The 16th Pan African Media Research Organisation’s (Pamro) Conference which took place in Dar es Salaam last week, attracted more than 200 media research boffins from around the continent who came to learn about the latest in research methodologies. The event which saw Joe Otin, CEO of The Collective, an interactive ad agency in Kenya, being elected President of the Organisation, was judged to be a resounding success.
Spokesperson of Pamro, Oresti Patricios, CEO of Ornico Group, South Africa, said he was delighted with the truly international and pan-African turn out at the Pamro conference. “The speakers were incredible and really well received. It really was our best conference ever. It was great to see Joe Otin elected President of Pamro. He will be a real asset to our organisation,” Patricios said.
Another highlight of the conference was the awarding of the 2015 Piet Smit Achiever of the Year Award to Jennifer Daniel, regional director of Telmar Africa/Asia Pacific, for her tireless contribution to the media research industry.
“Jennifer has worked tirelessly for our industry and it was extremely well deserved,” Patricios said.
Vice President of Pamro, Sifiso Falala, who is CEO and founder of Plus 94 Research, sponsors of the award also congratulated Daniel on her award.
“We are proud that yet another outstanding and worthy recipient has been added to the growing list of illustrious past winners from across the continent. The timing of Jennifer’s success is perfect. It comes at a time when Pamro can reflect on its past successes to which she has generously contributed and as it looks forward to seeing her leadership continue to be an asset to the organisation as it grows from strength to strength”.
“As sponsors of the award, we feel that, in Jennifer, there could not have been a more deserving recipient of this year’s award. Jennifer’s selfless magnanimity, epitomises the spirit of teamwork that is so evident in Pamro. She has, over the years, been a consistent source of inspiration to all those involved with the organisation,” Falala said.
Some of the highlights of the conference were:
Neil Higgs, Chief Innovation Partner of TNS, South Africa, introduced a new short pan-African measure of socio-economic status that TNS has developed following an analysis of a 20-country 32400 respondent dataset from Afrobarometer. Higgs outlined the development and validation of these new measures and discussed the data gleaned from the 20 participating countries. Much to the excitement of the Pamro delegates, he revealed the scoring system and questions for use by Pamro members only.
Another well received speaker was Magnus Anshelm from Sweden, who spoke about the first global launch of an online video currency that could be used in African countries and which is experiencing rapid traction in TV-viewing via smartphones.
Daniel Cuende of SA Infometrics in Spain, also made a huge impression with his presentation on how Out of Home (OOH) audience metric helps to sell to advertisers and media agencies. He introduced a new, more affordable audience measurement system which wowed the audience.
