The growth in broadband access in South Africa and a growing interest in online communities have created new opportunities for companies to interact directly with their target audience in a way that very few other advertising mediums are able to match.
Social networking Web sites, like Facebook and MySpace, are often mentioned when it comes to innovative marketing campaigns where companies directly interact with consumers, but local Web sites may provide even better opportunities and value for money.
One example comes from MyBroadband, a local IT Web site attracting over 700 000 unique monthly visitors. MyBroadband has a strong and well-established online community having been around since 2003 when ADSL was launched commercially across South Africa.
With most of its visitors being professionals in the 18- to 50-year age range, many of whom earn in excess of R400 000 per year, it was a perfect fit for local online retailer Wantitall and Ukash, an international e-commerce payment system.
Wantitall previously ran a very successful competition on MyBroadband where users had to select products from their online catalogue to the value of R5 000. Because of the success of the competition, Wantitall and Ukash decided to up the stakes by extending the competition to run over two weeks with the prizes totalling R30 000.
This is one of the biggest competitions using a local online social network and it has already solicited a great deal of excitement within the MyBroadband community.
Advertisers like Wantitall and Ukash are also more than happy with the response so far.
"The competition on MyBroadband is surpassing all our expectations. The community interaction and brand exposure is something we have not achieved on any other medium to date. It is really exciting for us to see how effective marketing through a social network can be if the campaign is implemented properly,” said Justin Drennan, MD of Wantitall.
“It's good to see that South African social networks are not only able to stake their claim in the online space but also make money,” concluded Drennan.
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