a The Africa Annual feature by Jon Pienaar SA companies wanting to expand into the rest of the continent – beware: you can’t simply transplant your existing, highly successful marketing strategy/campaign to a new territory in Africa. Some SA and global brands have learned the hard way that marketing in each new African territory demands a local approach. It should be obvious.
The stories are legion of multinational companies launching products in foreign countries with unintended results, from bad translations to misinterpreted symbols: one might have thought multinationals would have learned their lesson by now, but it seems many have not.
Nowadays, it’s not so much a case of Ikea marketing its ‘Fartfull’ workbench in English speaking countries, or the Ford Fiera not doing well in Spanish-speaking countries because ‘fiera’ means ‘she-devil’ – or ‘ugly old woman’ in colloquial Spanish. It’s more about missing the mark entirely by ignoring the culture of the target audience. In a recent story, Nairobi-based journalist Katrina Manson in the Financial Times tells of how, when Indian mobile phone company Bharti Airtel launched in Kenya, it released a high production-value ad that bombed horribly. And no wonder: the ad was shot with South African actors using coins as currency; in Kenya, as in most African countries, only paper money is used. “They think everybody looks the same but just having black models is no longer enough,” Bharat Thakrar, head of Nairobi-based agency Scangroup is quoted as saying, adding: “It’s like putting a Thai, a Chinese and an Indian in the same Asia ad. People can recognise themselves.”
Research group Euromonitor predicts that consumer spending in sub-Saharan Africa will reach one trillion US Dollars by 2020. This market of over a billion people (300-million of them middle-class) has seen consumer goods flooding in from all corners of the planet; foremost among these being cellular telephones. This has resulted in a huge increase in advertising on the continent, and according to research company Nielsen, the Africa/Middle East segment has the greatest growth in adspend (14.6 percent) compared with the rest of the world (3.2 percent).
Africa is complex. It’s not just that there are some 56 countries (counting islands), and somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 languages and dialects spoken; but for each of these languages there are religious, cultural and cross-cultural issues. Take Nigeria, where around half of the country is Christian, in the south, and the other half is Muslim, in the north. The Christians range from Catholic and Anglican breakaway churches, to syncretic churches that believe in demon-possession and integrate traditional religion, while the Muslims are also divided into Sunni, Shia and Sufi. Then there are also many who only practice various forms of traditional religion.
Apart from religion, throughout Africa there are also class divides, differing education and literacy levels, and aesthetic differences to take into account.
Given this diversity, cultural appropriateness is best managed by “feet on the ground and eyes on the street” — as Victoria Williams of global PR company Hill+Knowlton Strategies puts it in her company blog. She adds: “And if that’s not possible, then you need to work with partners that can give you that coverage.”
Brands that want a piece of the action would be advised to approach each territory with an open mind and a willingness to learn, as well as a strategy for collaborating with the local agencies who can give valuable insights into culture. Airtel, having analysed where they went wrong, developed different ads using locals, which were better received. In Nigeria, it was a comedic piece featuring a pidgin-speaking ‘hustler’, while in the Congo it was a poignant story about a blue-collar worker, set to local music.
The Financial Times quotes Thakrar: “We tell multinationals all the time – they have to produce advertising that’s more relevant, that resonates – it’s costing more but it’s the only way to do it.”
Brands should also consider re-engineering their products to meet African needs. For example, Samsung developed a fridge that is more resilient to power outages and fluctuations, as is common in many African countries, where a standby diesel generator is usually essential apparatus for ensuring that you can keep your business running.
A recent ad by Guinness was an excellent example of integrating a brand into a community. The agency researchers had come across the phenomenon of ‘sapeurs’ in Congo-Brazzaville. The ‘society of elegant persons of the Congo’ have counterparts in South Africa — we call them ‘swenkas’. Like swenkas, sapeurs dress up in expensive and ostentatious suits, sometimes with incredible colour combinations, and always plenty of ‘bling’.
Sapeurs are hired to bring some ‘ambience’ to an event like a wedding, and they stage competitions where they can show off their latest threads. It’s a grand tradition, with a great history and cultural significance, and Guinness tapped into that with taste and sensitivity.
The Financial Times quotes unnamed “foreign executives from consumer companies” who “privately acknowledge that they will have to adapt, and quickly.” To do anything else would be to shut the door on opportunities in Africa.
This feature first ran in The Africa Annual published by Ornico with MarkLives.com as its official media partner. Read or download the full magazine via Issuu.
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