by Mercedes Westbrook | Feb 5, 2016 | B2B Sales, Business, E-commerce, Firehorse Media
In South Africa, digital advertising on smartphones and computers will generate 52% of the total increase in ad spending during the next five years, with over half of South Africa’s internet traffic on mobile phones, making it the greatest opportunity for growth in the immediate future, according to digital media buying agency Atmosphere Orange’s Media Director, Chanel MacKay.
She points out that, ”Ninety-five percent of South Africa’s major brands use Twitter and 92% use Facebook to advertise. With 53% more YouTube users and 65% more Instagram users over the past year alone, marketers are increasing their social media budgets as they grasp the potential for market share growth on their doorstep”. According to the Chief Marketing Officer Council digital ad spending across the Middle East and Africa is ripe for expansion and will skyrocket to $1.35 billion in 2015, more than four times the global average.
The Pro Shop is just one example of South African businesses forging ahead. Says Marketing Manager, Trevor Rebello: “Online spend now makes up about 8% of our total budget and we realise that even this is a low figure. We were very clearly shown that for less money we can target more golfers across all age groups. Our budget spend has to continue to increase in this direction. We are also putting more focus on our social media profiles and all have grown as a result, in just one year. We realise digital is the way forward, we definitely see the results.”
Media is consumed over tablets, mobile smart phones and desktop with the average South African spending five hours online. Digital advertising is bought and sold on automated and superior targeting tactics with as many as 80 differentiating measures, including age, geography, and gender, far more than traditional advertising. This allows advertisers to sharply focus their campaigns and reach and communicate on a one-to-one basis with their market wherever they are and at whatever time of day they are online.
PwC South Africa entertainment and media industries leader, Vicki Myburgh says, “By embracing digital as the engine of their business‚ companies can position themselves to meet consumers’ changing demands through any channel and format – and more effectively and more profitably than ever before.”
Atmosphere Orange identifies three major trends. MacKay says, “media consumption is moving to mobile, outbound marketing has shifted to inbound and content marketing, and there is an increasing understanding of the advantages of programmatic media buying’ and with that comes remarketing and cross-device targeting.”
Clear advantages are gained with the automation of the media buying process. Not only does it streamline the inventory process on the buy and sell side, it can compose new audiences on the fly, across different content properties. Marketers can access millions of data points as to who saw their campaign, who engaged with it, what message they were attracted to, and how they converted.
A host of new insights about their consumers offers the best value for marketers, says MacKay, improving a campaign’s effectiveness and answering strategic questions . “Psychographic, behavioural and lifestyle data adds dimension to marketing communications. For example, a retailer may see that while they are getting a high click-through rate, their sales remains low. We can understand why. Looking at criteria such as geographical areas and specific times of day we might find consumers are visiting the site while at work but waiting to get home to order the product or service; or that there is high demand for the product but no retail site within reach of that location. Using this information the brand can then decide on where to build a bricks and mortar store within reach of new markets; or plan for a digital retail store to reach and service the geographic area.
“Brandwatch highlighted Hyundai integration of digital into their traditional marketing campaign by changing their website for five minutes whenever one of their TV ads was aired. They built a new landing page related to the model advertised on screen at the time, with a call to action. Testing was done by alternating the old site with the new site whenever the ad was run. Conversion rates for a brochure download or to book a test drive went from 0.7%of visitors to the regular site, to 3.3% on the new site, showing a 480% increase.
“Brands must now be super agile and ultra-relevant across all digital mediums and on a minute-by-minute basis,” advises MacKay. “Digital has put the marketing channel on an upward trajectory. Its influence is everywhere and it is creating and cementing relationships with the core focus of any marketer, their customers.”
Digital advertising maximises the return on investment for brands, by giving brands greater control with reduced display advertising costs. The advantages of programmatic marketing’s fine-grain tactics, dynamic creative and optimisation, also allows the consumer to benefit as they are less likely to be served ads that are not relevant to them. With increased relevancy comes an upsurge in quality conversions for the advertiser.
