The Competitive Weapon: How Ghana's Biggest Brands Use Music to Win Market Share

Evans Kwofie has built brands inside some of the most competitive marketing environments in Ghana. From Diageo Ghana where he worked on Star Beer and Guinness, to Kasapreko where he ran marketing for Alomo Bitters, to Unilever, and now as Head of Marketing at Procus Ghana for Kivo, one thread has run through every campaign he has ever built. Music.

In this episode of MAD Conversations, Evans breaks down the science behind why music works for brands, not as a feeling or an instinct, but as a strategic decision rooted in consumer insight, competitive intelligence and deliberate brand building. He takes us inside the research that revealed music as the number one trigger for Ghanaian youth in 2012, the R2Bees collaboration that helped Star Beer fight back against Club Beer, the Alomo Bitters repositioning that used Afrobeats to reclaim a generation, and the philosophy that has made Kivo one of Ghana's most recognized household brands.

This is not a conversation about what music does in theory, but about how music actually shapes a brand's identity and leads to capturing the needed market share.

MAD Conversations Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana's commercial creativity - documented.

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Chapters
00:00 Introduction 

03:15 Star Beer vs Club Beer: The Battle for the Youth 

09:07 The Consumer Research That Changed Everything 

11:33 R2Bees x Star Beer: How Music Reclaimed a Generation 

19:19 How Club Beer Hit Back 

39:31 Alomo vs Adonko: When Music Becomes a Competitive Weapon 

50:23 The Kivo Story and the Philosophy Behind the Win 

57:20 Why the Most Effective Ad Had No Dialogue 

1:20:50 Commission or License: The Case for Owning Your Sound 

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

What is it that the youth like? What is it that the youth wants to be associated with? What is it that what does what is it that speaks the language of the youth? Then we realize that music was actually the number one thing. A shocking revelation is that I don't know how to say, but I do love music. I do love music, knowing that music is a very powerful tool in even my personal life. When you hear that song, you stop and you want to look at what is on your screen. And with time, I got to understand what the trick is.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

If you do run placements in circle years, yeah, how are you going to measure around? How do you measure Haroai with some of these things? Yeah, because it's tricky. It is. I think that athletes, there are certain meals that are not advisable for athletes. I used to wonder why Kobe was the face of every product. I thought it was a mismatch. That was not a company.

SPEAKER_06 0:56

And every every black person is very proud of saying I'm part of those who say yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:07

So you need to, you know, either take them too high or take them too low. How did that story shape up?

SPEAKER_06 1:15

This story they gave me uh sleepless night. Really? Yeah. So see, I think uh the car light issue was one of the biggest things that should happen to the members of that. We have over 10,000 has been produced in the last 10 to 15 years. How many of them do you remember?

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. We know that when we first spoke, you described music in marketing as your strength. Is this something you discovered along your journey or it you knew even before you got into marketing? When did it first strike you that music in marketing is your is your strength?

SPEAKER_06 2:02

Yeah, so I think um the uh shocking revelation is that I don't know how to sing. You know, but I do love music. I do love music, uh knowing that music plays a very powerful tool in even my personal life. Obviously, in my uh quiet moment or probably in any time I find myself in anything, I think music does something to me, whether it be in reggae music or uh uh uh high life or whatever it is. But in the field of marketing, I think um it uh music being my strength uh came as a result of steady and understanding consumer insight. Um I think time immemorial, you will see that in most of the uh global brands, there are very powerful music behind it. When you listen to Heineken, uh uh UEFA Champions League song, you don't you don't just like it because it's just it's UFA, you like it because of the sound behind it. And for time, I just steady take notes, picture, and always see why it is working. Why is it that everybody wants to, when you hear that song, you stop and you want to look at what is on your screen. And with time, I got to understand what the trick is, uh, what makes it powerful in commercials and even in in our daily life as well. You know, one guy told me, um, I don't know his name actually, um, he said, even in movies, 30% of the movie full scene uh is music. The composition of a full movie, which we all run to go and watch when there's a big music, uh a big movie, you will see that uh its composition has 30% of it. Wow. So music is not a small thing in terms of our uh mood or probably changing people's perception of behavior. So with with steady, understanding, watching a lot of commercials outside, and also uh going through some consumer uh insight and test, I got to understand why music works and I use it all the time all the time.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

So, what was it like for you when you started testing out this theory about music in um markets, and that became your strength? What was your first test? So you you you're saying that you you studied it uh consumer marketing, you in movies, how it applied and whatnot. When was the very first time you used um music in any of your campaigns?

SPEAKER_06 4:32

Uh so I think um you started from DiAgio days uh when I was a uh brand manager, uh junior brand manager, I should put it, because I had a senior colleague. Her name is Stella. Stella Cancam. Yeah, she was such an alphable person. Shout out to Stella Cancam, apparently alphabet. Right. So uh we we had um been uh faced with uh a competitor uh or let's say a battle between uh ourselves and another another brand. So Star B and Club B. Let me mention the name.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Yeah, we've had Club B the person who has handled Club BF for about 17 years in your seat. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_06 5:13

We mentioned your brand, so you can go ahead and answer yourself. Oh we it was a very fierce uh uh competitor battle or uh between the uh BS space, let me say the laggers space. So star has been number one for a very long time. Um in the in the in the uh 70s, and oh see, Star was number one because of its uh origin. And um club when we entered into 2000, 2004, 2005, started uh climbing up to become number one. Why? Because it was seen to be the uh drink for the young folks. Uh you know, Star was also seen to be the brand that had the aging uh profile. So for the old man, so when you are an old man, you drink club and gold. But when you are young, you drink, sorry, you drink star and gold. Let me correct it. But when you are young, you see you drinking club.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

So the so you're saying around what time was what did this dynamic happen? Around the 2000s.

SPEAKER_06 6:10

So so star star for from the uh uh uh market steady, star started losing its leadership from 2004, 2004, 2005, 2006, 7. Then club started gaining momentum because see, obviously, the best beer in Ghana was uh Star B. Star M Golder, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

Okay, obviously, well, I I know all of the three brands, but I don't unfortunately I don't drink yeah, so I wouldn't know. But but I have I'm beginning to pick up on a theory, and if you'll indulge me, sure. That you know this B at the Anuani Club campaign, we spoke about it, it's one of my favorites. Yeah, I think if you're saying that it became Club Year started gaining momentum in from 2004, and that beer the Anuani Club had been running for about a decade. Yeah, do you think, and you're saying that it was running among the the younger folks? Yes, yeah, do you think that campaign, because I I hold a strong opinion that that campaign was so successful that up to date, if anybody asked me um what beer should they go for, even though I don't I haven't tasted both and I don't know, I'll probably say club. Yeah, because in my head, B A D running club, right? Do you think, and I'm not putting in a tight corner, I know we didn't discuss this, but do you think that it played any role at all, that campaign that they did? Because it was also music in a business.

