DIGITAL REVOLUTION AND AFRICAN’S BRAND EVOLUTION

By Kelly Nii Mensah @AppsGH

This article originally appeared on Appreporttv.blogspot.com where the writer frequently contributes. This article was obtained with his full consent.

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Smart phones, tablets, social web and digital advertising. The revolution of the digital age is now and we must survive in it.

Africa’s call for a piece of the digital goodies that other countries seemed to be enjoying has arrived. The Cables are here, bandwidths are being installed and the gadgets are here, we are moving everything from analogue to Digital including Television.

Social Media is hotter than ever and new stuffs are being added by the day. Majority of people are now almost always logged-in to one social site or the other.

These presents significant shift for Marketing and Communication Companies as to redefining where the various target audience are and what media must be used to reach them. Africa is excited about the Technological Advancement the world is seeing but the question is, are we ready for it. In this first series of others that I will be writing, we are going to see how to deal with the Digital Age from the Brand and Communication perspective. I will be touching on different brands and how to deal with the Social Media Market Powerhouse.

Guide for the Luxury Brand Company (Series I)

Am not going to waste your time to talk about what I mean by Exceptional Brand Companies but I want to emphasis on their exclusivity in approaching their audience. These are brands that are ware their client will buy whatever they’re offering because they have the means to buy such luxurious stuffs.

The social Media might seem like a no go zone area for a company that want to be seen as prestigious with selective clientele base.

Recently, I asked one manager of a ‘luxuriously branded’ company here in Ghana why they are not on facebook. He explains to my surprise how the social web is too open and too ordinary to their level of target strategizing and how they don’t believe it will have any positive impact.  Wake up mate! Everything is going Digital, television inclusive.  The coming of the Digital and Technological Age is eminent and the Luxury Brand can get lost in it just like any other who ill-prepares for it or ignores it.

Every brand including the prestigious ones can still maintain their brand identity and reputation in the Social Media with carefully strategies Social Media stances.

Rule One

Uniqueness and Exclusivity with reference to ‘prestigious brands’ must be changed to a more socially controlled way. What do I mean? Targeting ONLY those who have the means to buy a product or service must change. Companies with restricted target base must now start focusing on ‘aspirational’ consumers as well. Yes, (for illustrations purposes only) a luxurious brand company like Fairloop, dealers of Jaguar cars in Ghana must engage those who can buy their cars as well as those who will love to drive in one. In this way, you get the Social Media talking about your stuffs in a way that is controlled by you. The company must ensure significant brand control on all social media concepts.

Rule Two

More importantly, even though the targeting now is going to be broad, it must be well controlled so as not lose the exclusivity associated with the brand. This brings us obviously to our next guideline to maintaining your exclusive style in a Digital Market.

Once a brand is exposed to the Social Media its communication strategies are easily mimicked and wrongly copied.

Every socially exposed brand must keep a constant upgrade of innovation and creativity. This is a sure way to survive your brand in a rather opened social and digital market. Social Web pages must be well managed by specialist and updated with latest technologies to flow with the needs of the brand showing it.

Most companies think they can manage a social media page on their own. Hey they have personal facebook profiles right…Huge mistake! Business Pages on a social media website are never stuffs to gamble with because it holds the very center your brand and must be taken seriously.

Its just like managing a website. It involves uploading good quality videos, images, messages and installing social widgets and plug-ins for your audience to feedback or connects to you. You do not need a techy geek or wizard to manage you web pages. A good social media blogger with good knowledge about techs stuffs can do the job.

He is just going to add up to your list of employees. A good image is worth the investment.

On my next blogging, we wil discuss the other guidelines that can be exploited by companies to break into the Social Media Market.

Mobile Phones: Banking  80% Unbanked AFRICA

…. Innovations For Microfinance Development in Africa……………..

By Kelly Nii Mensah @AppsGH

This article originally appeared on Appreporttv.blogspot.com where the writer frequently contributes

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Will it be fair enough to readers if I begin this article with a recall of the past decades when we normally spend hours queued in banking halls just to deposit or withdraw money? Worse to my memory is the difficulties young students went through just to purchase banker’s draft to pay their various school fees. The least I talk about the frustrations and the ill treatments from bank staff the better.

