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Sarel du Plessis new head of SAARF
For the first time in the history of the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF), the foundation will be chaired by someone from print, a major stakeholder in SAARF’s joint industry research. Media 24’s Sarel du Plessis has been elected the new chair, taking over from marketer Francois Loubser, whose year in office now draws to a close. The announcement was made yesterday, Thursday, 10 May 2007.
Francois Loubser, outgoing chair, congratulates Sarel du Plessis on his appointment as the new chair.
The new chair of SAARF has ink in his veins. Well-known newspaperman Du Plessis is publisher and senior general manager of RCP Media, the Media 24 division which publishes the Sunday newspapers Rapport, City Press, Sunday Sun and Sondag.
His career in print spans almost 30 years, from his early days as an ad booking clerk at Republican Press, through to his seven years at Times Media, where he worked on the sales and marketing of Business Day, helped launch SportsDay and Sunday World, and then, as sales and marketing director of Times Newspapers, was responsible for the biggest newspaper in South Africa at the time, the Sunday Times.
Active on industry bodies
He is active on a number of industry bodies, including Print Media SA, the Newspaper Association of SA, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of SA, and SAPA.
Du Plessis, who took over as chair on 10 May 2007, was the unanimous choice of the SAARF AGM. He has a very clear goal for what he wants to achieve during his term.
“The media industry as a whole has a responsibility to marketers to provide the best common currency to facilitate the buying of advertising space,” he says. “I want to work with all stakeholders to ensure we have the best possible sample, with results released at optimal intervals, while staying within budget. I do not want to see the kind of situation we had some years back where we cut down on the frequency of the best print research product in the world, purely for the sake of cost.”
Du Plessis wants to ensure that all stakeholders work together for the common goal of producing the best media audience research currency possible.
SAARF’s CEO, Dr Paul Haupt, says “I’m delighted that Sarel decided to make himself available for this demanding position. SAARF has been very fortunate over the past number of years with the calibre of people who have served as its chair, and I am sure that Sarel will do a great job.”