SPEAKER_06 7:36

So, see, that campaign had a very powerful hook, uh, which is called the nationalistic queue. Okay, so club did what nobody expected to do was to own the Ghana moment. So, you know, Star was seen to be that, you know, premium beer, so it was all other space. But the Ghanaian moment was missing, and Club Yeah owned it with the uh club the no one I be. So they started a series of campaigns where they really entered into the space of what Ghanaian really or what a Ghanaian really or someone who claims to be Ghanaian does, which is one buying watch, you'll be on the queue and like you see one person in the panotomer 25. Yeah, you get the point. You see uh uh security man watching you parking a little after parking, you tell your boss, but I don't park for here. Yeah, you know, these are things that really make me Ghanaian. You being late for an appointment and uh eating fufu as eating fufu as and acting too bougie, and after the end of the series, hey, give me my robe and this is not what I came for. So these are things that connected to uh most Ghanaians and especially with the youth because they could see themselves acting in the same manner, and that was one big, big thing that resonated. PCT. The music was there, but the moment which is in brand management, when you speak the language of the consumer, he feels that you're part of him. Yeah, so he will go anywhere with you. So they started gathering that momentum where music was a big part of to say uh club beer no uh beer the no one club, that slogan became a big uh challenge.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Michael says something, he said um club beer is older than Star Beer, right? No, Star Star is older. Yeah, club is 1931.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

Star is what star star from star star is from I might not know the statistics, maybe one of them, but it's it's old because it started from the Guinness uh uh Guinness Brewery, Guinness Brewery time, uh ABC time, then uh all in folk. I don't I might not know the right years.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

Um Michael said he said something quite profound. He said um it was easy to handle the whole cultural assets, which is the the B A Diana Club ad campaign because um Ghana knew club club knew Ghana. Yeah, and they also tapped into that whole um the nationalistic view that you were talking about and the B A Dianwane Club, the phrasing alone, anybody could catch up. Yeah, but thank you for indulging me on that. So you were on you are going on about the the job to be done at that time.

SPEAKER_06 10:13

So our job was to uh make star beer youthful because see, those who are drinking were dying. Um just to say that because uh if it's an aging profile, then obviously when you are 45-50, you cannot drink two bottles, you drink one, you drink one, and volumes might not go up. So we need to get to 18 to 24 to start drinking now. So, what do we do? So at that time, we had commissioned um Ipsos and uh Cantaw, they were the research agency that um had been commissioned to ask consumers what is it that the youth like? What is it that the youth wants to be associated with? What is it that what what does what is it that speaks the language of the youth? Then we realized that music was one key uh bucket, it was actually the number one thing. Oh, was that? Followed by fashion, followed by fashion, and the other part is also religion. No, religion was never spoken about. So it was music, fashion, then um I think uh so fashion we we have to break fashion into different uh segments. Fashion it comes uh in um uh how do you call it apparel, it also comes with uh cosmetic beauty, it also comes with uh uh trendy things and other stuff. It was in sports, yes. Sports, yeah, sport was also there, sport was there, but uh to to be uh uh see we we found it quite interesting why they didn't take sport to be number one, exactly because nobody spoke about sports.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Which year was this?

SPEAKER_06 11:49

We did this in uh uh 20, I think 2012. Wow, 2012. Sport came very last. Why? Because the sport they were talking about was basketball and not the football that we're we're looking at. I think I don't know what happened that moment, how black star or whatever it is, but it was so funny. Uh the youth, which is 1824, we're not talking about sport, we're talking about music, fashion, um, entertainment, which goes about with the same music and uh apparel costumes that they have to wear. But the shocking part is all a lot of them also wanted to stay back or stay connected to their roots, they didn't want to look too westernized because this word came very popular, lafa, you know, and nobody wanted to acquire foreigners. Nobody wanted to you to associate themselves with it, even though they they earned the right to do that. So everybody wanted to still stay humble but still look in the western style. So, what did we uh do? We said, okay, if music is number one, then how do we turn around our our our product to become number one by using music? So we searched, we listed so many artists. I won't mention anybody's name, but we ended up with Al Tobies and Al Tubs, why? Because they had been the um artist of the year, that particular that season, right? And Muge's voice alone could could I don't know the word to use. I know Mugi's voice alone could really turn anybody into a good uh probably uh a different mood. Yeah, every any lady you speak to, and payday with his rap and all that stuff was a big thing for us. So we we signed a collaboration with them. I think that was highly led by uh uh Stella. Okay, and my role was to give feedback on what the music could do in terms of what kind of music. So we tend, by not using their popular song, by using their voice, especially with Moogie's voice, okay, to create an asset for Star Beer that the youth could dance to it. And if you listen to the song, our concept was more of be who you are, but you have to still stay to your roots and use Mugi's voice to sing it.

SPEAKER_07 14:11

The state shows who we are, and who we are, and it's who we want to be. We find a lot, we find a key. So here's the those who told us all we know. The greatest gift we have is our heritage and the most gunning way to celebrate it.

SPEAKER_06 14:26

I would say it was a successful campaign because club had to react. Wow. They had to, yes, because if nothing is pinching you, you will not you'll not you'll not you will not come up with any uh uh mitigation plan. So club had to react. And we won a lot of the 18 to 24 years. Wow, we could we recruited so many back into the uh brand because we had lost them entirely. Uh a lot of the you didn't know about Stab yeah, and that particular campaign, which is uh be who you are or who you are campaign, using R2B's and Mugi's voice and Payday's voice really brought the brand back. We we added some other things, which is change the label, make it look more uh uh youthful. All these things were done in connection with the music part. But the music part was a critical part because we use a musician, an artist, and we use the voice of uh one of the best. Yes, at that time, yeah, and it turned around and it brought a lot of emotions to the youth, especially we transcended the spirit or probably the joy, love people had for Mogis and Alto Bs back to the two, and that is what uh uh gives that that lift at that time.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

Um I'm curious about about one thing. When I heard that campaign, I remember they were I remember the campaign, they were sitting in uh this convertible and they had a lot of people follow them. I think they drove uh through Kanda or something. Another bridge, right? I remember I I have a picture of that. How did you was there first of all, how how was the video shot? And was the video that you shot, was it all part of the activation plan?

SPEAKER_06 16:14

Yes, because we wanted to be youthful. So we wanted we had to pick cues that would really resonate with the youth. You could if you watch the video, you could see the graffiti, exactly, the color mood, and we also wanted to look Ghanaian because of the club thing, yes, which is the nationality cue that club had already. So the video was very intentional. The type of vehicle, as I said, the fashion part was also a key uh uh trigger for this 18 to 24. Things that they would love to because see, when you're going to the Ebris Mountains, most of the cars that you see with kids on, or probably and let me use the word kids, but young folks on where convertibles and they just want to show off, they want to say I've arrived. And these are the sort of uh things that we paid attention to so that the the youth would now see themselves in that particular moment.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

So it wasn't just the music, even though the research retained a results that was predominantly music, yeah. You decided to include the other factors to make sure that it was a holistic company.

