The latest in the line of breakfasts by the Marketing Federation of South Africa, hosted the Landscape 2004 presentation from the University of Cape Town (UCT) Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing.
Diana Carson, a consultant with the Institute, showed off the latest stats and research included in the Landscape that corporate members of the institute get for free. This Landscape report provides a database of facts and figures profiling the unique and changing landscape of the SA market. It is updated annually through extensive desk research, offering strategists an excellent planning tool.
Carson highlighted some of the areas that the Landscape covers, including employment, income, consumer spending and cell phones.
Some of the information coming out of this database reinforced once again what a diverse and complex country South Africa actually is.
Stokvels and Burial Societies form the bedrock of investment opportunities for the majority of South Africans. According to Carson, the bad image of Stokvels as just party organisations is not totally true. Many people across the country will never have any other investment opportunities.
In 2002 there was R12 billion invested in Stokvels and 41% of these people have no personal bank account. The LSM stats make for instructive reading when taking into account that LSMs 7-10 actually invest in Stokvels to diversify their investments. LSM 4-6 are entrepreneurial in their outlook and LSM 1-3 are into Stokvels purely for survival.
"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today," goes a quote by US civil rights leader, Malcolm X, and used by Carson. It makes a poignant point with regard to these informal Stokvels.
SMS was a crucial point in the cell phone coverage as the growth in this application has astounded many industry insiders. Cell C handles between 3-4 million of these messages a day.
The 2003 festive season saw around 85 million SMS's on all networks and this is mainly the usage by the young "thumb tribe", says Carson.
The fact that many people still look to the government for solutions to unemployment, suggests that entrepreneurship is not a serious driving force as yet. Carson also highlighted the tale of the two economies with the formal and the informal existing on two floors with no staircase in between.
The Landscape PowerPoint presentation is not only informative, but indispensable as a tool for marketers needing demarcation and segmentation of their target market.
For further information or to purchase a copy of the Landscape 2004 report, it is available from the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing at a cost of R5 130 including VAT. The Institute can be contacted on: Tel: (021) 650 5213 or email: unilever@commerce.uct.ac.za .
