Rudo Maponga: Digging for the Black Diamond

The UCT Unilever Institute and TNS Research Surveys originally coined the term “Black Diamond” during their groundbreaking research into this growing market in 2006. In 2007, Rudo Maponga wrote a SAMRA award-winning paper titled The Rolling Stones - Exploring the Job-Hopping Phenomenon Amongst Black Professionals in South Africa, which attracted considerable media attention. Soon thereafter she was appointed manager for the Black Diamond Department at TNS Research Surveys and is now responsible for the day-to-day and strategic running of the department. Having begun her marketing research career at TNS as a junior research executive in 2005, one could fairly describe her rise as meteoric.

Maponga took to the stage as the last speaker at the 2009 Habari Digital Symposium, and audience members were interested to hear that the Black Diamond segment accounts for 40% of the country's consumer spending power, currently estimated to be in the region of R250-billion - a staggering R70-billion increase over 2007, which puts to rest the pessimistic predictions that this sector of society would “implode” due to debt pressure.

According to Maponga it is essential for marketers to abandon the “one size fits all” approach to the Black Diamond group and come to understand that they have become segmented through rapid growth. Members of the Black Diamond group could accurately be placed into the following four key categories:

• The mzansi youth who are still living at home and studying towards their future (71% of mzansi youth are students but surprisingly few plan to qualify as professionals as their focus is more entrepreneurial)
• Start-me-ups who are starting out in the working world and are in the process of accumulating key assets (over 80% are single and aim towards promotion to senior positions, while 92% of this section own a mobile)
• Young families with young children (they account for almost 30% of Black Diamonds and are predominantly female - the majority are single parents, 40% are sole breadwinners and 30% still live with their parents and project their success through their children)
• The established who are the older, wealthier families (this segment accounts for over one million Black Diamonds and have the highest rate of property ownership - 66% are between the ages of 35 and 40 and married, while 85% have children at home).

But Maponga warned that it's not enough to know only of these four segments - marketers also need to be aware that these individuals range between two mindsets: the status quo and the future-focused. She would strongly counsel marketers to vary their messages between ambition-focussed and community-focused individuals.

“Black Diamond women collectively have the strongest financial clout in the country right now, and are ignored at a marketer's peril,” says Maponga. “Almost half of the women we interviewed said they earned over half of the household income, while over 80% said they were the main household decision-maker when it came to purchases.”

According to Maponga, 99% of Black Diamond women own mobiles, with two-thirds of the women claiming they could not survive without them! An encouraging 64% said the internet was becoming more important in their lives.

Over a third of the country's three million Black Diamonds now have internet access, mostly through the workplace, while internet cafés have become decidedly popular among the student segment. Maponga says a third of her respondents said they accessed the internet from their mobiles.

Although lately the growth of this segment has slowed somewhat due to the economic downturn, it remains notably recession-resilient. “It's a very stable middle class,” Maponga insists, explaining that within the Black Diamond group the time for playing catch-up is over and that they have begun to invest in the future in a sustainable manner. She also pointed out that although there has been some slowdown in terms of migration from the townships to the suburbs, this is not necessarily due to finances. “The very things Black Diamonds moved to the suburbs for, like shopping facilities, good hospitals and other services, are now being built within the townships.”

About the concern that Black Diamonds might be in a lot of debt, and that they have accessed their lifestyle through credit, Maponga is dismissive. “We questioned respondents about whether they felt the strain of interest rates going up, but surprisingly only about 20% showed any concern. If credit were a problem they'd have felt the pinch.”

Further Black Diamond figures that came to light were:
• 58% live in houses in the townships
• 70% have five or more people living in their house holds
• 86% believe in lobola
• 75% believe in slaughtering to thank ancestors
• 84% of Black Diamond children speak English fluently
• 72% believe that “the way your children dress, speak and are educated is a reflection of your wealth”
• 46% have access to some kind of formal credit
• 50% feel trapped by the amount of debt they have
• 87% say its necessary to have medical aid, 26% have medical aid.