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Nfinity, an innovation hub of entrepreneurial businesses headed by Ken Varejes and his management team, has announced Out of Home players Reveel as the latest business to join the fold. Reveel is an innovative Out of Home business with a specific focus on Digital Out of Home (DOOH), large format and non-traditional platforms. Nfinity CEO Ken Varejes says: “The Out of Home industry has always been a brilliant platform for innovation and a particular passion of mine. I’m so pleased to be introducing the latest player in this space and we’re confident that it’s going to be a great disruptor.”

The Reveel business will be headed by Tanner Rock (Commercial Director) who has vast experience in new site and product development. He will manage the day to day relationships of our key landlord and supplier partners.  Tyron Martin joins the management team in the capacity of Sales Director. Tyron has a proven track record in this space as a top performer, with fantastic relationships at both client and agency level.

 “Reveel is underlined by an unwavering desire to create opportunities for our clients that are different and unique. Our management team is extremely passionate about this ever changing OOH space, and with the many years of combined experience comes many solid relationships that are key to the growth of the business in the short term. The team is excited, highly motivated, and we are really looking forward to creating additional relationships that will be formed as we start this journey,” says Tanner.

Ken adds: “Tanner and Tryon are the perfect duo to take Reveel to incredible success. They have the backing and infrastructure of our entire Nfinity arsenal of businesses, management team and staff. What a great start to 2019.”

Nfinity DNA

Headed by entrepreneur Ken Varejes as CEO, Nfinity is the latest innovation hub to land in the media, marketing and eventing fields. Nfinity is poised as a space for entrepreneurs to grow and better their businesses under the guidance of Ken and his growing management team, each a specialist in their own field. Nfinity currently has established shareholding and presence in the following companies: AdColony, theSALT, Whisky Live, Whizzky App, Orange Block, Reveel, theIntern-Ship, Brand a Tuk Tuk and Nfinity Digital.

Caxton has expanded its digital lifestyle offering for readers and advertisers alike by introducing their newest partner, Safari.com. The Caxton & CTP Group is constantly improving its print and digital properties and this latest move will offer the market bespoke safari holidays. 

According to Alexis Boshoff, CEO of Safari.com: “Our offering helps travellers from around the world plan, book and experience the perfect safari holiday. We do this by leveraging our passion for Africa and expert safari planning knowledge to tailor make perfectly suited itineraries for each individual traveller or group. This ensures that everyone that books through Safari.com gets their safari holiday of a lifetime, at the best price.”

Safari.com has two divisions, a luxury to mid-range division specialising in Eastern and Southern African safaris and a self-catering division that assists both international and local travellers in booking South African National Parks accommodation.

“Safari.com joins our other digital properties including online retail aggregator Guzzle, Private Property, All4Women and Autodealer among others,” says Nyle McKee, Head of Group Commercial Partnerships at Caxton Digital. “We’re so excited to have Safari.com on board. In the short time the partnership has been live we’ve had tremendous interest on the site from users across South Africa. It seems that South African consumers are in the market for a holiday all year round!”

Alexis adds: “Safari.com’s integrated content and offerings into Caxton’s local newspaper websites means incredible safari related content for all readers across Caxton’s network, as well as some exclusive safari deals for those readers. We’re looking forward to an exciting and long partnership ahead with Caxton.”

“Safari.com is unique from competitors in many ways. Primarily we believe that our care for our clients is at the forefront of what sets us apart; we truly want to see our clients experience the African safari holiday of a lifetime,” he says. “Safari.com has a deep history in the safari industry, having assisted over 200,000 travellers in planning, booking and enjoying their safari holidays for over a decade.”

For further information call 021 468 7255 or email helpmeplan@safari.com

The 2019 launch of South Africa’s largest urban community quantitative survey, ROOTS, is boasting more areas, more communities and more insights into the survey than ever before. The bumper addition is building momentum and is set to be launched in June this year.

