Director of storytelling Brandon de Kock takes us on a whistlestop tour of some new ideas in the soon-to-be released BrandMapp 24 data set.
While the core BrandMapp interrogation remains as consistent as possible in order to trend the data from year to year, we do update variables where appropriate and every year, we try to include some brand new measures to add an even deeper understanding of where the top 30% of SA consumers are at in life, how they are feeling and what they are doing.
Sometimes, small changes can reveal a lot. For example, we’ve added ‘pet food’ to our items purchased online to get a grip on what part that plays in an industry that’s worth around R6 billion a year. In a similar vein, we’ve always had a measure on what live events people are likely to attend. For the past few years, we used it to reveal just how big food markets are, what percentage of people attend business conferences and a host of other festivals and shows, but this year we’ve thrown in another option: watching a live sports event at a bar or tavern. We know that SA is a sport-mad country, but it’s going to be fascinating to find out how many people like to share the agony and ecstasy of match day with a bunch of like-minded souls at their local pub!
But what about the ‘big’ new ideas for 2024? On the financial front, we’ve included a measure of propensity to invest online and through apps – clearly a rising trend – but more importantly, we have asked respondents to tell us what they are likely to do to ‘deal with the rising cost of living in the coming year’. From partying less, switching mobile packages and cancelling television subscriptions to drinking less alcohol and selling off assets, we will be able to get a really good grip on where and how corporate SA needs to respond to consumer needs to help the man and woman in the street get through the month more easily. Early indications are that simply shopping a little less frequently for things like clothing and relying even more on loyalty programmes to squeeze value out of their hard earned rands are going to feature high on the list.
Secondly, we’ve fine-tuned things in the health department. The existing BrandMapp survey gives us a crystal clear picture of how healthy the taxpayers of south Africa are financially, but none of that really matters if they aren’t feeling fit in mind, body and soul. Preliminary data seems to show that less than 20% are in ‘excellent’ health but, crucially, less than 5% look to be in ‘poor’ health. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that these are the consumers who have access to good medical care but it’s going to be fascinating to see if we can cross-tabulate health status with other behaviours and find out what the contributing factors might be. As a side note, we’re also including a measure on medical aid gap cover for the first time to see just how many people realise that their medical aid alone might not be enough if things go awry.
Thirdly, some of the big changes come in how we measure the ever-changing media landscape. We have never been more ‘connected’ as consumers and to prove the point, we have a new question about where and how people connect to free Wi-Fi regularly, from gyms and coffee shops to taxi ranks and airports. On the TV front, we’ve expanded things a bit to find out what sort of people are watching what sort of content, from reality shows to cooking competitions. And when it comes to radio, we’ve finally included a question relating to ‘channel’ so we can discover who’s listening in their cars, who’s streaming and who still has an old-skool receiver on the kitchen counter!
As for print media, at a time when the big publishing houses are restricting, consolidating and finding new ways to survive in the digital era, we will be measuring all the old print media brand audiences in a combined ‘print or online’ way. Even though many of SA’s favourite media titles have healthy print audiences, it seems like the right time to start understanding total audiences irrespective of where the eyeballs are coming from.
But perhaps the most interesting new question on the media front is a ‘contextual’ measure that will allow us to interpret the data in a far more insightful way than before. And we’re doing that with a simple question: ‘How do you get your news i.e. know what’s happening in the world?’ We have other existing questions relating to trust and media efficacy, but we’re hoping to find out what the ‘path to truth’ is for consumers who must often feel as if they are drowning in a sea of conflicting news. This question will provide some answers: where do social channels fit in, how many people are actually paying for online news and where do the traditional champions like radio and television fit into the picture?
Hopefully over time, some of these will become meaningful trend stories and become part of the ongoing BrandMapp customer journey, like our changing media streaming habits, the growth of fibre internet connections and the rise and fall of social media channels. For 2024, there’s one in particular we can’t wait to see: what exactly has happened in the world of home delivery services? It’s hard to believe that Sixty60 didn’t even exist in the BrandMapp 2020 data and over the past three years, we’ve seen its footprint grow from 11% to 19% to a remarkable 31% of all middle-market-and-up adults saying they used the service at least once a month in 2023. How much bigger can it get and are its competitors like Dash and Asap and 2U catching up or falling behind? Watch this space!