More speakers sign up for PAMRO's 9th conference

There is less than a month to go before the 9th annual PAMRO Meeting and All Africa Media Research Conference gets underway at Club Makokola in Malawi on August 19.

PAMRO's honorary president, Piet Smit, says that over 60 delegates from 20 countries have already registered for the event. PAMRO's AGM on Monday, August 20, will include activity reports from all these countries, the most extensive round-up of media research ever presented at a PAMRO AGM.

The All Africa Media Research Conference follows on Tuesday, August 21 and a number of new speakers have recently confirmed their attendance, including Unilever Malawi's head of consumer marketing, Enwell Kadango.

Kadango is scheduled to speak about the challenges of media usage in Malawi, from a business perspective. He will be covering media usage and the media landscape in Malawi, looking at how the business community in that country views media advertising. The presentation will outline why it pays to advertise, giving examples from Unilever, and will show why companies should not only consider the bottom line but should also consider share of voice when making media decisions. Finally, Kadango will explore the challenges that most corporate marketers face in convincing top executives to buy media space for advertising.

Delegates can also look Beyond Traditional Audience Measurement, in a presentation by Pushkar Kulkarni of Taylor Nelson Sofres in London, which invented the original Peoplemeters used for television audience measurement.

Kulkarni will give an overview of the future of audience measurement in a changing media landscape. Digitised radio and television signals see the electronic media no longer being fixed to radio or TV sets, with people consuming these media on cellphones, laptops and iPods. Viewing and listening behaviour is also being changed, as devices such as PVR give audiences full control over what and when they watch. Kulkarni will discuss the new and affordable measurement technologies that are already being embraced around the world, such as Portable Peoplemeters, and Return Path Data, where audience behaviour is tracked by retrieving data from set top boxes provided by cable or satellite providers.

Also recently confirmed on the speakers' list is Nielsen Media Research's Angelique Amado, who will talk about adding value for stakeholders from a SAARF RAMS point of view, and Josiah Kimanzi of the Steadman Group, who will give a Kenyan perspective on the increasing role of the vernacular in a dynamic radio environment. He will also be discussing the future of media brands in Africa.

The conference wraps up on Wednesday, August 22, with a gala dinner.

Registration for the event is still open.

Visit the PAMRO website at www.pamro.org, for more information, or call Fiona Lister at SAARF on (011) 463-5340.