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Thursday, 18 April 2024

Sankara Died, Sankara Lives (Pt. 2)

Opinions

“There was something new under the African sun — Thomas Sankara, a guitar-playing, humorous, passionate, athletic, articulate, driven and honest young President with a puritanical bent and a seemingly endless supply of novel and innovative ideas.”

The quotation in the sub-title should not be summarily dismissed as a glib, sweet-toned turn of phrase.  It is a very fitting nod to the nonpareil phenomenon that was Thomas Sankara. It rolled off the tongue of Joan Baxter, a Canadian journalist, development researcher, anthropologist, and award-winning author as borne out in Chapter 5 of her 2011 book titled Dust From Our Eyes: An Unblinkered Look At Africa.

In the same, strikingly dispassionate book, Baxter goes on to laud Thomas Sankara as “one of those rare individuals who come along every few decades or so, who seemed to have the energy, ingenuity, and creativity to turn a small country — or maybe the universe — on its head”. Paradoxically for a Westerner, Baxter was attempting to resurrect the hopes that Sankara, Africa’s greatest leader ever by far, inspired in the youth of this dismally stunted, shackled, and perhaps ill-starred   continent.   

On his inauguration as President on August 4 1983, Sankara spoke these highly evocative words: “We have to dare to invent the future … Everything that we are capable of imagining we are also capable of attaining.” The statement cut almost crisply to the heart of Napoleon Hill’s equally pregnant aphorism that “whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.  To Sankara, no dream was forever a pipedream, no vision was simply a pie in the sky. So what was it that Sankara envisioned for his country? What future did the charismatic young leader and visionary have in store for the people whose destiny now lay in his 33-year-old hands, people who 23 years of pillaging and plunder at the highest levels of government and foreign vested interests had reduced to paupers?

It was this, as captured in a speech he delivered on another rostrum: “Our revolution will be of value only if, looking back and ahead, we are able to say that the Burkinabe people are a little happier because of it. Because they have clean drinking water, because they have plenty to eat, because they are in good health, because they have access to education, because they have decent housing, because they have better clothing, because they have the right to leisure, because they have greater freedom, more democracy and greater dignity … Revolution means happiness. Without happiness, we cannot speak of success.”

Yet even the most sanguine optimist had to take cognizance of the one inescapable fact – that the road to the Land of Milk and Honey would not be a stroll down what John Winston Lennon called Strawberry Fields. Realistically, it would entail a long stint in the wilderness, certainly not the 40 years of stasis the nation of Israel endured in the rocky terrains of Mount Sinai but considerably long anyway. Such misgivings were well-founded for the one stark truth was that the country was staggeringly and eye-poppingly poor.   
Would Sankara buckle under the enormity of the challenges  that raged?

THE ODDS WERE FORMIDABLE

The Upper Volta Thomas Sankara took over in January 1983 was reeling from a raft of asphyxiating economic maladies. Firstly, nature itself had placed its own inscrutable veto on the fortuities of the country.  It was landlocked and was partly enclasped in the tentacles of the drought-stricken Sahel Zone, a narrow band of semi-arid land which was contiguous to the Sahara Desert and stretched all the way from Senegal to the Sudan.  Infant mortality rate was a whopping 280 per 1000 live births, one of the sorriest on the globe. Life expectancy was a piteous 40 years. A startling 90 percent of the population were unable to read and write, with a school enrolment rate of only 10 percent. There was only one doctor per 50,000 in a population of 7 million people. At a mere $100, average annual income per head was bottom-of- the-rung in the whole wide world.   

A mandatory head tax, a flat rate for every able-bodied national of workable age which dated back to the days of French colonial rule, was still enforced as a desperate fiscal lifeline. Peasants had semi-feudal obligations to perform menial tasks for the paramount chiefs as and when they were called upon. As if that wasn’t outrageous enough, chiefs had the right to requisition food and animals from their subjects, another relic of the privilleges they enjoyed in the colonial days as a spur to reigning in nationalistic impulses amongst their people.   

Sankara sought to reverse all these blights not inch by inch or step by step but fleet-footedly, at the speed of a gazelle.   The revolutionary zealotry he undertook to instill in his people was not mere ideological posturing but was about tangible, realisable benchmarks for goal attainment. It was about a radically new approach to duty that presupposed the embrace of a radically new work ethic. It was all hands on deck now for every Jim, Jack, Mary, and Sharon: it was all systems go.  

