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2021 SKILLSGAP SURVEYDigital Marketing& AdvertisingThe IAB SA, supported by the Red & Yellow CreativeSchool of Business, seeks to support the industry incontinuous learning. Our objective is to asses therelevant skills shortages and gaps in the digital marketingand advertising industry with the aim of collaboratingwith our education and training institutions in order toproduce relevant current and future talent that is able tomeet the needs of the industry.Thank you to those that took part inour survey, here’s what we found @iab saIAB South co.zaiabsa.net

A FOREWORD BY JOEY KHUVUTLUOn February 23 2021, Stats SA released theirlatest unemployment figures which showed thatthe Covid-19 pandemic had further exacerbatedan already desperate state of South Africa’sunemployment. Under the expanded definitionof unemployment, which includes discouragedworkers, the unemployment rate for Q4 2020was at 42.6%. Further to this, Stats SA reportedthat youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 yearsrecorded the highest unemployment rates of43.2% and 41.2% respectively.At the same time, however, the pandemic hasaccelerated digital adoption amongst consumersand digital transformation within organisations.In the marketing communications space, themarketing and advertising technology landscapecontinues to grow at a rapid pace, ushering in vastopportunities for business growth and innovation.This digital opportunity however is only anopportunity to the extent or limit of the availableskills to exploit the digital tools that we have at ourdisposal. South African companies—particularlythose in the ICT industry—report a lack of skillsin their sectors and this includes the advertising,media and online publishing sub-sectors.Between our high unemployment rate and ourdigital skills gap lies the opportunity to improveour industry and to contribute to decreasing ourrate of unemployment.Paula Hulley, IAB SA CEO weighs in: “The IABSA Digital Skills Gap report, in partnership withThe Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, isa critical toolkit enabling both an understandingof the digital marketing skills landscape andan opportunity to nurture continuous learningopportunities at a time where it could not mattermore. Digitisation has never happened fasterthan it is happening right now. This opportunity toequip our industry with critical insights on digitalmarketing skills gives the full digital marketingecosystem a tangible opportunity to bridge thegap – and beyond”.With this survey, our focus was on identifyingthe skills gap (soft & hard), diversity issues, andthe future of jobs in the advertising, media andonline publishing sub-sectors.While a lot more research, engagement, andwork will need to be done to solve our massiveunemployment problem and to realise theexponential opportunities of a highly digitised world,the insights of this survey are a contribution to themultiple efforts required.Joey KhuvutluIAB South Africa Education ChairMD HellocomputerThis Digital Skills Gap survey was initiatedby the Interactive Advertising Bureau SouthAfrica’s (IAB SA) Education Council tobetter understand what issues the broaderadvertising and communication industry is facingwith recruiting and integrating digital skillsinto their organisations.It is our objective and hope that the learningswill be a first step in providing data and insightsto inform and encourage closer dialoguebetween education institutions and industryto accelerate our collective efforts to upskillemployees and our youth.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20212

DEMOGRAPHICSTHE DEMOGRAPHICSOF OUR SAMPLEThe study had a totalof 143 valid responses.A majority of the respondents’ primary job functionis in media and publishing (25%), followed by generalmanagement (24%) and strategy (15%). The 4%represented as ‘other’ consisted of R&D, production,coding & development and accounting & finance.of the sample arehighly experiencedin their fields, holdingeither a senior,management or executive positionwithin their organisation.13% of the sample hold mid-levelpositions, with a further 7% holdingjunior positions.80%THE ORGANISATIONS OURRESPONDENTS WORK FORA majority of respondents (45.5%) areemployed in the advertising industry,followed by the media and publishingindustry (20.3%), the consultancyindustry (9.8%) and the financialservices industry (8.4%).9 respondents (6.3%) identified theiremployer industry as ‘other’ withindustries such as food, agriculture,retail and manufacturing identified.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20213

EMPLOYERS OF THE RESPONDENTSSize oforganisation(n 143)THE ORGANISATIONS OURRESPONDENTS WORK FOR31% of respondents work in medium-sizedfirms (51-250 employees), followed by 26%working in small firms (11-50 employees)and then an almost equal split of theremaining 43% of respondents working ineither a micro firm (less than 10 employees),a large firm (251-500 employees) or anenterprise (above 1000 employees).Respondents mostly workin established firms thathave been operating for5-20 years (54%) and afurther 35% operating formore than 20 years. 11% ofrespondents collectively workin organisations that have beenoperating for less than 5 years.TRAINING NEW EMPLOYEESPercentageYears of OperationRespondents were asked whether they found that new employees requiredtraining and a resounding 83% stated that they have to offer digitalmarketing and advertising training to new employees, regardless of theirfunction within the firm or experience.We then asked them todifferentiate between thetraining that they offeredbetween hard, technical skillsand soft skills – so here’s areminder of what that means:HARD SKILLSHard, technical skills arethe specific, teachableabilities that can bedefined and measured(i.e. use of a particularsoftware program)VSSOFT SKILLSSoft skills are often lesstangible and harder toquantify, they refer toskills like teamwork,listening, communicationand etiquette.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20214

