How political insights on going digital are influencing marketing

Last week, the sixth Connected Kenya Summit was held in Mombasa. During the summit, which was attended by hundreds of ICT stakeholders from all over the world, the Kenya ICT Master plan was launched.

The plan highlights the sector agenda for a technology-led economic growth in line with the Vision 2030. This also gives a clear picture of how Kenya is going to develop towards greater levels of the “Internet of things”.

This is a situation where many things are connected with an internet-like structure enabling faster or instant capture of data and, therefore, enhancing quick decision making.

Futurists predict that by 2020 so many things will be connected this way leading to the term changing to the “Internet of everything”.

In Kenya the upcoming digital registration of people will connect personal information captured in different areas, from the national identity card to NSSF, NHIF and KRA among others.

The ICT master plan supports the digital promise by the Jubilee government. That promise has inspired various meanings and interpretations of the word “digital”.

The other day we stopped at a pharmacy for our driver to buy something. When he returned he said he had bought a heat lotion for his aching muscles.

One of the people in the car suggested he could have used ice cubes in a polythene paper to cool his muscles. He was surprised by the suggestion and observed that he doesn’t know those “digital things”.

A recent picture of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto enjoying nyama choma and drinking soup in mabati cups in Kajiado was also viewed as “digital”.

Our interior designer suggested to an old couple that they replace curtain boxes with modern curtain rails to which they responded, “We want those digital things”.

The Kenyan market has applied the term digital to mean new, different and fresh, a willingness to change to easier and modern ways of doing things.

In this kind of application, basic mobile phone models that are commonly referred to as mulika mwizi cannot be considered digital. Politicians and now government has brought us this digital idea, which has inspired some marketing campaigns.

The advertisement on digital migration in electronic media features comedians singing about the initiative in a hilarious way stating, “Tumetoka analogue, tuko digital’” (We are transiting from analogue to digital).

Communicating about such a technology would have been a marketing headache, which in this case has been simplified by the politicians’ use of the term in explaining government policies.

The buzz created during the campaigns put the word ‘digital’ at the top of Kenyans’ minds, making it one of the most used words in defining newness.

The Stone Age man in the Jamii TelecomFaiba advertisements also uses the concept in describing fast internet speeds and large bandwidths.

The other marketing campaign that has used the term digital is the Bidco advertisements for Powerboy liquid detergent. The other boys in the detergent market are fighting for dominance in traditional powder detergents.

But Powerboy took a different route. The commercials show how the Powerboy liquid detergent is the “digital” way of washing clothes.

By cleverly using the “digital” concept, the commercial leverages on the benefits of the Kenyan meanings of the word.

Keep your eyes open and your ear to the ground for emerging trends that can help you relate to the market in the new connectedness.

If you prefer the ‘analogue’ option be consoled by the alternative opinion that at the end of the day, we are all analogue.

The writer is the marketing director of SBO Research. E-mail: [email protected], Twitter @bngahu