The SpaceStation’s Digital Trends workshop emphasises key industry considerations

The SpaceStation, South Africa’s leading digital media sales company and 24.com’s sales arm, hosted a series of presentations that culminated in a Digital Trends workshop in Durban in September. The aim of this industry roadshow was to unpack important considerations for digital media spend and strategy going into 2019.One of the key trends identified was by News24’s Editor-in-Chief, Adriaan Basson, who spoke to how vital it is to understand the implications of brand safety and brand safe online environments in the complicated age of fake news.

Said Adriaan, “News consumers have a yearning to return to trusted news, and when you couple this need with the massive corporate responsibility of ensuring brands are not funding destructive fake news platforms, it becomes very clear where and how digital media spend needs to be used.”Adriaan was supported by Gavin Ruiters, Regional Sales Director: CPT at The SpaceStation, who looked at the power of premium video in a brand safe environment and explained the importance of 24.com’s new partnership with global video supplier Oovvuu; Renato Balona, 24.com publisher, who explored the shifting trends around mobile and Myles Brown, Head of 24.com’s Brand Studio, who unpacked what works and what doesn’t with native content.

The final speaker to the podium was Natasha Fourie, Head of Strategy at The SpaceStation who explained the importance and power of audience segmentation.  Said Natasha, “More and more budgets are required to show greater efficiency in this economic climate.  Audience segmentation does just this by drilling right down into the data to identify true interest. It drives efficiency and impact.”Added Craig Nicholson, Regional Sales Director (North) at The SpaceStation, “It is clear that next year, marketers and advertisers will be faced with the dual challenge of showing greater results on shrinking budgets while successfully navigating their brands onto brand safe platforms. This means that cheaper programmatic options will not be the answer. The industry needs to aim for scale, on a credible network that can target and re-target highly segmented audiences to ensure each Rand spent is maximised.”