The Man Maker: De-flowering a Brand.

In this blog post , I posted an article about the how the game was changing and how, no matter what we knew or said, things and forces way out of our control were at play shifting the tectonic plates of the  media industry.

A couple of weeks ago some of the most powerful people in the world, at least the 5^th richest man in Europe and all the Executives from the Zain Africa and Bharti Airtel Business came to the Kampala Serena to have their Leadership meeting. What a lot of people did not know was that they were also discussing the re-brand strategy of the business. The new single-minded look of the telco across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa!

In some markets like Uganda or Nigeria, the telco will be going through its 5^th or 6^th re-brand! What does this say about the brand?! But more importantly we should ask what does it say about any brand?!

An age-old brand building tenet is that “a brand that lasts is one that is loved”; anything that is loved seldom changes, especially where brands and consumer identification, adoption and conversion are concerned.  This is because in developing markets like Africa, it takes such a long time to build any semblance of brand loyalty and markets are very price sensitive. The resources it takes to build any decent brand loyalty mean any brand with a sense of self respect or humility won’t squander its consumer loyalty or recognition. Therefore if any brand were to consistently shape shift with its image, position, and proposition it must stand to answer the ominous question of why it has no grounding.

In the last decade, Proctor and Gamble tried to enter the East African market through their flagship brand; Ariel washing powder. In a classic case that has now been notarized in advertising and marketing history and strategy, they were repelled and sent packing. It would be another 10 years before they would broach the idea of a market breach again. Now they are back, albeit with a superior product and a different market entry strategy, but still wary of what people know and love; OMO. 

 But what does this have to do with a brand that originally came as celtel, changed to CELTEL, then Celtel,  then Zain. Now Bharti Airtel. It says the brand was well positioned, un-thoroughly thought through and has consistently been taken advantage of, similar to the “man-maker” in any village; the girl who is not a virgin and therefore all the boys who need to learn how to do it right go to her to try out their technique – and get it right! Any company that wants to enter Uganda’s projected young, westernized market goes, buys it and when it doesn’t work sells it off to the company wanting to try out their luck.

 

This is to hoping they get it right, one more time!

Thought Leadership: The Game is changing.

Uganda, the land of milk and honey, corruption and money. A beautiful kaleidoscopic picture of zen view sunsets and the gory dod-eat-dog world of modern-day capitalism. To the naked eye, the country is preparing for elections in 2011 but to the trained eye the powers that be are in anarchy.

Over the past few weeks there have been relatively few ads in the newspapers. Well this is what has been going on…

A couple of months ago all the media houses in Uganda got together and decided that agencies who book, sell, and plan media buying for the corporate machine owed them too much money and therefore they were going to stop running all adverts. They called a meeting to talk about this and they were right; agencies and clients together owed the media houses a whopping [Red Pepper style] UGX 5.9 Billion! They gave the agencies, who foolishly agreed, 90 days in which to address the delicate matter with their respective clients and get back to them. 

 90 days later.

A couple of weeks ago Robert “KaBush” (from here on known as Bush), summoned the mother of all meetings, he and his Nation Media Group counterpart Dr. Githinji (did you know he was a gynecologist?) had amassed all their smaller and diverse media cronies and, seated at the head of the table, announced that all advertising was going to stop running. They had done what scholars and industry watchers had thought was unthinkable, let alone undoable. They had blacklisted all media agencies; a blanket ban.
The review meeting following this announcement showed that the agencies had managed to bring down their debt to about UGX 2.9 Billion claiming that some of their clients were adamant to pay or had stricter payment procedures and therefore had not been able to remit the balance in the 90 days pending. So all advertising was going off air.

He shouldn’t have

One, been positioned as the leader of the fight against the corporate machine because that evening nearly all MDs, CEOs, and CFOs of the corporate machine met separately to discuss this new turn of events while simultaneously the agencies also met to digest this new twist to things.

