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Charne O’Haughey, Social Specialist at Reprise Digital South Africa

It’s clear that social media has become an integral part of people’s lives, forming a large part of their daily routine. So how are we, as marketers and businesses, connecting with our target audiences in 2020, given that there is an already large flock to social platforms?

This can prove to be extremely difficult for brands, especially when it comes to standing out in an already crowded space, unless of course you have a clear social media marketing strategy fuelled by staying up to date with the latest social media trends. Below are five big moves to keep your eyes on:

The use of Ephemeral Content

As in Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp Stories (with advertising opportunities starting for the latter this year).This temporary content takes advantage of real FOMO by only being accessible for a brief period. Attention spans are short and looking at how consumers consume information on social media, being pulled here and there – scrolling – swiping – laughing – scrolling – reading –scrolling – forgetting it all, makes ephemeral content appealing and more engaging as users are encouraged to create user-generated content, partake in polls, Q&A’s and so much more. This type of content is more spontaneous and allows brands to connect in a unique way, becoming recognised as more human, relatable and reliable.

Social Commerce Expansion

While we know that dominating platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have been long used by brands to sell their products, it’s safe to say that social commerce has become a new retail avenue for brands and this is going to rise in 2020 with more brands climbing onto the bandwagon. More niche platforms will follow suit by introducing selling / shopping posts. We will see these channels becoming mainstream retail on par with retail websites and offline stores. This means that competition will be fiercer, challenging new strategies around content and implementation on these already crowded platforms.

Domination from Video Content

Across all social platforms that may have been traditionally dominated by image or text content, it is clear that the most engaging form of content is video and this goes hand in hand with mobile users. Users are twice as likely than TV viewers and 1.4 times more likely as desktop viewers, to feel a sense of personal connection to brands that show video content or ads on their devices. As data continues to become cheaper, we can expect to see a significant increase in video content consumed by South Africans.

So whether it be short ephemeral content or long form YouTube videos, it is important to utilise video content in order to stay on par in the social media domain.

Personalising segmentation

While a brand has a main identity (with many sub factors), a key aspect we are able to leverage off of is the ability to personalise ads to reach different target segments. Social platforms offer advanced targeting options, including customisation of audiences and on various platforms we can include more than one primary copy, headline copy, description copy, and customisable placements. Personalisation will continue to rise with platforms serving ads to users who have showed interests in similar products from different brands.

Customer service, customer service!

We have established that social platforms have evolved into retail platforms, product discovery platforms, awareness platforms and now customer support platforms! This trend began gradually as a result of delayed / no response through various other channels. From there, brands started directing users to the correct channels to use. It’s not just some one-off cases where customers post their questions or complaints on social media and brands respond. Now, it has become a significant enough customer service channel for brands to recognise it as one.

Social Media is dynamic, and it is important to leverage these trends which will dominate the social media landscape in 2020 in order to stay ahead of competitors and to woo consumers. Happy clicking!

Reprise Digital SA DNA

Reprise is a digital-first agency, and everything we do is rooted in understanding how consumers interact across apps, sites, IOT-devices, bots, search engines, and social platforms. We uncover your audience based upon their digital fingerprints – and build a media approach to help transform your business digitally. Reprise has the ability to fuse smart digital approaches for our media agency partners in smart and sophisticated ways.

In the digital world, it’s a given that Paid Search advertising is important, but only a few industries, except the finance and eRetail sectors, are capturing the true value this channel has to offer. Most brands are missing a trick by not tracking the full customer journey says Michael King, Managing Director of Reprise Digital, an IPG Mediabrands company.

So how can it be possible that insurance brands invest 30% plus of their entire marketing budget on this channel?  Simply put, it’s what companies call a P-Factor or Profitability Factor.  This is a simple profitability equation that allows brands to measure the value of a sale over time.  Let’s use car insurance as an example – If I’m insurance company A and I spend R5 000 on Google Ads today, I’ll most likely generate quite a few visitors to my website who will either complete a quote online or want to talk to a sales advisor.

