South Africa is poised (yet again) for a year of significant disruption, change, challenge and opportunity. The media, marketing and advertising industry, as all industries are, faces many of these.
Let’s unpack a few.
Consumer behaviour
The economic struggles faced by consumers in 2023 will continue to impact shopping habits and overall financial stability. This uncertainty is likely to persist in 2024, as businesses and consumers navigate the impact of inflation, petrol and diesel process, load shedding expenses and other economic factors.
The shift towards value-driven shopping, with consumers seeking out deals and discounts, is likely to continue, across all demographics. Online shopping will continue to grow in popularity as consumers look for convenience and cost savings.
But this online convenience needs to be made accessible to all consumers: offering the benefits of online shopping to broader income, geographical and age groups will solve real-world problems for consumers and offer growth opportunities for retailers and brands.
Talking talent
Critical global skills shortages are continuing to attract global employers to the region. This trend is expected to continue, as businesses seek out talent with specialised skills and good English at a relatively low cost, to drive innovation and growth. In response, South African universities and training institutions are increasing their focus on developing these critical skills.
This poses a challenge for local employers who may find it hard to match salaries and benefits – in an already small pool of talent. This could have a devastating impact on our talent pool, already severely impacted by the brain drain from the wave of emigration of talent in leadership or senior management.
Capability building
In 2024, businesses in South Africa are increasingly prioritising human capital, emphasising employee training, development, and retention.
This shift reflects a growing recognition of how important people are in driving business success. Improving skills raises the ocean for all boats, as they say.
Additionally, businesses are adapting to new ways of working, with remote and hybrid work arrangements now common. These may require a new range of skills and a different approach to meeting management and, more importantly, decision making.
Entertainment for content
Global tech advancements will influence the local digital landscape, shaping consumer behaviour and business strategies.
Mobile and video content will continue to grow – and digital marketing is driving changes in advertising strategies, with businesses investing more in online channels to reach consumers. Creativity is key here – this is entertainment not “bang on the head” advertising.
The Creator Economy is alive and well, and global audiences are receptive to SA’s brand of content creation, be it be our humour, our music, our dancing or our opinions on global affairs.
A big issue: digital ad fraud
In the realm of digital advertising, ad fraud has emerged as a significant threat to the advertising industry, leading to growing apprehension about media wastage. Here are some insights on this issue:
Studies indicate that a substantial portion of online ad spend is wasted due to fraudulent activities, with approximately 22% of online ad spend being lost to ad fraud in 2023. Source:
This alarming statistic underscores the need for heightened vigilance and robust measures to combat fraudulent practices in digital advertising.
Marketers are growing increasingly concerned about ad fraud, particularly in display advertising. “Only 36% of your investment may be viewed by humans. There is no guaranteed link between CPMs and audience quality”. (ANA, Dec 23).
The prevalence of ad fraud not only undermines the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, it also erodes trust in the digital advertising ecosystem. As a result, marketers are intensifying their efforts to identify and mitigate instances of ad fraud to safeguard their advertising investments and ensure optimal campaign performance.
The pervasive nature of ad fraud contributes significantly to media wastage, diverting valuable resources away from legitimate advertising efforts. Wastage is always present in any media campaign, but when it seems to be intentionally deceptive, it leaves a sour taste.
Distorts metrics
Intentional wastage not only hampers the ROI of advertising campaigns but also distorts performance metrics, making it challenging for advertisers to accurately assess the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives.
Addressing ad fraud is crucial for minimising media wastage and maximising the impact of advertising budgets on reaching target audiences. Legacy fraud verification agencies are deservedly being put under an ever-increasing spotlight and the industry needs to come clean.
It’s evident that combating ad fraud is essential for preserving the integrity and efficacy of digital advertising campaigns. By implementing stringent anti-fraud measures, such as monitoring traffic sources, verifying ad placements, and leveraging advanced fraud detection technologies (like Fou Analytics), advertisers can not only mitigate the risks associated with ad fraud and protect their investments from wastage, but ensure a more effective media buy. Bots don’t buy products.
Creativity pays, so pay for it
Agency remuneration is another big issue. Over the years, with the move to in-house agency capability, the shift to digital media and the need for Always-On and a constant need to fill the content pipeline, creative agencies have had their fees eroded – while their workload has risen exponentially. This was well documented in the book Madison Avenue Manslaughter by Michael Farmer.
However, the growing global evidence of the effectiveness of creativity – defined by WARC as the second biggest profitability lever behind brand size – seems to be creating a renewed push by marketers to improve their creative output.
“Creative is the most important actionable lever for marketers right now and has grown to a 12x multiplier versus 2014’s 10x,” an opinion echoed by everyone from WARC to Prof Byron Sharp’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, to Kantar, to the CMO’s of the biggest and building companies on the planet.
One really hopes we will start seeing a reduction of spend against questionable (I’m being polite here) programmatic media buys, and for that currently wasted spend to be re-invested into creative talent.
Innovation funnels
Having said that, brands need to invest in the power of the creative lever, no matter what. It’s time this downward trend (for many years) is reversed. Innovation is well revered in most corporates, and consulting and research budgets are plentiful. What is creative if not innovation? And it’s often way more profitable than most innovation funnels.
Finally, with a pivotal general election ahead (here, and a few abroad), South Africa can expect heightened political activity, potential policy changes, and shifts in governance. Additionally, efforts to address economic challenges and stimulate growth are likely to be at the forefront of promises and government agendas.
Building on the ad fraud topic, we need to be vigilant about disruptive and cynical social media campaigns and the role of AI in, literally, putting words in other people’s mouths.
There’s never a dull moment in this industry. We need to stay aware, look for opportunities, look to solve real problems for our people and stay vigilant to cynical plays that use tech for all the wrong reasons.
There are myriad brilliant ways to use technology, and we need to imagine and innovate to grow all of our worlds.
Gillian Rightford is the interim executive director of the Association for Advertising Communication (ACA). She is an expert is advertising, agency-client relationships, and the business of advertising. As a management and communication strategist she provides guidance to both advertising agency executives and marketers.
