As an independent advertising agency, Volt Africa, part of South Africa’s Independent Media, takes into consideration two elements, according to Matt Nkosi, national multimedia sales executive at Volt:

• What the client is looking to achieve.

• The target audience.

The question then becomes how to merge those elements in a way that is a win for all parties. 

“But how do we actually scale it in a space that is within what the client is actually looking for and maximize on the ROI?” Nkosi asked during the recent  INMA Africa Media Revenue Summit. He presented the challenge: “In the partnership and in the collaboration, it becomes a part of how the campaign is exercised.”

Volt looks beyond traditional advertising collateral itself, searching for ways to truly engage the audience, Nkosi said.

“An amazing part of it is that we have the complete control of going through all the [advertisement] entries, being a part of this process as a media house and understanding what a client is looking for.”

It is important to clarify the type of advertisement as well — print, digital, social media, etc. — to make sure that the story that is told through advertising is the one that actually matters. One way they analysed that was to look at former advertising to see what worked and got high engagement.

“All of that is really driven by what we have to do within a partnership,” Nkosi said. “And that’s why collaboration always matters — because then we are in unison with the goal that we have. We care about the result and what we want to achieve. But over and above that, the most important thing is to ensure that the brand gets the recognition that it actually deserves.”

An example of an award-winning Volt campaign was the Toyota Challenger, which saw returns of 35% over client spend. Nkosi said this campaign is an example of one of the ways where Volt is moving beyond traditional advertising to create a campaign that drives communication and engagement between brand and audience through multifaceted channels.

Another successful partnership was with Heineken, which was launching a 650-mil returnable bottle. The goal of the campaign was not so much the returnable bottle but rather about awareness of Heineken’s environmental measures. 

Nkosi said the team asked themselves several important questions.

“How is Heineken actually a part of the community? How do we actually encourage people to recycle? How do we change an alcohol brand from just being about the alcohol, but how the brand is really functioning within a community?”

To achieve this goal, Volt employed an omnichannel strategy that included street posters, news articles, brand stories, and social media. It was not just an advertising campaign launch but an opportunity to do something that Volt had not done before, which was to encourage the public’s recycling habits.

One part of the campaign involved the masthead of the media organisations advertised with. The Star and the Daily Voice both have red logos, which were changed to green for this campaign, reflecting both the Heineken bottle as well as the environmental aspect of the campaign.

They also needed to address non-drinkers as well, even though the advertiser was an alcohol brand. 

“We needed the communities to understand that this is really a part of them,” Nkosi said. “It’s not just about the brand and selling alcohol, but it’s really about understanding the CSI [Community Service Initiative] part of it. And that’s how the collaboration part works because then we are really part of the story. We understand our audience. We understand how to impact them.”

Just as important is understanding where to find the target audience. For the Heineken campaign, street posters were a prime outreach method. This was combined with a full digital takeover on all devices. The social media aspect embraced the green element by utilising the colour for a day. 

“The real story in this collaboration is how the communities are actually affected and how the community is engaging with the campaign,” Nkosi said. The launch not only educated the community but also took them along on the journey of understanding the importance of the recyclable bottle.

The campaign was successful because it really focused on the audience — giving the client the ROI they were looking for.

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