While many advertising agencies aren`t sold on Internet advertising yet, FCB South Africa says it is taking Internet advertising very seriously. The agency says that area of its business grew by 50% per annum over the past three years and it has just signed an agreement with DoubleClick.
"Internet advertising has grown at a phenomenal rate in SA over the past few years," says Joanne Scholtz, FCB Headspace director of online media. "However, there have been problems in determining just how fast and how big the industry is."
FCB Headspace houses the online media business of FCB South Africa, one of the country`s largest advertising agencies.
Scholtz says the industry has been hampered by the relatively slow uptake of the medium by traditional agencies, but this is because of the massive time investment they have had to make. Furthermore, the online publishing industry does not have uniform standards.
"Each company has its own ad server. This means that campaigns have to be continuously reworked with each publisher," she says.
The agreement FCB Headspace has signed with US group DoubleClick allows it to use the American`s "DART For Advertisers" (DFA) to assist clients in meeting their online goals. This makes FCB the first advertising agency to implement this system in this country, it says.
Scholtz says online advertising has been facilitated in this country by two methods - either served by an external third-party supplier, or by the media owners themselves on whichever service the media owner has implemented to deliver its advertising.
"In both instances, control rests with the server, but responsibility for attaining campaign objectives remains with the advertising agency," Scholtz says. "In addition, measurement can be - but not always - ad hoc and unreliable, making the agency`s task more difficult. And there is very little flexibility and freedom."
She says some of her clients, who have been advertising online for more than three years, have found DFA the most accountable tool in managing online campaigns as it has the ability to streamline the online advertising process and minimise data discrepancies.
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