Two, put a blanket ban on the all the agencies because not all agencies had failed to pay. Therefore the whole industry being victimized for one agency’s lack of fiduciary wisdom was not perceived as just or bright.

Three, stood together with his competition to try and “Enforce” a measure that he felt was for the “greater good” because in the end he will still be standing alone to his shareholders to account for what’s happening to their investments.

The results of the meetings.

The Bush meeting ended up with an alliance signed in blood committing all the media houses to a cooperation where if you owe any single media house money e.g. Observer, you will not get be able to run your advertisement in any other newspaper. Of course this would mean increased cooperation amongst the media houses but it also posed the precarious question of commitment and solidarity. In a time when the market is shrinking and print media budgets are quickly being replaced you don’t want to be caught biting the advertisers’ hand. 45 extra days were given and ZK Advertising, the second largest spender of advertising in East Africa 2009 and Ignition were blacklisted. All their advertising was blocked and no work would be coming through them from anyone. Instead, the media houses circumvented the agencies and went directly to the clients and got the adverts directly.
The MDs and CEO meeting resulted in reimbursement bills to their secretaries for coffees and networking time spent discussing “industry re-formation”. They all however agreed that what Bush had done was undesirable and they would have to find a way of punishing the bad boy for his behaviour. “Let’s pull all our advertising from him”, someone whispered, but just like the whisper, he was asked to speak quietly because they all needed Bush.

The agency meeting yielded slightly more than the above because they ended up forming something called the Agencies’ Association of Uganda. (AAU? Kind of funny considering how much weed and alcohol those guys consume no?) They, on the other hand decided to coalesce and give a united position to the Media Owner’s Association, which had triggered all of this. Some radicals said they should get together with their clients and force the media houses to apologize and come to more amenable terms of payment and relationships.
What does this mean for the future?

The Bush and the Gynecologist are definitely not being loved in a lot of client circles and if you are keen there will noticeably be reduced invitations to them to attend corporate functions in the period ahead. 

A certain guerilla caucus has come together to find all the ways in which the Vision conglomerate and the Nation behemoth are replaceable starting with the newspapers. Starting at the top, they are re-doing the research, figures, rationales, and psychographics to justify why all the FMCG companies and the corporatocracy should shift from mainstream media and now invest in more audience-driven forms of media. Perhaps new media even; blogs, Facebook, websites, twitter, You Tube, mobile phone ads, etc. We know that Fireworks has a team dedicated to online/new media; surveying, analyzing, studying, experimenting. Are they about to propose a radical shift to their clientele that will extend the advertising frontier, once again?

The smaller players in this convoluted power play have failed to get their erections up to speak up for their rights and so they are doing what they know to do best; going behind the big boys and saying ”Those guys are doing their own thing, you just give me my thing.” The disconnect this has created is not to be ignored. The agencies have not and will not. What they do next with this crack will probably shake the media industry like we have never seen. Perhaps a total advertising blacklist of New Vision, or the Nation Group?

Let’s wait and see.

The agencies have become galvanized under one umbrella body. Whether this is a good thing or not can only be seen with the passing of time. The Scangroup behemoth (East Africa’s largest spender and biggest marketing services provider) is in search of a Ugandan Telco to bolster its ranks. They already have the East African Breweries and the regional Lafarge business to cater to. When I spoke with CEO to one of the agencies that handle one of the Telcos, she said, “What I think we should do is organize as the big agencies and squeeze these small motherfuckers out of business. Because if we dare try and stand against the media houses, they will go behind our backs and confuse our clients and next thing you know we will be royally shafted here. They can do it.” What she meant was squeeze the agencies without big clients out of business by negotiating better commissions from the media houses through bulk buying. What this would do in essence would be to force the industry to re-align reporting, billing and fiscal control procedures. So one uniform billing document recognizable across the industry, one process. A clear signal of progress in the industry but what does it truly mean for the clients? In a world of organized and unionized advertising, there are no surprises, no game-changers, and definitely no lowered costs. The client looking for clear, distinctive and outstanding advertising and market presence will have to literally go rogue, but which agency will, or can? The argument can be made that a lot of agencies will think out of the box and go rogue. That is until they become isolated by fellow agencies, over charged by the media houses and soon rejected by the corporate machine; killing creativity, and dulling the sharp, incisive edge that it takes to cut through today’s’ advertising clutter. What is dizzyingly clear though is that the industry will never be same after this. 