The Marxist-leaning leader’s idea of economic and institutional transformation was premised on change that was creative and non-conformist. It was change which, in his own words,   contained “a certain amount of madness”, a foray if need be into realpolitik.  That did not mean it was an exercise in futility, that it was so wild in its broad sweep and so onerous in its burdensomeness as to border on the fanciful. It was the pace at which it was going to be accomplished that required dying a little, that called for a level of self-sacrifice that was without parallel both historically and contemporaneously.  

The young and feisty president was aware his task made that of Sisyphus seem like a Sunday School picnic but he was such a believer in the possibilities of his people and indeed in his own dynamism that he did not waver.   
 
GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY

Sankara went to work literally from the very day he ascended to power. The first thing he did was to surround himself with a corps of 150 carefully vetted presidential aides who were going to assist him in moving the country forward by jet propulsion. Then he launched one of the most ambitious programmes for social, cultural, economic and political revival ever attempted on the continent of Africa. The concerted instruments of these reforms were the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs).

The CDRs were patterned after the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución of Cuba, which Fidel Castro had established in 1960 as a "collective system of revolutionary vigilance” that criss-crossed the entire island like a latticework. They were launched under a Peoples Development Plan under which provinces were to set down their objectives and devise a means through which to bring them to fruition.   

Underscoring this pioneering experiment of the exercise of power in all its expressions by the people in the name of the people, Sankara observed thus: “The most important thing is to give the people confidence, to help them understand that they can at last define their own happiness, to enable them to decide on their own aims and understand the price to be paid.”

Sankara saw CDRs as a veritable organ for the devolution of the full spectrum of power to the grassroots which would go a long way in consolidating direct, participatory democracy. This divestiture of all facets of executive affirmation on the part of his regime in favour of a brand of authority and responsibility that was coterminous and co-equal with that of the governed was at least in theory envisaged to be wholesale.

“Democracy means using the full potential of the people,” he pointed out.  “The ballot box and an electoral system do not prove the existence of democracy. There is no real democracy where those in power call elections from time to time and concern themselves with the people only in the run-up to an election … There can be no democracy unless power in all its forms – economic, military, political, social and cultural – is in the hands of the people.”

True to their billing, the CDRs became the cornerstone of popular participation in power, permeating as they did every nook and cranny of the constituent structures. There was a CDR for for the youth, a CDR for women, a CDR for farmers, a CDR for unions, a CDR for each workplace, ad infinitum.  The CDRs had clout. Their mandate went beyond the preservation of public security to the inculcation of political education, maintenance of impeccable standards of sanitation, boosting production and productivity, bringing checks and balances to bear on the excesses of government and bureaucrats, red-flagging budget control deviations in the ministries, and a host of overarching judicial and administrative responsibilities.

Not only did CDRs deliberate on a whole range of national projects but they also had the power to reject them if they were not deemed crucial or were fraught with lapses. With the establishment of CDRs therefore, Sankara had radically restructured the basic functions of society, turning it from a mere cog in the wheel to an integral part of the wheel itself.

Sankara also gave considerable thought to the mobilisation of ideas from the youth cadre with a view to inform official policy formulation. His former Policy Adviser Fidele Kientega affirms this predilection thus: “Sankara created the Young Pioneers groups in all schools and communities to change the old feudalistic patron-client political discourse. Young people were trained to practice democracy in decision-making in terms of issues that affected them. They were asked to come up with proposals that were then formed into policies and were delegated with the mandate of implementing these same polices they helped to form. Sankara was building grassroots democracy.”

MILESTONES IN HEALH AND EDUCATION

On August 4 1984, the first anniversary of his accession to power, Thomas Sankara changed the name of his country from the colonially imposed Upper Volta to Burkina Farso, with the people now to be called the Burkinabe.  The name was weaved together from two words borrowed from two local languages and meant “Land of Honourable People.” The name change was not prompted by the sentimental need to rid the country of any lingering imperialistic vestiges. 

It was meant to underline a new dispensation altogether in the aspirations of the nation and as a rallying cry for his people to invoke so that they were forever reminded of forging a new   international dignity through scaling new economic heights. That’s how he sought to galvanise his people and launch a bootstrap development movement. Granted, the name of the country was an integral symbol of his national crusade.  Besides being a great psychological spur, it had positive ramifications, implicitly, at a karmic level.  

