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The world of digital media is set to change | #eBizInsights | Jarred Mailer-Lyons

The world of digital media is set to change | #eBizInsights | Jarred Mailer-Lyons

Jarred Mailer-Lyons, Head of Digital at The MediaShop says that we’re moving into a world where the boundaries of physical and digital are becoming blurred. Audiences today are far more connected and marketers have to find innovative ways to stand out in order to make real connections.

During his State of the Nation address, President Ramaphosa promised free data to low-income South Africans. This is a massive opportunity for digital media specialists like us to reach an existing market that has previously been quite difficult to connect with on digital channels.

The media industry, digital in particular, is facing a tremendous growth period right now which will only accelerate once we return to the new post Covid-19 normal. But this also comes with its own challenges.

An example in our industry, is that as Generation Z (those born from 1995) start to enter the job market, we will be seeing significant changes in the ways that brands and consumers communicate as digital behaviours are expected to shift – faster than they did before. As we head into the 4IR (4^th Industrial Revolution), Gen Z’s efforts are going to be more focused on using technology that allow for more personal and financial independence, diversity and competitiveness.

This audience is typically a self-starter, self-motivator and self-learner who place a premium on do-it-yourself, innovation and entrepreneurship activities. They respond to open, honest and timely messaging and prefer in-person, collaborative and transparent communication.

Which of course leads to massive corporates like Google adapting to their consumer demands by providing more transparency, greater privacy, choice, and control over how their data is used. This will lead to the death of cookie data which will significantly change the way we use cookies to understand our audiences. Without cookie data, we are going to have to adapt our approach because for the past couple of years we’ve been using cookie data to track our website visitors, improve the user experience, and collect data that helps us target ads to the right audiences. We also use them to learn about how and what these website visitors are browsing online when they aren’t on our websites.

We certainly have our work cut out for us in this ever evolving digital ecosystem. We’re having to constantly reinvent and find innovative solutions whilst still having a solid understanding of our audience and their behaviours outside of the current brand eco-systems and of course maintaining an agnostic approach to digital media by focusing on media types that deliver against client’s objectives.

At The MediaShop our data vision approach is about continued refinement, optimisation, and collaboration to deliver the right message, to the right consumer at the right time with the right outcome. We do this by utilising our proprietary and industry tools that help deliver the most effective media agnostic solutions. Tools like Wave, Matrix, Similarweb, Narratiive and the many free to use Google and Facebook analytical tools can all help navigate an effective strategy that will ultimately hit all the right notes.

The MediaShop:

The MediaShop is South Africa’s most established, most awarded, most transformed media agency, and member of the Nahana Communications Group of specialist agencies, each with their own independent structures, cultures and management teams, and a desire to work together where synergy exists.

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