1. COVER STORY
Digital! Thau Art Loosed
By ABED MWANGIZA
Dear reader, I often
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wonder how we ever
existed without the
digital technology. I
remember in the early
eighties, the only way
to communicate with
a friend on short notice
was the famous telephone booth. These were
mostly red in color, and were often occasioned
with long lines and lovers who never quite
finished their conversations in under an hour.
You may wonder what I mean here, some
people chose to spend their eternity at this
facility, making the rest of us fairly miserable.
Now that I can speed dial a friend or client from
the comfort of my room or on a walk in the park
is fairly exiting.
Indeed technology has come to make our
lives a lot easier. To think that 90% of the adult
population has access to mobile telephony in
Kenya today is a great achievement, to know
that over USD 17 billion was transacted via mo-bile
in 2012 is even more amazing. The sheer
volume of these transactions has severely wet
the appetite of the government in the name
of tax. I was puzzled the other day to discover
that people are using mobile to consolidate
and raise money for their weddings under a
designated mobile money number. And to
add to that, a leading technology company in
Kenya, launched a business to business in-stant
money transfer that kills the paperwork
involved in giving instructions to the bank
manually. This goes to show how rapidly life
progresses when technology is geared towards
the consumer and not the other way round.
No doubt technology and digital applica-tions
has indeed transformed life in Kenya.
To hear and read of the Government’s com-mitment
in migrating Kenya’s analogue tele-vision
into the digital space has left many
people with questions that have not yet
been fully answered. Some of which I shall
try to answer, from a layman’s perspective.
The government is looking to relieve local
broadcasters off the strain of capital investment
in infrastructure set up and maintenance, thus
leaving them with the sole purpose of content
generation and audience engagement. This
is mainly through a signal distributor, who
through digital means can transmit several

2. COMMENTARY
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program channels from one transmitter,
rather than having each broadcaster do so
on their own through various transmitters.
This is foreseen to reduce cost of operating
TV stations and hopefullyreduce advertis-ing
rates. The environment will be spared
from pollution from generators and radia-tion
from multiple base stations nationally.
One may ask, what is in it for the view-er?
One assured benefit is that you are as-sured
of better sound and picture quality.
In case you are still complaining, I would
have you know that the government thinks
that buying more than one arial for a bet-ter
reception is so yesterday!. With the new
recommended set top box you are covered.
Am not sure that sound and picture qual-ity
may be enough to persuade an average
household to spend up to KSH 4,000, espe-cially
if their television set cost KSH 12,000
and below. According to KARF Audience
Research, there are approximately 10 mil-lion
TV viewers in Kenya, which translates
to about 2000,000 households. If say 1.5Mil-lion
of these are not currently subscribing
to pay TV through digital decoders, they
would need about KSH 8 billion to be con-nected.
The price may appear small; how-ever
it may not be the most pressing need in
these households at these times of high in-flation.
The Government therefore needs to
do more for the Kenyan population besides
duty exception on set top boxes, as the case
has been in other countries like America.
One area that is of particular inter-est,
is the capability of the proposed digi-tal
signal to support enhanced broad-casting
applications and multimedia
data. This is what a good friend of mine,
Capwell Industries would refer to as
a ‘Pink Cow’. The ability of the system
to offer engagement beyond viewing.
Advertising is the life line for most me-dia
channels in Kenya.In the year 2013, ap-proximately
KSH 82.1 billion was spent on
advertising based on rate card. More than
half of spends was on Television in that
year.Reelforge advertising spends 2013.
If the digital migration proves success-ful,
you may see more advertiser spends
go into television as it continues to attract
more audiences. However the forecast isn’t
that straight forward. With the successful
migration of television into digital space,
cost barriers will collapse making it easier
for more and more broadcasters to enter
the Kenyan media scene. Television audi-ences
will become more fragmented and
harder to reach through TV as the case cur-rently
is with radio. Media planning will
become more challenging, necessitating
advertising agencies to employ better cost
optimization in their campaign planning.
Notably IPSOS Synovate research has
it that, about 64% of people in urban ar-eas
LSM 5+ engage in active viewing of
DVD/VCD’s at least once in past 7 days…
Q3 2012. This means that there are other
entertainment formats that are compet-ing
with free to air viewing and listen-ing.
For as low as KSH 25, one can buy
a DVD with series up to 10 hours long.
The above situation necessitates a bet-ter
methodology for audience measure-ments
as compared to the current manual
diaries. It is my hope that with digitization,
the industry shall be able to offer audience
research that is more accurate and ac-countable,
up to the minute viewing. This
shall go a long way in aiding optimization
of budgets, as targeting and reporting shall
be more precise.This will enable advertis-ing
agencies approach media buying as
an investment, to which they can tie a re-turn.
Many Marketing Directors and CEO’s
have often questioned if the funds pumped
into advertising are commensurate with
sales benefit or are we merely burdening
the consumer with higher goods prices
due to increased marketing budgets? The
answer to this great story is yet to be told.
I would like to share with you a case
study of how interactive television can
work for your brand, so as to demon-strate
how powerful Digital Television
can be in offering engagement. A cam-paign
featuring Ford Mondeo in 2003, as
outlined bySpringerPaul. Ads To Icons,
United Kingdom,Kogan Page, August 2009.
The Task:-
Communicate how the 1500 improvements
on the new look ford Mondeo are greater than
the sum of their parts. Encourage viewers to
order a brochure or request for a test drive.
Benchmark:-
Create an interactive TV commercial.
Project background:-
The advertisement was launched on prime
time slot on Sky One, inviting satellite and
cable viewers to discover more by press-ing
the ‘red button’ on the remote control
handset. By pressing the button, the view-ers
were transferred to a digital microsite
that provided product information and the
opportunity to order a catalogue from Ford.
As a feeder to the microsite, the com-mercial
started like a 1950’s animation
overlaid onto a real film footage. It featured
cat and mouse cartoon characters Tom
and Jerry in a chase scene, where Jerry the
mouse seeks refuge in the safety of a ford
Mondeo. In the top right of the screen, a
small red symbol appeared throughout
inviting viewers to press the red button.
This dramatized Modeo’s positioning,
that viewers are transported to a safe place to
admire the new look refinements on the car.
Once on the micro site, Ford was able
to track usage through click throughs on
the interactive menu, contact details and
an opportunity to create new relationships.
Result:-
The conversion from viewers to prospects
was significantly higher than other Mondeo
campaigns. 357,000 individuals interacted
with the advert, and over 3,500 brochures
were requested, 1,203 test drives were
booked. The cost was estimated at 6 pence
per 30 seconds of each prospects time.
For sure, migration to digital broadcast-ing
would be worthwhile if the proposed sys-tem
allows for engagement beyond viewing.
Abed Mwangiza is the
General Manager - Havas Media Kenya