SPEAKER_06 17:17

Yeah, it is marketing, it's not only one tool. In brand building, you always use a lot of pillars, but you always have one dominant one, and I could say music was a dominant, however, all the other pillars have to come to force, or else you'll do it and you wouldn't get the uh the result that you are looking for. Because see, consumer tends to have different uh diversions, and consumer behavior is in such a way that whilst you are satisfying this, make sure you close this side as well because you finish here and this will also be an issue. You come here and this also be an issue. So pick each together, however, focus or badge in terms of allocation of interest, make sure that this is what I want to kill at this first phase. So I'll be very dominant here. Then you come here, you go to the next phase. So at the end of the day, you see that you are within the uh the brand brand pyramid space where you're able to uh uh win in all angles. If you don't like music, you like fashion. If you don't like fashion, you like the product itself, you don't like the product itself, you like my price. So you see, it all comes together to form that one big campaign that you want to drive.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

It's quite fascinating because I was reading a book um by Professor Henson where he was talking about um mass communication being a myth, right? And but what I'm hearing right now is you weren't even though you were you were speaking to the youth, some of the youth had different interests interests. Um we had a Gen Z here, and he was she was saying that she doesn't care for music, yeah, right. But imagine she cared for fashion. So you might not have met her with the music, you'd have met her with fashion. Exactly. So if you had decided that listen, um predominantly the youth are impressed by audia, they are moved by music. So music is what we are going for. I reckon the results wouldn't have been as successful as you you achieved it to be because you didn't just use one pillar, like like you're saying, in the brand building.

SPEAKER_06 19:17

Yeah, so as I said, the the dominance should always be clear, yeah. But all the pillars also have to work if your product is not good. You can even get uh Michael Jackson to sing for you to not work. You get the point. If your price is not right, it it will not work. So everything has to be in the right proportion. For youth, I know one of the things that work is music, which is very key. So that was our dominant phase. That's why we went for a music artist. We could have gone for any brand ambassador. They were they were the brand ambassadors actually for starving at that time. We could have gone for any other person. However, we realized that music was the biggest trigger to change mood or to change perception, because remember, the job to that was to move the youth into the brand. Yeah, so what what what brings about a change in habit? One of the things is music because move music tends to direct or change moods. When you are sad and you listen to the particular music, you can be happy. Yeah, if you're happy and you listen to a particular music, you can be sad. Yeah, so listen to a deal right now. Yeah, so the the principle of switching came from that angle. That okay, if you want to recruit, then we need music because that's what works. And it's very it's a very powerful tool. So, how did Club Yeah respond? Uh, so I think they they went harder in terms of their spend. They also started using young um uh how do you call it? Uh ambassadors. Umbass yeah, they didn't go for ambassadors, but they they started using young uh that that time they were influencers to to to drive the brand. And that also worked for them because at that time influence wasn't so big. However, to see your favorite artist or your favorite uh person talking about the brand was key for them. Was that the time they launched Shandy? Shandy came in the same line, which is to satisfy the uh those who don't like beer, and especially the female uh part of uh uh the consumer uh profile. They went strong in festival activation, they were very, very uh visible in the market with high uh points of sales material. They were really, really toughed up because it it became an issue of guerrilla marketing at some point. I don't want to say it here because in the corridors of our boardroom, we were saying it, then it it became a big issue. So now they have to turn around and say, okay, you know what, star contain sugar, you know, because there was some sucrose at the back of the label, you know, and you know, and it became a big problem too, because even though we have launched the IOT, now we have to now go back and do another damage. control by doing some brewery documentary talking about what goes into your beer because beer doesn't contain sugar it's the sugar that breaks the the the beer the alcohol or brings the alcohol from from from beer but seeing the sucrose which is from the uh the maize maize that we use then they started seeing star see star has sugar and everybody from propaganda and that year we entered into that was the 2010 uh sorry from 2010 we've entered into the health conscious ghan person they were eating leaves let me put the word leaf i wanted to translate it every ghan wanted to take down the lawn and stuff because we are told see everybody wanted to reverse because we've had a lot of so they played on that they did the conscious Ghanaian or the health Ghanaian was a big factor at that moment so nobody wants to have uh diabetes at the end of the day so people started saying oh even though you guys have gone for to be stole not drink because that contains sugar that was a reaction that came in so that that is not that was not ethical marketing on the part of I must I must say it was smart no they did that and every every club person personnel is very proud of saying see I'm part of those who said that's the sugar it's smart yes it's smart because sometimes you might not be able to beat your competitor at their game so you need to you know either take them too high or take them too low.

SPEAKER_04 23:26

Yeah right yeah so the music attributes were so powerful wow the campaign was very successful then we had the hit of that uh I think that what started is a very it's a clear is the clearest indication of success for the campaign yeah I mean if anybody asks me um if if if I'm I ever sit in a boardroom where I'm trying to pitch for music to be used for in campaign and my boss asked me why do you think this will be successful I'm going to quote this I'm going to say listen this is what happened this is how cloud beer yeah yeah yeah yeah so everybody if you ask the cloud guys they'll tell you they had strong macho men in festivals so when you get there they'll remove all the star beer in the fridge and stand by the uh the the uh refrigerator we call it cooler yeah they'll stand by it so when you order the woman will say oh it's not chill star is not chill but this club is chill and it was it was it was a war oh it was they had my macho men like all those sales guys at that time we were young guys for example you remember see me when I was 26 or 27 going to festival how can I tell a macho guy to move away from the core I'm going to speak plenty English it will not work you know so they reacted in a very forceful way because the campaign as already the LTB state was really driving the brand into the next level and uh they they couldn't they couldn't sit down for them to lose so they had to react which which shows how competitive the space was especially in the in the laggers space yeah let me bring the question back the conversation back to you so because the conversation the question started from your strength in music markets and how you started it so this was your very first experience my very how long did the campaign last and what's and at the time you're also in a junior position like you're saying Stella was your boss so being in that junior position where you didn't call the shots per se but you were responsible for testing and giving feedback what first of all what was the period the campaign lasted for and over that period what did being in that position exactly in that role because now you've gone into senior roles we'll come there but I want to know what it taught you that campaign what it taught you it being your first ever campaign with music in marketing um and the role the junior role that you were playing at that time what what what did it teach you so uh first it says or probably what we all learned from is that consumer insight is the most powerful tool you can ever use without insight and in in universe it's like a university which will actually define what consumer insight is which is the the key truth to the consumer that you can use to unlock brands growth.

