Roots 8.1 reveals compelling insights into local SA consumer behaviour (with plenty of surprises)

Everybody knows that South Africa is a potjie pot of colorful cultures, but this makes marketing to Mzansi incredibly challenging: there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that works across all consumer groups in all geographical areas.

Roots is a national survey, conducted at community level, that gets to the heart of this issue by surveying local consumer behaviour. From Polokwane in the north to Parow in the south, it asks economically active South Africans questions across several business categories, revealing deep insights into the decisions governing their retail spend.

Lynne Krog, Spark Media head of research, says understanding the consumer landscape within individual communities is invaluable to businesses.

“For local businesses that operate in local markets, knowing who their customers are, where they shop and who they are competing with allows them to make strategic business decisions with confidence rather than merely on gut feel.

“Even large businesses with national footprints operate at a local level, store by store, community by community. For these large businesses, having insight into the potential of individual store catchment areas can give them the edge over their competitors. The findings from Roots 8.1 helps all businesses and their marketing teams make better decisions,” Krog explains.

This is what Roots 8.1 looks like, at a glance:

• 25,000 adults aged 18+ representing 10.8 million adults and 4.5 million households in 107 communities surveyed
  
• Conducted via an online panel with supplementary face-to-face interviews in communities where digital connection was limited
  
• 8 main business categories were surveyed including:

  • Tech (cellphones, shopping retailers)
    
  • Leisure (entertainment, gambling, eating, shows, travel)
    
  • Loyalty (current use, best value/benefits)
    
  • Food and groceries (shopping, retailers, categories)
    
  • Fashion, beauty, health (clothing retailers, hair, treatments, supplements, fitness tracking)
    
  • Transport (public, cars, servicing, purchases)
    
  • Finance (banks, accounts, insurance, monthly outgoings)
    
  • Home (structure, shopping, retailers)

Krog adds that this unique sampling methodology ensures that a robust sample is collected within each community, allowing for analysis at the granular, community level.

“Roots 8.1 provides insights into how South Africans behave, what they look like, what media they consume and why, as well as what they purchase, when they purchase and where,” she says.

Roots 8.1 was commissioned by Spark Media, undertaken by Borderless Access and published by Caxton Media.

Borderless Access is an Indian-based global research company. It has extensive experience in migrating offline research in developed and developing economies, to online panels. Its current managed online panel in South Africa comprises around 300 000 adults.

Roots is conducted in South African communities where Caxton Local Media or its opposition, Novus Pty Ltd and Africa Community Media, publish local community newspapers. It has been undertaken approximately every three to four years since 1980, during which time local newspapers have grown from just 20 titles to the 123 local titles published by Caxton and its partners today (excluding the Western Cape).

Two core objectives drive the survey - firstly it enables Caxton to measure the readership of its local newspaper titles. Thirty years ago, local newspapers fell outside the ambit of national and daily readership measurement tools, so it was essential that Caxton was able to gauge the extent of its local readership.

At this level, the survey has endured, as it is used extensively by the editorial division to ensure that the content of the local titles remains relevant to the communities they serve. Secondly, the research is undertaken to provide Caxton clients with invaluable information about their consumer markets, at a local level. This geo-targeting capability is not available through any other consumer research survey, done at this scale.

It is a highly respected feature that is well-used by stalwart South African brands and retailers, as well as the industry’s media agencies, who value having access to geographically accurate consumer data to inform promotional and advertising decisions.

This data further demonstrates to advertisers why certain local newspapers should be used to reach their audience, which is pivotal to the health of the local paper category.

NOTE: Roots comes from a long line of respected surveys published by Caxton. The first was the Caxton Housewives Intensive Readership Survey (CHIRPS) published in 1980, followed by the Retail Data Library in 1984, and the Actionable Regional Retail Readership Trends (ARRRT) survey published between 1992 and 1997. In 2004 the first Readership, Opportunities, Opinions, Trends Shopping (Roots) survey in its current format was conducted, with Roots 8.1 (2025) being the ninth edition of the study.