(This is not a plug. I have no vested financial or personal interest, but I know who the people behind this are and can vouch for their integrity.)
As someone who worked in corporate advertising and marketing for close to 20 years, I long ago came to realise that no matter the channel employed, millions were wasted on campaigns with too many players involved, each taking their bite out of the marketing budget pie to pay for their BMW's. What we'd end up with, almost without fail, were expensive convoluted processes and operations resulting in an end product which did not warrant the money, effort and extreme stress that went into it. More often than not the resulting communications were an affront to the consumer (read: human being). A condescending slap in the face.
Brands and their agencies are also completely out of touch with their markets (and life in general it would seem). MTN, the juggernaut African mobile service provider and corporate rapist of African wallets, in October 2017, "leveraged the trending phenomenon of Ermahgerd Girl” in a commercial. Just look at it and try not to cringe yourself to death.
Firstly, lifting memes from the web and simply riding its coat tails is the lowest hanging fruit you can go for. And it's become quite routine here in South Africa at least, since everyone had run out of ideas a long time ago. Advertising used to be a creative industry, but the BBDO's and Ogilvy's have long since killed creativity for the sake of volume.
Secondly, this is typical of how African corporations treat their own. "You are so backwards that we will steal a Reddit meme which trended in 2012, reheat it to barely tepid and then use it to try and get more of our spam rootkit SIMs into your phones". So not even the lowest fruit for their market, but straight for the dead, half-rotten ones lying in the dirt. MTN subscribers, this is where your money goes. They take it and use it to insult your intelligence to your face.
Make no mistake, there are still individuals and small marketing companies with actual creative talent and enough empathy to understand and not insult a product or service's market!
The corporate loyalty and reward schemes don't fare much better. They mine your most intimate and detailed data and share and sell this to their "affiliate partners" as per the terms and conditions which are available somewhere on their websites. You get mere cents which you can only, you guessed it, use to trade for goods and services with them or their partners.
Like, share, follow, tweet they ask of you to qualify for "exciting promotions". They never excite and the loyalty is a one-way street.
African Solutions for African Problems
I am new to blockchain and crypto and can't speak with any authority on the Waves platform or the strategy of WAXEX, but this could just be the way to erode power away from the banks, corporate brands and their corporate ad agencies who are shamelessly ripping off billions of dollars from the struggling masses who call this beautiful continent home.
Away with their databases on AWS where your choice of feminine hygiene products or ointment for your piles are linked to your real name, phone number and home address. If consumers adopt this, the corporations will have to come and sink some of that marketing budget into this blockchain. WAXEX also functions as a creative and strategic agency in its own right, unencumbered by the bloat of the big players.
Even more importantly, for small businesses, it removes the impossible barrier to entry when it comes to marketing and for many consumers or clients this could be a foot in the door to the crypto universe. Why watch an insulting $1m TV commercial when you can receive tangible rewards?
I'll conclude with the biggest thing I took out of my years wasted in the corporate ad industry: People do love free stuff and the chance to win. They appreciate vouchers and coupons. The best way to gain brand loyalty is to show some love.
I am going to watch this one closely and will be rooting for it because it's local and if it gains traction, will be another step towards ridding us of the tentacles of the economic colonization that is keeping us all hostage. We are ripe for some real redistribution of wealth.
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