SPEAKER_06 26:14

That that insight of music being the number one thing for consumers was very powerful because if we had closed our mind on that insight after the research and chosen or probably picked any different line to grow the brand probably you could have had a star a beer with a a self-opening or an opener or uh a twist to open or a different label color or a different color all these things are possible. Yeah different price point or introduce star in a in a can or all these things are possible for uh brand growth however what stand out powerful and true was the music which was one key thing to giving someone or moving someone from A to B. I learned that I I had I was very humble with that I was like see if this is working then it means that listening to consumer all the time would give you that uh upper edge or probably that big advantage we were very very surprised in terms of how the campaign moved because it crossed over 12 months we we had to run it for 12 months because the um uh contract with outs was 12 months okay so after that we we and just after that then uh uh we started hearing that we cannot use uh yeah the FDA bank it wasn't there clearly but there were some signs that you cannot use celebrities to endorse alcohol and other stuff so did the insights so before we move on to your the next one the you said consumer insight consumer insight what you learned was that consumer insight is very powerful yes did the insights tell you why first of all the insight said music yeah they used the the number one the number one thing that the youth were music was music did it tell you why I think um the the uh deeper explanation it's it's not it's not one one straight shot why because everybody said I love I love music why you love music oh I like uh they'll use Afro beats I like afro beats so even we're even told to use afro beats and normal song and even the the the arrangement of the song you know where the song gets to the peak and and it drops all these things were were were were part of the recommendation yes it came out from there uh how do how do I put it those there was this part about um the um the genre the genre yeah yeah that that that works for them a lot of people moved away from the high life high life really yes a lot of the youth move away from the high life and that's when afrobeat had been a big sensation uh now with the lives of Sarko the and the R2Bs and uh this guy was the the Tamaboys were all all over the place the this producer what's his name QBat and um these famous food these were they were making good good good music yes alpha music music they're making good music and they wanted such songs especially 18 to 24 because of the the high beat the type of lyrics that is being used and also it spoke about probably their emotions or their their lifestyle a lot of them were struggling in the aspect of being uh depressed or probably being neglected or nobody wants to hear them they want to be called survivor because their parents had dying when they were four years they want to have a song that is uh championing their aim to become uh uh hustless or something so these are the songs that were being played at that time so they could connect themselves into it so everybody was like music music music music music music because it had that connection for them this was 2012 yes when did you go to when did you move to Alomo uh got to Casapreco 2017 five years after and at Alomo you also I mean Casapreco pardon me um you at Casa Preco but you were working on Alomo specifically yes and over there too you faced some sort of competition with Adonko yes Adonko I want us to segue into that conversation because my next line of question was going to be with Unileva then we come to Adonko but because you mentioned high life yeah I want us to go to Adonko we'll come back to Unileva so at the time you you were at um Casa Preko Adonko was everywhere because of Adonko Famiko Fade right or yeah yeah that was high life music yes so between 2012 and 2015 there was a great shift or is it that Adonko is because Adonko was had taken over the market yeah well maybe don't take it from me as a consumer as a consumer I would have said that Adonko at the time was pop more popular than than Adonko but maybe the the numbers the sales numbers would say differently so tell us about it. No see you are absolutely right see today let me ask you do you hear of Adonko?

SPEAKER_04 31:46

Not really do you hear more not really honestly maybe I don't I I just don't I don't think they have a popular campaign if I'm I don't consume the product so I don't really so you see in a in every brand so I think the issue on star and club still comes here because that's the first lesson yeah every brand has a profile right when you tend to have an aging profile it gets to a time you wouldn't have consumers anymore.

SPEAKER_06 32:17

Say that again if you have an aging profile like if you have people who are from 45 50 going they'll go and you wouldn't get the brand growth anymore okay so what I'd uh Alomo did differently was to connect to the 18 to 24 because bites was not a space for young folks bites was for 35 going 24 going i i would I want to ask you why but I think no because it's better you know it causes beta it has this whole medicinal properties and is it really medicinal it is it has it is really it is it is it is because for me i i think that when there's any bitters are it has a lot of connotations yeah which is not really medicinal you know the sexual part of it exactly so yeah no but but when when every part of your body is working properly your your sight is proper your sexual habit is also proper your eating habit is proper your sleep is proper so why do they hint on the sexual habit because that was the biggest that was the biggest issue at that time because see to be 40 obviously you are not young anymore so everything will come to a a a lower level right so you need something to really uh rejuvenate or give you back that cake because they regret when they were 20 21 what they used to do at 40 I don't think you have that sort of energy energy so everybody rushes to it because there's a problem there's a problem which is is is in everywhere especially when you sit down for a very long time to be 40 means you've worked for over over 20 years or 14 years and that has a toll on you.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

You will really suffer because you are not exercising you're not and you need something to bring back those uh so the younger folks did not really need they don't need it because they have the energy they don't need it so why did adunku think that it was the a good decision for them to that's why I asked your question where is Adonko now?

SPEAKER_06 34:11

Because those who needed them now are 50 40 60 and they don't need it anymore because uh doctor will say probably don't drink alcohol again so it's gone the sales is gone now yeah but lomo is still in the market because to talk about authentic African beaters yes and that's where come that's where we had those youthful cues of using music as well yet again and also very uh um um powerful visuals on billboards uh that are very trendy because there was a campaign which is aluma twenty campaign where we had a human face with the alumu roots yeah I saw that yeah yes these are things that it's part of the consumer so the brand building for alumu was very unique very strategic strategic because Alomo used to be number one adoku started taking that leadership through his enhanced music which appealed to the older folks so it was music because of the sort of soundtrack that they brought in and a very energetic dance dance cues and see you really said the sexual connotation also came through in that sense but when you build a brand on that sort of cues or levers obviously people will leave you yeah because we we are not here forever we would go off but when you build a brand by instituting what we call recruitment process then as soon as somebody goes somebody's coming so the brand tends to have that long term so what was Alomo's recruitment process get today into 24 get and get a brand that will appeal to or create a brand or create or connect to the youth at that level and yet again what is the lesson I learned from Diagio music Alomo owns a lot of music platforms in Ghana. Okay be it high life however we didn't showcase high life because high life was for the we are satisfied the aging profile which were there those who used to like us or those who buy us were there so we have to satisfy them as well remember I told you everything has to come together you can't do one and leave the other yeah then we had to go and reengineer song that we thought was a high life song but that song had these Afrobeat um uh notes in it and we launched Welcome Alomo at 20 with youthful uh look and feel uh changed the packaging with some very colorful uh uh uh design somewhere and moved into the market with a lot of something so alomo started becoming top of mind for the youth because even in our arts we stopped using old men who couldn't do acting like they wanted because I saw there was this Alomo ad where I saw Ben Braco.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

Yeah that was the old time and I'm like ah Ben Braco okay cool no problem so all of a sudden I'm seeing alumo using younger guys younger folks like 30 mid 30s into 40s and I I began to wonder what's going on.

