The exclusive survey conducted by ADWEKNOW on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in communication campaigns in French-speaking Africa aimed to provide an initial overview of the practices, benefits, and challenges encountered in the field.
The study was conducted among communications professionals in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, and we collected responses from 12 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Gabon, Mali, DRC, Senegal, Togo, and Madagascar.
The sample consists exclusively of communications professionals who already have some knowledge of what AI can bring to their professional activity or who have already heard about the possible uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of advertising creation.
50% work in media or communications agencies;
25% in advertising revenue
25% freelance
Advertisers do not yet seem particularly concerned about the issue: few of them participated in the study, probably because it is still a topic that is outside their immediate concerns.
KEY RESULTS
80% of those who have heard about possible uses in advertising have taken action and used it in their business.
The most common uses
40% used it for presentations at conferences or meetings.
36% of them used it to create visuals for poster campaigns.
12% for the creation of videos broadcast on television,
16% for preparing commercial offers, for documentary research, etc.
CHATGPT has been used by 57% of those who have already used an artificial intelligence tool MIDJOURNEY has been used by 28% of users
PERPLEXITY and GEMINI by approximately 20% of users
FIREFLY, CLAUDE, COPILOT AI, GAMMA, and DEEPSEEK were mentioned less frequently (multiple responses possible).
The identified benefits
80% of those who used an AI tool considered that the result obtained fully met their expectations, with half even stating that it had been easier to achieve a good result than they had initially imagined.
Nevertheless, a small number of respondents felt that even though the result was satisfactory, it needed some tweaking, errors needed to be corrected, and things needed to be reworked…
Recognized benefits
44% believed that AI tools could "significantly" improve (scores of 4 or 5/5) the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
39% believe that it can help to "significantly" reduce production costs.
56% believe that it can also help "significantly" to make campaigns more creative.
67% to "significantly" facilitate the development of communication strategies
In the end, only 9.2% of those who had already used AI tools considered that they would not continue to use them in their future campaigns.
Despite this clear interest, 45% expressed reservations about the legal aspects and 15% felt they lacked the necessary skills or financial resources to obtain them (team training, tool acquisition, etc.).
CONCLUSION
This pioneering study on the use of artificial intelligence in advertising communications in French-speaking Africa highlights the already significant adoption of AI tools among professionals in the sector, who have already experimented with tools such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, Perplexity, and Gemini.
These tools have a wide range of uses, from preparing presentations to creating visual content for poster campaigns, videos for TV broadcast, or even developing business strategies.
Overall, users are satisfied with the ease with which results are obtained, often exceeding their initial expectations. This reflects strong potential in terms of efficiency, time savings, and improved production quality.
AI also appears to be a promising lever for making campaigns more creative, refining communication strategies, and optimizing costs. However, certain obstacles remain: legal reservations that can only be resolved outside the continent, gaps in training and technical resources, and uneven access to tools.
The rise of AI in African advertising is only just beginning, and its success will depend on the ability of stakeholders to embrace these technologies over time, which are sure to revolutionize their business.