Bush promised the powers that be a platform on which he would deliver the 2011 election. He gave them Bukedde TV, has opened a radio in every mainstream local dialect and is on a roll to revamp the local language papers. This happens amidst an environment where all media houses are trying to acquire more media houses. KFM, currently the most listened to station in inner and greater Kampala, is shopping for upcountry stations to bolster its arsenal of listenership and footprint, while Dembe FM recently acquired the rural based Rwenzori FM. So as the media landscape’s tectonic plates continue to shift and change one thing is for sure; we are on the cusp of something that has happened in very few other countries: Uganda is preparing to leap frog – Again!

What network are you on?- A Character Exhibition

Two years ago I met up with Jesse "Tuks" as his friends know him and we shared ideas on how the youth and the future were the key to changing Uganda and its direction. he introduced me to the most debate and conversational conundrum i had faced to date. I still use this discussion in my talks with young people and as mind nibbler.

Jesse's passion about a righteous nation did not stem entirely from a religious stand point, but also from a deeply human place. He argued that a society's leaders were elected because they were the best that society had to offer; they were its torch bearers, they were the society's benchmark of morality, goodness, kindness, honesty, generousity, hospitality, diligence and passion! He was riled by the stories that were in the papers everyday where politicians, leaders, teachers, parents and icons just got caught up morally compromising situations. It angered him. Not because it prevented him from progressing but because he felt that with role models like this, the future was not protected - our children were not safe, and hence the nation stood on a precipice.A dangerous place where if we were not careful we would plunge into the abyss!

His friend Moses on the other hand believed that leaders were a reflection of what a society was. They had no moral right, or authority or right to be better than the people they led; they were after-all a selection from among the people. Hence in his argument, leaders were society's moral compass, telling of the society's decadence or its depravities.

However both these gentlemen agreed that something had to be done to heal a broken nation.they believed that today's generation had to do something to heal the divide otherwise it was only;y a matter of time until something catastrophic happened.Until the "Have-nots" rose up against the "Haves"and forced them to "return" what was theirs. It is a scenario that has played out across the world for millenia.

Enter Character.Inc, an organization formed to encourage young people to do the right thing, despite all the competing communication around them; don't litter, be honest, work diligently, never cheat, have integrity, have Character - because its "Worth the Price" 

This is how they express their call to all Ugandans, if you get this forward it on to someone, maybe we can build our community, one choice at a time.

And so when they went to Bududa district to take relief to the landslide victims this is what they had to show: Check out the BUDUDA.PDF REPORT.

Enough said.

Come to the Character Exhibition:

GO UGANDA!!!

Mobile Banking and the African Market

One year ago when I wrote a post on UBA and Mobile Banking, it was little regarded. MTN had just launched its own platform; MTN Mobile Money; all these of course behind Kenya's M-Pesa,-the system which revolutionized rural banking in Kenya. 

Today, almost a year later I read this in the New Vision. The question is whether it makes sense that a technology that was available two years ago and licenses were issued , and yet only one more company has managed to launch the Mobile money service. 

Zain's which is built on a regional platform is clearly the most competitive. MTN's Mobile still struggles with product consistency and pricing reactions. There are  also the overhead challenges of literacy and adoption, which have forced the market leaders to invest large amounts in public education and awareness campaigns. The danger I see in this for new entrants like Uganda Telecom is the lack of industry insights and the clear gap between the stalwarts and freshies.

But what does it say for the industry going forward?