As a result of the quotes generated, I may sign up a new client who would hypothetically insure their vehicle at a monthly premium of R1 000.  At a glance you might say that this channel is loss-making as the amount of adspend far outweighs the sale value, but the inverse is actually true.  Car Insurance is a service that consumers sign up for on a monthly basis which means that as Insurer A, the company will be generating revenue from the initial sale over a long period of time.  This is where P-Factor comes in.  This equation helps us understand how long our new customer will need to stay insured with us before we cover the initial R5K adspend.

Ad Spend divided by initial sales value = P-Factor. So, R5 000/R1 000 = a P-Factor of 5. This means that our new client will need to stay insured with the brand for five months before it “breaks even” on advertising spend.  If we then incorporate the fact that the average insured person stays with their insurer for 12-18 months, the profitability conversation very quickly changes to a positive one.  In this example the company would be making money from our new client for anything between 7 – 13 months.

Every industry is of course different with their own unique challenges but the learning for marketers has to be that the future for brands is not only tracking a customer’s journey online until the sale is complete, but tracking the customer for the entire time that they’re associated with your brand.

Reprise Digital SA DNA

Reprise is a digital-first agency, and everything we do is rooted in understanding how consumers interact across apps, sites, IOT-devices, bots, search engines, and social platforms. We uncover your audience based upon their digital fingerprints – and build a media approach to help transform your business digitally. Reprise has the ability to fuse smart digital approaches for our media agency partners in smart and sophisticated ways.

Chris Botha, Group Managing Director of Park Advertising: “We have the resources and the strength to turn this boat around. Now all we need is the belief.”

Aaaah, the silly season.

It’s the time of year where everyone can tell you how many weeks, days minutes and seconds there are left until they go on holiday. I find this quite a strange thing to do. At the time of writing there are 40 odd days left in the year by the way. What a thought some might say. Holidays are loading and all that good stuff. But my logical mind says that 60 days from now (a mere 20 days later) – we’ll already be dealing with January month end, and the chaos of a new year.

But it is human nature to “look forward” to a better tomorrow. There is something quite natural about it. Our beloved country has been on a sentimental rollercoaster of note this year. We started with the same line we start every year – “2019 can’t possibly be worse than 2018”… Sound familiar? The eternal optimism exists that this year has to be better than last year. Add some Thuma Mina “gees”, the upcoming elections, and hope sprang up again. But post elections all it took was a few hours of load shedding and some bad news on the corruption front and we were back in the doldrums again.

But then thank God for the Springboks. Just when the emigration office was being overrun – 80 minutes of magical rugby united us as a nation and made us all believe that We Can Do This! Nothing really changed in the country. But the sentiment did. A recent HSRC study looking at the effect of the Rugby World Cup win, found that 88% of respondents said that sport adds to their sense of belonging to South Africa while 85% thought that sport can help South Africa to deal with xenophobia and racism.

There is definitely something to be said for that positive momentum. That sentiment. That hope. It does actually change behaviour. It makes you want to be a better person. It makes you want to work harder. It makes you want to succeed.

So this is my Christmas wish. That we as a nation start looking at the positive in our country. That we rabidly hold onto the things that work, and ferociously fight off what doesn’t.

As media and communication experts, it is our job to set the narrative for what works in our country. Why was Mbuyiseni Ndlovu (the Grinch who stole the world cup joy) given the airtime that he got? The “Siya sentiment” is far more powerful, and will drive this country forward. We need to blindly “fake it till we make it”. It’s been proven by many experts that once you believe you can turn the ship around, actually doing it becomes so much easier. South Africans need to believe in the promise of the rainbow nation, and we as media and marketing experts need to lead the charge.

I am not saying we should be ostriches and dig our heads in the soil when it comes to our challenges, but there is something to be said for reporting our successes as well. Just recently Mpumelelo Mhlongo – a South African Paralympic athlete – broke his own world record at the 2019 World Para Athletics Games, that’s great news! In the past year, we have had new leadership instilled at SARS, the NPA and the Hawks. Our country is turning the corner, and we need to lead the charge in the sentiment states.