Besides these, the intention for this piece is to elaborate on the non-banking and micro financial Institutions for their innovations in bringing safer, easier and convenient banking to the ordinary market woman, farmer, teacher and the mechanic who hitherto, shied away from any banking service for the obvious reason.

Lets critically look at the three finance segments in Ghana. That is the Banking and Finance, Insurance and then the Financial Market.  These sectors saw a significant development in 2003 when the BoG officially put to force the Universal Banking Business License (Act 673) with a mandatory reserved for operation set at 70billion Cedis. This brought more competition into the industry. The pace was set from then on and we have gradually seen the emergence of several banks and financial service providers. This, importantly caused interest margins to becoming smaller with time because of the competition.  More banks were willing to give out loans.

Price Water House Coopers-Ghana in a report of the Ghana Banking Survey 2011 stated that, total of 26 banks are currently operating in Ghana. The survey further observed that, the new oil found in Ghana brings enormous opportunities, however, tapping into these remains a challenge. Basically due to the banks’ lack of capacity. The survey specifically said…the unbanked sector of the population remained over 80% and this is a large untapped area for banks to continue to raise cheaper funds from, through deposits mobilization. The influx of non-banking financial institutions is a welcome service as they reach the unbanked and mainly informal sectors to provide a healthy competition for the banking sector. My take on this portion of the PwC report is that, the future for non-banking financial institutions in Africa is prodigious.

Mobile Banking

The non-banking institutions moreover needs to find the most convenient way of reaching the 80% informal unbanked sector rather than waiting for them to come to the banks. In short, financial services must be mobile thus taking their services to their potential clients and customers. ‘If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain’ as the old adage goes.

Over recent times, we’ve witnessed several non-banking institutions doing just that. The new agenda had turned on technology and innovation such as the use of mobile devices to do banking services that minimizes the frustrations of conducting a particular service directly in a bank.

One in company that has invested significantly into mobile banking innovations in Ghana is First Capital Plus, a wholly owned Ghanaian Savings and Loans Institution. The company’s mobile banking product called SpeedBanking® basically enables customers to directly deposit money into their account using a scratch card on their mobile phones.  This presents an excellent way for rural folks especially to engage in active banking from the comfort of their remote locations. They can save, transfer and withdraw money anytime and anywhere. 

Mobile banking in Ghana has become so attractive. This is largely due to the enormous segment of Ghana’s unbanked populace. Mobile telecommunication companies such as Airtel and MTN have joined the business offering services in mobile saving, money transfers, mobile insurance and others to device users.

Another innovative measure being deployed here in Ghana is the use of point of sale devices and mobile banks (mobile bank vehicles) with ATM features that provides total banking services to rural communities. Opportunity International (a micro financial service providers) has taken a significant lead in this advancement towards improving upon banking in Africa.  

Global Support for Non-Banking Innovations

I came across a piece on Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website on the use of innovations in microfinancing to fight poverty. These guys are keen on supporting any financial policy that focuses on bringing domestic banking to the poor. I noticed from testimonies on the site that, The Foundation has partnered a lot of organizations in many developing countries including Ghana.

They provides fund for non-banking surveys and sponsor operations of domestic banking targeted at the informal sector, usually people living in places far away from banks.

Not too long ago, a Forum on Financing for Development: Mobilizing Resources for Economic Transformation was held this year at the United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The forum registered following observations on Mobile Banking

…The use of mobile phone technology for distribution of financial services to the people of Africa provides huge opportunity for growth and reaching scale. It enables pre-paid insurance, pre-paid airtime, money transfers, payment of goods and accounts, balance enquiries etc. Loan applications could be processed, loan balances provided to borrowers by Loan Officers and collections improved through access to loan portfolio data’’

So the future is bright for the financial sectors in Africa especially the non-banking sectors. Mobile phones have taken center stage in the innovation to make banking completely accessible to the informal folk to save money, transfer money, withdraw money and access other like insurance others conveniently, safely and fast.

We need to do more. The digital media such as mobile devices are here to stay. Devices are advancing and more features are being added to make life easier. We can do more with our mobile phones like buy and sell as well as do other businesses on mobile devices. These innovations are here to help us develop in all sectors including finance.

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