The African consumer is receiving a lot of attention from researchers as countries across Africa post growth and advertisers look at how they actually market to Africa's growing and aspirant consumer base. There is a [[http://www.bizcommunity.africa/Article/410/12/169613.html#topstory
cultural shift]] happening from brands as they recognise that not all their communication is effective and they need to recognise and respect that the different target markets across the continent are evolving and they need to do more to connect. Over 70% of marketers, in fact, believe that their own marketing is ineffective in marketing to
African women.
The Zimbabwean government is trying to flex its social media muscle by charging and imprisoning a young American journalist,
Martha O'Donovan, for an alleged negative tweet about Robert Mugabe. It's spawned the #FreeMartha hashtag and put the global spotlight on human rights violations and freedom of speech abuses in Zimbabwe.
It's the massive AfricaCom conference in Cape Town this week and the Bizcommunity.com team will be out in full force to bring our readers all the news. With 18 conference streams under one banner, dealing with technology, banking, the television market, leadership and much more, look out for our special AfricaCom section on Bizcommunity.africa, sponsored by Macrocomm.
To subscribe yourself or colleagues to the daily or weekly Africa newsletters which focus on media and marketing and general business news from the continent, click here.
Have a great week!
Louise Marsland
Africa Editor: Bizcommunity.comComment online in our ed's column archive. Go mobile with apps and m.bizcommunity.com. Engage with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Subscribe to YouTube and via RSS. Send all your African marketing and media news and event invitations to africanews@bizcommunity.com, exclusive opinion pieces to contributors-africa@bizcommunity.com and international news to internationalnews@bizcommunity.com. Read "How to contribute to Biz, from op-ed pieces to news".