So here is my request to our media owner partners, clients and staff. Let’s use positive words when referring to our industry, our country, and our people. Yes business is tough, but we are employed, we are working hard, and we are making money (well, most of us…). When someone asks you “How is business” – instead of replying with a short four letter word – let’s start speaking positively. “It’s tough, but we are working to change it. We believe we can grow from here”.

A quick glance at the financial statements of every major business shows that there is cash available for investment. I think that this cash will get freed up when consumer sentiment improves. We have the resources and the strength to turn this boat around. Now all we need is the belief.

So am I looking forward to the festive season break? Hell yes. But am I also really excited to get my teeth into 2020 and to make it the best year ever? Hell yes even more!

I’m looking forward to playing my tiny part in turning our country’s future around. Bring on “back to school” and “back to work”. I can’t wait.

Raymond Smit, Head of Paid Search at Reprise Digital South Africa offers retailers and online businesses, tips on maximising their digital marketing efforts.

Advertisers are spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting digital marketing channels in order to encourage visitors to their website and ultimately, drive sales. Often it’s a daunting task to find the optimum digital channel mix because of the size and breadth of the channels and the numerous targeting options available within each. The channel allocation challenge is often exacerbated for smaller clients because they can often only afford to run marketing tests in selected channels and only on a small portion of inventory available within those channels.

My advice is that the channel mix brands opt for depends on the size of their business, the goals the advertiser wants to achieve and the area of the marketing funnel they want to focus on. A smaller online retailer with a limited budget wanting to grow sales could consider a search driven marketing approach and capitalise on search queries where users are actively looking for the products carried by the business.

Medium sized retailers should expand their search marketing efforts to all available search queries where a positive return on investment can be made. Paid search channels can then be supplemented with organic search, maximising their total coverage on all products that are selling well online. It’s a good idea to leave a small portion of marketing budget available to test different channels and events (such as Christmas, Black Friday or a product launch) because stores will most likely experience different sales peaks and valleys throughout the year.

Before embarking on any new marketing campaign: start with a win or learn mind set before implementing a test and adopt a low risk, high probability marketing approach to discover the channels and products that will drive sales. Agencies and advertisers then gain access to the data for better decisions to be made in the future. Ultimately, we learn through our data, but first that data must be earned!

Larger retailers should focus on a full omni-channel strategy to get the most out of their digital channels to drive maximum customer lifetime value. At this stage it’s vital for the advertiser to have a full tech stack integrated into the business, a complete understanding of the value of their own customers throughout their buying lifetime and a firm grasp on how different marketing channels affect their revenue. This is easier said than done as some channels function better as support to others, driving assisted sales rather than direct revenue.

Ultimately, different sized businesses will each have unique performance metrics they need to focus on. As the business matures, so should the metrics, goals and objectives.  Allow your overarching strategy to dictate your channel approach and the performance within those marketing channels will crystalize and shape your budget allocations for you over time.

Reprise Digital SA DNA

Reprise is a digital-first agency, and everything we do is rooted in understanding how consumers interact across apps, sites, IOT-devices, bots, search engines, and social platforms. We uncover your audience based upon their digital fingerprints – and build a media approach to help transform your business digitally. Reprise has the ability to fuse smart digital approaches for our media agency partners in smart and sophisticated ways.

Full service media agency UM has strengthened its local leadership team by appointing Kevin Ndinguri as Managing Director.

With a decade of media strategy and digital experience as his base, the last year of which has been spent at UM Africa as Client Managing Partner, Kevin seamlessly moves into his new role with the full support of his colleagues and clients.

Brad Smale, Managing Director of IPG Mediabrands says that Kevin was the natural choice. “As a Group we have watched Kevin take on more responsibility and confidently lead his team to great success over the last 12 months, culminating in new client wins and greater business growth. We’re excited to see him elevate UM even more with the Group’s full backing in this new venture.”

