The Digital Media and Marketing Association (DMMA) has integrated media planning tool Telmar with its digital audience data, enabling South African media planners to work from a single source.
A first in South Africa, media planners are now able to gain access to Effective Measure (EM) reports, previously only available to DMMA members.
Media planning involving printing, broadcasting, as well as digital media will be made possible through the newly added Telmar dashboard.
Jarred Cinman, chair at DMMA, said: “Telmar is the defacto industry planning tool because of its comprehensive coverage of media.
“It’s great news for the industry as it means digital will finally be classed as another legitimate media channel rather than a strange outlier.”
More effective data as per age, gender and region with regards to the advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) population on a monthly basis will also be supplied through the new integration.
The data is also compared to that of the internet population according to a formula established by the DMMA and Echo Consultancy.
The September 2013 data has been made available for media planners through Telmar, with plans to also add the June, July and August 2013 demographics on the dashboard as well.
Alan Morrissey, managing director at EM South Africa, said: “This is a significant step in the South African advertising industry and EM is glad to be part of this.”
He explained the new solution will help the country to catch up with the international market.
Cinman added the release is helping the association to ensure supreme accuracy of its data.
“Without a single, universally accepted measurement currency, digital will never get its fair slice of the adspend pie,” he said.