Education and literacy were an overriding priority. In only the first two years of his presidency, the proportion of people who attended school jumped from 10 percent to about 25 percent, thus significantly denting the 90 percent illiteracy rate that bedeviled the country when he assumed office. In 1986, a whirlwind nationwide literacy campaign mounted in nine indigenous languages resulted in 35,000 being able to read and write. It was tantamount to imparting a competence across the board in one fell swoop.  

Similar strides were made in public health. In a 15-day marathon immunisation programme in November 1984 – and this was only three months after he took office – Sankara enlisted the aid of Cuban volunteer medics to vaccinate 2.5 million Burkinabe children against the dreaded meningitis, yellow fever, and measles in a bid to fast-track the promotion of public health.

The feat was unprecedented anywhere. For the first time ever, basic health services were like in the Botswana of today made available   to the entire population, one consequence of which was that river blindness was kept in check, again a first for the country under a plucky, doggedly determined Thomas Sankara. By January 1985, the infant mortality rate had precipitately fallen from 280 deaths for every 1000 births to 145. In only four months at the helm, the wunderkind president had delivered results as though he was waving a magic wand.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE SAHEL

Concerned that his country desperately needed an infrastructural uplift, Thomas Sankara embarked on an ambitious rail and road construction programme to “tie the nation together” as he put it. Schools, hospitals, dams, and houses were also factored into the hive of construction activity.

As much as government was the project bankroller, a considerable amount of labour was donated by the citizenry out of a sense purely of patriotic duty and the unremitting love of their iconic leader. For instance, peasants built storage dams by the sweat of their own brow, and every village was called upon to voluntarily build a medical dispensary. Over 350 communities were stirred by Sankara’s logically marshaled persuasive pitches to construct schools by sacrificially working their fingers to the bone. Note that the people were not expected to make a material contribution: only labour and of their own accord. No one was forcefully conscripted.

In February 1985, two construction programs were incepted. These were a public housing project and what Sankara called “The Battle for the Railroad” project. The latter was the construction of a missing rail link to the northeastern region of Tambo with a view to develop a major manganese deposit that had   recently been stumbled upon. Sankara dubbed the undertaking a “battle” in that it was done independent of foreign financing after the Bretton Woods institutions and the jaundice-eyed donor community gave it the thumbs-down in favour of the less crucial road to the already flourishing northern mining region. The only foreign prop for the project took the form of an inconsequential number of rails Canada grudgingly provided from a plant in Trenton, Nova Scotia.

With government coffers stretched too thin, Sankara again took recourse to a resource of last resort – the citizenry. He appealed to them to lend the project a vital hand without which it was foredoomed.  They readily obliged: between 1985 and 1987, the merry throngs of volunteers, who mostly comprised students and civil servants, led 62 km of rail under the blazing Sahel sun and a smog-like swirl of hovering dust.

Meanwhile, the encroaching Sahara Desert needed to be taken care of as another component of the national agenda. In this regard, Sankala launched a vigorous reforestation programme in which hordes of Burkinabes were both directly and indirectly mobilised.  Over 10 million trees were planted around the country in the space of only twelve months in a bid to expeditiously halt the growing desertification of the Sahel.  In order to keep the momentum of the reforestation going, new house owners or tenants were made to undertake to plant and tend to a prescribed minimum number of trees.  

Concomitant measures to help perpetuate the reforestation programme have been summed up thus: “The CDRs of women and youth mobilised to build tens of thousands of improved stoves in order to reduce the consumption of firewood. Hundreds of wells were sunk to provide reliable drinking water to those who lacked it. An old, partly-abandoned tradition of each town and village cultivating its own grove of trees was revived. In the villages in the developed river valleys, each family was given the means and the obligation to plant one hundred trees per year. The cutting and selling of firewood was brought under strict control.” (To be continued next week)

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Opinions

IEC Disrespects Batswana: A Critical Analysis

10th November 2023

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has recently faced significant criticism for its handling of the voter registration exercise. In this prose I aim to shed light on the various instances where the IEC has demonstrated a lack of respect towards the citizens of Botswana, leading to a loss of credibility. By examining the postponements of the registration exercise and the IEC’s failure to communicate effectively, it becomes evident that the institution has disregarded its core mandate and the importance of its role in ensuring fair and transparent elections.

Incompetence or Disrespect?

