Media monitoring across Africa

Celia Cowper, Starcom Africa General Manager, says Starcom tested the MediaMark system during a Barclays campaign implemented in Botswana, proving the system to be very accurate.

Audio Auditing, which has been operating since 1992 in South Africa, is totally independent of any media owner or media buyer and provides an unbiased monitoring service of scheduled radio and television advertisements.

The TV or radio advertisement can be watermarked anywhere in the world using Audio Auditing's Internet based encoding software. The ensuing detection reports can be viewed in-country via the Internet. This extraordinary leap in digital rights management and ad-spend verification, has now been introduced into Botswana and will be followed shortly by Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique, DRC, Angola, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

This system also enables media buyers be able to quickly identify and correct broadcast errors; ensure that the right spots air at the planned times; and certify that value-added commercials were flighted as negotiated.

Cowper says: "Starcom and Barclays are positive that lack of media transparency on the African continent is fast becoming a problem of the past. Audio Auditing detections exponentially maximise value to the advertising and broadcasting industries by providing immediate, timely and accurate monitoring data, quantifying and verifying performances of radio and TV advertisements and programme content.

"To provide hard copy proof, in the form of a compliance certificate, of electronic media advertising expenditure for the client and the client's internal and external financial auditors, is an added advantage."