Take a minute and think about how we have changed the way we purchase goods and services, consume media and even transfer money over the past five years. Whilst in the past we would faithfully await our favorite programs on a particular television channel, we now go ahead and download or stream what we would prefer to watch and tune in to television stations mainly for comprehensive news updates or programming that isnāt available online, which is very minimal.
Remember the pre internet era when your phone was the only means you could call and SMS your friends and family? Now we have applications such as Whatsapp where you can form groups that serve as conference rooms for family communication, landlord and tenant conversations, internal communications in organizations just to name a few. Gone are the days when you would have numerous phone numbers of various taxi drivers in different areas just in case you needed to move around. Ā All you need now is an app that connects you to hundreds of taxis at the push of a button through services like Uber, Little cabs, Mondo etc.
This disruption that has resulted from advancements in technology has given rise to a new breed of individuals whose lifestyle and practices mostly revolve around their mobile phones and tech. This new segment of consumers widely referred to as millennials who are between the ages of 18-34 is posing new opportunities and challenges for brands who need to communicate with them.
This disruption has also forced media agencies who are tasked with coming up with creative ways of reaching this target group, to craft innovative messaging within relevant channels in order to reach them in their increasingly āonline livesā.
Worse still or even better, depending on how you look at it, Kenyans are very receptive to technology and are adapting the digital economy concept faster than other East African regional states. It shouldnāt come as a surprise that the East Africa power house receives a budget of sixty percent from Carat, East Africaās leading media agency.
ADVERTISING
The advertising world has evolved from an era of per second billing to costs per lead and costs per acquisition. In the past, for example, companies in insurance, banking and mortgage sectors would take prime time space āto get the largest audienceā. However, they can now simply pay for advertising that leads to quantifiable business outcomes.
āIn other words, Carat can set a benchmark cost for leads to banks based on previous lead generation campaigns allowing them to see exactly how many leads their budget affords them on similar platforms and audiences ā this is a far cry from placing a display ad on a webpage and hoping it achieves lead generation. We have ran and managed performance buying in more developed markets over the years and we see it also catching up in Kenya.ā Stated Samantha Kipury, media director, Carat
Where traditional advertising methods still thrive, brands can now experience better engagement with their target audiences as well as improvement on ROI. Posterscope, also part of Dentsu Aegis Network, conducted an out of home audit in 2010 that makes them the only media agency with monitoring, scoring and performance evaluation tools in East Africa.
Carat Kenya following suit in April 2017 is also going to launch its own proprietary research that gives insight into attitudinal information for multiple segment groups. To put this into perspective, with the data in the market now, you can only analyse viewing habits of people according to their age, region and income group. With CCS, the Consumer Connection Study, Carat will be able to tell how these people feel about different brands, why they watch the media they watch (not just when) and their values, attitudes and beliefs and buying behavior.
