×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Brand performance and melting economies!

Opinion & Analysis
The brand, DStv, scored a first in the comatose Zimbabwean economy for the period July — December 2016. It recorded a whopping $206 million dollars in revenue through electronic transactions as per the Monetary Policy Statement enunciated in January 2017.

The brand, DStv, scored a first in the comatose Zimbabwean economy for the period July — December 2016. It recorded a whopping $206 million dollars in revenue through electronic transactions as per the Monetary Policy Statement enunciated in January 2017.

Guest Column: Tabani Moyo

In terms of the ranking of the transactions and national priority, it only came second to fuel purchases, which accounted for $222 million. This is a single brand that is competing with an entire fuel industry on the priority list and revenue generated through electronic transactions. It eclipsed the fertiliser and pharmaceutical bill combined, which accounted for $28 million and $15,5 million respectively, totalling $43,5 million thereby, translating to a meagre 21% of the brand’s revenue in the period under review.

In this epic economic meltdown, there are strong and highly competitive brands that have captured the hearts and minds of the populace to the extent of competing with industries on revenue generation and dare to be singled out in a national policy statement as a cause of concern!

The central bank governor, John Mangudya, was infuriated by this veracity in brand performance that he warned, “.

. . spending more foreign exchange on DStv subscriptions than on raw materials to produce cooking oil, for example, is not only counterproductive, but illogical . . .”

This is the sad reality of melting economies. What is normal elsewhere is branded “counterproductive and illogical” as the authorities focus on symptoms rather than the root cause of their challenges. What the governor is referring to as illogical, is a profound market taste and trend, that though the country has been run down, the populace has not lowered its quality yardstick to settle for laggard service providers and brands. The fact that, a performing private brand is subjected to a national policy framework, not for breaking the rules or exposing the country to harm, is in itself a statement of failure on the government to provide an enabling framework for business to succeed or fall on its own exploits.

The governor should rather be worried of the league of non-performing parastatals, which for years have proved to be monuments of failure leading to Zimbabweans settling for alternatives. One such example of a parastatal in intensive care is the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), which is dogged day and night with stories of endemic corruption, abuse and programming quality dislocations.

If the governor wants to slow down the runaway success of DStv, it is very simple to do so. Pull down ZBC to the ground and start the re-construction process so that it becomes competitive and awaken it from the deep slumber.

Build capacity for the moribund organisation and open up the television broadcasting space to a handsome crop of skilled and competitive private broadcasters to unleash high-quality and top-end programming at competitive price structures.

At the present moment, ZBC survives on a “gunpoint” revenue collection model, because of the following major challenges:

*Editorial interference from the government through the Ministry of Information *Acts as the government and political party mouthpiece, thereby, chasing away viewership. *Recruitment of staff is the prerogative of the ministry rather than the board, opening the process to political rather than competence-based employment. *Failing to promote local content production and the downstream industry, which is supposed to feed into its very existence. *Limited access, in certain instances police threatening to fine people in areas which do not receive the signal for failing to produce listener and viewer licences. *Lack of credibility — how can you tune in to a discredited broadcaster? and *Deplorable quality of programming, among others.

Given the foregoing, subscribing to ZTV is tantamount to voluntarily sentencing yourself to prison. I have said elsewhere that you really need a strong painkiller to fathom the archaic content flighted daily on what is supposed to be a public broadcaster. In such a sad situation, the only guarantee for revenue generation ceases to be the brand strength and performance, but that of the police mounting roadblocks to harass the nation to pay for content that can only force someone to puke! This is what the leadership of the country should focus on addressing rather than targeting a few remaining successful brands in the market.

Key brand management lessons emerging from this narrative is that a brand is not merely identity be it the ZBC or DStv logo, but a function of interaction we have as a people with the product which has a track record of unlocking value and become so profound in our minds. It is the utility value of our daily experience as the people of Zimbabwe attempt to escape the ZBC daily horror! The narrative is very simple. The reason you don’t see DStv partnering with the police to mount roadblocks in fleecing the nation is that they have a superior competitive advantage of a brand that has delivered consistently to the viewers. With all the “gunpoint” assistance of the corrupt “force” on the road, ZBC’s annual revenue is less than $5 million annually — if you remove the “gunpoint revenue collection model”, not event the employees or the Reserve Bank governor would pay for such poor content.

The three take-home brand management points that emerge from the runaway Dstv success that infuriated the governor of the central bank are noted below:

DStv understands its own brand purpose, which has ultimately made it a category leader in terms of providing high-quality programmes and innovative solutions to challenges facing the viewers. It has become the default brand choice for top-end entertainment, credible news channels and sports in Zimbabwe. Even the fuming governor, I bet to the last cent, enjoys DStv programming after all. In understanding its purpose, DStv takes the lead in developing the local content production industry in Africa and buying content rights in the process playing an active role of developing an entire content production industry, on which it has further consolidated the leadership position. It also invests in the purchase of broadcasting rights of top-quality content, which attracts viewers and loyal support.

The brand, unlike the lazy neighbours at ZBC, gives prominence to conversation with the customers, not broadcasts.

We now live in the world that is hyper-connected, therefore brands should not tell customers what to think.

Customers have become partners to help shape the products and services. In essence, they help in the making of the product, which builds a fertile ground for brand loyalty since the customer helped in the brand creation.

In this regard, customers are no longer a mere audience to talk to because they will not listen! DStv has created that space where customers think of the brand as a partner in their lifetime journey. This entails that the brand has become an enabler of participation rather than an agent of unleashing chaos and in the case of ZBC — terror!

With all those fault-lines, ZBC is stuck as a propaganda outfit churning out political party ideology hoping to change the audience’s perceptions on the party. It does not work!

The last point is that the brand focuses on experience ecosystems rather than just identity ecosystems. The experience ecosystem focuses on the entire value-unlocking chain and aims at delivering a consistent experience that builds around loyalty, in this case a good $200 million in half a year worth of loyalty for the brand.

Tabani Moyo is a chartered marketer, communications asset and brand strategist based in Harare. He can be contacted at [email protected]