ANECDOTES

Helping you be a part of Africa’s Leading Emerging Market Markets

Anecdotes

These anecdotes will hopefully give a little insight into the uniqueness of African emerging economies.

Story 1

The sale of “quart” size of a particular brand of engine oil was doing particularly well in a non-oil producing West African country. The European Sales Manager responsible for the region was dispatched to see if that success story could be replicated across the region.

He found out that the product’s reputation and hence its popularity had been established by the fact that motorcycles, which form the bulwark of the public transport system, returned a much higher mpg when a small quantity was added to tank full of petrol. The “quart” size was easy to store in the limited motorcycle storage compartments. Did we mention it was a non-oil producing country?

Story 2

Our client is licensed with the Nigerian Communications Commission as a provider of telecommunications equipment and services and is also a business partner with the second largest mobile telecom's operator in Nigeria (“Glo”).They are also re-sellers of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services popularly known as Close User Group (CUG) in Nigeria.

The lack of number portability and the infra-structural challenges means that most Nigerians typically have more than one mobile phone with them. Getting them to carry yet one more (VPN enabled) mobile phone was proving challenging especially amongst the demographic that ostensibly made the most calls, and whom you would have assumed would benefit the most.

However, they discovered that sales was more brisk with those who had responsibility for looking after aged parents. Investigation revealed that this group of consumers preferred to have a dedicated “mama and papa” phone!! The cultural responsibility and respect for aged parents meant this group of consumers preferred not to have parental communications mixed with business or pleasure. When that phone rang, it could only be Mama or Papa calling!

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