Ruth P. Stevens Articles and Columns: IM Press (Interactive Marketing Press)

World Direct Marketing
South Africa

Direct marketing investments
DM is a growing advertising category, although reliable statistics are hard to come by. The following data from the DMASA in 2008 suggests that DM spending has reached 7.3b rand. Digital media spend is growing rapidly, at the rate of approximately 90% between 2006 and 2007, according to AdEx.

DM associations
Since South Africa’s move to a new government in 1994, the trade and professional association scene has shifted dramatically. As the new government’s transformation policy introduced the Black Economic Empowerment requirements, many splinter organizations emerged, and the traditional trade associations have been weakened.

So this list is in flux, to say the least. In direct marketing, there is the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa (www.dmasa.org), which has about 1000 members. Among other activities, DMASA has run the Assegai Awards program annually since 1998 (www.assegaiawards.co.za).

But South Africa also has numerous trade groups around advertising and media, such as the Advertising Media Association of South Africa (www.amasa.org.za), The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (www.asasa.org.za), the Mobile Marketing Association's South African Local Council (www.mmaglobal.com/region/mea/south-africa), the South African Market Research Association (www.samra.co.za) and the South African Advertising Research Foundation (www.saarf.co.za).

Regulation
The biggest threat to direct marketing in South Africa is the trend toward consumer protection legislation, in the areas of privacy, permission and relevance. These trends are changing customer attitudes, and shifting power to consumers. As a result, direct marketers are realizing that they will have to change their strategic thinking on all communications going forward.

Keyman:
Professional background:
Winnifred Knight is has worked in the direct marketing industry for over 40 years in both client and agency roles. She has developed accredited training programs and workshops for the Institute of Marketing Management and the Graduate School of Marketing, as well as in-house for large corporations in South Africa.

Current occupation:
Winnifred is managing director and owner of CUBE [ON THE SQUARE], a marketing services firm, and TheMarketingSite.com, an Internet resource and community for direct marketers. She serves on the International Advisory Board of the U.S. DMA in recognition of her extended reputation, professionalism and experience in the industry.

Q. What’s new and exciting in direct marketing today?

A. Our society is extraordinarily diverse, and changing rapidly. So direct marketing is an excellent communications tool for us, due to its ability to target various segments. We are seeing strong growth in mobile marketing (we have 48 million people with over 53 million cell phones), and in variable data printing. We are also encouraged by the new “transpromo” method of adding promotions to transactional communications, like statements, an approach that, while expensive, is delivering a strong ROI.

Q. What’s the future outlook for DM in your country?
A. Our DMA is predicting 20% growth in DM activities, for two reasons. 1. Marketers are shifting budgets to DM due to its measurability. 2. Digital marketing is growing fast, and DM techniques work best in those media.

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