“Due to the increase in scope, TNS researchers are still in field collecting vital data and verifying purchasing and leisure habits across 148 urban areas with a total sample of 26 000 decision makers. ROOTS 2019 will also include new areas added from ADS24 products to expand our pool of insights,” says Gill Randall, Joint CEO SPARK Media. “The building blocks are all coming together as we piece together the total survey.”

 “At a local level and compared to ROOTS 2016, our new methodology incorporates both LSM and SEM descriptors, building a more accurate picture of South African communities, as well as a more in depth look at the digital environment,” she says.

 Besides the usual datasets of demographics and general info, ROOTS digs deeply into categories like digital integration, activities, entertainment and many retail categories too. The data provides marketers with vital demographic and behavioural information at a local, regional and national level, but it’s the ability to deep-dive and access granular local data that provides the biggest marketing advantages.

As reading is just one facet of a good education, ROOTS 2019 will provide the building blocks for innovative and insightful media plans and marketing strategies. No two communities are the same – ROOTS 2019 will clearly show the differences.

For more on SPARK Media, visit our website and follow us on social media @sparkmediasa.

SPARK Media

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’.

Caxton’s Local News Network (LNN) platform, has been verified by the IAB Measurement Council as the 5th largest news audience in South Africa, with 2.8 million unduplicated unique browsers and over 8.8 million page views per month*.

 The Caxton news network has over 250 journalists on the ground bringing readers credible, trustworthy, breaking news.  LNN comprises 82 local news websites which offer community driven articles, advertorials, lifestyle and promotional content in a contextually relevant environment.

“LNN is such a powerful platform, which offers many exposure opportunities for clients,” says Marc du Plessis, joint CEO at SPARK Media. “Through our data pool and high reach on the LNN platform, we can create the perfect campaign for brands and continue to offer insights that help deliver on advertising campaign objectives.”

Additionally, the LNN platform has over 1.6 million unduplicated followers across its social media pages, engaging readers in an authentic, credible way.

“With over 9300 articles published per month across the platform, the array of content is vast and current, making LNN a unique, high reaching solution for advertisers,” states du Plessis.  “Together with our local newspapers, LNN offers the largest hyper local news source in South Africa in print and online. That’s a pretty incredible promise we are proud to offer clients.”

For even more on SPARK Media, visit the website and follow them on social media @sparkmediasa.

*Narratiive – October 2018

SPARK Media is delighted to announce its digital advertising sales partnership with Private Property, one of South Africa’s largest online property portals.

With over 12 million monthly page views, 4+ pages per visit and an average of seven minutes per session, advertisers can access audiences that are primed to engage with products and services that relate to the buying or selling of homes.

“In our continued efforts to connect advertisers with relevant audiences, we partnered with Private Property to bring a unique opportunity to our agency and brand partners,” says Marc du Plessis, Joint CEO of Spark Media.

While it may not be intuitive to think of a property portal as a prime audience for anything but  homes and property financing, users on the site are however primed to engage with many other categories, such as home appliances, furniture, schools, tech for the home and many more.

“We pride ourselves on tactical solutions for both advertisers and customers,” concludes du Plessis. “Pairing one of South Africa’s top property platforms with our interest based and location targeting capabilities gives advertisers a comprehensive advertising solution.”

For even more on SPARK Media, visit the website and follow them on social media @sparkmediasa.

SPARK Media

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’.

 

This is the state of Caxton Printer’s factory floor right now! “Our local newspapers are filled to the brim with inserts from our retailers ahead of the 2018 festive season, ready to be delivered to homes around the province,” says Gill Randall, Joint CEO of SPARK Media. “Retailers know that these inserts are probably the most important part of their Christmas campaigns. We’re ending 2018 with close on record sales for this time of year and would like to thank our media agency partners and retail clients for their continued support.”

 

On the back of attending Programmatic I/O in New York, Ashleigh Footit, Head of Techops, Programmatic and Performance at SPARK Media shares some insights into the state of programmatic advertising, brand safety and ad fraud both in the US and here at home.