Having worked on brands across the spectrum including SA Tourism, Nedbank, Johnson & Johnson, Investec, Pernod Ricard, Blackberry, Renault, Spotify and Emirates, Kevin is skilled at switching focuses between categories and is the consummate client guy.

Kevin says: “I’m grateful to Brad and the IPG Mediabrands leadership team for their continued support and look forward to growing and building one of the best media agencies in South Africa while attracting the best authentic talent that lives and delivers against our proposition of using Better Science and Better Art to drive Better Outcomes for our clients.”

UM DNA

UM is a strategic media agency committed to proving that media is a topline growth driver as much as an efficiency play. We believe that better science and better art deliver better outcomes for our clients. We deliver science through the transformational power of business analytics and real-time data intelligence. We deliver art through creating moments that matter in media to deliver momentum for brands. As the leading global media network in IPG Mediabrands, UM operates in over 100 countries, with more than 5,000 people innovating on a roster of global and local clients. For more information, please visit www.umww.com

IPG Mediabrands DNA

IPG Mediabrands is the global media and data arm of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). Today, the network manages $39 billion in marketing investment on behalf of its clients, employing over 12,000 marketing communication specialists in more than 130 countries.  For more information, please visit www.ipgmediabrands.com

 

SPARK Media recently hosted Dr Carl Driesener, Senior Marketing Scientist from the Ehrenburg Bass Institute (EBI) to share his learnings on how marketers and brands can better target their customers for more effective bottom line results.  

“We’ve learned so much about effective marketing over the years thanks to our association with EBI,” says SPARK Media’s CEO Gill Randall, “and there’s never been a more important time us to implement these guidelines for businesses to succeed in the current economy.”

Dr Carl said that targeting is like adding salt to your cooking, a little makes it delicious but too much makes it inedible.

His top five tips are:

1. Be inclusive, rather than exclusive, – the premise behind tight targeting and segmentation is that different brands appeal to different customers.  In reality, we know that the world doesn’t work this way!

There is very little difference between competing brands and all category buyers are your potential customers.

• So, target all category buyers, not some idealised “brand” profile.

1. Make your target market description evidence-based.

Don’t work on assumptions about what the customer-base looks like

1. Avoid targeting only your heavy buyers.

Heavy buyers do deliver volume, but growth comes from the many light and non-buyers, because there are so many of them.

(Counter-intuitively, heavy users need less ad exposure, as the brands are already part of their regular behaviour and therefore more salient.)

1. Buy media on reach (big numbers) rather than indices –

• Seductive over-indexing often hides the fact that the channel still delivers small numbers.
• Always check raw numbers – large audiences are still the primary focus.

1. Don’t sacrifice reach or continuity of exposure for engagement.

• High impact campaigns are often expensive and only reach limited numbers!

What are the implications for media?

Go for bigger media – they reach more of everyone.  Evaluate your choices on effectiveness first – i.e. How many sales/feet through the door and efficiency second – cost per conversion.

“As a South African sponsor of EBI, we remain committed to bringing these evidence-based learnings to our marketing industry,” concludes Randall.

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 an arsenal of print 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’.

International attention technology company Lumen uses eye tracking software to understand the reality of visual attention on memory and ability to recall messages.

 SPARK Media, having just released its ROOTS research which shows that many people recall reading their local papers regularly for news and shopping information, will now add another crucial layer to that knowledge for marketers using latest technology. The outcome will assist marketers in evaluating local papers against an attention metric.

“Just because you can see something doesn’t mean that you will see it. Lumen’s eye tracking technology helps us understand what people look at – and what they ignore,” explains Mike Follett, Managing Director at Lumen.

“The Lumen team will be here in November to conduct an attention study on SPARK Media’s local papers as well as our Caxton Magazine titles, to understand the reality of what gets noticed and given attention in our print media,” explains SPARK Media’s Marketing Services and Research Director, Debbie McIntyre.

