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Digital media – the key to segmented marketing
By Chris Harrison.
Chairman, Wunderman Nairobi
CLOAKING

Over recent weeks we have been talking about the likely impact of Broadband connectivity on business, and particularly Marketing in Kenya.

Personally, I am looking forward to it, for many reasons. Not least of which is that marketers will be able to direct their messages to specific consumer groups. This should end the fallacy that brands can use mass media to target specific groups.  Especially in markets like ours where real media choice is still limited.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t predict the death of the 30- second TV spot. Mass advertising (what we at Wunderman call the analogue approach) will have an important role to play in the marketing mix for many years to come. It builds awareness rapidly and establishes brand preference on a macro level.
In the analogue era, repetition worked.  The Bronchomint choir sang so beautifully, and so often, that you could not help but buy it when you had a cough. Safaricom told us so often that it was The Better Option that we came to accept it.

But the economics of broadcast advertising are changing. There used to be room for major brands to be heard clearly. Now there is clutter. Mobile phone companies blot out most other advertisers, and the amount of TV spots an individual brand can afford has collapsed.