Africa is slowly but surely climbing the ladder in the advertising world, says Ogilvy Africa's Alan Edgar. He says that the standard of African advertising is improving to the point where Africa and South Africa will soon be able to compete on equal terms.

African entries have had their own Loeries category for the past few years, on the basis that they would win nothing against superior SA work, says Edgar. Well, imagine the day when that category falls away and all Africans compete on the same level. You may be surprised at this thought, but with the amount of creative ideas and innovation coming out of Africa, this is actually not such a far-fetched idea...

Speaking of climbing ladders, Nigeria, with more than 11 million users on Facebook, has overtaken South Africa as Facebook's largest user base in sub-Saharan Africa with over 2 million more users than SA.

Display advertising needs a shakeup to provide more value to both advertisers and publishers. Real-time bidding (RTB) is thus said to be the future of display advertising. Find out what benefits RTB may hold for your agency, for advertisers and for publishers. Are you taking advantage of these benefits?

Congratulations to Jo Scholtz of Zoom Advertising, Cape Town, who was selected as the Bizcommunity.com winner of the Times Creative Press Ad Challenge! Scholtz won herself a Samsung tablet and a one-year digital subscription to The Times newspaper.

Cheers!
Ilse van den Berg, Editor: Marketing & Media Africa (@Biz_Africa)

PS Take a look at the latest ads in the Ornico ad showcase.

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