African companies from Nairobi to Lagos are in a race to use artificial intelligence to cut their marketing and advertising budgets ahead of a difficult 2024 due to economic difficulties, fueling panic over potential job losses.
Businesses are increasingly using AI-generated images, models and voices for their advertising campaigns across TV and digital platforms, lowering their advertising budgets. Ad spending in sub-Saharan Africa fell by 11.6% in 2023, according to the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), though a slight rebound this year is expected to be driven by a 6.1% increase in South Africa.
Safaricom, East Africa’s leading telecommunications company and Kenya’s biggest advertiser, unveiled what it claimed to be Africa’s first AI-generated TV ad in August, and has since rolled out other AI-driven campaigns on different platforms.
Other Kenyan companies that have rolled out AI in ads include private school group Pioneer, which ran AI-generated TV ads, publisher Kartasi Group, which uses AI-generated images on the cover of its exercise books, and popular bread brand Supa Loaf which uses AI-generated images on its billboards. In Nigeria, Coca Cola collaborated with local influencers in an AI-powered campaign over the Christmas period.
The surge in AI-use, propelled by the popularity of generative AI over the last year, has coincided with a downturn in many of Africa’s biggest economies. In Nigeria and Kenya, businesses are grappling with depressed earnings due to difficult macroeconomic conditions including weakening local currencies and high inflation.
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