An Advertisers Nightmare

I read with great interest and amusement the article from Yvonne Johnston (http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/50582.html). From the outset I would like to declare that I have a great deal of respect for Yvonne and I am also one of her fans. She was in her time a great media mind and now an absolutely fabulously great marketer. Her credentials at Brand SA are proof of this.

I am still a news junkie. My day starts with News24, Iafrica, Businessday and Sky news online. It helps keep me in perspective on what’s happening in the world. I don’t own an Ipad, Kindle or iphone. I do own a Blackberry which helps me keep track of all my e-mails. I don’t he use it for surfing the net as the screen is too small so I use my laptop for that. I am proud of my simple technology use; it helps me stay in check. I am happy to pick up my novel and read it as it is and occasionally put in a donkey ear in case I can’t find a bookmark. Does that make me Technophobic don’t think so. In fact I consider myself very techno savvy. I just don’t own many gadgets and I am not an early adopter. I believe that both the online and offline media have a place and marketers can use them both to reach me.

I am also an art collector. Once every quarter I go to an auction at my son’s Montessori school and buy a few pieces. They may not have the same monetary value as a Picasso But the emotional value by far exceeds any Picasso.

I shop at Edgars and Mr. Price. I enjoy the Spar and also go to the Pick n Pay. I get my medicines from Dischem and refuse to go to Clicks because I find them to be very un friendly.

I don’t own a PVR. I seem to like my TV Live and NOT recorded. What’s the point of watching Steven Gerrard scoring against Man Utd on a recording? Sure the PVR has a place. There are some awesome programmes that one would want to keep for watching over and over again. The best part of watching TV is waiting for the ads. Its entertainment value is in some instances better then the programming. How else would I have been suckered into believing that one bottle of Sunlight Liquid will wash 1000 dishes (I do the dishes sometimes) or the Mr. Muscle ad telling me of its Multi purpose use or the Dygon helping me clear the bugs? I am a convert on these products. I moved my bank account to FNB as they said “How can we help you” and they gave me that limited edition VISA Electron card with the World Cup trophy embedded on it a real collector’s item and worth moving my bank account.

I go to the movies and I am always the first in the popcorn Queue because I don’t want to miss the start of the ads.

The 2010 world cup gave many advertisers the platform to showcase their products and talent. Who in their right mind would fast forward the MTN Ayoba ad or the Waving the flag ad of Coke? They gave me goose bumps throughout the world cup. And I still want to watch them. They were absolutely mind blowingly patriotic.

My current favourite is the Boxer ad series from Toyota. They just talk to me. It is like the advertiser has taken the trouble to know me. I like TV and TV advertising. Did I mention it helped pay my salary for the last 20 odd years and also helped buy those art pieces at the Auction? 

So how would an advertiser reach me well he will have to fork out R100 000 for a 7de laan spot on S2, an English Premier league package on S3 for about R500 000 and R2000 for Jhansi Ki Rani on Zee TV. I love soaps some of them are great.  Let’s not forget the news channels, eNews, NDTV, CNN, Sky and BBC.  My favourite media habit is 702 in the morning and Afternoon and also the Redi Dereko and Chris Gibbons shows.

I am an Advertisers Nightmare. It would cost them Gazillions to reach me whereas MS. Johnston well it seems R40 000 per month (before discount) on the Daily Maverick will do the trick a bargain I’d say for such a quality audience. And I am unashamedly proud to say it Mr. Advertiser I am a media junkie and it’s going to cost you money to reach me.

The Big Consumer Rip Off

On Thursday I took my wife and son to the airport. They were travelling to Durban to attend a family wedding. While waiting for them to board I decided to go for some breakfast. I chose a famous bakery that I often used to frequent in Fourways. They make the most amazing bread and croissants. Anyway I sat at a table and ordered some tea and a toasted sandwich. In front of me was the take away section. There was a lot of people bussing around and buying stuff inside the bakery. Above the coffee station I noticed a sign which read “NO TILL SLIP” “NO COFFEE”. I looked at this quite surprised and could not believe that in this day of customer service someone could be so arrogant as to have such a sign. Surely there are other ways of telling customers to please present a till slip before asking for coffee. The sign was big and bold. I wonder what the foreign tourists during the World Cup thought of it or did they just brush it off and say we seen it in other countries as well. The point is we need to show customers we care and present ourselves with some humility. Whether the bakery takes the sign off or not I sure they will continue to flourish. My appeal would be to do it properly.