My view is that until the phone companies can invest in a translated Sim card which speaks at least 2 local languages/dialects, they will continue to suffer. This is of course not easy because of the absence of a unifying local language. it also points to the unique market landscape that is Uganda. In many ways Uganda serves as microcosm of the greater African problem. The absence of significant language blocks has been a pitfall to a lot of communication executions.

Secondly, while a lot of market figures show Uganda's young population and project it to explode in the next few years due to an albeit interesting mix of prurient factors, the fact remains that westernization or whatever is causing this population to have this much sex is not about to stop, Work with stakeholders it address the population issue, then plan to maximize each individuals income per capita through empowerment, education and improvement of quality of life. Then you can milk them. 

But why all that hustle? Why invest all that money in order to get a small part of the market share? Because when it’s all said and done, the small segment you get will be a loyal, committed segment. Which is problem number 3: LOYALTY. The absence of brand loyalty in a lot of emerging markets can be attributed to a lot of factors (unstable political histories, illiteracy, cultural nuances, fear and superstitions, etc) and while its every business' big nightmare, it is not out of reach for a brand to nurture a loyal, committed customer base. No one just wants to pay for it.

And so my answer to UTL and the other Telecom companies out there reaping big in Uganda is this: there is a much bigger market called Africa, unbanked, uneducated, unlinked and in a lot of cases unbothered by you. If you must drink that juice, you must squeeze that fruit.

In order to reach Africa's most basic consumer, you need to come from above the line marketing to the line, and then take your communication through the line and below it. Reach the guy whose greatest problem is cattle dip vet solutions. Help him address his issues not just be a statistic in your marketing sheet. Then you will have made a real difference. It is my belief that only then will it all come together; because bottom up approaches never failed anywhere.

How Do You Define a Great Idea?

For a lot of people a great idea is /comes down to one word. That one word represents a concept, an idea, a strategy, a rationale.Coke. Mac. Guinness. Sex. Mercedes. New York. Paris. It could mean the world and more. It just has to tie back into the brand strategy, goals and ideas. 

For a lot of agencies today and especially in emerging markets like Uganda, the challenge is in defining and understanding the market dynamic. It’s not just enough to understand the demographics or the motivations; it’s equally as important to do a psycho graphic profile. Understanding whether in a time of crisis the consumer will choose to spend on your product or not is just as important as building the product or brand that they will not get rid of when times are hard, and they are hard here.The war moved from the market to the the pocket but that's a discussion for another time.

That is where an iron clad strategy comes into play. It is hinged on one great idea; in some agencies called the big idea. When you crack this, you have the lifeblood that will cascade through the line to all your materials, both below and above the line.The truth is that to execute some truly great concepts, agencies around the world have had to have an almost impulsive understanding of their consumers and publics. And to truly have that impulsive touch, look and feel of an audience for an idea, most times comes from the consumer/ public themselves.

So let the audiences define their own touch points, what it means to them to have relevant, measured, direct programming delivered at the time they want it, when they want it. Fact is a lot of the materials that go up on your TV or radio are hoping that between you and your 5 roommates or office mates; only 1 of you gets the message and acts on it. Often, that’s just good enough. But no one has ever asked, “What goes through the mind of a  viewer or a consumer the instant they see the visual sof an ad or a TVC?” It is my firmly held belief that this question will never truly be answered because audiences are as diverse as they are uniform.

Experiences, ideas, influences, passions, desires, pet peeves, perversions all play together to make each viewer/consume different. So we can’t know what each of them is feeling. So how do we tailor this message? We move on to the next best thing; their shared feelings, stereotypes, or ideas towards a common object, idea, or value and sometimes just a word…PAKALAST. CHOW. DISCOUNT. FEAR. ELECTIONS.

This is exactly what we did recently when we were trying to define a brand repositioning for Bell Lager, a product of Uganda Breweries Limited and flagship brand for 60 years. On top of all the above, we had to find the consumers to define what they wanted in order to define where we were going. We did. And the rest is history….

Here, the research:

Here, the new brand postion:

CONFIDENCE