What has brought you to the IAB Digital Summit 2016?
I've always taken a keen interest in the development and foundation of IAB South Africa, and CEO
Josephine Buys was kind enough to invite me to speak at the IABSA Digital Summit when we sat together during dinner in New York last September at the IAB Global Summit. I was delighted to accept.
You’ve been with the IAB UK since 2005, and helped your peers in South Africa found the IABSA. What initially led the IAB UK to become involved with the IAB SA, and has the relationship between the two entities being beneficial for the IAB UK?
The road to the foundation of IAB South Africa was chiefly managed, as always, through the brand licence holder, IAB US - hence their CMO, David Doty appeared at the Digital Summit last year. I was very happy to provide advice from the sidelines, as the UK is such an advanced market. Our mission is the same the world over, to create the right conditions for digital advertising to thrive, and South Africa is at a fascinating stage in the journey. We can all lessons from each other.
Do you think we have reached a high water mark regarding social media’s influence over digital advertising or is it a case of the industry and social media platforms themselves evolving with the times?
No, I think we're still cruising up the bell-curve! Even in the UK social media advertising is still growing at more than 40%, and Facebook has only recently launched video advertising, one of the fastest growing formats. Add to that channels yet to be fully monetised, like WhatsApp and Snapchat, and there's clearly plenty of growth to come. In a predominantly mobile territory, like Africa, social media will be a natural choice for brands.
The world economy is going through a period of economic stagnation, looming recession or economic pessimism depending on who you speak to. What challenges and opportunities exist within the digital advertising space in this economic environment?
In such conditions, marketing budgets come under the FD's microscope, as a variable cost which can easily be cut. But this is where digital can win over traditional, because online advertising - especially direct response - is demonstrably measurable with a return path to the ROI. Even during the depths of the 2008/9 recession, online advertising kept growing in the UK (albeit modestly) while all traditional media went into reverse.
The challenge is always to prove the worth of online brand advertising which competes openly with TV and print on the media plan. So the opportunity is to show how TV and online work better together, and get a slice of the action!
What role do you believe Africa has to play in the future of digital advertising? Has the evolution of the digital market place in the UK offered any potential pointers for where Africa as a whole might be heading?
Penetration of the internet is far higher on mobile than fixed internet in South Africa, so, from a low base, online advertising can grow with mobile first (or mobile only) strategies. But high penetration of smartphones counts for nothing if publishers' content and advertisers' websites aren't optimised for mobile devices. Once they are - the opportunities across search, social, video and native provide an exciting canvass for progressive brands.
This is all happening in the UK, but as we were geared for desktop and laptop for so long before the iPhone arrived, it took a few years to transition to the mobile first world. IAB UK finally called time on its dedicated Mobile Engage conference in 2015, now that 94% of the top 250 advertisers are finally optimised for mobile.