Joe Hamman, Director, Novus Group
If the last decade was about listening, 2026 will be about deciding. Brands have more access than ever to what people say about them, their competitors, and their sector. The next step is to use that information with sufficient discipline and context to steer strategy properly.
Goodbye vanity metrics
For years, media monitoring meant counting mentions and charting spikes. Of course, that basic visibility still matters. You need to know who is talking about you, where, and in what context. But the brands that are moving ahead are taking media monitoring a step further. They are the ones who will want to segment coverage by audience, format, geography, influence, and sentiment to get a genuinely holistic view of how narratives form and move.
This is where the industry’s slow farewell to vanity metrics becomes real. Globally, there is a shift from impressions and clip counts toward metrics that link directly to business outcomes, such as assisted conversions, share of voice in strategic themes, and risk avoided through early issue detection. Professionals are advised to move away from impressions and reach as headline indicators and focus instead on numbers that connect PR and comms activity to organisational goals.
The sponsorship analytics boom
The pressure is particularly intense in sponsorship. After a cycle of soft markets and rising expectations, CMOs have far less patience for logo-only reporting. Sponsorship intelligence platforms and rights holders now talk about uplift, churn reduction, and purchase intent.
Sponsorship ROI analyses show that success is no longer defined solely by visibility but by the ability to demonstrate business impact through disciplined data, outcome-driven metrics, and smarter spend allocation.
Welcome to decision monitoring
In that context, media monitoring is evolving into decision monitoring. AI-powered tools can already perform sentiment analysis at scale, capturing the emotional tone of mentions across news, social media, podcasts, and forums. They can show how sentiment shifts around specific events, who is driving those shifts, and where a story is likely to move next.
The real value lies in how organisations respond. When leadership teams can see, in almost real time, that a particular policy announcement is landing badly with a key audience, or that a competitor is starting to dominate a new theme, they can change course, adjust messaging, or move budget. Monitoring becomes part of the operating system, not a monthly report.
Alternative media growth
The rise of alternative media makes this even more important. News is no longer shaped only by traditional publishers. Across Africa, creators on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X are acting as news influencers, often outpacing traditional outlets in speed and engagement.
A recent analysis of Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa shows these news creators have become critical in how younger audiences encounter and interpret current affairs.
If your media intelligence only watches established newsrooms, you are missing half the conversation. Modern monitoring needs to identify which creators are shaping debate in your category, how their content travels, and when it intersects with your brand or issues.
An exciting time
For South African brands, the opportunity in 2026 is to join these dots. Use media monitoring to understand not just what was said, but what it means for your reputation, your sponsorship returns, your risk exposure, and your ability to grow in constrained conditions.
That means moving into more thought-provoking questions, such as understanding the narratives that are winning or losing, where brands are overexposed or absent, and which partnerships, publications, and creators are shifting sentiment in their favour.
At Novus Group, this is where we see media intelligence heading. Mentions still matter, but they are the starting point, not the finish line. The real value lies in translating them into decisions that protect and grow the business. In a noisy, high-pressure environment, that is the kind of trend worth betting on.