SURVEY ON MEDIA LAUNCHED (PAGE 43)

A survey has revealed that Ghana has 136 different radio stations operating throughout the country.
The survey, which was commissioned by the Ghana Advertisers Board (GAB), shows that in 2005 there were 111 stations but since then the number has increased dramatically, with a further 25 stations now fighting for space on the airwaves.
These findings were revealed at the launch of the survey, entitled “Ghana All Media and Products Survey (GAMPS) 2008”, in Accra last Thursday.
The Head of Operations at the Ghana Social Marketing Foundation (GSMF) International, Mr Geoff Anno, explained that the GAMPS was designed to provide comprehensive information on the products and media services available in Ghana and an overview of consumer habits.
He said the detailed questionnaires completed by respondents had made it possible to establish the demographical, geographical, psychological and lifestyle factors which influenced the consumption of products and the use of the media.
That kind of detailed contextual information, he said, would facilitate the "segmentation of consumers" — the profiling of people who match certain criteria in order to develop a targeted marketing strategy.
He said companies which invested in the GAMPS 2008 would be able to generate "endless cross-tabulations" of the information gathered.
Mr Gerry Van Dyk, the General Manager of Research International, the company contracted to conduct the survey, said it took into account the responses of 2,845 participants from all over Ghana, drawing information from every region.
He said the results gathered showed a certain significant development since 2005 when the last GAMPS survey was conducted.
He said the number of television channels had grown in recent years, though not in the same extent as the number of radio stations, and that the number of newspapers had not changed significantly. Newspaper readership had grown to almost 50 per cent of the population — a 10 per cent increase over the 2005 figure.
The survey also identified some key trends in product sales, such as the fact that in 2005 just nine per cent of people had bought mobile phones, while now the figure stands at 24 per cent.
The survey also offered data regarding the typical pastimes of consumers.
According to the survey, 87 per cent of Ghanaians attended a funeral in the past six months, while 37 per cent had eaten in a restaurant during the same period.
The National President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG), Mrs Josephine Okutu, stressed that "with growing competition and consumers becoming more and more sophisticated and discerning, decisions would have to be based more on credible scientific data".
She warned that without such a database "we should expect to have a bleak future, where our information will be based on conjecture and speculation".
She called on indigenous companies, particularly the small and medium-scale ones, to cultivate seriously the habit of researching their markets, adding that the benefits of such an exercise outweighed the cost.
Mrs Okutu expressed the hope that businesses that had not yet bought into the GAMPS survey would not play the penny-wise and pound-foolish game and deny themselves the opportunity to move forward.