One possible explanation for the IEC’s behavior is sheer incompetence. It is alarming to consider that the leadership of such a critical institution may lack the understanding of the importance of their mandate. The failure to communicate the reasons for the postponements in a timely manner raises questions about their ability to handle their responsibilities effectively. Furthermore, if the issue lies with government processes, it calls into question whether the IEC has the courage to stand up to the country’s leadership.

Another possibility is that the IEC lacks respect for its core clients, the voters of Botswana. Respect for stakeholders is crucial in building trust, and clear communication is a key component of this. The IEC’s failure to communicate accurate and complete information, despite having access to it, has fueled speculation and mistrust. Additionally, the IEC’s disregard for engaging with political parties, such as the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), further highlights this disrespect. By ignoring the UDC’s request to observe the registration process, the IEC demonstrates a lack of regard for its partners in the electoral exercise.

Rebuilding Trust and Credibility:

While allegations of political interference and security services involvement cannot be ignored, the IEC has a greater responsibility to ensure its own credibility. The institution did manage to refute claims by the DISS Director that the IEC database had been compromised, which is a positive step towards rebuilding trust. However, this remains a small glimmer of hope in the midst of the IEC’s overall disregard for the citizens of Botswana.

To regain the trust of Batswana, the IEC must prioritize respect for its stakeholders. Clear and timely communication is essential in this process. By engaging with political parties and addressing their concerns, the IEC can demonstrate a commitment to transparency and fairness. It is crucial for the IEC to recognize that its credibility is directly linked to the trust it garners from the voters.

Conclusion:

The IEC’s recent actions have raised serious concerns about its credibility and respect for the citizens of Botswana. Whether due to incompetence or a lack of respect for stakeholders, the IEC’s failure to communicate effectively and handle its responsibilities has damaged its reputation. To regain trust and maintain relevance, the IEC must prioritize clear and timely communication, engage with political parties, and demonstrate a commitment to transparency and fairness. Only by respecting the voters of Botswana can the IEC fulfill its crucial role in ensuring free and fair elections.

 

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Opinions

Fuelling Change: The Evolving Dynamics of the Oil and Gas Industry

4th April 2023

The Oil and Gas industry has undergone several significant developments and changes over the last few years. Understanding these developments and trends is crucial towards better appreciating how to navigate the engagement in this space, whether directly in the energy space or in associated value chain roles such as financing.

Here, we explore some of the most notable global events and trends and the potential impact or bearing they have on the local and global market.

Governments and companies around the world have been increasingly focused on transitioning towards renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. This shift is motivated by concerns about climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Africa, including Botswana, is part of these discussions, as we work to collectively ensure a greener and more sustainable future. Indeed, this is now a greater priority the world over. It aligns closely with the increase in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing being observed. ESG investing has become increasingly popular, and many investors are now looking for companies that are focused on sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint. This trend could have significant implications for the oil and fuel industry, which is often viewed as environmentally unsustainable. Relatedly and equally key are the evolving government policies. Government policies and regulations related to the Oil and Gas industry are likely to continue evolving with discussions including incentives for renewable energy and potentially imposing stricter regulations on emissions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also played a strong role. Over the last two years, the pandemic had a profound impact on the Oil and Gas industry (and fuel generally), leading to a significant drop in demand as travel and economic activity slowed down. As a result, oil prices plummeted, with crude oil prices briefly turning negative in April 2020. Most economies have now vaccinated their populations and are in recovery mode, and with the recovery of the economies, there has been recovery of oil prices; however, the pace and sustainability of recovery continues to be dependent on factors such as emergence of new variants of the virus.

This period, which saw increased digital transformation on the whole, also saw accelerated and increased investment in technology. The Oil and Gas industry is expected to continue investing in new digital technologies to increase efficiency and reduce costs. This also means a necessary understanding and subsequent action to address the impacts from the rise of electric vehicles. The growing popularity of electric vehicles is expected to reduce demand for traditional gasoline-powered cars. This has, in turn, had an impact on the demand for oil.

Last but not least, geopolitical tensions have played a tremendous role. Geopolitical tensions between major oil-producing countries can and has impacted the supply of oil and fuel. Ongoing tensions in the Middle East and between the US and Russia could have an impact on global oil prices further, and we must be mindful of this.

On the home front in Botswana, all these discussions are relevant and the subject of discussion in many corporate and even public sector boardrooms. Stanbic Bank Botswana continues to take a lead in supporting the Oil and Gas industry in its current state and as it evolves and navigates these dynamics. This is through providing financing to support Oil and Gas companies’ operations, including investments in new technologies. The Bank offers risk management services to help oil and gas companies to manage risks associated with price fluctuations, supply chain disruptions and regulatory changes. This includes offering hedging products and providing advice on risk management strategies.

