Ferial Haffajee
South African advertising agencies are hot- footing it into the rest of Africa, often learning as much as they are teaching.
Local agencies have partners in agencies in most African countries. Eastern and southern Africa is covered best, although some agencies work in west and north Africa, as well as Mauritius. South Africa’s advertising industry is the continent’s largest. It generates revenue about 15 times higher than those of Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, the other big players.
A tally last year found that 10 multinational and local agencies were part of this scramble for Africa, and their numbers are increasing as South African capital learns the great business potential the rest of the continent offers. These businesses need marketing and advertising support and their agencies must rise to the occasion. Paul Bannister, the group managing director of TBWA Hunt Lascaris, says “We will not go into Africa to colonise, but only to service our clients.”
Most international agencies established networks in Africa because their multinational clients needed them there, but now local advertisers find that their work in other African countries is teaching them about local markets. Says Stefania Ianigro Johnson of Bosman Johnson FCB in Cape Town. “The rest of Africa is more liberated than South Africa … Advertisers there are not afraid of borrowing from European culture and blending it with local culture.”
Advertising on the streets is big and agencies have learnt the marketing potential which the huge informal sector carries. Coca-Cola Southern Africa, for example, will spend much of its marketing budget on street vendors.
Neil Gurney, the managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising and the agency’s shaker behind the expansion of its African network, says outdoor advertising is creative and cheap. Recently, for example, he spotted a painting advertising Johnnie Walker whisky. “It cost about R300. I couldn’t have produced something of that quality for 10 times the price,” says Gurney, adding that this form of advertising is common in many countries.
He adds that South Africa has much to learn from African advertisers about catering for the youth market because half of all Africans are under 18. “Too often our focus is on the housewife. We see those of 35 plus as the ideal consumer,” says Gurney, adding that much advertising in South Africa assumes a highly educated market, whereas a large part of the population has little or no education. This means that campaigns are simpler and easier to understand. “It’s very show and tell,” says Ianigro Johnson.
Television advertising is the most powerful in Africa and private television is growing, but radio is still the most pervasive medium. Radio advertising is not highly creative in Africa, where scripting is basic and the use of sound effects minimal. To improve the standard of campaigns, Saatchi & Saatchi now run their Africa Network awards for their associate agencies.
South Africa’s technological capabilities always draw enthusiastic gasps. “They look at our showreel and ask for help with production,” says Ianigro Johnson.
Saatchi & Saatchi at first provided that help by inviting partners to come to South Africa to learn. Now they send local agency staffers to their partner agencies to help produce in situ, where the experience of working without the technology many take for ganted is the real challenge. Says Gurney: “This is a far better way of establishing relationships.”