Zim: Adma boss forecasts increase in ad campaigns
"There is excitement with the coming in of new players. I think that will bring in competition. It's important to make the investment now in the hope that the economy will improve," and the advertising cake grows, said Machadu, who is also deputy chairman of the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation.
He said advertising, which had been affected by an economic crisis that devastated local industries, had recovered, growing by about 50% so far this year in terms of advertising volumes.
Not at normal levels yet
"We're not yet back to the normal levels before the economic crisis," said Machadu in an interview with Bizcommunity. "We're currently operating at between 40% and 50% capacity which means we are utilising less pages than we would under normal circumstances."
The second half of this year could see a further improvement in advertising volumes, but much would still depend on the health of the recovering economy, he said.
"Advertising in general has been good compared to last year. We had the OK Grand challenge which brought in a number of (manufacturing sector) partners and that helped create volumes."
Ad volumes boosted
Advertising volumes had been largely boosted by the telecommunications and retail sectors. The advertising industry could only be deemed to have returned to health once the manufacturing sector, the hospitality industry and the insurance sector came back into the picture with volumes, he said.
Machadu said new newspaper outlets licences to operate this year would help improve service delivery. NewsDay has already started publishing and has had a fair share of advertising traffic, and the Daily News is expected to start printing in September.
"It's better than a situation where you have one or two media houses. New media outlets will certainly help improve the quality of advertising concepts and the reach of advertising campaigns. Advertisers will have a choice when targeting audiences," said Machadu.
Laxity in payments
He feared, however, that there might be laxity in abiding by agreed payment terms within the industry in a market with a number of new players competing for a small share of advertising.
One of Adma's mandates is to ensure that there is uniformity in payment terms but at the same time allow media organisations to compete in service delivery.
"Currently, the challenge is cash flow. Members are struggling to get paid; you get to a point where so much is owed but you can't stop accepting a client's adverts," said Machadu.
About Dumisani Ndlela
Dumisani Ndlela is a Zimbabwean journalist specialising in business and financial reporting, with experience reporting on commodities, stock and financial markets, advertising, marketing and the media. He has previously reported from a number of regional countries as well as from the UK and Germany on commodities and regional integration. He can be contacted on ku.oc.oohay@aleldnd.