Advisory and support for sustainability initiatives that the industry undertakes is also key to ensuring that, as companies navigate complex market conditions, they are more empowered to make informed business decisions. It is important to work with Oil and Gas companies to develop and implement sustainability strategies, such as reducing emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy. This is key to how partners such as Stanbic Bank work to support the sector.

Last but not least, Stanbic Bank stands firmly in support of Botswana’s drive in the development of the sector with the view to attain better fuel security and reduce dependence risk on imported fuel. This is crucial towards ensuring a stronger, stabler market, and a core aspect to how we can play a role in helping drive Botswana’s growth.  Continued understanding, learning, and sustainable action are what will help ensure the Oil and Gas sector is supported towards positive, sustainable and impactful growth in a manner that brings social, environmental and economic benefit.

Loago Tshomane is Manager, Client Coverage, Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB), Stanbic Bank Botswana

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Opinions

Brands are important

27th March 2023

So, the conclusion is brands are important. I start by concluding because one hopes this is a foregone conclusion given the furore that erupts over a botched brand. If a fast food chef bungles a food order, there’d be possibly some isolated complaint thrown. However, if the same company’s marketing expert or agency cooks up a tasteless brand there is a country-wide outcry. Why?  Perhaps this is because brands affect us more deeply than we care to understand or admit. The fact that the uproar might be equal parts of schadenfreude, black twitter-esque criticism and, disappointment does not take away from the decibel of concern raised.

A good place to start our understanding of a brand is naturally by defining what a brand is. Marty Neumier, the genius who authored The Brand Gap, offers this instructive definition – “A brand is a person’s gut feel about a product or service”. In other words, a brand is not what the company says it is. It is what the people feel it is. It is the sum total of what it means to them. Brands are perceptions. So, brands are defined by individuals not companies. But brands are owned by companies not individuals. Brands are crafted in privacy but consumed publicly. Brands are communal. Granted, you say. But that doesn’t still explain why everybody and their pet dog feel entitled to jump in feet first into a brand slug-fest armed with a hot opinion. True. But consider the following truism.

 

Brands are living. They act as milestones in our past. They are signposts of our identity. Beacons of our triumphs. Indexes of our consumption. Most importantly, they have invaded our very words and world view. Try going for just 24 hours without mentioning a single brand name. Quite difficult, right? Because they live among us they have become one of us. And we have therefore built ‘brand bonds’ with them. For example, iPhone owners gather here. You love your iPhone. It goes everywhere. You turn to it in moments of joy and when we need a quick mood boost. Notice how that ‘relationship’ started with desire as you longingly gazed upon it in a glossy brochure. That quickly progressed to asking other people what they thought about it. Followed by the zero moment of truth were you committed and voted your approval through a purchase. Does that sound like a romantic relationship timeline. You bet it does. Because it is. When we conduct brand workshops we run the Brand Loyalty ™ exercise wherein we test people’s loyalty to their favourite brand(s). The results are always quite intriguing. Most people are willing to pay a 40% premium over the standard price for ‘their’ brand. They simply won’t easily ‘breakup’ with it. Doing so can cause brand ‘heart ache’. There is strong brand elasticity for loved brands.

 

Now that we know brands are communal and endeared, then companies armed with this knowledge, must exercise caution and practise reverence when approaching the subject of rebranding. It’s fragile. The question marketers ought to ask themselves before gleefully jumping into the hot rebranding cauldron is – Do we go for an Evolution (partial rebrand) or a Revolution(full rebrand)? An evolution is incremental. It introduces small but significant changes or additions to the existing visual brand. Here, think of the subtle changes you’ve seen in financial or FMCG brands over the decades. Evolution allows you to redirect the brand without alienating its horde of faithful followers. As humans we love the familiar and certain. Change scares us. Especially if we’ve not been privy to the important but probably blinkered ‘strategy sessions’ ongoing behind the scenes. Revolutions are often messy. They are often hard reset about-turns aiming for a total new look and ‘feel’.

