MTN Nigeria has consolidated its market leadership status by emerging the Most Valuable Brand in Nigeria, writes Raheem Akingbolu
Nigerian market has witnessed a lot of marketing developments in the last 14 years. Thanks to the successive civilian administrations that have encouraged investment and gave birth to an enabling environment for foreign investors to flourish. From banking to telecommunications and food and beverages, the story has remained the same; success.
Expectedly, the calm business environment has also led to stiff competition in various sectors, with every brand attempting to garner major share of the market. To this end, many rating organisations have emerged in the market to recognise brands annually to encourage excellent practice.
One of such rating platform is the Top 50 Brands Nigeria that has, over the years, created a niche through transparency and involvement of consumers’ feedback in arriving at the winners. Brand Strength Measurement (BSM) is a specially designed model that uses basic qualitative elements: brand identity/retention, quality elements, market/category leadership, innovation, national spread and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to test the strength or weakness of a brand.
This year, the organisation, again, identified the best of Nigerian brands at a ceremony that was attended by top captains of industry in Lagos. In what looked like the peak of the event, leading information, communication and technology (ICT) company in Nigeria, MTN, was recognised as the Most Valuable Brand in Nigeria in 2016, after a survey was conducted using BSM indices. Other brands on the top 50 list include: Coca-Cola, GTBank, Dufil Prima (Indomie), Nestle, First Bank of Nigeria, Dangote Group, Nigerian Breweries, and Guinness amongst others.
Chief Executive Officer, Top 50 Brands Nigeria, Taiwo Oluboyede, who spoke on the project, said the purpose of the forum was to create a quality engagement public discuss platform, particularly among the productive class, where it deliberates on feasible ways of enhancing the value of the Brand Nigeria.
“Knowing the strength or weakness of your brand can also help in refocusing your strategies and approach to the market as well as in resource allocations for higher value. Brand strength measurement become handy in brand management, budget allocations and measuring the outcomes,” he said.
Competition in the telecom sector
In the Nigerian telecommunications market where operators depend on subscribers trust to succeed, the competition has been stiffer than other sectors. The challenge of the operator is to find a hook that will hold the attention of likely subscribers. In helping to achieve this, use of celebrity endorsers, reality shows and promotions have been widely used as marketing strategy by operators of the major networks in the country.
This becomes necessary because of the belief that advertising alone might not solve the problem as many newspaper readers and television viewers, these days, pay little or no attention to campaigns.
As at the last count all the major operators –Airtel, Glo, Etisalat and MTN are either involved in reality show, talent hunt exercise or sponsorship. Experts believe that these areas are attractive to the owners of the brands to appeal to the youth market.
Innovation
Top operators in the telecoms market are at the peak of competition for consumers’ loyalty with each coming out with innovative ideas to win the biggest chunk of the market. As a major player, MTN is using innovation and sponsorship to make a statement.
From MTN to Glo, Airtel to Etisalat, it has been a fierce ‘war’ in the last few years. At the beginning, the subtle war was between MTN and the then Econet. Of course, MTN carried the day because of instability at the board level of the then Econet.
However, Glo came on board and changed the game with the introduction of per second billing. The new phase of the struggle came with the launch of Etisalat and the rebranding of Zain to Airtel, which seemed to end many years of trouble for the then ‘Zain’ brand. Despite this and other challenges facing business owners in Nigeria, MTN, has remained an unbeatable market leader.
To observers, MTN’s success story is due largely to the vision, mission and commitment of its operators in establishing a market leadership position for itself.
When MTN launched into the market, its PR account was handled by Corporate and Financial, while the advertising brief was handled by TBWA/Concept Unit. The two agencies launched the brand aggressively into the market with the pay-off line ‘Best Connection.’
In April 2005, it launched ‘Everywhere you go’ to harmonise and create a universal brand promise in all MTN operations across the continent.
Still yearning for top of the mind presence, the brand went into its creative kitty to launch the ‘Go’ campaign with a view to positioning the telco as a company that encourages men and women to go and conquer the world, knowing that man desires to live a better life, desire a secured future, progress and change.
‘Everywhere you Go’ was said to have been anchored on MTN’s core values of leadership, integrity and can do spirit. However, due to the company’s leadership on coverage and market share, in the Nigerian market, consumers’ interpretation of the pay-off was seen to have emanated more from a geographical rather than a brand philosophy perspective.
In order to change ‘Everywhere you Go’ being geographic, to seeing it as a philosophy of the brand. It was for this reason, according to MTN General Manager, Consumer, Mr. Kola Oyeyemi, that ‘the company re-strategised and launched another value proposition tagged ‘Moving you ahead.’
The brand has equally launched a highly creative advertising campaign with the theme ‘Mama na Boy!’
Meanwhile, to pacify the gender activists, who criticised the usage of the word ‘boy’ in the campaign, ‘Mama na Girl’ was quickly coined. The strategy perhaps resolved the riddle but the brand also benefitted immensely from the raging debates.
No sooner the issue came to a head than MTN harmonised the brief, which was shared between TBWA and SO&U by consolidating it in one agency with the appointment of DDB, Lagos. The appointment of DDB in 2006 is a landmark creative renewal of sorts for the brand that has been known for cutting-edge creative themes.
The agency, which prides itself as ‘enemy of the ordinary’ has in the last six years created innovative selling ideas in pushing the brand equity of MTN in the market place. At the moment, MTN PR accounts reside with Brooks & Blakes and DKK & Associates.
Relevance of Top 50 Brands Nigeria
Speaking at the award’s presentation in Lagos, the CEO of Top 50 Brands Nigeria, Oluboyede, said the year-long research was done with the top of the mind survey, where members of the public were engaged to list out brands they are familiar with.
“This enabled us to test people’s feelings, feedbacks, knowledge of brands and affinity. Based on this mechanism, respondents listed brands that they can easily recall or they are familiar with and it was observed that people easily recall brands they recently engage with or they see often. It was following these methodic and meticulous processes that MTN Nigeria emerged as the Most Valuable Brand in Nigeria,” Oluboyede said.
Receiving the award, Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Ferdi Moolman, said: “We are pleased to have emerged the Most Valuable Brand in Nigeria through this award. We are particularly glad that participants of the survey find us worthy as the Most Valuable Brand in Nigeria.”
Moolman further said that this is a demonstration of our continuous drive to make the lives of our customers a whole lot brighter by meeting their needs and aspirations through our products and services.
He used the opportunity to thank Nigerians for the confidence they have reposed in MTN through the years and affirmed the company’s commitment to continue to invest in infrastructure to enhance Nigerians’ experience on the network.
