SA online market proving its worth

“Our current online market is an estimated 4 million people; in fact it's the size of the Irish population. If you were a brand manager, would you ignore an entire country?” asks Buckland. “The OPA has always put out a strong message to the SA marketing fraternity that online advertising should be part of the integrated marketing mix, so that brands can leverage their full potential in reaching its specific target markets”.

“Both the US and UK online industry[ies have] seen brands including online in the ad spend mix – in the UK total advertising spend online is 12% and in the US 8%. This is greatly encouraging and we are already seeing some of this starting to happen in our local market; currently our total advertising spend online is just over 1% but continues to show promising growth,” says Buckland.

Surprising turn

Despite the current cost barriers to both hardware and Internet access, there has been a surprising turn in the market as a result of an unexpected increase in broadband penetration. Substantial growth, based on the recent third quarter reports from the OPA, is clearly seen in the following online arenas – news, sports, property, finance and careers. With the addition of a number of prominent sites as members of the OPA stable, it has allowed the OPA to be far more representative of the broader market. More encouraging than this is the fact that so many brands have now included online into their marketing mix and are executing extremely creative campaigns online as part of their integrated marketing mix.

“The OPA will continue to encourage local brands to include online advertising in their mix,” says Buckland. “The local online market is a very lucrative audience, so why wouldn't you talk to them directly, and in a place where they are clearly comfortable and are in fact inviting you to communicate directly with them? “

The OPA encourages marketers and brand managers to go onto the OPA's website – www.opa.co.za and get updated figures on local sites traffic. If you are new to the online advertising arena, it also has a basic guide to online advertising to assist you in developing an online strategy.

Buckland ends by saying, “With such strong growth in the local online arena, we would certainly encourage brands to take some of their traditional ad spend and place it strategically online and talk directly to their specific target markets.”

2007 vs 2006 – Quarter 3 (July, August, and September)

Top Online Publishers: these figures are only calculated on South African users accessing these publications. Comparative between 2006 and 2007 3rd Quarter unique browsers

Top Online Publishers: these figures are calculated on both local and international users accessing these publications. Comparative between 2006 and 2007 3rd Quarter unique browsers

So who exactly is online in SA?

• The latest Nielsen//Netratings show that currently 55% of all online users are male and 45% female.
  
• The average age of our online users are between 25 – 29
  
• 61% access the Internet from their place of work
  
• Only 31% of all online users have Internet access at home.
  
• 77% of all online users have had some form of higher education since leaving school
  
• 52% are English speaking, 27% are Afrikaans speaking and the balance speaks one of the many African dialects – Zulu being 6% and Xhosa 4%.
  
• 62% of our online users have cellular phones with Internet access
  
• 83% are employed full time and work more than 30 hours a week
  
• 19% hold clerical or administrative positions, whilst only 14% hold managerial positions
  
• 46% of all online users are married
  
• 14% of online users are either from the financial, insurance or real estate industry
  
• 25% live in households that have four members in them
  
• 52% own their own homes and have bonds
  
• 17% have an annual household income of R400 000 or more, 16% preferred to not say what their income was and 10% earned less than R50 000 a year.
  
• 56% have satellite dishes
  
• 31% live in Johannesburg, 16% in Cape Town, 13% in Pretoria and 8% in Durban and only 3% lives outside of South Africa.

• The OPA has recently expanded its membership to include Vodacom.co.za, SA Goodnews, African Media Entertainment and Thunda.com in its ranks. For more information, go to www.opa.co.za.