doing and post what you are doing. There are more distractions to count for, so the content really needs to make people stop and pay attention.

With online video, consumers want to be entertained and have a mission-based mindset with a focus on specific videos. In social environments, consumers are actively looking for distractions to pass the time, so advertisers compete for attention with their friends, family and other users. Advertisers therefore need to think about how their ad will engage the audience within video and keep them entertained or captivate them enough to stop scrolling within the cluttered social environment.

This means that one size does not fit all for online media creatives, as consumers are less forgiving in the digital space – so much so that digital campaigns with a negative impact go on to affect purchase intent. On the other hand, the success is 35% more on sales per impression relative to average digital creative, so take the time to get your digital content right, for the platform, to the right person.