More speakers sign up for PAMRO conference

23 Jul 2007

There is less than a month to go before the ninth annual PAMRO Meeting and All Africa Media Research Conference gets underway on 19 August 2007 at Club Makokola in Malawi's beautiful Mangochi area, and delegate numbers are reported to be approaching record levels. The number of high profile international speakers is also rising, as several more experts accept invitations to present at this year's event.

PAMRO honorary president Piet Smit says that close to 70 delegates from all over Africa, as well as several from other continents, have already registered for the event. PAMRO's meeting on Monday 20 August, will include activity reports from all these countries, the most extensive round-up of media research ever presented at a PAMRO meeting.

The All Africa Media Research Conference follows on Tuesday 21 August. A number of new speakers have recently confirmed their attendance, including Unilever Malawi's head of consumer marketing, Enwell Kadango.

Challenge of media usage

Kadango is scheduled to speak about the challenges of media usage in Malawi from a business perspective. He will be covering media usage and the media landscape in Malawi, looking at how the business community in that country views media advertising. The presentation will outline why it pays to advertise, giving examples from Unilever, and will show why companies should not only consider the bottom line but should also consider share of voice when making media decisions.

Finally, Kadango will explore the challenges which most corporate marketers face in convincing top executives to buy media space for advertising.

Delegates can also look “Beyond Traditional Audience Measurement”, in a presentation by Pushkar Kulkarni of Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) UK, which represents Arbitron in the US, the inventor of a new version of peoplemeter called the Personal Peoplemeter, destined to replace the original Peoplemeters used for television audience measurement.

Kulkarni will give an overview of the future of audience measurement in a changing media landscape. Digitalised radio and television signals see the electronic media no longer being fixed to just one radio or TV set, with people consuming these media on cellphones, iPods and other mobile devices. Viewing and listening behaviour is also being changed, as devices such as PVR give audiences full control over what and when they want to watch.

New technologies

Kulkarni will discuss the new and affordable measurement technologies which are already being embraced around the world, such as Portable Peoplemeters, which measure the individual and not the media, and Return Path Data, where audience behaviour is tracked by retrieving data from set top boxes provided by cable or satellite providers.

Also recently confirmed on the speakers' list is Nielsen Media Research's Angelique Amado, who will talk about adding value for stakeholders from a SAARF RAMS point of view, and Josiah Kimanzi of the Steadman Group, who will give a Kenyan perspective on the increasing role of the vernacular in a dynamic radio environment. He will also be discussing the future of media brands in Africa.

The conference wraps up on Wednesday 22 August, with a gala dinner. Other highlights of the event include the announcement of the winner of the PAMRO Achiever of the Year award,.a tour to Bird Island, and the raffle of a Nokia E65 mobile phone.

Registration for the event is still open. Go to www.pamro.org and click on “Events” for registration details and more information,or call Fiona Lister at SAARF on +27 (0)11 463 5340.