After an intense two days spent at the world’s largest conference on programmatic advertising it was fascinating to see how America’s online publishers are utilising data and selling inventory programmatically. In 2018, more than $47 billion in the US was spent on programmatic display advertising with Facebook and Google taking a large chunk of the pie. By 2020 that figure will climb to nearly $69 billion.

In the United States, there is an average of 14.5 programmatic tech partners per publisher, whereas in South Africa, we have an average of just three. This is not a bad situation to be in as our ecosystem is less fragmented and we have more control over our inventory. However, it does highlight that we are still in the infancy stages of programmatic selling.  Programmatic is becoming more and more commonplace and the more that advertisers demand it, the more we’ll see that number increasing.

One of the US speakers, Taylor Schreiner at Adobe said that “Organizations are transforming to take advantage of programmatic. Brands are now more hands-on. They have a better understanding of the metrics they are facing, and they’re more specific in their directives to agencies. We’re seeing more clients who now have people in the organisation who are in a position to think about reach across channels.”

First party data is another big theme that came through – this is essential to publishers and needs to be a priority as a competitive advantage assisting in fighting against the duopoly that is Google and Facebook, who account for around 50% of programmatic revenue in the US. They continue to be successful because of their amazing audience intelligence, reach and measurement capabilities which advertisers are not going to pass up.

Relationships are key in this fragmented industry! The display ad tech Lumascape was shown multiple times highlighting this fact. There are many touch points available when it comes to making a deal and publishers need to ensure that they are talking to all parties involved. There is no such thing as set it and forget it. Secondly, CPM rates are lost to tech costs and the publisher comes out with only a fraction of what the seller initially spends.The issue of viewability came across a lot throughout the two day conference. A viewable ad is defined as 50% of the pixels of a regular creative or 30% of the pixels of a large size creative, are on an in-focus browser tab on the viewable space of the browser page for a minimum of one continuous second. (this description was even questioned a few times by brands). As far as many brands were concerned, 100% viewability has to be a non-negotiable and advertisers/buyers should not pay for a non-viewable ad.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) also came across quite strongly with a few interesting developments on the cards. We can’t escape the fact that AI is and will be an essential part of our lives. The Nest Cam Indoor security camera for instance learns who the regular members of your household are. If a stranger or visitor is in your home, Nest reports back to you immediately via your connected device. The Ricoh whiteboard is another great AI example – once you’ve made your notes on it you can email the contents to anyone around the world, with full translation capabilities. All of these things will add to the wonder that is big data which ultimately will assist advertisers to better target consumers.

It was evident that there’s a need for deeper conversations on brand safety between publishers, agencies and brands who all need to understand and explain what brand safety means to each of them. Some brands mentioned that they won’t pay if creative appears in a negative environment. However, they would consider an environment that has a positive spin next to controversial content. Unfortunately, safety tools are screening out these environments as the story contains black list key words. Private market places need to assist with this more.

Ad fraud and fake news is rife in the US industry, and ad fraud specifically, but on a lesser scale, here in South Africa. Publishers are fighting hard against these practices and buyers are turning to technology to assist with eliminating and reducing their ad spend on these practices that deceive.

There are many types of ad fraud but in general challenges in programmatic include invalid traffic (IVT), domain spoofing, page level scripting, ad injection, poor user experience etc. Low-quality human traffic is another issue, through paid media channels (incl. click bait) traffic is pushed to transit hubs by fake authors and instantaneously bounce off these sites, purely to serve ads and receive ad revenue. These are all things that advertisers and publishers need to be cognisant of. Publishers need to adopt ads.txt as a non-negotiable and advertisers need to be selective when buying inventory across the open market.

I learned that a dollar in does not equal a dollar out when it comes to programmatic and intermediaries are more prevalent than thought. But most importantly relationships are more important now than ever before. Successful partnerships between publishers, agencies and clients are open and honest about what works for them.

