MANILA – Carmen Murray is the General Manager for Sales and Marketing at Mobitainment (South Africa) and serves on the MMA, putting unique mobile marketing strategies together to drive high impact in a diverse emerging market.
She is a passionate entrepreneur who has been an active force in developing mobile marketing strategies for global and local brands across diverse industries in South Africa. She has shared her passion for digital marketing by conceptualizing and orchestrating marketing campaigns that effectively reinforce and build brand image and revenue for brands like Unilever, Nando’s, MTN, KFC, Shell, Mini, etc.
What are the main trends in mobile marketing in Africa?
One of the big trends at the moment is that all across Africa the smartphone penetration is expanding, which is giving a lot of hope to the marketers. However, we are not there yet, but it is very promising. Africa is the fastest-growing region in the world for mobile right now. It will still be the fastest-growing region 5 years from now, and be second only to the Asia-Pacific region in terms of number of mobile connections, according to the 2014 GSMA Mobile Economy Report – so it’s a great place for mobile research.
Feature phones might be something that many developed countries can´t relate to, but it is still very relevant to the African market, and we are seeing great innovations in technology to suit the feature phone and end user.
Another trend we are seeing is that brands are actively working on solutions to drive African problems and that brands are becoming far more involved to drive a purpose.
Mobile has been hot topic globally for years. But the share of mobile in total advertising expenditure is still very small. What is the reason for that?
For many brands and agencies, mobile is an untested channel. Mobile becomes an after-thought and is left behind. In many cases we see that the mobile budgets allocated are very small or that implementation of mobile is directed to an app, which is not always landscape. One thing to remember is that you don’t need a mobile strategy, but your strategy needs mobile in it. What many people forget is that mobile is the closest you will get to your consumer.
The excitement about the mobile apps is fading away… In Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this year people in the audience laughed ironically every time the speakers mentioned mobile apps. What is the status of mobile app business in Africa?
I couldn’t agree with you more. One thing we see all across the globe is a graveyard of apps, and it is sad as the budgets applied to it are enormous. Not all apps are a failure, but there are a lot of barriers to overcome to make your app successful. Some of these barriers are:
- Common denominator – if you want to reach consumers, you need to catch as many people in the net. But if you look at smart phone and device penetration in Africa for example, you are leaving out the biggest part of the market which minimises your reach.
- Bandwidth – coverage in Africa is really poor, and although efforts are made to increase it, you need to consider this because if they can’t access it, then they can’t use it.
- Apps need to work in a plane, subway, dead spots, etc and you need to consider the data usage of the end user.
- To have a successful app, you need to have an app with purpose and something that drives ongoing value. 90% of people who download an app, are gone in 6 months. Do you have what it takes?
- One very important factor – building an APP needs a lot of budget, but marketing it, even more. If you are not prepared to put a solid budget behind it, then chances are, it won’t do that well.
Please give examples of African brands/companies that have been successful in mobile marketing
I would definitely say that on top on my list is Shoprite Checkers. A general retailer chain in 14 African countries. Shoprite has adapted well to “niche” their markets and appeal to massive range of cultures and psychographics. Shoprite embraced mobile and created 3 mobile solutions to appeal to 3 different consumer usages. They created a USSD, mobile site and app where you can get coupons before you shop and further have a strong communication behind their data through the mobile device. Furthermore they have partnered with banks, celebrities, FMCG brands and are appealing to the market with their strong innovation and partnerships. Some other brands that I really believe are driving change within the mobile space, would be MTN. They use strong insights from their consumers and have built extraordinary mobile platforms to engage consumers with the mobile marketing.
What are the trends in M-commerce in South Africa?
A research firm Effective Measure surveyed over 11,000 internet users in South Africa on their shopping habits and uncovered the following key insights:
- There is a dramatic shift to using mobile phones for online shopping – increasing to 46.5% (from 23.1% in 2013).
Another key findings were following:
- Kalahari.com is the top shopping site with 2.28m unique audience for the month of December, 2014. Amazon.com and takealot.com ranked second and third.
- 72% of people visiting online shopping websites had some sort of tertiary qualification.
- The most popular products that have been purchased online are books (22.1%), airline tickets (20.1%) and music (17.1%).
- Credit cards are the most widely used method (35.1%)
- 7.8% of online shoppers were making a purchase at least once a week.
Carmen Murray will be speaking more about mobile marketing and its trends at The Best of Global Digital Marketing Conference on 1st of October in Manila. Find more information and register yourself at http://best-marketing.eu/events/manila/
