Big, bigger, biggest #ROOTS2019

Constructed, layer by layer, brick by brick, the all new ROOTS 2019 will be unveiled to the marketing, advertising and media industries this coming June. In the meantime, some influential media personalities have provided their thoughts and expectations of #ROOTS2019.

“ROOTS is one of South Africa’s largest and longest running consumer behaviour surveys and in June we’re excited to be bringing the latest research to life,” says Debbie McIntyre, Marketing Services and Research Director SPARK Media. “We enjoy receiving feedback and hearing what the people that make use of the data have to say and what their expectations of ROOTS 2019 are.”

Managing Director at Vizeum (Johannesburg), Byron John, comments: “We’ve used the previous ROOTS survey extensively across the Dentsu Aegis Network for a lot of strategic input and insights and I am excited to see how the key data touchpoints have changed, grown or developed over the last few years.

The ROOTS data has given us great insight into the suburban make-up of our diverse South African consumer(s). Putting any media strategy together should start at the what, where and how consumers access brands or products and everything else should flow from there. We’ve used it often as a geo-location ‘proxy’ (at suburb level) to inform where consumers live to establish the foundation of where the consumer narrative plays out. From a category perspective there’s a lot of data available which allows us to profile each consumer category in detail which is very valuable.

I’m looking forward to unpacking this data with the new release of ROOTS.”

Wayne Bishop, Managing Director (Johannesburg) at PHD South Africa remarks, “ROOTS has always been an insightful survey that injects significant marketing, branding and retail data into the industry. Since its inception in 1980, the survey has not only proved to highlight changes in the composition of geographical micro-economies, but has also been a constant reflection in the changes to the South African market as a whole.

Anyone interested in business growth should be a constant interrogator of the facts and data points from ROOTS. If you are not, you are missing one of the most valuable vaults of information that comes from an in-depth look into 27 000 lives and what drives their purchase habits.”

Rika Nell, Group Talent Director at Joe Public says: “I’ve been using ROOTS for more than ten years and find it invaluable at understanding community groups. Adding it to my data analysis mix not only improves my strategic decisions, but makes it easy to convince clients too.

This year I’m looking forward to a deeper dive regarding the use of Social Media and digital growth areas.”

For the June launch, SPARK Media will partner with LEGO to showcase ROOTS 2019.

“Just as LEGO encourages imagination and inspiration with their building bricks, so do we encourage that same curiosity and enthusiasm in the thorough and in-depth interrogation of the ROOTS 2019 data, providing the building bricks for marketing strategies and insightful media plans,” concludes Debbie. “We can’t wait to launch!”

ROOTS launches in Durban on the 4th of June, Johannesburg on the 6th of June and Cape Town on the 11th of June. For more information and to book space visit http://sparkmedia.co.za/about-roots/ or contact info@sparkmedia.co.za.

For more on SPARK Media, visit our website and follow us on social media @sparkmediasa.