“Programmatic digital advertising requires less budget as there are lower costs per ad and wider, more targeted reach. Using the campaign’s key performance indicators (KPIs) the campaign might start off small and grow according to which channels deliver the most high-quality leads. Working 24/7, data is analysed, optimised and reported on regarding traffic, pricing, impressions, clicks, conversations and the time between every action, allowing the brand to react dynamically to market changes and keeping the brand marketer front and centre of the campaign’s performance,” MacKay said.
by Mercedes Westbrook | Dec 7, 2015 | B2B Sales, Business, E-commerce
The Pro Shop opened its first store in the heart of Johannesburg’s CBD in 1976, today this iconic sports brand represents South Africa’s largest golf superstore offering sportsmen and women a full range of professional golfing equipment.
A focussed approach to its brand marketing and an understanding of its core target market has seen continued success for the brand following a decision to embrace programmatic marketing with the support of digital media buying agency Atmosphere Orange.
Today it continues to hold its position front and centre as the biggest golfing website in the country. The Pro Shop’s Marketing Manager Trevor Rebello discusses their campaign and the process which took them to the top of their game.
How did you first come to understand programmatic marketing and initiate the campaign with Atmosphere Orange?
We engaged Atmosphere Orange a year ago, around the time of our annual August sales and we saw immediate results. Since we had never used online campaigns of this nature before we have no benchmark to measure against but I can say that the company is doing better than it has compared to results of the past five years, while the industry as a whole is down over the same period.
At one stage, we did dabble with online advertising but found we had to think hard about which websites would work for our products and where our market would be visiting. We looked at sites such as Golf Weather, Super Sport or Golf Digest assuming golfers would be online there, but the CPMs we were being quoted were too high for the number of visitors they were seeing. We were spending the money but we weren’t able to track the results to leads or sales and so the pricing was too high.
Teaming up with Atmosphere Orange has definitely shifted the way we think about marketing. The Pro Shop has been in operation for 40 years. We were stuck with outdated thinking which focussed mainly on traditional forms of media and on an older LSM as we felt this was where spend was. We had never considered either our website or an online presence as part of our total sales turnover. Our main product, golf clubs, are also a high ticket item transaction, so The Pro Shop typically sees less online purchase averages than other types of online stores. Our target market likes to be able to try their golf clubs out before they purchase, so they come in store to get a feel for the clubs and see if they match their swing. The budgets from online couldn’t compare to our in store retail levels where clubs are custom fitted. Working with Atmosphere Orange, we moved away from a static product information focus to new product launch initiatives instead.
We now have 30 000 – 40 000 unique visits to our own website each month and are probably one of the biggest golfing websites in South Africa. When customers want to buy golf clubs they come directly to us. As a result, we currently set aside monthly budgets for our online advertising. Atmosphere Orange finds the golfers for us.
What was different with Atmosphere Orange and why did you decide to try them?
Atmosphere Orange reversed the approach. Instead of us advertising on a few websites where visitors were seeing our ads on TV and in magazines, they said they would find us golfers over many websites who weren’t already our customers, they would be unique views. I was impressed by their scientific approach. They were able to reduce the CPM and at the same time increase the number of impressions and all their claims were validated.
Were there any surprises in the process or in the results?
There were no surprises in the process. From the first meeting I was able to gain a good idea of how it was going to work. They would define the target market for the individual campaigns and the final pricing invoices matched the figures quoted in our initial meeting, together with the guarantees being met of a higher click through rate and a lower CPM.
Has it changed the way you think about your clients, branding, advertising or your business?
Prior to this, The Pro Shop was spending almost zero on online advertising. We were focussing on TV coverage at events and in magazines and paying massive amounts of money for a magazine circulation of about 40 000. Now we spend R20 000 per campaign over a two to four week period and get a million impressions. There is no guess work. For R20 000 we are getting at least 8 000 customers clicking through to our website, searching for information or making an online purchase.