Which now brings me to the big Consumer rip off? As indicated my wife and son are in Durban so I used the opportunity to go and watch a movie. The movie I wanted to see was “I Hate Luv Stories” A Bollywood movie which was showing only at the Zone in Rosebank. I paid my R49 for the ticket. I stood in the refreshment queue and ordered a Medium Popcorn and Medium Coke Zero, it cost R35. The same size coke instore at a supermarket would cost no more than R10 and popcorn at best another R10. Doing the sums that would mean I just paid R15 more than normal price or 57% more. How do they justify this? Wait it gets worse. I happen to glance at the top of the menu selection of stuff you could buy at a kiosk. Bottle water that I could buy at the Pick n Pay for R6 I now had to fork out R14 for the privilege of drinking it inside a cinema. As with most Bollywood movies there is an interval. So at the interval I was feeling low on Sugar and bought a Chocolate and a Coke Zero which cost a further R40. So my little night out at the movies cost me R124 just to watch one movie. I have not added in the R45 for the dinner after the movie or the petrol getting there. The movie was great and worth the ticket price but the TreatZ that went with it was a bit expensive and I felt that I was ripped off. With the volume of Water that they sell at the cinema I have no doubt that they get a good deal on price. If we assume that they buy it for R5 they sell it for R14 that would make a profit of 280%. A tad much I would say. Even popcorn one could argue that the unit cost is much lower than the selling price. The cinema does not allow me as a consumer to bring my own food beverage inside so I am forced to buy at the cinema at these ridiculous prices. It would be interesting to see how the new consumer act can tackle this issue. I have no issues with the cinema charging whatever it wants for its food and beverage that is their right but then it must allow me as a consumer to choose whether I buy from them or not. I can’t watch a movie without Water and Popcorn. However I would like to buy it at a price I am willing to pay.

Behavioural Targeting - Should it Be Common Practise

The accelerated adoption of the World Wide Web has seen advertising investment migrating from traditional media to online media. Planning online campaigns can be as simple or complex as the media planner, strategist, or marketer chooses.


A simple, but inelegant, solution may be to purchase 100 000 impressions on a site and hope for the best. What constitutes ‘best’ in this scenario? ‘Best’ hopes your impressions are served to your ideal audience – which requires that the “right” audience is clicking on your ad and being directed to your own website. The best, also being that at the end of the campaign you get a report saying that instead of the 100 000 impressions as contracted, the site drew an additional 25 000 click-throughs resulting in more exposure. However, the click-through rate from your online advertisement to your own website is only 0.25. The standard response from the online advertising website owner is that this is within the norm for websites. Anything above 0.25 is excellent. In traditional media planning this represents a typical ‘hope for the best’, shotgun approach.

How to refine the wild discharge from the barrels of a shotgun into a tightly-niched, pin-pointed telescopic rifle, high return on investment, campaign is the burning question.

Online advertising has advanced to the point where an astute advertiser may apply his mind in selecting the media he purchases. More and more websites and search engines charge advertisers only for ads a customer clicks on. The ad is served without charge, unless the customer physically clicks on it. Seemingly initiated, certainly perfected, by GOOGLE, it is the preferred method – saying “we have confidence in our site and our quality audience”.

The how? How do we find quality audiences?

Not all online advertising opportunities offer Cost per Click or Behavioural Targeting. One may assume they are concerned about the numbers of impressions given away and most likely do not have the ability to track consumer behaviour on their site. So what is Behavioural Targeting and why is it important that South Africa moves into a concentrated digital marketing communication era?

Behavioural Targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behaviour, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made. This assists in delivering online advertisements and content to those users most likely to be interested.

In addition, the owner of the site can recommend on issues such as ‘most’ other users viewing the particular product also looked at … and list accessories, services aligned to the product thus reassuring the viewer and positioning him directly into a collective of probable buyers.

It can be used on its own or in conjunction with other forms of targeting based on factors such as geography, demographics or the surrounding content.

Behavioural Targeting allows site owners to display content more relevant to the interests of the individual viewing the page. My pet hate is still being served impressions for “1st Insurance for Women” Both the site and the advertiser got it wrong in this case.

In essence, Behavioural Targeting allows media buyers, marketers, and online stores to selectively target the most desired consumer and to offer a range of product and accessories attractive to the consumer, but retaining behind the scenes, and readily available on the Mouse Button, the full range of offerings. Coupled with Cost Per Click we not only get the customer we want but only pay for customers choosing to browse our website. An immensely powerful combination that virtually eliminates wastage!

Google, Facebook, Yahoo are some of the major sites offering Behavioural Targeting. All also offer Cost Per Click campaigns. Despite that many online networks offer the facility across a number of different sites, however there are still too few to undertake major campaigns and advantage ourselves fully.

South Africa lags its American and European counterparts on Behavioural Targeting as we do not have the critical mass available. Major online groups such as 24.com and Primedia are well-positioned to champion Behavioural Targeting in South Africa. Their audience base includes general, business, women, teenagers, and men. It should be noted though that Sales Houses Apurimac and Habari do offer this service for some of the global sites that they manage.

From an advertiser’s perspective, Behavioural Targeting is a logical progression to pin point the target market for their products. The consumer perspective includes the imperative issue of privacy, a debate currently raging in the USA as Behavioural Targeting is in reality, a form of permission based marketing. Consumers accessing sites need to be informed that their behaviour on the site is tracked and content relevant to that behaviour offered to them.

Still Behavioural Targeting is a powerful media planning tool targeting the “right” customer and only paying for the media when the customer clicks on your ad thus minimizing wastage.