The IAB Branded Entertainment & Content Marketing Committee had an honest, insightful conversation on navigating the real-world challenges and opportunities of using AI across marketing, content creation, and agency workflows. This wasn’t about the hype; it was about thinking critically and working strategically with AI in our evolving industry. Watch the recording here.

While influencer marketing has become a powerful marketing tool for international brands, and while Africa’s Creator Economy shows rapid growth and huge promise for the future, South African brands are still exercising caution. As shown in the recent IAB SA Survey on Media Spend, local brands apportion a relatively small budget spend to this area. To help bridge this gap, the IAB SA Influencer Marketing Committee has analysed the survey results and released their findings in the attached Influencer Marketing Perception Report.

In Episode 55 of the IAB SA Actionable Insights Series, we unveiled the future of media and marketing and provided take aways for the industry to create meaningful connections with consumers. Our guest speakers uncovered the immense potential of Immersive Brand Experiences, Ethical AI and Enhanced Customer Mapping to reshape AI-driven marketing strategies.

Digital advertising in South Africa is on the rise, driven by business-oriented trends, according to this year’s IAB SA-PWC Adspend Report. It confirms last year’s forecast of a significant expansion of online advertising. IAB members can access the full report here.

Improved privacy legislation and the demise of the cookie has been a major disruption in the digital marketing industry. Digital marketing companies are having to adapt how they track the performance of their marketing channels and how they handle consumer data. This guide looks at how the Affiliate and Partnership marketing channel alleviates this challenge and how valuable it is in driving new customer acquisition and ROI.

CTV adspend is predicted to increase by 14.4% this year and the OTT market is expected to double in 5 years. At the Insight Event held on 24 August, we discussed this growing, visual-oriented audience and explored how the industry can navigate this new challenge and stay ahead of the curve.

Retail media is a relatively new concept that is quickly gaining popularity due to its ability to provide brands with highly targeted advertising opportunities. Retailers benefit from both a new revenue stream and the ability to display more targeted ads. For an in-depth look, read the IAB’s Retail Media Buyer’s Guide.

On 31 May, the IAB Brand Council held its Trusted Brand Round Table to take a deep dive into how Digital Marketing Transformation is revolutionising the integrated marketing communications mix.

The IAB SA Youth Action Council comemorated Youth Month with a look at the stressful challenges facing black youth in the industry and the consequent impact on their mental health. Access the webinar recording to hear their stories and suggested solutions to the crisis.

Since January 2021, when the imminent cookie crumble was announced, there has been much progress made by the industry. In this episode held on 26 April, our guest speakers – experts in this field – shared updates and insights of what progress has been made. Access the video recording and speaker presentations by clicking down below.

Access the video recording for the first webinar of the year to hear insights on the importance of breaking down barriers if the digital marketing industry is to stay ahead of the curve in meeting customer expectations and achieve greater business impact.

This 2023 Outlook Survey was conducted by IAB Global to provide the digital ad-supported ecosystem with a forward-looking view into the 2023 ad spending marketplace being projected by buy-side ad investment decision-makers, primarily at brands and agencies.

Our last Insight Event for the year looked at Digital Out of Home, its evolution and potential, the programmatic aspects, as well as various case studies that demonstrate the DOOH difference. Access the assets from this event here.

Each year, the IAB releases a seminal brand report exploring how brands and retailers are innovating to address the market disruption driven by the rise of digital B2B platforms, changing media consumption habits, omnichannel shopping, and ongoing privacy legislation—disruptions that have been largely and dramatically accelerated by the pandemic. This year’s report, identified four key disruptions challenging brands, retailers, and the digital ecosystem.

Consumer privacy and personalisation may sometimes be a push and pull with consumers. They have become more privacy conscious and yet still find positive experiences around tailored content and brand offerings. In this session, we explored how the industry could communicate meaningfully to consumers without compromising the safety of consumer data.

IAB SA, in partnership with PwC, is pleased to release the IAB SA-PWC Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2022. Recognised as the most comprehensive measure of online and mobile advertising, the adspend report reveals exciting insights on the size, growth and trends in the South African market during 2021, despite the impacts of the COVID pandemic. Download the full report here.

Our third episode in the year followed with a focus on e-commerce for digital media, marketing and advertising opportunities. Once the share of commerce hits full tilt to online, marketers will need to sharpen their marketing strategies to cut through the highly competitive landscape. While a focus on initial acquisition and transition from offline to online will remain critical to success in eCommerce, the long game will become increasingly challenging.

The rise in podcasting is giving increased, more convenient opportunities for digital media, marketing and advertising companies. Access the assets from Episode 34 of our Insights Online series, where we heard insights on the growth in podcasting and the niche advertising opportunities provided by independent podcasters. We were also presented with important learnings and relevant case studies coming out of podcast advertising.

Each year, IAB releases a seminal brand report exploring how brands and retailers are innovating to address the market disruption driven by the rise of digital B2B platforms, changing media consumption habits, omnichannel shopping, and ongoing privacy legislation. The 2023 report identified four key disruptions challenging brands, retailers, and the digital ecosystem.

The IAB State of Data 2021 report revealed that industry leaders held an unrealistic perception of their preparedness for the deprecation of third-party cookies and identifiers. This should have served as a call-to-action. However, while the industry’s sense of preparedness grows, actual implementation has made little progress. The latest report examines how recent changes in legislation in privacy, third-party cookies and identifiers, cross-media addressability, etc. are disrupting measurement.

The comprehensive and definitive Digital-Out-of-Home Best Practices is the product of a year-long collaboration between the IAB and a number of stakeholders, to serve as a guide and reference for the digital advertising community.

In the latest study commissioned by the IAB US to measure the economic value of the commercial internet, research has shown that the internet economy grew seven times faster than the total US economy during the last four years. It now accounts for 12 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), has resulted in 17 million jobs being generated in the US – 7 million more than four years ago.

The gaming ad market is growing rapidly and demanding more innovative new formats. We are pleased, then, to be able to share the Advertising Framework for Gaming and Esports, put together jointly by the IAB in UK, US and Europe, and their members. The framework sets out standardised industry terms and understanding to foster continued growth of this industry in a sustainable and efficient manner.

Connected TV or CTV represents an entirely new platform that provides new content capabilities, creative formats, and direct engagement with viewers. With this comes the increased challenge of personalisation as we become more privacy-conscious. The IAB CTV Creative Best Practices Guide looks at these challenges and highlights future opportunities for successful CTV ad creation.

The IAB SA Research Council is excited to share the findings of their relaunched IAB SA consumer research study, which focusses on audience consumption of online news and trust in news sites after the impact of 2020’s COVID outbreak on audience behaviour.