Online spend now makes up about 8% of our total budget and we realise that even this is a low figure. We were very clearly shown that for less money we can target more golfers across all age groups. Our budget spend has to continue to increase in this direction. We are also putting more focus on our social media profiles and all have grown as a result, in just one year. We realise digital is the way forward – we definitely see the results.
by Mercedes Westbrook | Oct 7, 2015 | B2B Sales, Business, E-commerce, Firehorse Media
Belinda Taylor, Media Mind at Cape Town based agency Tag 8 discusses their business alignment with digital media buying agency Atmosphere Orange and their programmatic campaign successes to date.
How has working with Atmosphere Orange boosted your business?
“We currently partner with Atmosphere Orange on the digital aspect for two of our clients. We have seen a real boost in business for both our clients. Personally, I enjoy working with programmatic marketing in the digital space. It has reach and offers such a defined target market across a variety of sites. It’s affordable and it’s trackable. It delivers on a brand’s campaign objectives.
For the one campaign we wanted to drive consumers to their website and heighten the amount of conversions. Using visual media and real time bidding (RTB) through MediaMath we got the highest conversions they had had throughout the campaign, and those conversions originated right out of the RTB aspect.
When a client has clearly defined objectives and KPIs they need to meet, we always motivate for RTB if it aligns with the campaigns goals. Our biggest challenge is communicating to our clients what RTB is and how it works; this is central to them understanding its effectiveness. In order to do so, we provide presentations and use case studies to show its relevancy, how it meets those KPIs and how exactly RTB can achieve that.
Were there any surprises in the process or in the results?
With our one client we had a surprise. It was a long campaign and we found there was a drop in click through rates, which was a result of banner fatigue. We went back to creative to reassess before going live again with the next burst.
Weekly reporting is helpful and we always do an end of phase report inclusive of insights, and we always brief creative on the results we get back from the data.
Using data metrics, we can then redefine a route to optimise the campaign. With the client, we decided to rework the banners and change the call to action. Atmosphere Orange also suggested we use AB split testing with two different calls to action to see which worked best and then further optimisation from there.
Has it changed the way you think about either clients, branding, advertising or your business?
Working with Atmosphere Orange has definitely changed our digital strategy. We started noticing it was more important to communicate its effectiveness to the client in order to understand RTB’s importance.
Most brands see digital as an add-on, but we see it as an ‘always on’ aspect to the campaign. It has the ability to achieve other objectives and it should be integrated within the overall media plan, it makes for a more holistic campaign. We get it, but it helps to remember where the client is coming from.
Digital is second nature to us but the forever changing online environment makes it hard for everyone to understand why it is so important. It’s still a traditional marketplace.
We aim to educate that digital is in fact the closest channel to their target market since it’s part of their habitual everyday life. Its the current trend and all brands should use it to connect with their consumers.”
by Mercedes Westbrook | Jul 16, 2015 | Firehorse Media
Young, hip and driven, today’s trendsetting Millennials would never dream of comparing themselves to the ‘retirement generation’, those Baby Boomers aged 55 years and up. But, backed by big data metrics, astute marketers have found the link between two seemingly diverse markets. Using algorithms to produce competitive marketing strategies they have found a new language to speak to and convert both sets of demographics at the same time, slicing budgets in half and saving brand conversion time.
How are marketers bridging the generational gap between Senior Joe and younger Joe Junior? “They understand the individual motivations,” says Chanel MacKay, Media Director at Atmosphere Orange. “Using data for programmatic profiling, fine-grain metrics are telling us that they display similar habits and share common values. But you have to use accurate metrics if you want your online advertising campaigns to work,” counters MacKay. “This is a large market we are talking about here and using programmatic market analysis you need a well-strategised system that drills down to the hard facts when working out a campaign that targets their particular needs. Using data-driven metrics, brands are now designing campaigns for both demographics which offer a single brand experience, one that embraces both their similarities and their differences.”