SPEAKER_06 37:24

So it was intentional that was the that was the strategy to appeal to the youth and the music played a good part here too because the song that we use was as I was originally sung by an high life artist which was in the in the in the high life uh how do you call it general but we had to bring it to Afrobeat why because we had to talk to the youth we had to talk to them talking to them means what they like they like Afrobeat that and to the Afrobeat is still the key so was that the that was a lesson you had picked from the yes and that was my voice and with my leadership team um Girald which was a uh commercial director and the uh uh the CEO um Sir Richard we had to and they they even asked asked me why I said we need to change the song we need to so this uh at this stage you were a senior you were so I was a marketing manager then okay I was a marketing manager so you had a voice you had a decision making voice so we had to uh uh change the song we had to even when we got it we said we I said we want this particular song because it has those uh cues that we needed to hear but however the one who sang and thanks to the agency at that time the agency what agency uh it's called Renegade okay renegade the agency could see the the vision and what we wanted to drive because they're part of the whole changing the uh alumon narrative so they got somebody a very powerful uh this time around you didn't use a popular we didn't use a famous person it's just the Afrobeat stuff that he had to use so it was so this time around you're banking on the voice not the person that's what I said the hook is the voice and Aluma at that time was too big for us to get like another big artist because star was also big and it got a big no star was a beer that was big but was big for uh for some reason which is these are the how do I put it uh lack of better word this these were the only two beers that we had okay like starred club so one room star but at the time stellar wasn't around okay stellar came in much later no no no so bees at that time were essential to come and come and lead us to that growth agenda of becoming a youthful brand alomo is the same line but you see the population for Alomo was an aging which they still buy us because it's a it's a brand for them let's let me not take it away it's still for the 24 to 45 years it's still for them because of the medicinal properties that it has but as I said the trick was to have that pipeline of people coming into them into the rep coming into as the older ones are then then you are recruiting gradually they are coming in yeah coming then the brand continue to live for for for a very long time wow so when very massive on the sort of people we have to use the characters that we have to use and also the music I always say the music part of it and I don't know how people uh dance to it but it was a very danceable tune and anytime they play you stop and listen because it had the the journal of that time which is Afrobeat in that TikTok wasn't no no no around at the time no it would have been it would have been powerful yeah I think even YouTube was quite uh it wasn't youtube wasn't a given at that time uh to go to youtube is it means uh you have it I was gonna ask if you didn't use a popular voice for the um a lomo ad because of the FDA ban uh not not necessarily not necessarily you just didn't want to no I think we didn't want to we didn't want anything to compete on that level see any anybody who will sing a lumo so you rightly said Ben Brackware and things have all been associated with a brand so anybody who will come should either be super big than the brand or be at the same level we we even we tried we tried some product placement even with uh Sarcordia and things some time ago in his one of his music videos which we used to yes and and one one part of the success story of Alomo BTS was the product placement placement which we did it in a very in the in the youthful music videos so people like Sarcordia um uh these guys uh kecher um there are a lot of them so many of them so that using the music in marketing wasn't just about commissioning a song to be used in an art it was also brand embedded embedded into it as well so we're in a year we could we could sign off for about let's say uh 15 different artists whether it be in underground or popular artists wow using the brand in their music video and i i think i was gonna go to that as a as a key hook for uh alomobites we were very free on that so on my phone i have a lot of uh musicians who are who we had discussed before yeah like okay oh i want you to sponsor my music oh then and most of them are very kind a lot of them were very kind how do you measure the error if someone is listening the the person um has already bought I'm sure we are already almost an hour into the conversation and someone is saying wow uh um evans has given me ideas I'm going to pitch to my boss that we use music and the boss is asking uh how are you going to if we do brand placements in Sarkozy how are you going to measure ROI how do you measure ROI with some of these things yeah she because it's tricky right it is marketing and ROI are very they are two two different people everybody wants us to use our right to measure marketing we that we also know brand better who say put ROI aside it's like chicken and egg game you see there are spaces where you would want to use our right to measure but it's in the long term and there are spaces that you use you you use our right to me in the short term which we are clear however in terms of campaigns RIS are measured on the success of your campaign through the positive sentiment people pour on your brand. Today, if I go to the internet and I type Kivo, the amount of sentiment you will see the people who are doing things without our knowledge in their own way using their platform to promote their own brand, you'll be super amazed.

unknown 44:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 44:30

And that is the currency that we give back to the business. However, in every business society, finance person will tell you, give me your I, and I'll tell you, I'm going to have 25,000 impressions, 100,000 in the e-commerce uh parties, convention and stuff. See, it's a long-term game. If you want us to play the long-term game, trust the process. The process is making sure that you give yourself a time limit and you always chop milestones at some point. At this stage, what do you want to do? Want to do penetration, we want to move to convention, want to move into uh adaptation, want to move into now brand growth. See, these are things that you call out, and that is where marketing comes in with it's clear, uh actionable uh plans. I might not be, I would give you assumptions, that's what we always work with. That at the end of this campaign, I'm expecting to or I'm expected to would have uh increased trial by 55%. How will I how will I see um hipsos will use a thousand uh sample size to give me my trial percentage? But that's not the true measure. The true measure is when you enter into the pub. If it's a if it's a uh how do you call it uh a beverage brand, you enter into a pub and you see the table count out of ten, how many people are taking you, then you know that you're working. You enter into a provision shop, how many of your lines are in the shop, then you know that people are buying you. You see a hawker, you stop the hawker, what is on your tray, you count. Okay, that is how you know that you're working. Out of it, because brands don't have legs, it's people who have to carry them. So if I don't believe in your brand apart from the perfect story I'll get, and I don't believe in the brand or your marketing is not working, how would I go to a shop, carry it on my head, and start to go and sell? I will not. So these are some of the um success stories we say back to a business, and we always fight with finance and say pause on the all-right part. Yes, we will we're not going to invest in such a way that we're going to run out of loss, but see it in a chicken and egg game. Who came first? Is it the chicken or the egg? It's a whole paradox thing. However, imagine you give me money and I invest in it growth, or you want the brand to grow before you give me money to continue. Some people have that perception. Some some yeah, some leaders have that perception that oh, I can't give you money because they are selling only two boxes. Yeah, how do you want to sell three boxes?

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Some brands, some leaders don't even believe in Toma, you know, they don't believe in top of mind. Top of mind, no, no. They tell you, I've worked with uh a boss who goes crazy whenever he hears top of mind awareness. He thinks it's a it's a lazy marketing metric. In fact, he he he thinks it's a vanity metric. And it's some it used to sadden me. But I also realized that maybe we as marketers haven't done enough to prove really that Toma works.

SPEAKER_06 47:32

No, so that's what you are doing now. Documenting all these success stories and giving people the opportunity to go and read and use it in conversations in the boardroom. Because a lot of people are not pure marketers, a lot of them are just there because I see I'm a marketing person, I've seen uh MBA in school. Yeah, but understanding what the principles are and how it takes to grow or even craft brands is very key because there are two different things. Having a product there and crafting brands is also a different thing. But me as a brand builder, I craft brands, so all the brands I'll mention, you will say, uh, just because of the lessons and the sort of uh um how do I put it knowledge that I've gathered around a lot of uh regional and global conversations have gone across sunlight, so Heineken used to be Heineken, but nobody knew Heineken draft, nobody knew Heineken six pack. We all knew Heineken in a can, yeah, but the bottle was not there then. Like I'm talking about 2022 of them. Okay, you get the point, and these are sort of the things that I don't want to say too global, but these are things that we've initiated because we believe in brand building. I I didn't build Heineken here, but in terms of the global leadership work, I took lessons from them to implement it as well. Wow. Sunlight used to be in a in a green bottle. I don't know if those who know sunlight dishwashed. It was in a bulky green bottle. Uh if those who know will know. Yeah, we'll put the picture up. But today it's in a yellow orbit bottle. Why? Because we had to appeal, you know, that yellow lemon zest feel was also why is it why because sunlight as we knew is going up.

SPEAKER_04 49:33

Sunlight was in a yellow packaging, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

You tear the other by then you the soap.

SPEAKER_06 49:38

I mean, these are all innovation stuff. Yeah, you know, when when when the um whole value chain or probably the the cost of production is quite huge, there's some there's something you have to take. Take off the paper, put it in a uh uh politting or uh uh a wrapper, do this, do this. These are all brand management stuff, which is cost savings, not increasing price, saving margins and stuff. So that's how Unilever is. Universe is purely technical marketing, very technical.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

We I would have loved for, I mean, I would have loved for us to go into Unilever, but um, we will talk about Unilever another time. I think Unilever is a masterclass in the university. Yes. I I know a few friends who have worked at Unilever. Usually when they tell you some of the things that they they learn, they go through, even to you know get to a certain stage, it's it's quite phenomenal. But you did say something that um caught my eye, and I want us to get into it because you were right about if anybody mentioned the brands that you've worked with, you'll go like wow. And the first time my producer told me that you are the kivo guy, I was like, wow, I'm happy because Kivo is just about what five years?

