In 2020, the IAB South Africa established a Content Marketing Committee to spotlight content marketing as a specialist marketing discipline. At the time, content marketing accounted for 20%* of all marketing spend globally. And for the first time in South Africa, there was a definition for content marketing, spearheaded by IAB South Africa’s dedicated committee. Together with a team of local industry peers, the Committee developed a white paper and series of podcasts to share how audience-centric content — where the brand plays a supporting role — can drive loyalty and retention and expand brands’ customer bases through owned audiences.
“Fast forward to 2024 and ‘content’ is ubiquitous,” says Committee Chair and DENTSU CREATIVE’s Content Strategy Director Emma Odendaal. “Few specialist content marketing agencies still exist, many having been acquired by larger creative agencies who, through their acquisitions, hope to use editorial expertise to bring relevance to advertising.
“In the context of the changing nature of content, which can now be defined as anything from a social media post to a blog or a television series, as an IAB committee we agreed that ‘content marketing’ no longer reflects the industry nor brands’ marketing activities. Along with Razia Pillay, CEO of IAB South Africa, we decided to broaden our committee scope to include all areas of brand-funded content production, namely branded and partner content, native advertising and digital publishing across digital media formats. With this new directive, the Committee has relaunched as the Branded Entertainment & Content Committee.”
The Committee’s role remains the growth, support and education of the industry under this portfolio, encompassing content creation, whether entertainment or educational. Its vision is to spotlight and reward excellence in brand-funded content, including content marketing, branded content, native content and digital publishing across media formats to support the media and marketing ecosystem.
The Branded Entertainment & Content Committee’s objectives include:
- Shining the spotlight on brand-funded content to inspire creativity, promote excellence and best practice and elevate content in South Africa;
- Celebrating excellence in creative execution and commercial/business impact and promoting brand-funded content as an effective practice for brand building and sales activation;
- Defining branded, native and advertorial content (and the grey areas in between);
- Developing suitable measurement frameworks and benchmarks; and
- Using the Committee’s experience and expertise to grow industry knowledge around the categories within digital publishing and brand-funded content.
Content marketing, as per the Committee’s original definition, will always play an important role and the Committee will continue to highlight excellence in this field. Furthermore, the IAB South Africa aims to develop educational content and host webinars and opportunities around this burgeoning field to engage with industry leaders.
The IAB South Africa is calling for nominations of members to its Branded Entertainment & Content Committee before 5 pm on Friday, 12 July 2024. To nominate yourself or an industry peer, click here.
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Author: Zainab SvR from Chimera Creative on behalf of IAB South Africa.