Page 16 - index_main

MOBILE MARKETING

are very positive. Ghana is very forward Unilever is among the major companies that have sponsored marketing
thinking,” he observes. campaigns which give consumers free mobile airtime in exchange for listening
to product advertisements. The campaign attracted up to 5 000 calls an hour
Darko adds that, while there is already
a lot of mobile marketing in Nigeria and smartphone penetration), Kenya (40%), of Google and Microsoft. The AAI’s key PHOTOS: GETTY/GALLO IMAGES, SUPPLIED ILLUSTRATION: DYLAN JONES
Ghana, it is generally unfocused. “It’s like Nigeria (39%) and Egypt (30%). measure is cost of 500MB of data per
spraying with a machine gun and then month as a percent of gross national
seeing what you hit.” African consumers income (GNI) per capita.
are now accessing
Mobile coupon campaigns change cheap smartphones Africa comes out as by far the costliest
that. “It lends itself to analytics providing at 15,2% of GNI compared with 0,8% of
rich data on customer behaviour and The upward trend remains strong. GNI in Europe. “For many Nigerians, just
preferences,” Darko explains. “We can The GSMA predicts Africa’s smartphone 500MB of mobile prepaid data can cost
see who is redeeming what, where and penetration will reach 57% in 2020, not far more than they spend on their children’s
how much. It enables positioning for off the predicted 66% global average in education,” notes the AAI.
new promotions.” the same year.
But data costs in Africa are trending
The approach that WiGroup will use in But for smartphones to really come downward, having halved from 30,8% of
West Africa is to run product campaigns into their own in Africa as a marketing GNI in 2013. There are also other ways
simultaneously on different media platform, the problem of high data costs to overcome high data costs.
platforms. “You could use billboards, must be addressed. “If you could get
magazines and mobile,” says Darko. “Each data costs down you would be in another Facebook, which generates over
has a different redemption code, which space,” says McEwan. “People are very US$20-billion in annual mobile ad revenue
enables us to identify which channels are selective on how they use data. It is a big globally, has found one. It has recently
the most and least effective.” growth inhibitor.” negotiated agreements with mobile
service providers in 21 African countries to
However, while SMS and USSD The challenge of data costs is a focus charge lower, or even zero, costs for data
facilitate fairly advanced mobile marketing of the Alliance for Affordable Internet when subscribers access Facebook.
strategies, there is a limit. “They are very (AAI), an organisation backed by the likes
much fully exploited,” says Palmi. It represents a big step forward for
mobile marketing in Africa. Indeed,
Smartphone strategies Palmi enthuses: “Africa is where the
next big money will be made in
It is now up to Internet-enabled mobile marketing.”
smartphones to drive the next wave of
mobile marketing innovation in Africa, as is Like us on Facebook: For daily marketing
already happening elsewhere. Strategic Marketing news updates, go to
Africa Magazine www.africanmc.org
Globally it’s the smartphone that is
pushing mobile ad spend, which exploded
after Apple launched the revolutionary
iPhone in 2007 and iPad in 2010. In the
US, for instance, digital research company
eMarketer reports that mobile ad spend
grew from US$743-million in 2010 to
US$43,4-billion in 2015. US smartphone
penetration jumped from 26% of mobile
phone users to 89% over the period.

“There is a massive push to get
cheap smartphones into African
consumers’ hands,” says Stephen
Sandmann, Vodacom’s search marketing
head. “Mobile marketing is advancing
in tandem.”

Africa is playing catch-up when it
comes to smartphone usage. The GSMA
reports that smartphones accounted for
23% of all mobile phones in Africa at
the end of 2015. Leading the way were,
notes Pew Research, South Africa (42%

14 strategicmarketingafrica Issue 4 2016