SA mobile ads to hit R1 billion

Vodacom, MXit and Google, hosts of the Mobile Media Mindblast conference predict that mobile marketing and advertising spend in South Africa will grow to R1billion by 2012.

Mobile ad revenues in South Africa totaled approximately R500m in the last year. Year on year growth trends indicate that this figure will double by 2012. Estimates on mobile ad spend include display, search and message-based ads.

Jason Probert, Head of Vodacom Mobile Media says: ‚Previous estimates have dramatically underestimated the size of the mobile advertising industry as they focused on reports submitted to the DMMA by online publishers. When you take into account the entire mobile advertising ecosystem and include mobile ad networks like AdMob, operator services like Apple, mobile search and social networks like MXit, the picture is dramatically different”

Juan du Toit, head of international business development and marketing for MXit, believes that South Africa will see substantial growth in media performance on mobile platforms this year and in 2012.

‚The way that consumers interact with brands is evolving rapidly. Media strategists know that mobile media campaigns deepen the engagement and relevance of brands within their target markets. One of MXit’s core strengths to an advertiser is our ability to create and grow communities of loyal brand consumers and activists, which, in turn, offers an intriguing and difficult-to-ignore value proposition for the South African marketing industry.‚

The Mobile Media Mindblast conference takes place in Cape Town on the 3rd of June 2011. Renowned international speaker Joseph Jaffe will explore the aggressive mobile growth trends and focus on what this means for brands and marketers in the South African marketing context.

In addition, speakers will provide guidance on how brands and marketers can harness this growth and shed light on successful mobile marketing tactics to reach the target audience. Topics will include the latest on mobile social networking, the advantages of permission-based mobile messaging and the benefits of marketing through local search. A panel discussion will feature successful mobile case studies by leading South African brands and agencies.

Head of Google Mobile, Brett St.Claire says: ‚We’ve had a fantastic response since we announced the conference a few weeks back and we’re almost booked to capacity from both the brands and agency sides. The popularity of Mobile Media Mindblast is a testament that marketers feel that they can no longer ignore mobile’s aggressive growth and that they need to learn more about this space and.‚

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