BrettStClair

Just incase anyone is looking for Mary’s actual presentation please find it below.

Johannesburg, 14^th September 2009 – Print advertising is dead, long live print advertising… or should that read long live mobile advertising. Ok, perhaps that’s jumping the smart phone touch screen a little, print advertising has its place and hopefully always will have.

According to Brett St. Clair, Country Manager of AdMob South Africa, the present big thing in advertising platforms is not just the printed page, but the mobile page. “Gazing into the crystal ball of advertising, it looks like the future is going to be fast, handy and at our fingertips,“ says St Clair.

In markets where there is limited fixed internet access, like in many African countries, including South Africa, mobile has become the preferred method of accessing the internet, be it to google, twitter, log onto facebook, find information  or have a laugh on youtube.  Research conducted by Juniper Research indicates that worldwide ad spend on the mobile internet will approach R3.5b in 2009 and reach R14b by 2014. With approximately 37 million active personal mobile users in South Africa, the mobile internet becomes a direct base for advertisers and app developers to interact with their target market which cannot be ignored.

Mobile advertising allows brands to achieve a greater ROI through targeted advertising since users engage with the mobile internet selectively and either choose to view, or receive banner ads that have their interests at heart.  This method of demographic targeting ensures that money spent on advertising by brands is guaranteed to be viewed by their target market.  In South Africa, with growth in handset numbers virtually saturated, the next mobile growth arena will be internet connectivity, multimedia and e-mail. Thus advertising on mobile becomes the fourth crucial marketing platform, together with print, broadcast and online.

With this in mind, St. Clair notes that “With 2010 on our doorstep, brands, through mobile advertising, have an unparalleled opportunity to reach millions in a targeted fashion, thus increasing their brand awareness and market share”.

The rapid growth of mobile users in the lower LSM’s in South Africa together with the increased volume of mobile phones able to access the internet has led to an entirely new way for brands to engage current and prospective consumers.  Traditional forms of print and broadcast advertising are still effective channels to reach consumers.  The writing is on the wall, or rather in your mobile phone – the mobile age is firmly upon us and brands need to explore this new avenue available to them, or face being left behind in the race to ‘get mobile’.

Johannesburg October 20th, 2009 – 2010 is looming ever closer, and with it the advertising industry’s need to elbow their way to the front in order to gain as much exposure for their brands as possible. When considering which media should be targeted, the mobile internet is proving to be an increasingly necessary weapon in any marketing campaign’s arsenal. Mobile phones account for almost 90% of all telephone lines in Africa.  Let’s repeat that, almost 90% of all telephone lines.  With growth levels of 50% per annum, enormous further potential remains in the region, with a population of close onto 1 billion people.

Mobile networks – following the launch of third generation broadband mobile services in a number of key markets – are beginning to play an increasing role in the provision of internet services in Africa due to the poor fixed-line infrastructure.  Brett St. Clair, country manager for AdMob South Africa (Africa’s largest mobile internet advertising platform) says that, “In July we exceeded half a billion impressions per month for the first time.  Currently, these figures have grown to exceed 600 million per month“

A 2009 report by BuddeComm presents some research that should make any marketer, media placement agency or advertiser to look up from their Apple Macs and listen.  A few key points to note are:

• South Africa has more 3G/HSPA  broadband  internet users than ADSL
• 44 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria equating to a 32% penetration level
• 3G mobile broadband captured 25% of Morocco’s broadband market in less than two years
• More than 10% of Kenya’s GDP passes through the M-Pesa mobile banking service, which has more users than there are bank account holders in the country

With all the difficulties faced in Africa in telecommunications, mobile has proven to be the golden goose. In excess of 5% of the population in the region now has access to mobile phones that enable mobile internet browsing, making the mobile internet the golden egg.  The rapid growth of the mobile internet has been enabled by the launching of the 3G networks, an increase in the number of networks (Nigeria alone has at least 10), and cheaper data rates.  While SMS advertising is difficult to set up in Africa because of cross operator codes and costs, mobile internet advertising can happen within minutes and has a greater reach without the need for databases. Research from AdMob indicates that the countries with the highest numbers of mobile internet advertising impressions are as follows:

while the top handsets used are:

While the majority of the Traffic is generated from low end handsets it is interesting to see remarkable growth from  smartphones such as Apple’s  iPhone

Mobile advertising is enabling marketers to reach consumers in markets that were previously considered virtually unattainable, both from a reach and cost point of view.  With both CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions), there are options available to advertisers that are not present in traditional media, and average CRT (click through ratio’s) are proving that this method of advertising is the wave of the future.  St. Clair states that, “with the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, coupled to the sharp growth of African economies, mobile is the only choice, and AdMob is the only choice.  We are the leading media to provide this reach, and with very cost effective pricing structures.”

Internet World Stats research shows that internet usage grew in excess of 360% from 2000-June 2009.  While this is impressive, more so is the fact that in Africa, this growth was in excess of 1,300%.  With the knowledge that almost 90% of this access in Africa comes through the mobile internet, advertisers will surely be missing out on this golden opportunity if they are not including mobile advertising in their marketing campaigns.

