Digital operators plan onslaught against traditional media
Major digital operators last week in Lagos engaged themselves on how to grow the industry, deepen their operations and connect brands with consumers across West African market.
The forum entitled ‘Mobile West Africa’ is coming at a time marketers are struggling with decisions on which media platforms to channel large chunk of their advertising spend for adequate impact and consumer engagement.
While it is argued that traditional media still remains strong and relevant due to its believability and credibility even in the face of the emergence of online platforms, it is said that digital media offers the opportunity for advert segmentation and quick reach.
Though, the last week forum which is the sixth in the series is seen by the organizers as industry progress barometer and a move to grow the digital ecosystem. It is also believed to be a strategy to convince marketers to push more content and advertisements to digital mobile platforms, a plan and lobby that resonates with current belief that digital is both real time and more engaging.
If digital operators succeed in this plan, it would likely cut more slices from about N150 billion yearly total advertisements spend and which means that other platforms would lose weight as they pay for it. Today, digital advertising is growing very fast from about N5 billion about 6 years ago to about N15 billion today which is 10 percent of total Ad spend. Globally it is expected to grow to about $41 billion.
“Digital advertising has doubled in about four years. I think it will grow further to about 20 percent of the total advertising budget in a few years. Nigeria is a young market where almost 50 percent of the population is younger than 25 years. These guys are not watching TV everyday; they are more engaged with their mobile phones and other digital access points”, says a media expert.
It is also agued that one of the major challenges of mobile advertising is the inability of companies to properly compose Ad messages that fit the platforms which would attract clicking.
Major discussions at the Mobile forum include consumer targeting and learning about consumer behavior and how to connect to the consumer. The participants also discussed how the business of mobile is changing and tried to locate where the opportunities are.
Matthew Dawes, founder All Amber, organizer of the forum further explained that it is about the potential of mobile content on the African market. “It is how advertisers, marketers and others can take advantage of the increase in Smartphones, feature phones and how to connect to the consumer.
He however said the idea is how marketers can integrate mobile in to their overall marketing strategy. According to Matthew who recognized that consumers don’t grow their brand recognition from one platform but multiple platforms said it has become mobile first across markets.
He said that while the forum assists to prepare stakeholders in the digital ecosystem on the emerging trends, Matthew said the platform also offers opportunity for players to take advantage of the growing market. “In the conference we have officials from Google, the banks, marketing agencies and others and this year we sponsored start ups to come to the conference to interact and network to move the mobile industry forward”
According him, the principal objective of the conference is the uniqueness of mobile and how advertisers could take advantage of it. Matthew says the forum exposes participants to consider mobile marketing as proper marketing platform.
Daniel Obi