The conference was an enormous insight into the world of programmatic and even though we have some catching up to do, it’s an exciting time in our industry!

For even more on SPARK Media, visit their website or follow them on social media @sparkmediasa.

Ignition TARGET is SPARK Media’s programmatic and direct audience solution. Through their Data Management Platform (DMP) they collect and deliver customised interest based, demographic and in-market audiences.

Over 7.6 million people were collected in October across Caxton owned and affiliated websites, with 69.2% of traffic coming from mobile devices.

“Our in-market audiences are super exciting and interesting to potential advertisers with product and price specials. Users collected into these segments have actively shown an interest in a specific in-market category, i.e. they have searched for the product specifically or browsed catalogues within the product and price environment.

These audiences are already well down the purchasing funnel and just need a bit of a nudge from advertisers to buy products online or instore,” explains Ashleigh Footit, Head of Techops, programmatic and performance.

Top performing in-market segments include property, groceries and office, with the top growth segments being building supplies & DIY, furniture and appliances.

To access these audience insights and programmatic solutions, contact SPARK Media, or view the monthly DMP Performance report here.

Example of the DMP performance report

For even more on SPARK Media, visit the website and follow them on social media @sparkmediasa.

The Advertising Media Association of South Africa (AMASA) has announced two new additional members to its board of directors. AMASA welcomes Mpho Maseko and Parmeshan Moodliar to the table.

Mpho and Parmeshan join current directors Wayne Bischoff, Wayne Bishop, Karen Bailey, Lyn Jones and Rob Smuts. Wayne Bischoff says: “Both Mpho and Parmeshan are old hands at AMASA so to speak, having spent the past five and three years on the committee respectively. They have already added enormous value to the committee and we have no doubt that they will continue to do so as directors of AMASA.”

After working on the Monthly Forums portfolio for a few years, Mpho moved over to the Gordon Patterson AMASA Learnership Programme (GP-ALP) portfolio, an entry point into the media and advertising industries that provides young individuals with fully funded bursaries for the AMASA Media Management Course.  “This opportunity then created an easy transition for me to lead the AMASA Education portfolio from 2017/18,” she says.

“I believe the work that we do on the committee is crucial for the industry, serving the entire integrated marketing and communications industry and will always be of value to marketing and media professionals in South Africa.  Being involved in AMASA, now as a director, gives me the opportunity to give back to the industry that has developed me as professional and  exposed me to a wide spectrum of media and advertising professionals who continue to help build my skills and expertise.”

Parmeshan has spent the past few years on various profiles including the Workshop, Golf Day, Awards and Annual Party portfolios. He says: “Education remains the primary pillar of AMASA and this focus area, through the Media Management course and the Gordon Patterson AMASA Learnership Programme, facilitates new blood gaining access to and information about our industry as a whole.

I am extremely proud to be part of an organisation like AMASA that has stepped up and stepped in to drive debate and change around the current state of the media industry and in many cases, how these issues impact the future. While AMASA has always been synonymous with education and networking opportunities, we have also grown into a professional organisation despite the challenge of being run by volunteers,” he says.

“I have the primary focus of identifying and solidifying our relationships with our primary suppliers, sponsors and members who give of their time, resources and finances to assist us with what we do.”

Parmeshan will oversee the body’s commercial relationship with stakeholders in order to safeguard the financial well-being of the organisation. Being extremely passionate about transformation in the industry adds additional impetus to his role.

“Transformation must remain front and centre within the media and advertising sector. For me, any significant change starts with individuals who are willing to drive change from within themselves and their organisations. It is my hope and genuine belief that this personal change among many individuals will then affect change to the greater whole.

We need to take responsibility for our own industry and the time of criticism from the side lines without putting skin in the game yourself has ended. I would encourage all media professionals to get involved in our industry, even if it’s in a small way. You be will humbled by the difference you can make.”

For more information on AMASA visit www.amasa.org.za or find us on Facebook or Twitter.