As the world looks to a post-Covid-19 global reset, Africa is already making its mark with an innovative, youthful population proving a content goldmine.
Every so often the world experiences catastrophes that transform our lives in one way or another. Think 9/11; the global economic crisis of 2008/09 and, most recently in 2020, the genesis of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had an indelible impact on every country on earth. This impact will be felt for many years to come and I believe historians will capture this moment as a turning point for humanity.
“Why?” you’d ask.
Well, my view is that Africa has always been seen as a poor, developing continent dependent on handouts from the west. While this is still true in many respects, it also still remains a very wealthy continent. We have vast minerals and natural resources that feed the world economy, but its most important resource is its people – specifically, its young population. According to the World Bank, with a median age of 25, the African continent is the youngest in the world.
The statistics demonstrate that countries that have battled the most with the pandemic are those with an ageing population, as we have seen with the likes of Italy, Spain, India and China, to name a few.
They battle with higher morbidity and death rates than many African countries and, while many are said to be under reporting, what’s clear is the pandemic has not been kind to the middle classes around the world, and that younger people have been seen to recover a lot quicker than adults, who might be carrying various chronic diseases which get further complicated when one tests positive for Covid-19.
This brief background underscores the fundamental reason I decided to set up an independent, integrated pan-African communications group. As an entrepreneur you often see opportunities where others see adversity and in this instance, similar to 2009 when I started my first venture Dream Team SA, I saw an opportunity to create a unique group of specialist owner-run and -managed agencies during the height of the pandemic in September 2020, because I could foresee what’s to come in our industry based on my experience over the last 23 years.
I’ve had the unique benefit of working and gaining experience across the key marketing value chain of being a client, creative agency, media agency and media owner executive.
Full service
I truly believe the lines within marketing are becoming blurred on a day-to-day basis purely because brands are starting to realise that the power rests in the hands of the consumer, not in theirs.
A brand’s market share is not determined by the marketing budget, but by the consumer and the decisions they take. As such, at a group level, when we get a brief we apply human-centric design principles that start with people, not the brand.
We understand what people or consumers need, where your brand fits in their lives and how best to connect with them.
We could very well come up with a public relations or content idea that then becomes a big idea – which is why we are the Matrix, because we are non-linear in our solutions and we believe this is what will make our model successful.
In fact, I have always felt that media agencies should be the starting point to determine where your target market is and understand what media they are consuming, then brief the ‘factory’, ie. the creative agency, to develop the creative assets for the channel.
However, what’s becoming more and more prevalent is that consumers are looking for engaging content – and that is what will be the game changer for the marketing industry over time. The conversation will now start with the consumer, not the brand. This is why we will also be launching a new partnership soon.
We recently had our quarterly group Exco meeting in Limpopo as part of our endeavour to understand the country better. We went to other parts of the province like Elim and Thohoyandou in Venda, to see how provinces outside of the usual Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal are thriving. As expected, Limpopo is showing phenomenal growth signs particularly in property, both residential and commercial. In Venda, for instance, the world-class Thavhani Mall has a 98% occupancy with high-end food, clothing, QSR tenants like Woolworths, Fabiani & Rocco Mammas in an area that’s pretty much still considered a village, but with homes that would give many Sandhurst residents a run for their money.
What this means, I think, is that the local economy is slowly self-correcting and townships and rural areas will start developing at an alarming rate over the next few years. Limpopo residents believe in developing their ancestral homes and villages rather than the big cities. Entrepreneurs are investing in the secondary provinces because they see the potential for development, as there is still vast tracts of land available.
We hope to take a long-term view on growing the group within the continent, while continuing with our strategy to partner with like-minded young entrepreneurs in various countries on all regions of the continent.
One of the biggest historical problems in South Africa as a result of apartheid has been the establishment of homelands and townships. This restricted people of colour, forcing them to live in specific areas within the respective provinces. Many of them lived very far from work and that’s what led to a bustling taxi industry that moves millions of commuters on a daily basis from home to work and back. The restrictions that came with the various lock down levels demonstrated where the economy really is. We’ve seen the impact on commercial property, many with high vacancy rates, malls in suburbs struggling with footfall and tenants having to close their doors.
