MTN – The African brand success lessons

Companies that deliver infrastructure, like mobile telephone networks, play a much bigger role than in just their sector. In Africa, where the challenges of infrastructure and environment have thrust millions of people into marginalisation, mobile networks arrived to connect individuals and societies, providing the ability to communicate and access information.

There are places in Africa where communities are yet to experience running water or electricity. Yet, they have access to an MTN Village Phone, and therefore access to the world.

MTN is a seasoned veteran of doing business with rural consumers, with operations in 21 markets across Africa and the Middle East. To boost its market share among rural, low-income consumers, MTN created services tailored to their needs. They established a network of local agents, set up kiosks in rural areas, and gave agents motorbikes to reach even the most remote places.

Adopting a customer-focused strategy, MTN set up as many outlets as possible for their subscribers to gain access to their products and services. They also developed lower denominations when selling airtime to accommodate the low and unpredictable incomes of many African consumers, and introduced innovations like telemedicine and voice-based apps such as iCow and Xam Marse to provide rural farmers with real-time access to market prices through the internet on their mobile phones.

MTN Mobile Money launched in 13 countries and as at November 2013 has more than thirteen million mobile money subscribers throughout 14 countries in Africa.

This mobile network system allows customers to virtually wire cash to each other, either from simcard to simcard or from phone to phone. Mobile money is still in its infancy, but we are arguably looking at the future of money and financial transactions.

Mobile telecommunications has proven to be a life and society changing phenomenon, and as MTN entered country after country, the brand embraced its role as the champion of everyman. And at the heart of this African business was a clear vision—not just to spread and proliferate products or services, but to speed up the progress of the emerging world. When marketing meets with social need we start to see this kind of society-wide traction.

MTN is one of the biggest employers on the African continent, training local people to deliver on a global brand, yet keeping the company rooted and involved in society. Through such innovative distribution and promotional activities, MTN has been able to capture a significant proportion of the lower LSMs, which is a critical entry point to the African market. The network is the first African brand to be listed in Millward Brown’s Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, with a ranking of 79.

In Nigeria, the youth and emerging professionals would typically own two mobile lines, one usually with MTN, so it no surprise that the MTN network in Nigeria has over 45 million subscribers, making it the biggest mobile operator in Nigeria since commencing business in the country in August 2001.

MICHAEL UMOGUN

Mike works with
MillwardBrown Nigeria