Free guide profiles readers of Afrikaans dailies

These include cosmetics to durables, homes to food and groceries, finance, clothing and shoes, travel, cellular phones, sports and entertainment, the Internet, activities and leisure, motor vehicles, and even TV and radio.

Ads24 is the national sales and marketing division of Media24's daily, weekly and community newspapers, and the free lifestyle magazine MyWeek. National research data reveals that SA's Afrikaans community is one of the most affluent population groups in the country and that just over a million people a day read Afrikaans broadsheet newspapers, with a quarter of these being coloured.

Dedicated to newspaper reading

"One of the key factors for advertisers that Prime Numbers reveals is that the Afrikaans market is dedicated to newspaper reading! A remarkable 80% of Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad's readers read no other daily newspaper," says Tiaan Ras, manager: marketing and media intelligence at Ads24.

Advertisers with an eye on the 2006 All Media and Product Survey (AMPS) will know that newspapers in general have moved up from fifth to fourth position in the South African media-preference stakes. Plus, there has been a significant increase in the number of people who read newspapers, with daily newspapers readership increasing by 7.2%. That's more than 5 million additional South Africans who choose to get their news from the daily paper.

Ads24 has focused the guide around four key areas to help the advertiser understand the Afrikaans consumer in the context of a society, as well as that of a potential commercial sector, namely value, affluency, activities and mindset.

25% of household expenditure

The value section discusses the value of the Afrikaans speaker in the SA market place - 25% of the total South African household expenditure comes from these pockets.

The section on affluency pertains to the personal wealth of the reader - who ranges from LSM 6 - 10 when talking about the readers of Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad. And with R47 billion in household expenditure per annum, the section heading affluency is not an overstatement. Together with the section on value these two key areas will help advertisers understand the type of return-on-investment that is possible from reaching this lucrative market segment.

The portions on activities and mindsets help the advertiser understand the Afrikaans consumer so that the message can be delivered with maximum impact and appeal to the target market. Activities gleam insight into what Afrikaans people enjoy doing in their leisure time, while mindset, (an analysis done by researcher Jos Kuper of Kuper Research) demonstrates a rather startling discovery to many outside the Afrikaans community, in that today's Afrikaner's are not all kam-in-die-kous boerewors braaiers, but rather a positive, liberated, racially diverse and extremely loyal community.

For a complimentary copy of Ads24's guide to Afrikaans dailies, contact Tiaan Ras on +27 (0)860 024 024.