SPEAKER_06 50:50

Yeah, the Kivo brand, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

I'll tell you something. When Kivo came, I had my doubts about its success.

SPEAKER_05 50:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

Because to me, it didn't make sense to go and buy soakings in a pack, right? Like the whole soaking thing in a pack. When this week came, I thought, okay, I never really got onto it. So when Kivo came, I had my downside. What is this? Like, you know, but you did something with Kivo, and now I I have Kivo Gary in my kitchen. You do. I see. It's quite interesting. So I want us to get into it. How did the Kivo story come about? It's been five years, and you've been with them since emergence.

SPEAKER_06 51:42

Yeah, no, not beginning. So Kivo Gary is three years. Okay, Kivo Pepe is five years. Okay, so I joined them in the Gary Gary phase. So, see, the brand Kivo is a powerful brand, thanks to the leadership team for Kivo. The CEO. Yeah, you are being modest. No, it no no. I have to. I see. I told you that you cannot do anything without the owner of the business.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

So I realize that even from the uh your Dadio, you're always giving credits to the internet.

SPEAKER_06 52:14

You need to, you need to, because they're not allowed one person to, it's not like a one-man business. In all multinationals, it's a teamwork. So when I find marketers sitting and making it like this, I always say, no, come on, pull your team along so that anybody who is looking will go and search who are the team members doing that time. Because everybody plays a role. Like for my in Guinness, even though I wasn't the uh senior brand manager, Stella was there. However, my job to help Stella was to test all those uh how do you call it music and the arts. I had to test them. And in terms of execution, they have to use me to give them my feedback. If I was a consumer, how would I feel? How would I feel? I also had to organize a lot of young folks to give you a feedback. That was then. You learn you learn from it. Then when you also get into leadership position, you give people the same chance to to have that exposure. Kivo brand today, I I can happily say is the biggest household brand. It is Samsung Phone. Why? Because so the question was how I got there. The story behind the walls. So before I got to Kivo, there was this brand which you might also say, wow, which is series. Okay, the series juice is is there. Series series was just in in modern trade.

SPEAKER_04 53:44

Was that your handiwork?

SPEAKER_06 53:45

So that was my last project before I left. I didn't complete that because the logic on series 500 500 ml was on the fact that the price was going up. At that time, dollar was that was 2021, just after COVID. You know, the whole thing started going. So series is also coming from South Africa.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 54:06

And prices were still going up and stuff. One liter, I we realized that people were not buying one liter anymore because it's it was about 35 cities then from 10. Actually, from 10 to now they've bought it by thing. It used to be nine cities. Yeah, yeah. It used to be nine C to 38, 34. So we realized, you know what? What do you do for us to have uh the youth or for us to have or win back our share, not to lose to Don Simon, is to have a price point that I can have it on my own. Because when I buy, I have to refrigerate, put some in there. I cannot drink one liter on a go. It will take me about four two to four hours. It depends on who I am. But personally, you wouldn't want anytime you buy space share.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:51

But what did we notice? We noticed that there's a huge amount of people who want to take things on their own. For example, when I'm going to school, I want I want it on my on uh what just one for myself. So the 500 ml was a perfect pack with a perfect price point because at 35, bringing it to 12 CD would have given you a good edge to buy. What do we do? We increase our volume and get back to the uh uh position that we were than the one-liter skyrocket, the price is going to 105 to 40 and stuff. So we launched uh uh a conversation to the South African team because it's not produced here, that this is what we need because the 200 even ML was even catching up in price. The 1200 ML was going for even seven cities for one. So there was a whole lot of debate why do you have to change bags? So you know, we we finally we did a business case we shared with them, but you know, project takes a long time before that had to leave to so before the campaign launched, they had left, but you leaked the foundation together with your team because we did two things. One was also to launch what we call the nectar version of Ceres. What's that? So, nectar is 50% fruit, 50% uh sugar. Okay, then the juice was 100% fruit juice. Okay, what we have in Ghana is purely nectar. A lot of brands are nectar, nectar formulation, which is some are having 20% juice, the rest are sugar. I don't want to kill anybody's brand. Please don't, but uh a lot of the juices here, even the one that now we thought was the biggest is pure nectar, but series was 100%, and the price point which consumer didn't understand why he has to pay 35 CDs and 25 for another brand, which is a nectar. You see, consumer didn't understand that it didn't make sense, it didn't make sense, but you didn't know that you are buying 100%. But when you say juice, we think package juice is all 100% natural, but there's a big difference.

SPEAKER_04 56:44

In fact, this is this is very enlightening to me because I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_06 56:48

Yeah, so we had to launch a nectar version for just to compete with our competitor at the same price that we did at uh is it Labadi Beach Hotel. We brought the South African team here. We launched, we did a very powerful launch, and in that store, we used the song, we didn't use it directly, but we're in conversation with this uh guy, what's his name? Uh this musician, uh Kim Promise. That time he had uh released his album Terminator. So in our campaign songs, in our launch song, you were using we use a terminal. We wanted to use the song actually, however, because of licensing, we had to uh put in country, but in the campaign song, in the launch auditorium, and all that's everything you have to do. That was what was going there. Wow, yes, and uh we're very grateful. I thought we were working with Echo House uh in terms of the my people, yeah, because of the losses.

SPEAKER_04 57:42

Who was your account person, Jojo?

SPEAKER_06 57:44

Jojo was there. Uh what was his name? Kofi. Caleb Caleb Caleb was there, Kofi was there, you know, and uh Bright is uh oh okay. Uh my my very good friend, well went to Addisola College, so yeah, at this cool man.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

So you left right at the time it launched and you went to Kivo. Yes, okay, yes. So what what sparked the philosophy um behind the the kivo win? Because, like you rightly said, Kivo is a household win, no doubt about it. Nobody can so what was the philosophy? So I'd watched uh Kivo, hot pepper, and shit. See so you so that wasn't your hands.

SPEAKER_06 58:20

No, that's not my work, okay. This is just not my work, okay. The song is without dialogue. The commercial, let me use the word, the commercial is without dialogue, and it comes at a time where a lot of commercials are full of dialogue in the space of seven years. Every commercial you see is dialogue because hey, hey, where are you going? I'm going to say something.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

Yaumenu, Yaomenu. I'm looking for I need to be a whole series. I need to be a whole series. It worked for them, it worked for them.

SPEAKER_06 58:56

It worked for them. Tell me. See, dialogue dialogue comes with what how do I what should I call it? Dialogue comes uh to a type a type of consumer profile because in Ghana, consumption of media is not complicated. If you bring that abstract commercial with a lot of me, I should think, and get to understand this coming, it will not work.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 59:23

The direct conversation what the consumer wants to tell me what is tell me what this is for and let me go.