What are some of their similarities? Traditionally Boomers claimed the highest level of disposable income with 4 out of 5 retailers attributing 50% of sales to this age group. Tough economies however, have seen them tightening their purse strings and searching online for bargains, sales and coupons. This has coincided with the growth in the size of Millennial numbers, with the Millennial market overtaking Boomers in size and potential spending power.
Both Millennials and Baby Boomers want quality of lifestyle, which includes conscientious behaviours, and a focus on health. Being community driven, they are always switched on and engaged with researching, purchasing, donating, volunteering, or supporting environmentally friendly or non-profit organisations. As much as 70% of Millennials will look at a firm’s commitment to community as a factor in their employment decision. And they care just as much about their own families, 63% of Millennials will consider, or already do consider themselves responsible for caring for an elderly parent.
With mom and dad connecting more online, Millennials will be feeling the competition when it comes to device sharing and usage in the home as parents highjack time for themselves online. And both demographics display similar habits in that journey. Recent research by both the Pew Research Center and Forrester Research reveals Millennials spend 59% of their time on smartphones, 35% on tablets and 70% on laptops, often multi-tasking over multiple screens while either on the go or at home watching TV. Baby boomers – that’s parents and young grandparents – display similar habits, MediaCom statistics see 79% of Baby Boomers using the internet with 65% using Facebook and more than half engaged with their community through video or supporting causes online, booking travel or searching for health conscious options to improve their lifestyle.
As part of their journey online both Millennials (82%) and Boomers (52%) rely on word of mouth marketing. They are listening socially to their friends and family when choosing a product. “Recessions and the economic downturn have distressed the Boomer buyer and like Millennials they need to make planned purchases. They are online with their respective communities searching and listening for recommendations, reviews and the best deals,” says MacKay, “ This makes digital strategies that use both traditional marketing techniques and native, multi-screen tactics able to grow trust over both generations.
“It’s a new language for brands,” says MacKay. “Blatant selling strategies aren’t going to work for this focus group. There is a migration towards native advertising from both Millennials and Boomers, they want to feel connected, they want authenticity, they want to be inspired by people and make a social impact. And they want to be informed through story.
“But both are easily distracted by other things online. You’ve got ten seconds to catch their attention,” says MacKay. “Then you need to search, find and retarget them, at the same time working with intuitive creative to keep it inspiring and with the right message formats to meet them on the right channel and platform. While Twitter has successful brand engagement for Millennials, Boomers won’t follow a brand via social media.”
“By targeting both 20-somethings and Boomers who have been around the block, it creates new opportunity for creative storytelling and optimisation of the same message across all channels that can include 2nd screen syncing. As long as you are establishing trust and offering value and making it easy for the customer to communicate with you, consumers both young and old will not only transact, but then use word of mouth to refer your brand on,” says MacKay.
by Mercedes Westbrook | Jun 3, 2015 | Firehorse Media
More than half of the world’s population: three billion now use the web regularly and two-thirds of those are from the developing world who, thanks to smartphones have doubled their internet use over the last five years. All of this poses significant challenges for advertisers and marketers.
The Internet economy will reach $4 trillion in the G-20 nations this year. If it were a national economy, it would be in the top five, behind only the United States, China, Japan, India and ahead of Germany. In the United Kingdom, A Barclays survey found that UK tech companies predict growth of 11% over the year – more than four times faster than the UK’s GDP forecast for 2015 (2.6%). And in South Africa, as the most technologically advanced country in Africa, that growth is as fast, if not faster.
“Instead of just a few dozen or hundred reliable magazines and newspapers, television and radio stations, advertisers are now chasing dozens of social media outlets, millions of blogs and online publications, podcasts and streaming web TV. It’s never been harder to know where to place ads or market,” says Chanel MacKay, new Media Director at Cape Town’s digital agency Atmosphere Orange.
