The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) along with MiIllward Brown has released a new research into the state of marketing expertise and opportunity amongst client-side marketers across Africa.
The results are based on 82 responses from marketers working for well-known local and global brands at a country or regional level. The results highlight the key challenges that all brands face in Africa, notably the lack of reliable data, including media consumption and retail performance, as well as the progress that marketers in the region are making in delivering more effective marketing.
“Africa’s main challenges lie in its enormous size and diversity; it’s imperative that companies wanting to succeed and grow here recognize that the continent isn’t one economy or homogenous population block. Africa is a conglomerate of 54 countries that, more often than not, don’t share policies and attitudes, and have evolved differently through their social and economic pasts,” observed Charles Foster, Managing Director, Millward Brown Africa & Middle East.
The WFA Study further highlights that marketers need to understand the local cultures, economics and practices to succeed.
“We’ve seen that a key factor for success is having marketing operations headed by locals who understand and connect with what consumers need,” added Mr Foster.
The report also reveals the gap in consumer understanding that local and regional marketers say exists at a global level. However, the report also entails a common ground with marketers in other regions with key priorities cited as brand positioning, integration, consumer insights and marketing analytics.
“Africa offers huge and untapped potential for the brands that can not only manage their budgets efficiently but also connect with its populations via powerful insights. We should not underestimate both the amazing work that’s already taking place in Africa but also the opportunity for it to grow even faster,” commented Stephan Loerke, Managing Director, WFA.
Some of the key results of the study include:
• Lack Of Basic Market Level Data: This hinders attempts to generate insights, with 62% of respondents agreeing with this statement. Separately 45% of respondents also agreed that a lack of infrastructure is the key barrier to effective market research.
• Low Investment In Advertising: This lack of basic data is also holding back investment in advertising with 55% of respondents citing this as a barrier to investment and 50% claiming it was stopping them accurately measuring return on marketing investment in their market or region.
• Lack Of Tools To Measure Investment: Tools used to measure return on investment are still evolving, with 72% using brand tracking, 60% media tracking and 52% applying direct response analysis. Econometric research/media mix modelling is being used by 25% of respondents with attribution modeling applied by 17% of respondents.
• Bullish About Resources: Marketers are generally bullish about the resources they have to deliver effective marketing solutions with 34% saying they were a fair way along the road at a regional level and 30% claiming similar progress in their home markets. 23% described themselves as fairly advanced in their home markets and 16% claimed to be making similar progress at a regional level. However 22% said they had not started to make progress yet at regional level.
• Generate Consumer Insights: There is still much to be done to generate actionable consumer insights with 45% of respondents saying they had just begun this journey at a regional level and 33% saying they were at the same stage at a local level. It is not all work in progress for all African marketers with 20% of respondents saying they were a fair way down the road at a regional level and 25% giving this answer for their home market.
• Marketing, An Attractive Career Choice: Marketing is seen as an attractive career choice according to 61% of respondents but 41% also said there were not enough young talented people coming into the industry. A further 35% said the best talent was being poached by other countries/regions. There is exciting entrepreneurialism in Africa with 62% of respondents agreeing that “there are plenty of very exciting new agency start-ups emerging”.