SPEAKER_04 59:29

That's what you do do uh um this article and say, ouch, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:37

See, tell me so scene is believing, Nana C in is believing. So in commercials, you show it, you show the effects, yeah, after an effect in dialogue too. You you tell the person after an effect. So don't complicate it, and it worked for them because of the the mass and the type of looking for. But you cannot get the youth on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

The youth will not these, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:02

I don't think the youth will not fall. You you to pass here and live here. How many times they go to lectures and you say things they don't remember? The youth no, but I feel attacked. It don't be because the youth can sing a song from A to Z.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

Yeah, it's so so so but they can't define osmosis.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:20

So don't worry, there was so much comment. So the the Kivo Pepper thing was a big attraction to me. When I saw the art on TV, like this art is without dialogue, the song was so powerful, their voice was what made me pause and say, What is this? Because I was in a hotel some time ago, and it had shown in one of their local television, and I was like, Whoa, what's such a voice? The beats, the composition of the whole thing. They didn't say anything at all. All they said is Kivo. So, yeah, they're inquired. It's so powerful. So I got there and I met those wonderful people, and our vision were in tune because they also believed in music and everything. And I I'll tell you that one of the things that worked for them is also testing. Because even for every sound, we'll always want to test because that philosophy keeps working and keeps guiding me in everywhere I go. Trust me, you can never go wrong when you when you when you test, test, even if uh uh with whatever we are doing, if it's recorded and you are done, to get a best version, just test it around people. How you see the uh final result when it's being brought forever to say then I fell in love with the brand. I tried it, I like the product. And ever since all the stuff that we we are doing is within my key mandate, which were very, very strong, was on digital how to trans how to transform the brand on the space where the 18 to 24 year old is because that's that's the people we speak to. TV is big for us, but TV is for our mothers who who make decisions, but you are missing a big chunk because the 18 to 24 are the where where the uh our consumer profile is. And they don't watch TV.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:36

Yeah, and most of them are also trying to move and live on their own. Some of them are in uni, they are in hostels, they cook. So yeah, they do make a good chunk of that.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:46

Yeah, yeah. So in our commercial space, I think we we value the sort of song or sound we put on to reduce the amount of dialogue. On to recently, we had the one with Kulus. That uh because it was a different phase of the brand, which we had to move into dialogue, but that we even uh retained the music at the background because it was a key point for us for recall, very key.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

Which is a Hivo Gary mix e the be you chopper manywhere e the b for your choppers boarding house, so kids make ready taste and energy, make easy. I'm a match winner, but the real champion is Kivo 4 in one Gary Mix champion taste.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:36

Why? Because the song was for people was for us to transmit what we want people to do on the brand. The mm is the enjoyment and taste that you have, you understand, and as you take it, you remember no matter what the the thing will be nice for you. Like it is it is you preconditioned that's the point. That's how music does. If you are somebody music, I've changed your mood before, you understand what I do the song is, and even the kivo hot pepper, the song as if you listen to the tone of the song, the arrangement of the song, the music part, and where we brought the part, even if it's not hot and you take it because we started the song with subconsciously, you would get it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:31

I have a I have a question for you since you mentioned Kudus. Yeah, I have a question. Sure. Why was Kudus used as a footballer or as an athlete? Why was he used as a as an ambassador or a face to promote peppery product? Because you know, there is I I think um that athletes, there are certain meals that are not advisable for athletes, right? Um, and I think pepper is one of them. Yeah, strongly advised against them. I I I used to wonder why Kudus was the face of a pepper product. I thought it was a mismatch.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:09

No, it's a kivo brand. So keep uh so it's the king.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

But he had been on the pepper.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:14

Yeah, but we have all a lot of we have a lot of product under one brand, the kivo brand. So as an ambassador for the kivo brand, he has a lot of we have the pepper, we have the spices, we have the uh Gary, we now we have Shito, we have uh Gary and Shito. See, there are a lot of categories we are moving into. So the brand is he is a brand ambassador for kivo brand. Kivo brand. Why does why do we want to associate ourselves with uh uh kudos with pepper? See kudos as an ambassador is a perfect perfect mix, or sorry, fit for an fit for the kivo brand. Why? Because the brand story. The brand energy, the brand tone, and the brand image is linked to him. We are growing brands so easy. He's a rising star. Rising star. How does pepper fit in? The pepper comes in the innovative part of marketing where nobody thought our loose pepper in the market could be well packaged in this very nice form and still be 100% natural. Kudus is a raw talent. It's like I'm sorry to use the word raw talent. It's like an authentic Ghanaian footballer with his background from the north, who is very strong and moving or well packaged for international glory. Moving from the uh what's the name? Uh Academy here to Ajax, West Ham, and now Tonyam. So the brand story is the most important thing. As to whether the food, because even alcohol, nobody was doctors say don't take out, but they are brand ambassadors who promote them. Even footballers promote alcohol, sugar. So it's not necessarily the pepper not for athlete. You can eat it, but everything is in moderation because you're not saying eat everything. You cannot eat food without some amount of hotness. So it's just uh a small pinch, you are good. So it's not as in the whole athlete's not supposed to promote. It's the energy around him, the whole kudos thing is what we want to transit onto the brand. Because the love you have for kudos is what we want to have for kivo brand, not for pepper, but kivo brand. So if you don't like the pepper, you can like the Gary because it's kudos still there. You can like our 100% natural aspect because we even use him in our commercial for our ginger garlic onion. It's supposed to be a woman, but obviously, we want the same energy that you love. Because, see, one of the tests that we did is that men, even Ghanaian men don't like kudos. Is the ladies who love kudos really? And kudos drove a lot of Ghanaian girls to watch black stars to to doing the campaign on bring back the love, the love, yeah. Kudus was very essential in driving that narrative of I see that uh uh bring back the love. And I don't know if the ladies here can attest.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:32

Um I thought it was uh, if anything, would be the bi you like the fine boys. Oh no, you know, kudos the Nima.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:39

Kudu started posting some nice Photoshop pictures around in Black Star Jesse anyway. It's a girl to a it's a different comedy, it's it's all part of brand new, it's so he he he really drove that big agenda. Kudus was our biggest star, even Thomas Pate was there, but Kudus was there. Kudos we know why because a lot of ladies will want to go to the stadium because of more kudos. Wow. So as a brand, and we knowing that we are a family brand or we are household brand, who do we use to grow to the ladies more? So Kudus was a perfect fit, as I put it, not necessarily on the on the on the angle of uh whether athletes have to promote uh pepper or sugar or alcohol, but in terms of the energy, the characteristics of him, the DNA of him as a person, and the brand's DNA were in tune. So uh Evans, we we'll need you for another episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:37

Uh for when we transition the show to 2.0, we would we'll bring you back very well. Because uh, what I'm hearing, you have vast experience about brand building, yeah, marketing, it cuts across. Yeah, and I like the practicality in some of the um ideas that we just bring you back.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:57

But today I want us to land our conversation on the the kivo story, yeah. Tubashishi. Yeah, to bashishi. Yeah, that guy did a good job for us. Tubashishi. Yes, car light. Carlight. My the first time I ever thought to give um kivo any form of attention because I've told you my initial sentiments about the brand, especially with the guy. Um, I was like, first of all, my my very first ever whatever was I used to work at Haptel, right? And we were running YouTube ads so hard that at some point on Twitter, you go on Twitter and everybody's upset with us. Yeah, and then Kivo came and they started doing the same thing. Well now, and I'm like, I never understand why people were bashing Haptel for our gobel ads on YouTube.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:44