To the contrary, business in townships remained resilient, with more entrepreneurs coming up with solutions for their communities. Malls in townships were not as impacted and will probably thrive moving forward.
I believe with the pandemic, we experienced a global reset. This is exactly what the continent needed as it was always playing catch up to western democracies and had something like this, albeit tragic, never happened, I’m not sure how long it would have taken the continent to emerge.
Africa is the future
Today what’s clear is that this continent is certainly the future in many respects because of our young population, but also because of our ability to adopt technology and innovation a lot quicker than most continents. This is largely because our young people are growing up in a digital world, with a high penetration of mobile phones, increased access to internet, solving some of Africa’s problems through many start-ups in the fintech, mobile money and ecommerce space.
The Covid-19 lockdowns also impacted positively on ecommerce adoption across the various SEM groupings. Today the quick service restaurant (QSR) segment, together with food and pharmaceutical retailers, has seen a prenominal growth in home deliveries, while other smaller, local delivery businesses have also emerged alongside the likes of Uber Eats and Uber Parcel, Mr D, Woolie’s Dash, Checkers Sixty60 and more.
Digital adoption and content consumption has also increased over the last two years via the various streaming services. As fibre and mobile becomes more and more accessible and – hopefully cheaper – content consumption on social media networks will continue to be key. I believe our content will be gold in the new future. I think the world is hungry for young, fresh content from this continent.
We’re seeing this through the work that creative South Africans are producing for instance in the art, fashion and music industries. If one just looks at the influence of Amapiano as a sub-genre of locally curated dance music and how that has taken TikTok by storm, and how many South African DJs are playing for big crowds both within the rest of the continent and overseas.
What’s becoming clear is that content will be a big influence – especially in advertising. Creative agencies exist to create content for their clients based on a brief – my view is that this is going to shift and we as agencies need to find the content first and then see where our clients fits in it. This is a paradigm shift I foresee and think that influencer marketing is only going to grow. The agencies and production companies are now not the only custodians of producing content – individuals are now also empowered to curate.
Future fit
To future fit our offering, we will soon be making strategic announcements on a culture and content business we are acquiring within the group that will work closely with our research, creative, media and digital agencies in informing our strategies to connect brands with consumers in an authentic and meaningful way.
We are also concluding an investment and partnership into a futures and foresight strategy consultancy with one of only 6000 global and 200 African qualified foresight strategists in South Africa. We hope to position our offering to assist brands in remaining relevant in the evolving people-led world.
Lastly, as I have always maintained, our greatest asset as a country is our global diversity. In advertising, unlike many industries, we have the benefit of being at the coalface of reflecting and living this. Our tragic past reminds us that our movement in the country was restricted in one form of the other. White people could not go into townships and black people were restricted in their respective areas.
With this pandemic, it’s clear that the many people driving the economy are still in the rural and township and not Bryanston and Constantia; this has still not been recognised by many decision makers within the marketing value-chain, who keep thinking their customer is their neighbour in Umhlanga. As such, agencies need to recognise the opportunity cost of not being able to understand our country and its people, and give those that have had the lived experience a voice when decisions are being made on creative direction of adverts and campaigns.
The MAC Charter has been adopted and will try to address some of these issues more directly, to ensure that there is parity in the industry. My view is that if we can commit to a broader national agenda of driving parity and inclusivity, we can do it ourselves without a charter to monitor us.
If we accept that our past was abnormal and that we have the power to set a different and positive trajectory that will benefit us all, and that thinking in abundance is more impactful and sustainable than thinking in scarcity because there is more than enough for all of us, we will have only ourselves to blame for any eventuality because we had the power and we chose not to use it because life was still good for us and not the many who just want a fair and equitable chance to contribute in one way or the other to provide for themselves and their families.
Kgaugelo Maphai is chairman of the Matrix Communication Group and former managing director of The MediaShop (Johannesburg). Passionate about South Africa and its people, Maphai’s interests lie in consumers and the nuances that exist in various parts of South Africa.
