Yebo Gogo - the best opportunity in 2024
There's a wealthy, open and enthusiastic consumer in South Africa that is totally ignored by the marketing industry.
You know what's so easy about marketing in South Africa?
It's that marketers themselves are so bloody predictable. If there's a bright new shiny thing; over-hyped and over-analysed - marketing folk are 100% guaranteed to spend too much time playing around with it, taking their eyes off what really matters.
When it comes to engaging with audiences in South Africa the most lucrative audiences are totally ignored. Instead of aiming to build relationships with consumers that have disposable income; most marketers are chasing the attention of younger. poorer, bewildered audiences that are frankly less than ideal if making money is your aim.
Why? Because marketing folk are sheep. They just follow each other around replicating the same stupid mistakes on repeat.
But for those rare outliers that are able to actually think for themselves, there is a very nice, rich, cognitively-available audience that's just gagging for somebody to notice them and engage a bit.
Yes - old people. People that live in small towns, drive an old Honda, add a blue-rinse home kit to their Clicks shop. They're the furtherest thing from sexy you can think of, but they have cash to burn and are ready to buy.
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Get in touch to discussAccording to an article published recently in Bizcommunity:
- Eight-million 55-plus South Africans amongst which 5.2-million South Africans are aged 60-plus
- Numbers are projected to more than double between now and 2050
- They command an aggregate taxable income of over R600-billion annually (information from the UCT Liberty Institute of Strategic Marketing recent Forerunner report)
- 60-plussers are the country’s fastest-growing demographic segment
- Pensioners account for about 10% of SA’s GDP (SA GDP is at US$400 billion)
What's great about old folk is that they are much more likely to have pets, children, grandchildren, friends at church that they want to buy little things for to say thank you. They like to buy expensive stuff for their garden, their kitchen; they're keen to try new remedies for that manky knee that plays up when it gets overcast and always happy to find new shows on fancy streaming services that cater to them.
They love Facebook (remember that?), watching the news on TV, have a secret love affair with John Maytham on Cape Talk and enjoy listening to late night jazz on Fine Music Radio.
The media that resonates with the aged in South Africa is is dirt cheap and uncluttered, the returns on investment are well above average.
What's not to like here?
Why try outbid Coca Cola on Instagram for the attention of fickle youngsters who hate you anyway, when you could be building engagement with a granny that literally owns a money gun. If you don't believe us do yourself a favour, plug the words 'demographic', 'trends' and 'South Africa' into your beloved ChatGPT and see what kind of instruction your get from your 'AI' overlord.
Marketing is easy when you can think for yourself and ignore the industry noise that values hype over substance.
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BizCommunity
We've written about this before:
Jon Cherry