When you think of Mobile Marketing I bet you think….SPAM. SMS messaging at ridiculous hours in the morning. You think of buying a database; sorry an ‘opt-in’ database and acquiring loads of great customers?

Its time that the true nature of mobile marketing is made clear, what really works and what is just hype, revolution or reality. I figure the best place to start is the beginning, something prehistoric, caveman style. Let’s turn the clock back to the year  2000 AD when SMS was the new comer. Mobile spawned the era of Mobile Content. Now, incredibly, you could SMS to a short code and purchase ringtones for your new Nokia 2100, the content could then be sent to your phone via WAP push. Suddenly you found yourself paying R5.00 per week, and hard pressed to figure out how to stop it.  Content providers started abusing subscription services. Consumers got angry. Following premium SMS billing came SMS marketing, so everyone went out, purchased loads of databases and started to ‘engage the masses’.  SPAM was born.  The mobile industry setup WASPA who’s code of conduct would protect the consumer from subscription services and SPAM.

Let’s move forward 5 years or so to current times; Marketers’ perceptions that the only way to access the millions of mobile subscribers is via messaging is only correct when using services like ‘Please Call” which target the low LSMs and reach over 20 million subscribers.

If executed correctly, SMS marketing does work ‘Opt-In’ databases however don’t (SPAM) so where does one go to reach new consumers. Recently the mobile operators have done a fantastic job rolling out data services (connection to Mobile Internet) At the time, no-one realised that through the combination of data access, cheap pricing and a market full of web enabled handsets  SA would lead the world in the explosion of Mobile Internet. It is cheap and works so well that in March 2008 a milestone was reached.  More South African’s would experience the web through their mobile than a PC!

Today, mobile marketers can find new customers by placing banner adverts with Mobile Internet publishers such as m.24.com, soccerladuma.com and Vlive. If you combine all the Mobile Advertising networks like Admob, Buzzcity, etc there are over 500 million impressions coming out of South Africa monthly.   Wow, so now we have reach, advanced rich interactivity and the ability to measure the success instantly, at a low cost. It is simple too. The internet in SA has over 5 million users, while mobile operators ‘guestimate’ there are around 10 million users of the mobile internet. Key factor is that you are not SPAMMING, you are not interrupting, but you are engaging only with the subscriber if they choose to!

Looking into the Crystal ball of the future, what do we see? More SPAM? No, we see interactive video campaigns – click to view a video and then one click to purchase the advertised product. We will see mobile internet banners with  ‘one click’ purchase, click to call, click to stream video, click to twitter (what? mobile social network advertising?).Actually what I see is my iPhone. Smart phones generate over 8 million impressions monthly.  This is almost as many as soccerladuma, SA’s 2^nd largest Mobile Internet site.

Not only are the upper income earners browsing but the lower incomes are too.  SA is one of the cheapest countries in the world to browse on mobile internet with pages costing less than R0.02. Global demographics from AdMob show that mobile internet users range from 13-55plus with a well balanced male/female usage.  Everyone is using the mobile internet.  Everyone is a consumer.

From a mobile Marketing perspective, we need to respect the consumer, it is their personal device.  South Africa missed the innovation boat on broadband internet, but we are at the forefront of Mobile Technology and mobile advertising globally.

Some of the key internet growth areas in Africa are free content sites, news portals such as bbc.com and social networks, like pepperonity and facebook, and it is mobile phones that are driving this growth.

With the launch of Seacom and Essay still to come, Africa will soon see the benefits of the digital revolution. The growth in internet users in Africa since 2000 is over 1000%, an easy achievement when starting from virtually nothing. Africa accounts for only 3% of global internet users, with the majority of traffic coming from Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, South Africa and Sudan.

The role out of broadband in Africa is taking place on mobile, since the cost to implement wireless is  much cheaper and operators already have great coverage across the region. South Africa has 6 million fixed internet users – a fraction of the total population – but with over 10 million mobile internet users  has already surpassed the milestone where more  will experience the internet on their phones than on PC (March 2008). While these statistics are regularly discussed, growth in mobile advertising spend is proving that the numbers add up. AdMob serves banner adverts onto mobile internet pages worldwide and Africa currently generates over half a billion impressions a month with South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Libya, Egypt and Tanzania leading the way.

This is very exciting for both subscribers and businesses on the continent, since the former will  have access to the world at their fingertips,  while the latter can use Mobile Internet (web pages optimised  for mobile that are small and relatively cheap to download) to distribute their services to the African consumer.

Due to  the lack of billing or payment mechanisms in Africa, (which is fast  being addressed with services like Mpessa in Kenya) mobile internet advertising is helping African Mobile Internet businesses instantly monetise their services. The ability to reach this vast untapped market instantly and cost effectively is a very attractive proposition for advertisers who usually have limited media to advertise on. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!

Well at last I am back after a 9 month break and alot of procrastinating, so whats going to happen this year?

Well it is all about Mobile media and Video, I am a complete illiterate so figured I am going to try do video.

Still working out my theme, so the point of this posting is to show Mike I have done what I planned !