Vodacom1 — Vodacom's ad spend spiked after it launched its new corporate identity

SA’s four largest telecommunications companies together spent nearly R1bn on advertising in the first eight months of 2011, with Vodacom leading the pack with spend in the period of R348,8m.

The findings, which are contained in the annual AdFocus magazine published by Financial Mail, show that Telkom was the second biggest telecoms spender on advertising, having invested R276,4m in the same eight-month period. The research was conducted by Nielsen.

MTN came in third with R244,6m in ad spend and Cell C in distant fourth with R122,6m spent.

According to the research, Vodacom is the fifth biggest spender on advertising in SA, followed immediately by Telkom and MTN in sixth and seventh positions, respectively. For the period surveyed, consumer goods giant Unilever topped the list with more than R808m spent.

Cell C is in 26th place. Its spending in 2011 is down sharply from 2010, when it was aggressively promoting its new brand identity and talking up the benefits of its new network. For the full year last year, Cell C invested R373,3m in its advertising campaigns, making it the ninth biggest spender in 2010.

Vodacom’s ad spend spiked in April when it changed its corporate colours to the red of its parent, the UK’s Vodafone. It spent R70,5m in that month, whereas it normally spends less than R50m/month.

Five other technology companies make the top 100 big spenders: MultiChoice Africa in 23rd position with R133m in ad spend in the period; iTouch comes in 54th with R65,7m; Samsung in 60th spent R60,7m; Nokia placed 71st with R52m spent; and MWeb, with R51m, is 74th. — Staff reporter, TechCentral