Author: Mark

SPARK Media will once again be hosting a much-anticipated and enlightening Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (EBI) presentation on 3 October in Durban, 5 October in Johannesburg and 10 October in Cape Town. Our international speaker, Dr. Justin Cohen, a Senior Marketing Scientist from the Institute, will be putting forward the evidence-based case for why “Mental Availability” (being thought of in a buying situation) is one of the most important elements for brand growth.

Contemporary marketing theory places emphasis on principles such as brand attitude, engagement and preferences. Justin will provide pragmatic and empirical evidence as to why this theory is outdated and why the new world view of “being thought of in a buying situation” is more important for our marketing outcomes and brand health.

SPARK Media and Caxton are firm believers in this evidence-based marketing and are thrilled to be hosting another EBI academic to share their ground-breaking insights with the South African marketing and communications industry.

Gill Randall, SPARK Media’s Joint CEO, says, “We have been members of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the last 15 years, which has given us access to their wealth of research on consumer behaviour. The EBI is the world’s largest centre for research into marketing. Their expert team of marketing academics are building a culture of evidence-based marketing, giving us powerful insights into how marketing really works and how brands grow.”

Justin Cohen is one of the Institute’s senior researchers, whose expertise is in route-to-market decision making, emerging markets, retailing, online marketing, and wine and food marketing. He has international experience as both a practitioner and researcher, which helps him to provide transformational, evidence-based strategies for his clients.

Should you wish to attend this thought-leadership seminar, or to find out more about these ground-breaking marketing principles, contact SPARK Media on 010 492 8390, visit www.sparkmedia.co.za, follow us on Twitter – www.twitter.com/SparkMediaSA or connect with ‘SPARK Media’ (sparkmediasa) on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

SPARK Media DNA

Established in 2015, SPARK Media, a division of CTP Ltd, are experts in retail and location based marketing solutions. The company owns and represents a myriad of print and digital products that deliver locally relevant, effective audiences for advertising clients. SPARK Media are Strategic Partners in Audience Research and Knowledge and offer ‘Insights that Ignite’.

ROOTS is South Africa’s largest urban community survey providing powerful insights into consumer’s purchasing behaviour and media consumption habits at a local level. Previously ROOTS data has primarily been accessible to media agencies and SPARK Media’s direct clients. Until now.

Through BMi Research and a bespoke software programme Storyteller by SPARK Media, the reach of ROOTS data can now extend to researchers, strategic, creative and marketing departments of any corporate organisation. “The data from ROOTS’ previous surveys, 2007 to 2013, will all be incorporated into Storyteller and will include data from our 2019 study when it’s released. This will effectively allow marketers and brand strategists to predict consumer trends into 2020/21,” says SPARK Media’s Joint CEO Marc du Plessis.

“Storyteller will allow data to be presented in a more visually appealing, geocentric format for easy implementation into presentations and strategy documents, moving away from our team physically putting together PowerPoint slides per area, by category. Marketers simply need to request their required variables and the Storyteller programme does the rest.”

Gareth Pearson, CEO at BMi Research adds: “For the past 30 years ROOTS has been South Africa’s largest urban, community level quantitative survey providing marketers with demographic information around purchasing behaviour in a number of categories including readership, shopping, banking, digital, entertainment and travel.

Storyteller will provide detailed insights into what appliances, furniture or digital equipment they have purchased recently and whether they have bought DIY or even painting tools. It can also reveal if they visit casinos, fast food outlets or shopping centres; how often they buy groceries, what they buy, which supermarket they shop at and whether they plan their purchases.

Other insights include who they bank with, what accounts they hold as well as the type of insurance they buy and which insurers they use; their main form of transport, how many cars they own per household, the cars they drive, how often they visit a garage forecourt and what they buy there.”

“We’re very excited about our partnership with BMi Research to massively extend the reach of ROOTS so that many more can benefit from the hyper local data we have available into how people shop and behave at community level, which just isn’t available through any other research tool,” concludes du Plessis.

Spark Media DNA

Established in 2015, SPARK Media, a division of CTP Ltd, are experts in retail and location based marketing solutions. The company owns and represents a myriad of print and digital products that deliver locally relevant, effective audiences for advertising clients. SPARK Media are Strategic Partners in Audience Research and Knowledge and offer ‘Insights that Ignite’.

Facebook Marketing Partners has identified Bionic, powered in sub-Sahara by Primedia Unlimited, as its 2017 Innovation Spotlight Award winner in the Omnichannel: Online and Offline Sales category.  The awards call for the year’s most exciting new technologies built on Facebook’s Application Programming Interface (API) to solve marketing challenges.

“Bionic is a platform designed to manage and automate online advertising spend. It works with companies to extract customer insights from the data they already have. At the same time, Bionic leverages Facebook’s Offline Conversions API to measure in-store transactions as they occur—tying companies’ digital ad efforts to offline shopping behaviours such as purchases and coupon usage,” said Facebook Marketing Partners in a statement.

Ryan Williams, Group CEO for Primedia Unlimited adds: “It’s been just over 6 months since Bionic entered the African market to service South Africa and our neighbouring countries and we’re already seeing fantastic results and benefits for our media agency and marketing clients,” he says. “We’re very proud to be associated with a company as innovative as Bionic that seamlessly aligns offline marketing efforts with targeted online opportunities.”

Today’s consumers aren’t only dealing with thousands of advertising and communications messages each day; they’re dealing with mostly irrelevant messages. “Bionic hyper targets consumers according to their online and offline purchasing behaviour by aligning with point of sale technology on the ground,” says Ryan.

Currently operating in 25 markets globally, BIONIC has seen rapid growth in recent years and sees the diverse African landscape as a key territory for the future. With their Intelligent Automation features supported by an experienced team, Bionic has a proven track record globally with many major direct clients and agency partners.

For more information about Bionic or Primedia Unlimited visit www.primedia-unlimited.co.za