Others on South Africa, two great blogs

Haha, as I am now on a Developing World and Mobile 'kick' and running a series of stories from mostly the poorer parts of the world, there happen to be two great blogs out on South Africa. I have to mention a few highlights. My good friend Rick Joubert, who used to be with Vodacom the big Vodafone affiliate in South Africa and was the founder of the MMA South Africa chapter, and now runs Ringco and blogs at Rick Joubert.com. He is extremely well connected and tuned into the South African mobile, internet, media and advertising markets, as well as having a good visibility to the overall African mobile industry.

Rick reported on the Mobile Web Africa conference, and a few of his key highlights:

"In developing markets (and certainly in most of Africa) the mobile screen is not the fourth screen (after cinema, TV and PC) but rather the first and often only screen."

"Mobile network operators have a key role to play in the development of mobile as a medium and if they are to significantly benefit from the resulting new revenue streams then the focus should be on industry development rather than operator specific initiatives."

And very very interstingly, remember this guy lives in the space and has really thought deeply about it:

"It is my forecast that in developing markets (like most of Africa) where PC based Internet media is virtually non-existent, that mobile will serve as a proxy for Internet media and as the only truly viable new media category and that the mobile media adoption curve will exhibit a similar shape to that of Internet media adoption in the industrialised northern hemisphere."

Very very good, Rick, I totally agree! The whole blog is full of very valuable insights. And for those who are not sure how South Africa stands, the nation of 45 million has a population a bit less than Spain or South Korea, and an bit more than Argentina or the State of California. South Africa has just passed 100% per-capita mobile phone penetration rates, and Rick revealed some numbers at the Picnic conference in Amsterdam last month, that in South Africa the proporation of internet access on mobile exceeds access from internet cafe's by four to one, and mobile access to the internet exceeds PC based computer access by five to one.

Now, lets jump to another of my friends, UK based James Cameron, who has just blogged about the upcoming FIFA 2010 World Cup football (soccer) tournament, and why this will be the biggest learning opportunity for all advertising brands, to explore and experience mobile.

So lets put it in context for those who might not be football/soccer fans. The 2006 World Cup was the most-watched TV event of the year, with the final achieving a massive 260 million live audience. Compare that with the second-most-watched event on TV that year the US NFL Superbowl, which had a little under 100 million viewers. In total the 2006 FIFA cup had 600 million viewers tuning into to see at least some of the games. It will be by far the biggest TV media event of next year and obviously every major brand who does events advertising will be involved, so we know the Coca Colas and MasterCards and Nikes and Panasonics etc etc will all be there. Each national team will have major local sponsors, the biggest banks, airlines, telecoms operators/carriers, etc. So the eyes will be on South Africa. Now hold that thought, and lets go to James's blog and some quotes from the media experts:

Mark Linder, global client leader at WPP, believes that mobile is the only truly personal medium when it comes to the FIFA World Cup™. "If a brand is involved with the World Cup and wants to create real closeness with its audience, there is no channel more intimate than that personal companion in our pocket."

Sean Pashley, CCO of South African mobile advertising agency Starfish says: "The opportunities (of South Africa 2010) are mammoth: from World Cup SIM cards pre-loaded with content to advergames, instant messaging applications, tourism services such as location-based and translation services, entertainment services [telling users] what’s on, where and branded content."

And this is what James Cameron himself says about the opportunity:

"South Africans are extremely mobile savvy and some of the most innovative mobile campaigns - such as Vodacom's 'Please-Call-Me' - to date have come from this region. Whether it be via messaging, branded utility or by simply building a mobile web presence, brands must take advantage of the spike in mobile usage that will occur during the World Cup."

I totally agree. As James points out in his blog, quoting ComScore's analyst Alistair Hill, the total usage of mobile media during the FIFA 2010 tournament, will increase by 25% (I think it will be even more, but whatever the level, the usage will be bigger).

Now, first Tomi comment on South African mobile advertising market. It has become one of the world's most innovative and advanced mobile marketing and advertising markets, behind really only Japan and South Africa, and well on par with other very advanced mobile marketing and advertising markets such as Spain, India and Finland. So, consider - SIM card based apps, for tourist use-SIM cards - those tourists who visit South Africa, to get pre-loaded apps - think Apple Apps Store - but on the SIM card, not on the phone. Don't need a smartphone! Then adver-games! how big is the potential now to exploit the football tournament and the frenzy around it, by doing various games and get advertising sponsorship.

Then remember what Rick said about first screen, not fourth screen. The advertisers will - by default, start with a mobile phone based ad proposition and build on it, considering if billboard,s magazine ads, radio, TV and the internet can add to the ad mix. But it starts with the first screen, not the fourth screen... And obviously, any tourists - they can be reached via their phones...

