However, digital hype around creating personalised, relevant content that develops deep relationships with audiences has driven industry predictions of the death of television advertising.

This could not be further from reality. Where television viewership figures are declining globally, South Africa is Africa’s largest television watching market, and the medium remains an intrinsic feature of daily life.

Marketing 101 says, in order to build a brand, you need three things:
  • the right audience — get eyeballs looking at your ad and paying attention to your narrative
  • a compelling message that will catch attention and differentiate your brand as something the audience should care about
  • an efficient media buy
For all three criteria, television continues to score highly.

1. In terms of audience reach, television still wins the race

Television reaches 95% of the population across ages 15+ (all SEM’s). Digital media has a maximum reach at around 70%, so already the cards are stacked in television’s favour.

Time on a device and time spent with the channel is also important to understand. WARC 2019 SA data shows that daily viewing for television is up year-on-year, with 76% of the audience viewing television daily. 

The unrivaled reach of television is proven when you consider the viewership of the top shows — Uzalo (10 million viewers per episode), Generations (9.2 million per episode), SkeemSaam and Scandal (eight million and five million per episode, respectively).

South African audiences still sit down for appointment viewing of popular shows, creating these unique, and somewhat antiquated, viewership patterns. Marketers can place 30-second ads or sponsor these shows at a highly reduced rate, delivering massive reach at scale.

With 12.6 million 4G LTE devices in South Africa and around 80% of the population now with smartphones, according to ICASA2019 , digital possibilities seem promising until you look at the advertising picture online.

Facebook claims eight million active people daily in South Africa, but not one piece of creative on Facebook can reach all of those people at once and the cost would be upwards of R400 000 to reach all eight million over time.

YouTube, the second-largest platform in South Africa, has a masthead, one-day, all-impression buy-out, but you only really reach five million of the maximum 16 million audiences — and that’s for the cost of a spot on Generations or Uzalo.

2. Television is consistently more viewable

Television has always had the upper hand as a medium for compelling messaging that can be entertaining and catch attention. Digital, by comparison, struggles to keep audience attention. Video advertising easily sits at around 40% (prediction) of all digital media spend — for good reason. Banners, text search ads or simple images are nowhere near as impactful as a video. Statista puts video ad spend up 22% year-on-year at $94-million.

But, check any video report and it becomes clear that advertising that doesn’t stand out as super eye-catching in under six seconds, is ‘sent scrolling’. Most video advertising has a viewability rate of well below 45% (according to IAS and MOAT) meaning that your ad is being seen for less than 2 seconds for 50% of the time in view. You need to spend a lot of money to get a guaranteed view of your 30-second spot.

YouTube six-second ads are similar to 15-second television ads in that they are effective in raising top of mind awareness for an established brand. But the best way of ensuring total recall and building brands remains the 30-second television ad.

When you consider the true viewability for television ads — factoring in viewers leaving to make tea — the average 30-second television ad has a viewability of 72%. Moreover, 30 second ads are 41% more likely to receive absolute visual attention.

3. Television is the most efficient media buy

Most recent TAMS data shows ETV and DSTV viewership growth, and year-on-year and OVHD continues to steal share from both SABC and DSTV. A 30-second spot on Muvhango on SABC2 runs a rate card rate of R120 000 and returns around 5.2 million viewers, giving a CPM of R14. Realistically, post discount, you’d get closer to R8 but that’s for another discussion.

Comparing apples to apples in digital, a similar buy type allowing you to reach maximum coverage of users on one day would mean spending R160 000 on YouTube masthead, returning around eight to 10 million impressions and two million unique browsers at an average CPM of R16.

Facebook can deliver maximum reach, with an average CPT of R50, but you’d need around R400 000 to reach eight million non-viewable impressions — in static images. That is not possible in one day.

Viewable impressions have an average CPT of R80, which limits you to 1.5 million viewable impressions. Yes, you could do a reach-based buy on Facebook, but you would need R140 000 to reach four million people once — again, non-viewable. So essentially, there’s strength in both channels.

In South Africa, digital as a stand-alone cannot compete on brand building as it does in other countries. Digital and television, however, can work well together to build the brand.

As a stand-alone, television wins the argument for reach, ‘compelling-message-that-is-seen’ and efficiency — retaining its status as the most consistently robust channel for brand building in South Africa.

For more information, visit www.pernod-ricard.co.za.   

*Image courtesy of Vecteezy