Racism in football: A virus we have to kill

Photo Credit: bbc.co.uk

Football is universally and deservedly known as the ‘beautiful game,’ but even the most beautiful of things have ugly defects, and football has racism. There was the Buenos Aires Resolution, which was passed by the Extraordinary Congress of FIFA during a monumental meeting in the Argentinian capital on 7th July, 2001. After more than a decade, does it look like football has done enough to eliminate this virus? Football is rife with a shocking level of “institutional discrimination.”

Figures published by the International Federation of Football history and statistics  earlier this month showed that black people or the minority, as they are known,  currently fill just under four per cent of backroom staff positions in the five top European football  Football Leagues.

Media Debate: Should Ghana have an exclusive social media censorship?

Social Media has become the world’s greatest platform for social interactions, which has broken down many physical boundaries of nations. People that you, otherwise, would not have known have now become your friends through social networking. Despite all the goodwill, social media is fast becoming a platform for perpetuating some of the ills in society. There have been reports of fraud, rumour, false propaganda and in recent times, the recruitment of people especially teenagers into the camp of terrorists. It is feared that if unchecked, social media can spin out of control.

In order to prevent its citizens from visiting these social media platforms, countries like China have put restrictions on the use of some social media sites. Whether this is good or bad for democracy does not really count here since China is a communist state.

Customer Service in Ghana

Customer service in Ghana is as real as the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth. No seriously, think about it. How many times have you not felt like a service provider was acting like they were giving you freebies when you are actually paying for the service? Sometimes you enter a shop to buy something with your money and the attendants make you feel like you are some homeless beggar asking for handouts. Usually, these people get away with this.

Today, however, my rant is not about customer service as a whole, it is a little targeted at hotlines and the seriousness and attention companies pay to them. It is like most Ghanaians take the name of hotlines seriously… it is actually so hot that no one dares to answer these lines lest they get burnt or scalded. I live in the technology era where I believe everything should be a click, email, text or phone call away, but NO! Companies are good at frustrating their clients.

The digital era of going viral

If you have ever studied the science of cross pollination, you would realize that the plants that use this mechanism to reproduce need certain agents to achieve this goal. These agents are mostly birds and insects and it is the flowers that have certain features; colourful, sweet scented and sometimes contain nectar that that are pollinated. When the birds and insects settle on the plants and feed on them, they carry pollen on to the next plant; fertilization takes place, leading to reproduction. If you are to explain this in the language of marketing, you would say the pollen has gone viral.

How to Get Close-to-Free Publicity for your Product or Service in Ghana

I have spent the larger part of two weeks trying to tackle this topic from various angles; the serious academic, the fledging young media semi-expert, the student who is planning to enter a career in Media/Marketing/Events/PR/Advertising or perhaps, the klutz caught up in a job with little entertainment despite the outward allure? In the end, I decided to procrastinate for a while and then go with my instinct.

Customer Loyalty Programmes that Work

For me, these two words, “customer loyally” that have been put together bring to mind my mobile phone.

What has customer loyalty got to do with a mobile phone? My mobile phone is the one device I am most attached to. Beyond the close attachment, I still require the services of a network provider to make better use of this device. If you look around you, you will agree with me that we feel the least loyalty towards our network providers. No wonder most of us usually switch over from one network to another, keep more than one SIM card or even port our numbers to other networks. We are all looking for the best services, aren’t we?

Social Media: Marketing's New Frontier

Technology has drastically changed the way we interact. It has made communication easy, simple and faster. The explosion of mobile technology and availability of internet access in fusion with social networks and media has ensured that communication no longer remain in the traditional formats. Marketers all over the world are making good use of this development to their advantage.

Marketing on social networks is relatively cheaper than traditional marketing. Social media basically represents low-cost tools that are used to combine technology and social interaction with the use of words, graphics, sound and videos. These tools are typically internet or mobile- based. Examples are Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram, you name them.

Can You Live Without Your Mobile Phone?

Mobile phones are no longer a preserve for the elite in society. Almost everyone owns one. They are now part of people’s everyday lives. Life without a mobile phone, for some people, is like life without oxygen; an electrical appliance without electricity; the world without light or a football match without a ball.

The International Telecommunication Union has estimated that about seven billion cellular phone subscriptions would be recorded mid 2013 worldwide. Over 50 million people own mobile phones in Africa. Out of this number, 15 million do not have access to their own television at home.

Finding Innovative Ways to Play the Name Game

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, organizations hate missing an opportunity to leverage their assets. It is an instinct that has led many to consider whether they can get more out of their names – that is to create corporate brands in addition to their product brands.

The question is particularly relevant for companies in the consumer-goods industry, which typically market their wares under a variety of different names such as Kasapreko’s Alomo Bitters, Unilever’s Dove soap or Nestlé’s Maggi Mixpy.

Personal Branding: You Must Build Your Digital Empire

Consumer Psychology

                                                                             

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The key object of every marketing strategy is to develop lucid customer-specific solutions that are superior to competing solutions. To achieve this objective with precision involves understanding the psychology of the target markets who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of that solution.  Developing the solution is only one part of the equation, the target market needs to be aware of the solution, they must believe that it is unique to their needs and also have faith that it is superior to competing ones available. This part of the equation even makes the relevance of understanding the consumer’s psychology more crucial.

Customer Service: Hotlines and Their Myths

 

Customer service in Ghana is as real as the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth. No seriously, think about it. How many times have you not felt like a service provider was acting like they were giving you freebies when you are actually paying for the service? Sometimes you enter a shop to buy something with YOUR money and the attendants make you feel like you are some homeless beggar asking for handouts. Usually, these people get away with this.

Today, however, my rant is not about customer service as a whole, it is a little targeted at hotlines and the seriousness and attention companies pay to them. It is like most Ghanaians take the name of hotlines seriously… it is actually so hot that no one dares to answer these lines lest they get burnt or scalded. I live in the technology era where I believe everything should be a click, email, text or phone call away, but no! Companies are good at frustrating their clients.

How to Successfully Launch Your Brand

A subject of interest in today’s world is branding and more importantly, what differentiates an outstanding brand from others.

When successfully launching a brand, it is imperative to define the brand.

Karl Speak, the global expert on branding, posits that “when most people think of a brand, they visualize a slogan, a logo, a campaign, a promise or a product. A brand is much more. A brand is “a powerful relationship fueled by a loyal belief system and knotted to the principle of providing exceptional value."

The Business Creator - Spiritpreneur

Randy is a young vision-minded, Ghanaian-based entrepreneur who is passionate about making an impact in his generation. He belongs to a new breed of entrepreneurs whose motivation for going into business is not just to satisfy a need and get rewarded for it, but most importantly, to use business as a tool to change the world and advance the kingdom of God on earth. Hence, he refers to himself as a “Spiritpreneur” (Spiritual and entrepreneur).

Mr. Randy Osae Bediako, the Spiritpreneur, lets us in on his business:

PRACTICAL MARKETING STRATEGIES – AN ILLUSTRATION FROM GHANA’S CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT

From my personal experiences as a marketing student and later as a lecturer in Marketing with the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana, I have realized that most text books are awash with foreign examples that are sometimes difficult for students to grasp. Marketing as a course is clearly related to our ‘day-to-day’ activities and it should be as practical as possible and full of fun.

The essence of marketing is the delivery of customer-centric solutions to maximize the achievement of organisational goals. Every organisation exists to offer some form of solution to its target market and those solutions can be in the form of products or services. 

Marketers should therefore devise strategies to help the organisation to improve its internal weakness and use its identified strengths to exploit the opportunities in the external environment and minimize external threats.