I am certain we will see many global innovations at that tournament, and much like the TV industry advertising looks to the NFL Superbowl to innovative ads, now the FIFA tournament, because it is in South Africa, will become the de-facto global forum for mobile ad showcases.

Now, a step back. I have spoken in South Africa many times, but i recently found an interesting old quotation in Confidence Quarterly, a South African business journal, which quoted me as saying in the Q3 2003 issue: 'advertising on mobile will be a familiar concept to South Africans in three years.' haha, isn't it nice to be right every once in a while.. 

Ok, one plug - for those who want to get a quick 50 case study collection on the best mobile advertising and marketing concepts from around the world, to do a bit of quick benchmarking where the innovation is today - pick up a copy of my eBook Tomi Ahonen Peearls Vol 1: Mobile Advertising, with a foreword by Mobile Marketing Association Chairman, Russell Buckley. There are many freebie sample pages, and several case examples at the book preview and ordering pages at http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/PearlsV1.html

Comments

[myphotographer]

I like this:

"In developing markets (and certainly in most of Africa) the mobile screen is not the fourth screen (after cinema, TV and PC) but rather the first and often only screen."

So many opportunities. ;-)

Str8 outta the big ZA

[Matthew Dawes]

I agree - and would go further and say that the potential that exists for true mobile innovation in Africa is exceptionally high. In Europe we take technological advances for granted, in Africa it’s a different story - the potential of the power of mobile on the continent is just so high.
The first screen concept is soemthing which i think is difficult to comprehend. A mobile being the first bit of technology that you interact with and take advantage of, something that connects you, educates you, a personal tool that can actually deliver information that can improve and empower. It has a lot more relevance than my first experience of technology which was watching TV or playing games on a Commodore 64.
As the organiser of Mobile Web Africa, the event that Tomi refers to above, and someone who was worked on the development of mobile in Africa for a god few years I think the two most important things that I have picked up is the need not to dictate and assume and also the need to gain a true understanding of how life practically works.
If you look at something like Frontline SMS that works because a basic platform is provided and then after that point the rest is left up to the users. It isn't delivered as a "I created this and it is going to solve your issues' solution, it is what it is, something for people to take advantage of.
A lot of the experiences I have gathered have been with companies like Nokia, Ericsson and NSN and if you see the amount of resources they dedicate to understanding the situation and surroundings they are operating in it is really impressive. I remember NSN overcoming problems of theft from base stations by equipping the base station with somewhere where the local people could recharge their mobiles. This meant that not only did the theft stop but it also solved a problem for the people in the area.
As for Mobile Advertising, well at Mobile Web Africa there was, and I think is, a tendency to overly focus on this particularly area of monetisation. Whilst not saying that the work being done over there isn’t really impressive, my take on the situation is that the development of a mobile ecosystem all over Africa is when the real potential will begun to be realised (obviously the cost of using the mobile internet needs to be addressed as well as non-commercially viable areas for Operators to work in). That is when a host of creative individuals will have the tools to develop the applications, widgets and mobi sites to deliver truly useful services and content that will continue to push social, political, economic benefits whilst taking into account the environment (both technical and physical) that they are in. The work that Google, Nokia, The Grameen Foundation, etc, etc are doing at the moment is starting to address this, utilising mainly SMS but increasingly the Internet as well.
One of the boundaries that needs to be overcome relates to a couple of conversations I had with top executives from media companies – there question is ‘where is the quantitative benefit of getting involved?’ well that’s a difficult one to nail down. I believe that at this point the benefit is a lot more qualitative and I think the quantitative benefits will unveil themselves in the future. What is for sure though is that if you don’t get on the mobile bandwagon early then your brand will suffer, especially if your rivals do. If you look at some of the companies that are succeeding in mobile – the BBC, Facebook, MXit, Google, Twitter, etc then these aren’t companies with a huge monetisation focus – but their brand is vitally important to them... and this is the crux of the matter on this area – getting involved in mobile is for companies who have a long term outlook.
Strangely I had to do a couple of radio interviews when I was over in South Africa for the event and the main thing I tried to get across is that we are not talking about a ‘revolution’ here, it’s an evolution and it is still very early days. Mobile advertising is an important segment of that but there are a huge number of factors that will shape it, having a locally based thriving mobile ecosystem, I regard to be a really important facet of that development. Google Trader had 1m enquires in its first 5 weeks, that is a demonstration that there is a huge desire to take advantage of the mobile platform.

And in terms of terminology I was always told that to use the term ‘developing’ is actually a little impolite, although nowhere near as ‘Third World’, and in fact the right wording to use is ‘Emerging’. :-)

Matthew Dawes,
Managing Director,
All Amber

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Myphotographer and Matthew

Thanks for the kind words, Myphotographer, and thank you very much Matthew for the lengthy comment, very very good useful insightful ideas there that I can wholly endorse and learn from.. Cheers!

Tomi Ahonen :-)

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