In the days of old, town criers, gong gongs and banners were
but a few of the methods employed by individuals to create awareness for their
goods and services. Shoemakers, bread sellers, tailors, etc would come up with
songs and chants as they walked past houses and rooms, all in a bid to gain
publicity. In Ghana, these can still be seen, especially when one pays a visit
to the marketplace.
According to africanoutlookonline.com, the African
traditional media are the indigenous means of communication in various
countries. They reflect in the various talking drums, folk songs, drama,
festivals, town criers, traditional wears, the artifacts, art works, paintings,
folklore, among other cultural architecture that reflect in the palaces,
shrines, and African cities, towns and villages.
With the advent of internet, radio and television in Africa,
a lot of marketing and advertising has moved to these areas. Many Ghanaians have
fond memories of theme songs from adverts like Chocomilo, Sunlight and Royco
Shito Mix. I believe many of those who use the internet are seeing “Red”
everywhere due to the flurry of Vodafone adverts. Indeed, marketing in Ghana
has come a long way.
These advances in marketing can be linked to the progressing
economy, not just in Ghana, but Africa as a whole, which is becoming more
business-friendly every year. Accenture.com has observed this to be as a result
of fewer conflicts, more democratic elections, higher economic growth rates and
improved business regulation. This fact has been recognized by the World Bank’s
2009 Ease of Doing Business report,
which highlighted Africa as a continent that is making strides toward becoming
a business-friendly regulatory environment.
One of the key elements of doing business in Africa has been
observed to be the predominance of individual self-employed vendors. Nairobi
alone has an estimated 100,000. This is obviously tricky for financial
institutions such as banks that wish to tap into these businesses - many of
whom have little or no credit history. Stanbic Bank in Nairobi made use of a
tool that enabled portable psychometric testing of potential loan recipients,
rapidly assessing their risk tolerance, ethics, honesty, intelligence and business
skills. Seed loans with ‘graduation plans,’ which allowed the bank’s business
with a given customer to grow as the customer’s credibility was established,
were used.This may be a good initiative but the question of whether or
not it can be applied to the Ghanaian market needs to be asked; mainly, whether
or not the right systems are in place for smooth implementation of such a
project. Nana Yaw Kesse of First Capital Plus believes that the feasibility of
such a project would be highly dependent on the tracking systems available to
trace loan recipients. Citing First Capital Plus as an example, he spoke of
things taken into consideration before loans are given out; finances, business
assets, market size, sales and banking records are used as a check on
credibility of figures. Focus is placed on hard facts as opposed to softer
metrics. He however opined that the propensity for one to pay back the loan as
indicated by the hard facts can be a measure of one’s credibility. Mr. Kesse
added that if it was a small town, it would be easier to gain access to a loan
because the people knew each other, but in a big city like Accra, where tracing
may be difficult due to inefficient residential address system, identification
systems amongst others, more checks would need to be put in place. This
notwithstanding, the banks in Ghana can try.
Many Africans live on less than $1 a day. This may pose a
problem for some companies which aim to serve all African consumers, and
ultimately find the most profitable way to make its products available and
affordable for the poorest Africans. In achieving this, consumer goods giant,
Unilever, created the small unit pack/low unit price, where smaller than usual
packs of detergents or salt were sold to consumers. In Ghana, a similar principle
is being applied by the likes of Nestle where products such as Milo are being
sold in packs as small as 25g. With more and more companies entering the Ghanaian market,
there is definitely a wealth of opportunities available for Ghana. Even though
the market in every country is different, there is a lot that can be learnt
from what is being done in the other African countries, which if properly
applied to Ghana, will successfully win lot of points for businesses.
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