BRAND DEVELOPMENT, BRAND BUILDING AND DISRUPTIVE GLOBAL MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

FOR AGRIBUSINESS, ARTS & TOURISM AND ICT BUSINESSES IN GHANA

Background

Every business, no maer what category it operates in, needs to have a brand and a brand strategy that are aligned with its business objecves That way, the process of developing and building that brand will have a well-thoughtthroughfoundaon.

Developing and building a brand involves a connuous process of brand development and brand building around two (2) broad pillars, thus: BrandImageandBrandIdenty

Under these broad pillars, a business will have to create a messaging framework that influences the manner the business communicates with the buying public and clearly informs their audiences about what value they should expect when they patronizethebusinesses'productsorservices.

Now, let's look at the main consideraons when developingabrand.

In developing its brand image, a business will need tofocuson:

Ÿ The brand's core values – which will be the values that will guide the conduct of your business it's internal and external engagements. In essence the character of the business

Ÿ The brand's personality – represents how the business wants its audiences to perceive it. These are the emoonal connectors that enable the business to achieve affinity with theconsumer

Ÿ User percepon – this is the posion that a business occupies in the market space, directlyrelated to the brand's equitywithin its category

In developing its brand identy, a business will needtofocuson:

Ÿ Brand name & Logo – the name of the businessoritsproductorservice

Ÿ Typography – brand identy elements like fonts are a key part of building a brand's identy

Ÿ Colour palee – brand identy elements like coloursarealsoakeypartofabrand'sidenty

These are the elements that make a brand, and these are the building blocks of brand development.

Brand building involves connuous periodic brand acvies that feed off business and markeng communicaonstrategies.

Brandbuildinginvolves:

Ÿ Conducngeffecvemarketresearch

Ÿ Focusonvalueproposion

Ÿ Develop emoonal connecon with consumers

Ÿ Deliverconsistentcampaigns

Ÿ Measurementsanditeraons

Brand development and brand building opportunies

The adversing category has been the main driver of markeng communicaons in Ghana, and therefore brand development, brand building and digitalacvies.

The brand development and brand building opportunies for businesses in the Agribusiness, Arts & Culture and ICT categories in Ghana is praccally the same. This is because the principles and elements of developing and building a brand for a business remain the same and can be applied acrossavariedrangeofindustries.

From my 20+ years experience in markeng communicaons, the last 12 of which has been focused on the digital discipline, major branding andrebrandingcampaignsbysomeofGhana'sClub 100 members have required the same consideraons in brand development and brand buildingdevelopingcampaigns.

Disnguished brand like Unilever, Diageo, Nestle, MTN, Vodafone and SMEs like Farmerline, ExpressPay, SlidePay, GhanaPost GPS and Hubtel have all benefited from markeng communicaons campaign that have helped develop and growth theirbrandandthereforetheirbusinesses.

Even media companies have leveraged their media assets to develop and build their brands. Think of companies the Joy Media, Despite group of companies,CiNewsGroupamongstothers.

As part of the brand building process, a business may need to remind the market of its original proposion by relaunch the brand emphasise an exisngposionorreclaimitsposion.

In other cases, it may need to reposion itself, and this may mean a change of brand identy, personality or core offering. This may require, primarily, a rebranding campaign to communicate thenewposioningandpersonality

Someexamplesof successfulbrandingcampaigns

Brand campaigns are what spearhead a business's engagement with the consuming public, with the aim to occupy a favourable posion in the minds of theirtargetaudience.

In the realm of brand development and brand building, rebranding campaigns tend to be interesng and engaging An example is the Enterprise Group “Your Advantage” rebranding campaign which was precede by a capvang “Horse Invasion” teaser, complete with a pseudotrailerofaficonalmovie.

This campaign did not only achieve its objecve of creang synergy between the various subsidiaries, but also resulted in the stock price of the business gaining by about 23% in the month of the launch, June2014.

There are some campaigns that achieved less success. For example, AsaaseGPS was rebranded and promoted as GhanaPost GPS, based on the “Jack Where Are You?” teaser campaign This campaign ensured that the digital addressing system that was acquired by the government for Ghana Post Company was introduced to create awareness.

However, aer the inial awareness drive, the campaign lost momentum as there was no followup campaigns to acvate and engage with the Ghanaiansociety Thiscampaignthereforefailedto leverage the full consumer journey, to achieve growthinusage.

Based on the existence of relavely old and strong agencies like Scanad, Ogilvy, Innova DDB, Dentsu and their track record of developing and building brands, there is, without a doubt an availability of brand development, brand building and transformaon services that are available to Ghanaianbusinesses.

ReachingGlobalandregionalaudiences

As of January 2023, 5.16 billion internet users worldwide have been recorded. That is 64.4 percent of the global populaon. Of this, 4.76 billion, or 59.4 percent of the world's populaon, areonsocialmedia.

Of the 5.16 billion internet users globally, 13% of them are in Africa; and this is growing and set to reach 748+ million users by 2028.

This presents businesses in the Agribusiness, Arts and Culture, and ICT sectors, in Ghana, huge regional and global audiences to engage with, for growth.

Marketplaces like Alibaba, Jumia, Tonaton are opportunies for small businesses to reach global audienceswiththeirgoodsandservices.

OpportuniesforMarketDisrupon

The Technology Age is arguably the most disrupve age in human history, and digital technologies has democrazed growth opportuniesforbusinesses.

The speed with which things change due to technological advancement is mind-boggling. Becauseofthis,businessesthatareatthecungedgeoftheircategorymakethemostimpact.

