Local ad industry falling behind in online race

19 Oct 2009

Speaking at the Art of Digital Planning Workshop hosted by Digivox and Bizcommunity.com in Cape Town last week, Adrian Hewlett, chair of the Online Publishers Association (OPA) - the South African body armed with all the definitive info about global online stats, spends and trends - threw some welcome new light on the subject of digital revenue potential.

L-R: Andrea Mitchell, Digivox founder and conference organiser; Adrian Hewlett, OPA chair; André Britz, Digivox strategist; and Jonathan Allan-Barrett, Digivox project manager.

click to enlarge

For example, the South African online population has doubled in three years from 3.5 -7.7 million, to now include a respectable (but debatable) +15% of the population. No one would argue that 100% of these fall in LSM A and that they are most likely the most economically and socially active target audience that we have.

Yet according to Hewlett, online adspend in SA currently sits at only R419 million*. Compare this with a country such as Belgium, which spends about ten times that (US$500 million) to reach its online population of only 5.5 million users, and we can see that there is a deep well of untapped revenue for advertising practitioners to tap into by thinking online.

The OPA (www.opa.org.za) has emerged as the driving force behind the digital industry in South Africa. It invites membership and can help empower, not just the digital frat, but also the industry at large to achieve the kind of online revenues and recognition generated globally.

Having, somewhat reluctantly, I must admit, attended Digivox's Art of Digital Planning Workshop, I now cannot recommend this sort of event highly enough. Unless, of course, ad agency creatives and strategists really want to relinquish their power in the communications industry to media planners, it would serve them well to get to know the nature of the digital beast.

In this regard there can be no further excuses for failing to attend digital industry events on offer such as this week's OPA and FNB's free digital advertising panel discussion in Johannesburg on Thursday, 22 October 2009, and the November Bookmarks Week Workshops. My humble advice: book now and take your whole team. We can all only benefit from greater digital empowerment.

* Please note that the originally quoted figure of R67 million was based on the 2003 stats. This has been updated to the 2009 forecast. Our apologies for any misinformation.