“Plus today’s customer is highly influenced by social media and word-of-mouth. They know which brands they like and where to find them. It is up to the brand to follow and understand their growth in the online journey in order to better interact with them,” says MacKay.
“Programmatic media buying is where mobile was three years ago,” says MacKay, who joined Atmosphere Orange, wooed over by its high tech human resources and knowledge of this rapidly developing market following an eight year career development at competitive agency 25AM. “People know it works, they know they must be putting budget aside and incorporating it, they know it is growing, but they don’t understand how to use the technology to their best advantage.”
With her experience and training on the psychology of a buyer, MacKay believes customers are flexible on how they engage with brands. “In order to better interact with the customer, marketers must embrace the technology, they must understand the best ways to capitalise on these industry opportunities. Programmatic is cheap, it’s efficient and enables brands to make decisions for optimisation on the fly. Backed by accurate data, we understand the individual customer. We have the targeting technology. It is critical that we educate and inform our clients.”
“The quicker the industry embraces it, the quicker agencies will win and the quicker brand budget will be retained in-house. We are doing our best to grow that understanding in the market. Unfortunately there are a lot of people are out there insisting they are specialists in programmatic but are merely on the bidding side, they have no idea of how to implement strategies that work for mobile reach and best brand fit.”
With seven certificates and two Legendary Awards from ABSA for excellent service and regional superstar performance, MacKay has proven success in understanding and interpreting information as it relates to each unique brand objective. “We focus on that customer journey. We know the gaps. We know that people online are like fish, they have a five second attention span. We know where else we are going to capture them. It is part of the journey of getting interaction with the brand; to do that you need the best technologies, visualisation and data. Customers trust our programmatic services because we have the answers; we are able to provide that 360 degree solution.”
Confident of Atmosphere Orange’s technological position in the marketplace, and backed by a passion for the industry, MacKay will oversee what she calls a dynamic process that will take South African brands front and centre on the digital platform. “What is required now is that we focus on helping the market develop its understanding of how data can be used and interpreted for visual communication strategies across all the digital platforms available to the marketer, based on strategies that are clear and work efficiently. Programmatic is both an art and a science. One can’t just analyse data and say there you go, we need to put value, reasoning and creative representation behind the conversations we are sending out to an information based economy and then be responsive towards how the campaign is performing, marrying new data to the key performance indicators for an even bigger picture.”
MacKay, known in the industry for developing brand strategies that speak directly to consumer behaviours and who has seen nomination for the Bookmarks Best Digital Planning Award two years in a row, has expansive ideas for this digital agency’s growth. “Atmosphere Orange’s programmatic talent is what makes us massive beyond reproach, I believe we just haven’t been screaming loudly enough about the expertise we have in programmatic. We understand the intricacies of digital advertising technologies better than most. We pride ourselves on using more tech features that allow us to always exceed the client’s key performance indicator’s (KPI’s); they see product growth. We plan to keep consistently exceeding those KPIs, bench marketing performance, implementing continual optimisation while maintaining a reputation for service excellence.”
Watch an interview with Chanel MacKay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OhcJWtgR38
by Mercedes Westbrook | May 6, 2015 | Firehorse Media
A year or two ago, South African brand managers would have given you a resounding ‘uh?’ if you had mentioned programmatic media buying (PMB) to them.
Fast forward to current times and you are witnessing the rapid transformation taking place in how today’s brand manages are purchasing advertising media, defining their target audiences and delivering direct, dedicated information to their customers.
Armed with programmatic media buying skills they know exactly what their customers want, when, and how. What’s more, using its automated rules for buying and optimising media, they are benefiting from its efficiencies of time and money.
In 2013 this targeted ad selling hit $12 billion, it will somersault to a predicted $32 billion in 2017 and is expected to be the only way media will be purchased.
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