Digital trends like Soware-as-a-Service (SaaS), Near Field Communicaon (NFC), eCommerce, RFID, Blockchain, eMobility, Cloud Compung,

Big Data, Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed reality (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have impacted businessesposivelyforgrowth.

Now let's look at some of the truly disrupve technologies that can be leveraged for growth by businessesintheAgribusiness,

LeveragingAIforbusinesstransformaon

AccordingtoRayKurzweil,computerswillachieve humanlevelsofintelligenceby2029.

The me has come for AI, and its influence seems to have permeated every facet of business, including markeng communicaons. This has led to a proliferaon of AI-driven tools and plaorms across the fields of finance, fintech, agribusinessandartsandculture.

In Agribusiness, a Ghanaian AI company, KaraAgro AI, has developed a tool which enables farmerstoeasilyandaccuratelydetectdiseasesin their crops using Arficial Intelligence. By simply taking a photo of the crop's leaf, the app would analyseitandtellifanydiseasesarepresent.

Farmers can detect diseases both online and offline KaraAgro AI currently has Arficial Intelligence systems for detecng diseases in; Tomato, Maize, Sweet Pepper, Potato, Grapes, Peach,Strawberry,AppleandCherry.

The influence of AI in markeng communicaons have reached dizzying proporons and created a lot of excitement amongst category players regardingthepossibilies,whichseemsinfinite.

Then there is Microso's ChatGPT4 and Google's Bard, the two (2) front-running AI tools for markengandadversing.

Betweenthem,these2(two)plaormsdeliver:

1. Data Analycs to analyze data to understand customer behavior and uncover trends, supplyanddemand,andtrends.

2. Analyze leads through customer data to make adversing recommendaons based on previous purchase behavior, registraon informaon,searchhistory,etc.

3. Smartadobjectsthatcanautomacallycreate smart ad objects to increase interacvity, with factors such as age, gender, geographic locaonandinterest.

4. Opmize ads: use Machine learning to predict the performance of adversing campaigns based on historical data use algorithms to opmize ad campaigns, from ad format, posioning, pricing and ad content. can also track ad results and re-opmize campaigns overme.

5 Deep Learning: can use Deep Learning to analyze images and videos to determine appropriateandeffecveadversingcontent.

Another instance is the integraon of AI into socialmediamanagementtoolslikeBuffer.

LeveragingContentforbusinesstransformaon

In the Arts and Culture category, Spofy and Audiomack are examples of audio streaming plaorms that have enabled music arstes to promote their works to global audiences, while monezingtheirtraffic.

YouTube, Google's video streaming service is another opportunity for businesses to in the Arts and Culture category to promote and. moneze their content. It can also be maintained as the videorepositoryforallthebrand'svideos.

In more recent mes, social media plaorms like Facebook and TikTok have also delivered monezing opportunies to content developers, therebypresenngplayerswiththespacetogrow businessesinthatsector.

Over the years, the saying that “Content is King” has connued to manifest in even more excing and rewarding ways, and players within the Arts and Culture space connue to benefit from new waysofcreangcontentanddistribungthem.

Furthermore, a movie category disruptor like Nelix has open a huge door of opportunity for filmmakers and other content creators, in Ghana, toshowcasetheircontenttoaglobalaudience.

LeveragingCloudtechnologyforbusinesstransformaon

Cloud Commerce, Cloud Mobility, Cloud Markeng are examples of how cloud compung has presented businesses with the opportunity to see goods and services online without owning any of the hardware, sowareandtoolsrequirestorunaneBusiness.

Cloud Commerce delivers eCommerce soluons that provide a range of features like hyperlocal marketplaces, mul-vendor marketplaces and payment and delivery processing plaorm integraons that provides everything a business, whether small or big needs to reach wider markets, with efficiency at low costs. Examples of these players, both local and global, are Alibaba, Amazon, Jumia, Hubtel, ExpressPay, SlydePay,andTonaton.

Cloud Mobility has transformed the transport sector, with on-demand services like ride-hailing and courier. In Ghana, global players like Uber, Bolt and Yango have dominated the ride-hailing category. These companieshavealsodiversifiedintothecourierbusiness.

However, small businesses like ShaqExpress and FC Express have disrupted the courier category with the mobileapps.Therearemanyotherstart-upsandsmallbusinessesemergingfromthissector.

Cloud Markeng provides businesses with the markeng technology (also Martech) tools and plaorms requiredtoincreasetheaudiencereachandconvertahigherrateofsalesleads,acrossmarkets.

Cloud compung has become the backbone of eBusinesses, delivering low costs of operaons, agile development and deployment of apps and tools because of access to resources that, hitherto, was within thereachofonlyafewbigbusinesses.

Promongeventsonaglobalscale

Event organizers are also taking advantage of digital transformaon opportunies to deliver events to, not justlocalaudiences,butalsoglobalones.

Social media networks, as well as online publicaons have also enabled businesses to promote these events toaudiencesthat,inyearspast,wereinaccessible.

Moreover, COVID-19 precipitated the advent of innovaon in terms of how we organized events - cue virtual events.

Ÿ There is a proliferaon of collaborave and conferencing tools and plaorms like Zoom, GoTo and BlueJeans that have brought immense benefits to businesses that are looking for alternaves to physicalconferencesandseminars.

EventtoolslikeEventbritecanbeleveragedtopromotebusinessevents,completewithannouncementsand cketssales.

There are also opportunies for virtual conferences and seminars delivered using tools like Cvent and Bizzabo,whichcomewithexcingfeatureslikevirtualbooths,meengroomsamongstothers.

These plaorms and tools also have markeng features that enables event organizers to their events to the rightaudiences.