Staying ahead of customers' products needs
Register hereProgramme is set in Central Africa time
The sessions on this year’s programme are very different, but they answer the same question: What are the building blocks for a sustainable news organisation?
Adspace24 is Media24’s combined advertising sales division, representing 60 news brands across print and digital, with access to millions of South Africans. In this session, we ask their Adspace Studio, who won this year the 2023 Native Advertising Awards, how they work on their digital campaigns, from the initial brief to the execution and with a variety of budget sizes.
Jeune Afrique Media Group is a leading political and economic news source in French-speaking Africa. It has also adopted a diversified B2B strategy, which began in 1960 with the establishment of databases of companies and decision-makers on the continent. In 2012, the group launched an events business with the CEO Forum, followed by AFIS in 2022, catering to financial industry players. The group also offers a subscription publication, Africa Business+, along with B2B digital offerings on its publications Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, and is developing a business intelligence service.
Two experts will share their experiences in dealing with the challenges of increasing digital revenue for publishers.
This year, we are exploring the foundation of any digital business, especially news media: strong relationships with your audiences. Establishing your products as an indispensable presence in their digital lives creates a valuable opportunity to build a digital subscription or membership model. This close link is also essential for developing advertising revenue for those who include it in their revenue mix.
Three African publishers: the Daily Maverick in South Africa, The Standard in Kenya and The Premium Times in Nigeria have taken a significant step forward by creating prototypes using RCS protocol (Rich Communication Services, the evolution of the old SMS or MMS formats) to explore more engaging and interactive storytelling formats for their news, aiming to connect more effectively with their audiences. Each publisher has additional goals: using messaging as a “top of the funnel” strategy to attract younger audiences or establish a new channel for recruiting digital subscribers. One exciting feature even includes a mobile payment option, adding user convenience.
In this session, we’ll delve into these groundbreaking projects, hearing directly from the publisher teams spearheading these unique initiatives. We’ll also gain insights from Fathm and Google News Lab experts, who work with these publishers at every stage of the prototyping process.
Podcasts are making waves in Africa, and the reason lies in their inclusivity of diverse voices. Unlike traditional views aired on mainstream radio, podcasts offer a refreshing array of perspectives that resonate with listeners’ interests. The allure of diverse content has sparked a surge in podcast popularity across the continent, captivating audiences and opening up new avenues for creativity and storytelling.
The newsroom is not usually mentioned by publishers when discussing growth prospects. But in this digital age, the newsroom is the business.
This session aims to help newsroom leaders to build teams that will seize opportunities, align with audience needs, set objectives, and measure results so they become better at what they do. The right leadership is critical for future business success, and the onus is on managers to foster genuine diversity to lead their teams.
What does it mean for the organisation, and are there practical implementation strategies? Where and how does the process start?
“The journey towards diversity in leadership begins with fostering a culture of inclusivity, educating leaders on unconscious biases, and establishing clear diversity goals and metrics to track progress. It starts by recognizing the value of diverse voices and leadership styles in teams within organisations and committing to meaningful action.”
– Tamala Chirwa –
