Johannesburg, 15 Jan 2012
Digital is taking over the world. Everyone is on Facebook. Everyone has a PC with an Internet connection and everyone is a digital guru, according to their CV. But this is only true for Europe and the USA, right? Down here in Africa, we are far behind the developed world. Right? That statement couldn't more incorrect, yet strangely true too. The point is, everyone is on Facebook and it's not only limited to those with access to expensive technology. In Africa, mobile is king, and everyone you know, or could know, has a mobile device.
There are more than 40 million mobile phone SIM cards in South Africa for a population of 50 million. Approximately 13 million of those SIM cards belong to devices that can access the Internet. Only a third of these are considered smartphones. Most of the smartphone population is at the higher end of the Living Standards Measurement or LSM scale. But what does that say about the other 8 million phones out there? Are we just ignoring them? For marketers and advertisers to make the assumption that the lower LSM market is the poorer cousin of the online community would be a fatal mistake. As your grandmother might have said, “don't judge a phone by its cover!”
Digital marketing agency, Prezence Digital, recently developed a soccer news and fan site: Soccer Laduma, which works on both the Web and mobi platforms. Since its launch in July, it has received almost 35 million page views. More importantly, the ratio of Web to mobile browsers is one to three in favour of mobi. The target audience of Soccer Laduma is primarily the lower LSM black market.
The analytics of the visits to the Soccer Laduma sites show that there is a content consuming and hungry audience out there waiting to embrace digital content from FMCG brands. The best way for brands to migrate from traditional print media to digital is simple. They need to generate straightforward, clear and relevant content that is easy to use and feed across all mobile devices, irrespective of the type. Ultimately brands need to deliver the best possible user experience on every user's handset - something which the Soccer Laduma mobi site has managed to achieve.
A common mistake among marketers and advertisers is to assume that they only need to hit the higher end devices like Blackberry and iPhone but Prezence Digital CEO, Prakash Patel believes that no sacrifice on any device needs to happen. “There are more than 6000 different types of mobile devices available in South Africa, each providing an individual browsing experience, which is completely dependent on the device. There is no point serving iPhone sized content to a Samsung E250, and that's important because the E250 is South Africa's most common phone,” he says.
Building an online solution for content delivery, for web or mobi, is really a once-off cost. As publishers will already have the content available, the cost is essentially only in developing the solution to deliver content electronically. After that, the cost of engaging the target market is only the data cost of accessing the site which would be less than actually purchasing the traditional media space.
The strategy of attack, however, is very important stresses Patel. “It is imperative to ensure that readers are returning and this is done by making the content easily consumable across all platforms and delivering the best user experience to the consumer irrespective of their handset.”
Feedback should also not be ignored he adds. “The consumer will constantly provide feedback and, by engaging with the user base, it is easy to adapt and improve where necessary. Lower LSM targets online are being largely ignored at the moment, but this is to the detriment of brands wanting to engage a true mass market.”
Patel says brands and marketers are missing a trick by assuming the old standards about internet penetration in South Africa still hold true for the lower LSMs: “Mobile technology is transforming access to information for everyone in South Africa, not just executives with iPads. The key to reaching this market online, though, is optimising your content for the devices being used to get online and to keep it simple so as not to necessitate high data charges.”
Desktop computers may still be out of reach for lower LSM markets, but as feature rich mobile devices become cheaper, the related consumer growth will increase and with it comes a massive new internet user base. It is said that each Internet user holds about R1 of advertising potential. Roughly 67% of mobile Internet users in South Africa are in the lower LSM bracket and while that advertising potential may be lower it represents 8 million sets of eyes. By anyone's measure, that is market not to be ignored.
Patel says the proliferation of mobile technology should be the catalyst for a paradigm shift among marketers and advertisers wanting to reach a true mass market: “We already know there are some 12 million mobile Internet devices in South Africa. In comparison, there are only 3 million Internet users that don't include those mobile devices. This already shows us that mobile should hold an enormous weighting in strategic planning.”
Top 10 mobile LSM myths:
(All stats refer to the South African market, unless otherwise stated.)
1. In Africa, more people have access to mobiles than clean drinking water
2. In SA, there are more than double mobile internet users than desktop computer users
3. Low-mid LSM contributes to 67% of the mobile internet market with 8 million users
4. Nearly 1.25 million handsets are sold each month in SA
5. 65% of all weekend Google searches happen on a mobile
6. The highest LSM group of mobile Web users are that in LSM 6 with a black, mid 20s, slight male skew
7. Apple iPhone is the least significant smartphone platform in South Africa with only 4% of smartphone sales
8. Blackberry is the most significant smartphone platform with 67% of smartphone sales in SA
9. There are over 6 000 different mobile devices to cater for
10. Mobile apps can only serve 4 million devices. Mobile Web serves 13 million
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