According to Follett: “Unless people look at an ad, it will never work. So attention is important. Advertisers can boost the impact of their ads by developing engaging and compelling ads but they can also make sure that their ads are placed in places that are most likely to be seen. We find that ads placed in relevant media environments that compliment the ad message because they sink with the task orientation of the reader, get more attention and recall.”

“SPARK Media want to help advertisers improve their understanding of different ad units to better apply metrics to their ROI strategies and to improve design to increase attention levels. Our intended outcome with this research is to get more insight on how to evaluate this,” adds Debbie.

The research and findings will be presented to the industry early next year.

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 an arsenal of print 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’.

#RWC2019 fever is in the air, and if you’re a rugby lover or history enthusiast, this one is for you. Join SPARK Media and master storyteller, Michael Charton, for a captivating tale about the forgotten Springbok tour of New Zealand more than 80 years ago.

Taking place at the Bryanston Country Club mid-October, Michael’s story breathes new life into the famous rivalry between rugby’s two giants: the All Blacks and the Springboks. It celebrates rugby’s amateur era and the associated gentlemanly conduct.

“For fans across the globe, the Springbok – All Blacks rivalry is long standing, marked by high anticipation each time these two giants clash. The 1937 tour in particular is a fascinating story to hear and told so expertly by Michael Charton, the founder of Inherit South Africa, a platform for sharing untold South African stories,” says SPARK Media CEO Gill Randall.

“Michael is also the author of My Father’s Coat, a bite-sized narrative of South Africa. We’re looking forward to hosting him, our clients and agency partners to what promises to be a very insightful evening.”

If you’d like to reserve a space please contact Shaundre at sp@sparkmedia.co.za

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 an arsenal of print 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’

rooi rose magazine, part of Caxton Magazines, is proud to announce the second season of rrRADIO, the first, free Afrikaans podcast channel for women, launching on 8 October 2019.  “The response to our first season was overwhelmingly positive from our listeners”, says  rrRADIO Executive Producer and Deputy Editor of rooi rose, Hannelie Diedericks. “It’s been amazing to see the downloads and impression numbers; across the channel; double every month and I can see the growth trend continue with the new additions we have planned for season 2. We are aiming to reach 30 000 to 40 000 impressions per month by the end of 2019.”

rrRADIO Season 2 will consist of 4 series:

1. Dans met die rooi rok (Dance with the red dress)

Category: Serial fiction

20 Episodes

Episode length: 30 – 40 minutes

In this enthralling and suspenseful series, narrated by well-known TV and radio presenter, Bettie Kemp, we are introduced to Amelie du Raan.  Amelie walks away from her abusive boss and husband and moves to an old house in the countryside with her children. Here she is confronted with ghosts from her past. The first episode will air on 10 October.

2. Ka-tjieng! (Ka-ching!)

Category: Financial advice

10 Episodes

Episode length: 30 – 40 minutes

Our seasoned financial journalist, Anet Schoeman, and various experts help listeners to make sense of all the possible financial pitfalls that they may come across. Each episode will tackle a specific topic which is relevant to every busy, modern woman’s life and financial wellbeing. The first episode will air on 18 October.

3. Tussen Ons 2 (Between Us 2)

Category: Female health & wellness, body positivity

20 Episodes

Episode length: 25 – 40 minutes

In the second season our specialist journalist, Mariette Snyman, talks with various experts and inspirational women about how women can feel happier in their bodies, regardless of their age, background or body type. The first episode will air on 8 October.

4. Tee & Taai Toffies (Tea & Sympathy)

Category: Celebrities, lifestyle, relationship advice

10 Episodes

Episode length: 45 – 60 minutes

Celebrities open up to our veteran journalist Ilse Salzwedel about their lives. In the second half of the episode they attempt to give relationship advice to listeners. We promise a listener’s experience filled with compassion and humour. The series will continue on 23 October.

RrRADIO is available wherever you listen to podcasts and can be streamed directly from rooirose.co.za/rooiroseradio/

E-mail rrradio@caxton.co.za for more information.