The 2016 IAB Summit was a truly inspiring and exciting event! Gathering industry leaders, movers and shakers in one room is bound to trigger creativity and fuel inspiration for a productive and game changing year ahead.
Effective Measure was proud to have been able to introduce Roli Okoro from Vivaki MENA as our honoured guest speaker. Roli has over 15 years’ worth of experience in both the TV and Digital industry across a variety of disciplines including media operations, technical account and product management.
Roli was an undisputed highlight of the programme with her palpable passion for digital and her relatable dissection of the complexities of programmatic, she had the audience geared up and ready for the challenges ahead in education, and the adoption of programmatic advertising in South Africa.
Effective Measures’ own Nicolle Harding, together with Peter Langschmidt from Echo, explained to the guests how the new Effective Measure Digital Survey will complement the most recent industry changes and assist Brands, Publishers and Agencies to fully embrace and utilize data in a meaningful and lucrative way.
The introduction of the new survey, together with Effective Measures’ new products, will give local publishers more exposure opportunities by making local online audiences easier to reach. After these products have been in the market for a while, Effective Measure will be able to set benchmarks and provide guidelines on issues such as ad viewability and ad recognition.
Inspiration, creativity and collaborative efforts were the major take-out of the event and all of us at Effective Measure are proud to be part of the South African digital marketing ecosystem – a group dedicated to accelerated growth, innovation and collective efforts.
To further highlight our industry’s appetite for success and growth, the 2016 Bookmark Awards, aptly dubbed “The Oscars of the digital world” was an impressive event from beginning to end. Our heartiest congratulations to all the nominees and winners! You have done the industry proud and we look forward to seeing more extraordinary achievements from you in the year to come.
We hosted our first “Leadership Lunch” on 4 March 2016 at the beautiful La Campagnola restaurant in Bryanston.
The objective of hosting events like this inaugural gathering, is to bring together industry members and stimulate a collective conversation that foster the creation of better and more diverse tools being brought into market.
We strongly believe that all industry players need to work together to help form our growing skills. Events like these will stimulate growth and nurture the seeds of creativity in our rapidly evolving industry so we can develop into a thriving and constructive ecosystem.
Starters were served as Bruno Bertrand from Estee Lauder opened up the floor, discussing a broad based funnel approach vs targeted custom audience targeting. While there was some playful arguments in the approaches, everyone agreed that there is a definite move away from environment and toward audiences for higher ROI and contextual relevancy.
A lot of animated discussion ensued around trusted and accessible audience data available to the SA market and how using this data effectively has the ability to transform our businesses.
It was recognised that South Africa is not too far behind international players, with local companies investing in programmatic and audience technology. The general consensus among the guests was that this technology is far too pricey for many Publishers to implement on their own and local, more cost effective solutions are required.
Mains rolled in and the discussions grew heartier. While it was agreed that there is limited demand for audience data right now, the need for good quality data to be available in the very near future was uncontested. Basic demographics and general behavioural statistics are no longer enough. Key stake holders and data partners, like ourselves, recognize the increasing demand for intelligent and well formulated segments. The integration of EM LSM and ECS segments aims to accelerate this framework as does the call for aggregated publisher data.
The power of aggregated data for publishers is manifold. Primary among them is the benefit of earned, scaled revenue channels as well as enhanced own customer experience. There is also a question of data protection. The emPower solution was introduced where audience data is sold blind to market as opposed to other segmentation partners who leave publishers exposed.
As the menu turned to something a little sweeter, so did the conversation. The majority of the guests agreed that ad blocking is not really a threat in South Africa at the moment, due to it being a mobile first ecosystem as well as the average user not being aware of these offerings.
Having said that, the focus on contextually purchased ads will protect advertisers from ad blocking when users do become aware of its function, by adding relevancy to users that will diminish irritation.
“Thanks SO much for having me around Friday. You’ve got my interest piqued very much” – Matt Landon, Zenith Optimedia
“Thanks so much for the lunch on Friday. It was a great opportunity to discuss key issues facing our industry” – Tim Spira, eNCA
“I wanted to let you know that I consider the event an outstanding success. It was interesting, informative and thoroughly enjoyable (despite some serious Bookmark hangovers). The format was inventive and engaging.” – Moti Grauman, Whitecollar Media
“Thanks for inviting me to the event. I really enjoyed the conversation topics and finding out what other industries are facing with respect to digital advertising.” – Aliciela Cinches, DSTV
We will definitely be hosting more of these events in the future and look forward to working with our clients and partners to build, strengthen and develop the SA digital landscape.
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