By Adam Wakefield
What can we expect to hear from you at the IABSA Digital Summit 2016? Looking forward to taking part?
You can expect a deep dive into the world of programmatic and its transformational effects on digital media, with insights into big data and how it helped digital media evolve into a heavily targeted and efficient medium
Are their assumptions that can be made when using big data for targeting a specific audience or market? Or is very much a case-by-case approach, dependent on the client and/or product?
There are always assumptions that can be made when looking at a specific audience or market... just like we might make assumptions about an individual we meet for the first time, until we get to know them. These are basic assumptions which can then be further broken down into specific deterministic user profiles/segments which is either dependent on the brand and/or campaign strategy. For instance, data can get as basic as targeting a male, 25-34 in Egypt to male, 25-34, income bracket $5k-$10k, interested in sports, in the market for football shoes.
Its one thing to have access to these insights via first, second and third party data, but if not applied or used correctly, will lead to wastage. Audience profiles to be used are determined by brand and campaign strategy and as such on a case by case basis.
With the increase of ad blocking technology, what is the industry’s response to ensure that display advertising delivers ROI to clients?
Yes there are ad blocking technologies out there that are being used by a small percentage of users but I don’t think this issue is more prevalent that fraudulent traffic and viewability but it will eventually get to that point
There are various ways that the industry is already looking at addressing this issue, and one of the most prevalent is Native ads. As Native ads match the form and function of the platform it appears, ad blockers can have a hard time recognizing that a piece of content has been paid for by a brand and is therefore an ad.
What is your biggest expectation for growth in African digital media? How much can the continent benefit from the leap frogging opportunities presented by mobile and its relatively low mean age?
As more and more content is being consumed digitally and on mobile devices, digital media is set to grow at an accelerated rate in Africa. With more premium content now been made accessible in the region on mobile devices, comes increased opportunities to diversify into mobile advertising strategies, be it Mobile Display, Video, Rich Media, Native Ads… the possibilities are really endless.