EMPLOYERS OF THE RESPONDENTSTraining requiredfor new employees(n 119)TRAINING NEW EMPLOYEESOf the 119 respondents thatacknowledged the need for trainingnew employees, most suggestedthat the training provided had toinclude both technical, hard skill andsoft skill training.34.5% of respondents stated thatnew employees only need technical,hard skill training. While only 10%stated that new employees do notrequire training in hard skills, butrather only soft skill training.Both hardand soft skillsSoft,interpersonalskillsHard,technical skillsWHAT TYPES OF DIGITAL MARKETING ANDADVERTISING TRAINING DO YOU OFFER?Hard skills:Many different types of training were mentioned, some of the most common training related to formalcourses through education providers and certifications offered by Google, Facebook & Twitter.Others included on-the-job training through mentorship programmes and work shadowing. Manyconducted internal training on specific platforms used such as: Facebook and Business Manager,Twitter, Sizmek, Google AdWords, Hootsuite, Tableau and programmatic advertising platforms.Many respondents highlighted the need for training relating to social media content, morespecifically: Language structure, posting schedules, tracking & boosting content, uploadingcontent to CMS, content development and building dashboards to guide strategy.Further noted types of training related to paid media advertising, training in commonlyused industry jargon and best practices in the industry.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20215

EMPLOYERS OF THE RESPONDENTSWHAT TYPES OF DIGITAL MARKETING ANDADVERTISING TRAINING DO YOU OFFER?Soft skills:Soft skills relating to communication both within and outside of the organisation was noted asvitally important for training new employees. Several respondents indicated that new employeeswould receive training in basic interpersonal skills and learning how to communicate betweendepartments. The importance of communication extended beyond the organisation to alsoincorporate client service skills.Soft skills that would assist with one’s day-to-day business function were also included intraining, such as training individuals in how to contribute towards efficient meetings as well asunderstanding how to articulate ideas into effective presentations.Further soft skills such as emotional intelligence and empathy were also noted as being includedin new employee training.HIRING NEW GRADUATESRespondents indicated that they were open to hiring newgraduates with no work experience, with 77% stating that theywould hire new graduates.Of those unwilling to hire new graduates (23%), the primary reasonoffered related to a lack of experience. In particular, relating to alack of customer service experience and the requirement for newemployees to “hit the ground running” with the added issues that“they take too much time to train and get up to speed”.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20216

THE DIGITAL MARKETING & ADVERTISING SKILLS GAPTHE SKILLS GAP IN DIGITALMARKETING AND ADVERTISING IN SARespondents were given afinite list of attributes andwere asked to identify (a) theimportance of each digitalmarketing and advertisingskill in their organisation and(b) their satisfaction with thecurrent presence of eachof those skills within theirorganisation. Essentially, theskills they need versus theskills they have.Respondents rated theimportance and satisfactionof each skill on a 5-point scalefrom 1 being strongly ion of the presenceof the iEmMImportance of the nicytinritywSeopCtiosgto 5 being strongly agree.Where are the biggest skill gaps?Data analyticsThe results indicate stark differences betweenthe digital marketing and advertising skills thatorganisations need and the skills that they have.Marketing automationUser experienceDigital video marketingDigital content marketingStatistically significant differences existbetween the skills needed and the skillspossessed for every identified skill – suggestingthat organisations possess significantly lowerlevels of each skill than required.The biggest skills gap was noted for dataanalytics skills, followed by large skills gaps inmarketing automation, user experience, digitalvideo marketing and digital content marketingas indicated in the table alongside.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20217

THE DIGITAL MARKETING & ADVERTISING SKILLS GAPTHE SKILLS GAP IN DIGITALMARKETING AND ADVERTISING IN SAThe table alongside presentsthe importance of all 14 digitalmarketing and advertising skillsassessed from most important,through to least important.The most importantdigital marketingand advertising skillidentified was digitalmarketing strategy,while the leastimportant skill wasdigital audio marketing.EMPLOYER’S TOP PRIORITIESRespondents were asked to identify their organisation’s top twopriorities currently, with the results presented from least important tomost important in the bar graph alongside.The top fourpriorities, in orderof importanceare: increasingsales, improvinginnovation,gaining marketshare anddelivering newofferings.SKILLS GAP SURVEY IAB SA and Red & Yellow 20218