Media research in 2014

By Rob Smuts

As the media industry transforms, so should the media research advertisers depend on to make decisions. It used to be that each release of the venerable All Media and Products Survey (Amps) signalled the most important event in media research in South Africa.

In fact, without the traditional Amps media research, can we possibly make any advertising placement decisions that are any good? At this time, probably not. But what does the future hold for media research?

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The impact of fragmentation of TV Audiences / The Rise of Digital

By Rob Smuts

How long will television continue to take the lion’s share of advertising spend in our South African market? How will the fragmentation of TV impact media decision-making?

Recently released Internet Advertising Bureau and PwC data on advertising spend in the UK indicate total UK digital ad spend went up 15% year-on-year to £6.3bn in 2013. Mobile ad spend doubled to break the £1bn mark and now accounts for £1 in £6 of digital advertising in the UK.

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Media research body Saarf is critical for media strategy

ROB SMUTS explains why Saarf is critical to our industry and why destroying it would be the biggest mistake we could make

The South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf) is different from the rest of the media research world. Saarf has been the envy of the international research world because many other countries have failed to develop processes and methodologies to measure media audiences in an independent way.

Saarf was launched in 1975 and what set it apart from the rest of the world were three visionary developments.

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