Tag: News

Political marketing – what retail can learn

In case you’ve been living under a rock, we’ve just had our local elections, and some of us voted. Emphasis on some of us. The voter turnout hit a record low this time around. While there are some very compelling reasons for this, I thought it might interesting to talk a little about what platforms our political parties are using. I’m not talking about political platforms (who doesn’t enjoy a good political debate), instead I’m talking about marketing platforms. Despite the availability of a plethora of options here, when I conducted a quick poll around the office, there were two very clear winners in the way parties are reaching out to us; and according to recent research, they’re the two least favourite ways.

It is somewhat odd that there is still an over-reliance on SMS and phone calls in this digital age. It feels like a “we’ve always done it this way” type approach to campaigning and perhaps there is a fear that if you don’t make a phone call, you’re not going to reach someone. Perhaps there is also the idea that a ‘personal touch’ is required to make you feel like your favourite (or not favourite) political party cares about you and your everyday struggles. One of those struggles being time.

Poor platform choice

A recent report has shown that out of the 11 platforms polled, SMS came in dead last, right behind in store promotions. As little as five years ago, SMS was heralded as a cut-through medium and an absolute necessity for any marketing campaign. The story was that “everyone reads them” and they “can’t be ignored”. Either the proponents of SMS were lying, or times have changed. Giving the benefit of the doubt, it is likely that the real reason is that times have changed. In a notification rich phone, guess where your SMS sits on the list – that’s right, down at the bottom.

We won’t go into how unwelcome phone calls are. In recent reports it has been stated that South Africa’s smartphone penetration has reached 90% (and it’s probably higher), which means that phone calls and SMSes can easily be relegated to the lowest priority or taken off the list of platforms all together. Some parties are using Facebook marketing and there seems to be some kind of geo-targeting involved, but for the most part, it seems like many were not seeing any messaging at all.

There are many opportunities in the digital marketing realm. Communities have different issues and bespoke geo-targeted ads will go a long way to addressing these issues, and creating the personalisation that phone calls are meant to bring. The IEC has also released their voter registration stats which clearly illustrate the imbalance of registered voters among the youth and on a provincial level.

What has this got to do with retail?

Quite a lot. One of the biggest faux pas of retails comms is the SMS (fortunately they’ve foregone the phone call). There are many large retailers that insist upon using the platform to communicate specials. The general consensus from the public is, please stop. We are also still getting very generic creative highlighting specials which may not be relevant to us, or not relevant to the store in our area sitting with stock that isn’t moving.

With the lowest voter turnout in history, we can see two things: political parties are dealing with an incredible amount of apathy, and if they want to turn things around, they’re going to have to create a better product and start marketing it properly. The same goes for some retailers.

November 22, 2021
Shifting retail habits in SA consumers

Marketing influences and retail habits are shifting in the pandemic, and in South Africa’s townships, cash and printed marketing messages still count. These observations are from the 2021 South Africa Township Marketing Report with Rogerwilco and Survey54, which looks at the factors that influence consumer’s decisions in the township environment.

Cash is still king

South Africans still carry cash, with a whopping 80% of respondents preferring it over other payment methods. There are two strongly held beliefs here: firstly, bank charges are way too high (not entirely true). Secondly, cash is untraceable, so the taxman won’t take it from you. Abdullahi Ibrahim, treasurer of the Somali Community Board of South Africa, whose organisation represents the interests of many spazas and informal traders, maintains that a majority of his members would prefer if their customers paid with cards or e-wallets.

With many respondents using their bank accounts only two or three times a month to withdraw their salaries, there are people out there walking around with fairly substantial sums of money in their pockets. Not ideal for them, not ideal for traders. Breaking the cash habit is going to be hard work, but there are benefits for both the retailer and the consumer.

Retailers: 1, Spaza’s: 0

Spaza shops have been a mainstay in townships since the 1970s, and while they are still a go-to shopping choice, their popularity is declining. COVID-19 has exacerbated existing issues that consumers face when shopping at a spaza shop. Price has always been a consideration, but many consumers are willing to pay the higher price in exchange for the convenience of having a friendly neighbourhood store. Expired stock is also a long-standing issue, made worse by less foot traffic during COVID-19’s lockdowns.

These problems have caused the township consumer to re-think their loyalties, and retailers are shifting up the preferred shopping list. The fall of the spaza could be detrimental to SA’s economy, with spaza’s contributing 5.2% to SA’s overall GDP and offering employment to 2.6 million people.

The opportunities are endless here, but one that springs immediately to mind is a white labelled loyalty programme that could bring the township resident into the loyalty cycle while providing a secure future for the local spaza shop.

Marketing influences

The last point I’d like to touch on is our respondent’s most trusted sources of product information. Advocacy from friends and family is number one. A good rule of thumb for marketers is this: you’re not talking to an individual, you’re talking to a family. There is an ecosystem there and getting your brand into those conversations is going to require an understanding of all its participants. In second place (and maybe surprising for some) are newspaper inserts. Many marketers are turning to social media to reach this market, but the sweet spot still lies in print.

There are many other topics, ranging from attitudes towards fake goods, ecommerce, and side hustles. The takeaway here, is that if this is your audience, you may know less about them than you think.

July 21, 2021