In an ambitious recruitment drive, Independent Online (IOL) recently announced that it is recruiting over 100 positions and the response has been overwhelming, with more than 1,000 applications flooding in within the first 24 hours of advertising multiple vacancies.

The World Out of Home Organization (WOO) has announced the results of the first ever independently aggregated global study of programmatic Digital Out-of-Home (pDOOH) advertising spend, revealing that the channel generated approximately USD$1.4-billion in revenue globally in 2025, equivalent to 7% of total DOOH expenditure.

Why the real AI advantage isn’t efficiency, it’s effectiveness, says project director: AI & Automation, The Up&Up Group, and Scott Reinders, chief operating officer, Connect (part of the Up&Up Group). There’s a seductive story being told across boardrooms right now: adopt AI, move faster, do more with less. From our experience leading AI implementation and media strategy inside the same agency group, being fast is not a competitive advantage when everyone has access to the same tools.

The programmatic advertising industry has made genuine progress on transparency, yet less than half of every rand spent reaches a real person. Viewability, the metric on which the industry built its confidence, was never equal to the task and is hugely gamed by fraudsters.

Slightly Dangerous Co. takes a different approach. Instead of becoming a larger generalist agency, Demographica, Halo and Second Rodeo remain focused on what they each do best and collaborating when clients need broader expertise.

South Africa’s marketing and media sector has a new structural player with the launch of Nobanda Investment Group, a holding company formed by 555 Media Hub founder Nhlanhla Nobanda, alongside Nedbank CMO Khensani Nobanda.

Media24 has announced a partnership with The Wall Street Journal which will allow South African businesses to purchase bundled corporate subscriptions directly through Media24, thereby combining access to local news coverage by News24, Netwerk24 or Landbou.com with The Wall Street Journal's global financial and business intelligence in a single package.

Multiple wins at the 2026 MMA Smarties South Africa Awards have placed iProspect South Africa firmly in the spotlight, recognising work that is redefining how brands earn attention.

DStv quietly launched a new sports channel across its Access, Family, Compact, and Compact Plus bouquets on streaming and satellite. The addition of SportyTV on channel 236 was recently spotted by a keen-eyed MyBroadband Forum member. SportyTV is a 24/7 channel that offers coverage of a range of sports, with a particular focus on football tournaments.

WARC’s Future of Media 2026 Report opened with a sentence that should have stopped every South African marketer in their tracks: “The established model for media planning and buying is breaking apart, and nobody knows exactly what comes next.” Those are the words of Paul Stringer, Managing Editor at WARC, the global authority on marketing effectiveness.