According to the updated “Trust in Advertising” report produced by Nielsen, trust in advertising across all types of advertising types is consistently higher in Africa than the global average. The report found that Nigeria and Tanzania have the highest overall trust in advertising while SA and Egypt have the lowest.
The advertising messages that resonate most with African audiences are real-life scenarios, health-themed messages and advertising that is family and value oriented. Surprisingly, celebrity and athlete endorsements don’t rank as highly as expected.
These were just some of the insights revealed by Terry Murphy, MD of Nielsen SA, on the third day of the 2021 Pamro virtual conference.
This year the “Trust in Advertising” report, which was also published in 2013 and 2015, was expanded to include eight key African markets – Ghana, SA, Nigeria, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia – as well as information about measures of sponsorship and influencers.
Trust in advertising appears to increase with age. Generation Z has the least trust in advertising as a whole. When gender is combined with age, a different pattern emerges: men’s trust peaks in Generation X while women show the general pattern of rising trust with age, with Boomers proving the exception to the rule.
Other papers presented on the last day of the conference included a presentation by Sifiso Falala, CEO of Plus 94 Research and the current president of Pamro, on the correlations between people’s logical nature and the mystical or supernatural.
Joe Otin, CEO of The Collective Kenya, presented a paper on how the Covid pandemic has been a catalyst for digital transformation in Africa and what this rapid shift means for the research and marketing sectors. Though a digital transformation on the continent was predicted more than a decade ago, old habits and a lack of imagination obstructed a significant shift in marketing budgets. That all changed with the pandemic.
Stacey Fru from the Stacey Fru Foundation interrogated the influence of the media on education as she discussed the future of SA media and what needs to be done to create a better SA for the next generation.
The conference concluded with the awarding of a bursary to Vega student Olive Kanku. Falala awarded the Pamro Baobab award to former Pamro president Josiah Kimanzi and media research specialist Brenda Wortley from 3M3A.
The gold award for best conference paper went to Prof Carel van Aardt, research director at the Bureau of Market Research, for his paper titled “Towards a Multi-Dimensional Segmentation Tool for SA.” The silver award went to Otin for his paper titled “The Pandemic – a Catalyst for Digital Transformation in Africa” while the bronze award went to Gary Whitaker, CEO of the Broadcast Research Council of SA, and Hendrik van Blerk, the audience measurement lead at Ispos SA, for their paper titled “Essential Innovation”.
The 2021 Pamro virtual conference was made possible by Borderless Access, DStv Media Sales, Nielsen, Telmar, Ornico, Plus 94 Research and Ipsos.
To view the third and final day of the conference, click here.
The big take-out:
Nielsen’s updated “Trust in Advertising” report for the African region reveals that trust in advertising across all types of advertising types is consistently higher on the continent than the global average.