 

 

Hard rebranding is risky business. History is littered with the agony of brands large and small who felt the heat of public disfavour. In January 2009, PepsiCo rebranded the Tropicana. When the newly designed package hit the shelves, consumers were not having it. The New York Times reports that ‘some of the commenting described the new packaging as ‘ugly’ ‘stupid’. They wanted their old one back that showed a ripe orange with a straw in it. Sales dipped 20%. PepsiCo reverted to the old logo and packaging within a month. In 2006 Mastercard had to backtrack away from it’s new logo after public criticism, as did Leeds United, and the clothing brand Gap. AdAge magazine reports that critics most common sentiment about the Gap logo was that it looked like something a child had created using a clip-art gallery. Botswana is no different. University of Botswana had to retreat into the comfort of the known and accepted heritage strong brand.  Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital was badgered with complaints till it ‘adjusted’ its logo.

 

 

So if the landscape of rebranding is so treacherous then whey take the risk? Companies need to soberly assess they need for a rebrand. According to the fellows at Ignyte Branding a rebrand is ignited by the following admissions :

Our brand name no longer reflects our company’s vision.
We’re embarrassed to hand out our business cards.

Our competitive advantage is vague or poorly articulated.
Our brand has lost focus and become too complex to understand. Our business model or strategy has changed.
Our business has outgrown its current brand.
We’re undergoing or recently underwent a merger or acquisition. Our business has moved or expanded its geographic reach.
We need to disassociate our brand from a negative image.
We’re struggling to raise our prices and increase our profit margins. We want to expand our influence and connect to new audiences. We’re not attracting top talent for the positions we need to fill. All the above are good reasons to rebrand.

The downside to this debacle is that companies genuinely needing to rebrand might be hesitant or delay it altogether. The silver lining I guess is that marketing often mocked for its charlatans, is briefly transformed from being the Archilles heel into Thanos’ glove in an instant.

So what does a company need to do to safely navigate the rebranding terrain? Companies need to interrogate their brand purpose thoroughly. Not what they think they stand for but what they authentically represent when seen through the lens of their team members. In our Brand Workshop we use a number of tools to tease out the compelling brand truth. This section always draws amusing insights. Unfailingly, the top management (CEO & CFO)always has a vastly different picture of their brand to the rest of their ExCo and middle management, as do they to the customer-facing officer. We have only come across one company that had good internal alignment. Needless to say that brand is doing superbly well.

There is need a for brand strategies to guide the brand. One observes that most brands ‘make a plan’ as they go along. Little or no deliberate position on Brand audit, Customer research, Brand positioning and purpose, Architecture, Messaging, Naming, Tagline, Brand Training and may more. A brand strategy distils why your business exists beyond making money – its ‘why’. It defines what makes your brand what it is, what differentiates it from the competition and how you want your customers to perceive it. Lacking a brand strategy disadvantages the company in that it appears soul-less and lacking in personality. Naturally, people do not like to hang around humans with nothing to say. A brand strategy understands the value proposition. People don’t buy nails for the nails sake. They buy nails to hammer into the wall to hang pictures of their loved ones. People don’t buy make up because of its several hues and shades. Make up is self-expression. Understanding this arms a brand with an iron clad clad strategy on the brand battlefield.

But perhaps you’ve done the important research and strategy work. It’s still possible to bungle the final look and feel.  A few years ago one large brand had an extensive strategy done. Hopes were high for a top tier brand reveal. The eventual proposed brand was lack-lustre. I distinctly remember, being tasked as local agency to ‘land’ the brand and we outright refused. We could see this was a disaster of epic proportions begging to happen. The brand consultants were summoned to revise the logo. After a several tweaks and compromises the brand landed. It currently exists as one of the country’s largest brands. Getting the logo and visual look right is important. But how does one know if they are on the right path? Using the simile of a brand being a person – The answer is how do you know your outfit is right? It must serve a function, be the right fit and cut, it must be coordinated and lastly it must say something about you. So it is possible to bath in a luxurious bath gel, apply exotic lotion, be facebeat and still somehow wear a faux pas outfit. Avoid that.

Another suggestion is to do the obvious. Pre-test the logo and its look and feel on a cross section of your existing and prospective audience. There are tools to do this. Their feedback can save you money, time and pain. Additionally one must do another obvious check – use Google Image to verify the visual outcome and plain Google search to verify the name. These are so obvious they are hopefully for gone conclusions. But for the brands that have gone ahead without them, I hope you have not concluded your brand journeys as there is a world of opportunity waiting to be unlocked with the right brand strategy key.

Cliff Mada is Head of ArmourGetOn Brand Consultancy, based in Gaborone and Cape Town.

cliff@armourgeton.com

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