That thing was annoying. The goblin ads, it's also sorry. Even the Google Ads, the the banners that you use, yeah. You see that the the is it's just the order for uh Google.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:59

Anyway, this was uh somewhere uh about three years ago. But so when Kivo started, I I was seeing their ads everywhere on YouTube. Like you have now I have YouTube premium, so I don't know what those go get back to us.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:12

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:13

Now we'll catch you on WhatsApp. I'll tell you what. Kibo, you are the reason why I went to I I jumped on YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:19

YouTube should give us credit for pushing us to premium. I guess they should because you guys were disturbing me. But beyond that, I guess that's why I had a negative impression towards the Gary thing. But that aside, Tubashi made me feel like, hmm, this brand is onto something. Initially, I thought you guys had recruited him. Yeah, because he was a student at the time, was in school, and he was doing this. I was like, Kibo, if truly you had recruited him, this is a very smart move. Yeah, how did that story ship up?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:49

Hey, this is a very this story that gave me uh sleepless night. Really? Yeah, so see, I think uh the carlight issue was one of the biggest things that should happen to the brand at that point, and it came at a point where we had also announced our brand ambassador, which is Nanama Map Brown, very fantastic uh uh personality.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

This is Nanama McBrown.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:17

Excellent, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:20

Now there's more kivo inside, more to enjoy, more to share, fortified with iron, zinc, and vitamin A.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

More keyboard insights, more joy for you.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:33

So uh we had seen the work of Carlite, so we wrote to to him, and I think his management had responded that uh he's in school, so when he's done writing his exams, right, he'll come in. Then the bloggers started throwing shade at us. Hey, why would we go to pick the name and this guy is saying it too? Because his work is good, but obviously, as we always see on social media, anytime we see someone, we we send you a personal message. We've we've given a lot of uh shout outs to so many uh guys who do things out of their own for Kibo. Some of them we even give them product to continue because uh maybe in their head uh we don't we are not getting to the the point of using them as influencers. But when the campaign comes, we might want to bring you into the into the picture. So after he finished school, he came and we sat down and we had uh some agreement uh for for a period. So we're uh using him on one or two um how do you call it uh promotions on his platform, uh especially on TikTok. But we got to a point, I think he had other uh aspirations elsewhere, so we we couldn't hold him for that long, right? And uh we had to art ways on that. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:54

So did you I'm wondering why because most of what he was how he was driving the yeah the product um awareness was through sound, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:08

Say keybo. No, he he did well, he did well. See, it was very innovative from him. Uh he did for so many brands as well. But what caught the attention was kivo, the kivo, and as I said, the brand love alone.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:23

So, why didn't you use? I'm wondering why you didn't use the say kivo to craft no no it's not our asset, it's some it's for someone.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:31

You wanted to work with it. Okay, so let me let me say something. I'm saying this okay. Maybe I don't know if you guys should take it up, but this one of things I was even telling my CEO uh yes yesterday. I was telling him that do you know the entry entry uh level or entry note for most of the influencers? Tell me Kivo. Really? So there are two ways either you throw shade to Kivo, you get popularity, or you use Kivo and and you influence on Kivo, and people might think Kivo has given you money to do it so that they'll see you serious and they'll start to follow you. And I say this on authority because a lot of these nano influencers who are coming up need a serious brand to be on their page, yeah, so that when they throw to you that they'll do promotions and say, Go, I mean this something for Kivo is there. You believing that Kivo is a big brand, you also give you money to do it. And a lot of them have come to me. And when I show you my DM, the number of people who directly say, Oh, even if it's for free, you give me, I'll do it. So that why? Because they need that big push to build their brand to build that. Uh uh uh how do we put it? That uh there's a word for it. They build their profile or yeah, portfolio in that level. So at the time that Carlight was doing that, the Kivo brand was still there because the love for it made people also love the song that he was doing. Then the attention came, which is how the sound was played, the energy behind it. And there was a video I saw a kid was crying, and they just went to YouTube and played Tubash, and a kid stopped crying. And I was like, That's crazy. This is so powerful. No, so and it made me love because this is sound, yeah. As we are saying, music in brand building, the brand love that people want to show. We're very so much happy with it, and we wanted to work for long for whatever reason, of course. As I said, uh, every brand has every company has its own objectives, where you want to do and how we recruit. Yeah, so it's not necessarily you have to recruit someone as a brand ambassador, we have to uh take it in different levels. So at that time we had Nanama, we had Kurus. So the next one was to have influencers who would who big up the brand. Then we get to a different level, then we look at the next option. Uh it was a it was a good thing for us. I will not deny that fact. It was a good thing for the brand. Awareness level went very high. Yeah, a lot of people got to know, especially the the kids. But we're also doing our own thing in along with us. Of course. Now we've released a new song called um Um Kivu Has Got You. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You you you you will not know it now, but when we start the the trick that I said, I'll tell you later, you will understand why that song will also be powerful.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:31

Evans has an activation trick that uh unfortunately he can't share, and we are not going to push him to share, yeah. Uh, because he he needs to protect the brand. You need to protect my business, the business, protect his career, his job, yeah, right. So um, but he will tell me, and don't come and see me, I'll tell you. But um, Evan, so all across your career, yes, from Diagio, Unilever, um, into Kivo, music has played a very key role. A very key role. Yeah. Today, uh, there's been there's the okay, so back to Diageo days, Star beer and Unilever and Alumu and all of that, there wasn't the influx of social media at the time where you could activate music through now. There's Kivo, which I'm sure you're using the digital means to really push it. If you had to take, if you had to think back to Star Bier, Alumu, and you had to do it all over again in this era where there's the digital means, what do you think you would have done differently?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:41

Ah, that's a tough one. See in in in the ever-changing of consumer behavior or consumer habit, you can never have one fit-all solution from today to tomorrow. Every day things change, so that's why we keep changing stuff. But this question pose a very big uh uh reflection on what what I what I could have done differently if I had the opportunity as today. Yeah, obviously to have a very big influence on using what we call the influences, digital influencers, whether micro or nano or whatever level they are in promoting brands, using music on their own. The last time I was telling you that even that part is big becoming a part where there is this uh intellectual property thing coming up where even those influencers are being being called out that don't use this because it depends on how viral your videos will go. True. I would have used those influencers powerful by promoting my music, using the music that I create. For missing your own music. Yes. So the music I'll produce, but I'll use them to amplify it for me.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:08

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:09

Because it is also their platform. They manage a community where they have lovers, there are people who follow them. If they amplify my music, then it becomes a long-term uh how do you call it uh uh transmission of energy from you to the brand. You to the brand. Then we're using TV and radio. So if you don't watch TV, you will not hear us. If you don't listen to radio, you're not gonna hear us. But today, the influenza platform is so big that I would have easily carried my music, give it to them, promote my music, which is the jingle or the commercial I have on their platform so that people will continue to know the vast rich that I'll get today is what I was going to implement. Oh, but nothing stops me from uh uh today's moment. Today is a different world as compared to the other. So as the world changed, you also change the perception or the way you do your thing. I wouldn't change anything drastic if I had the opportunity, but the only thing I would have added to, which was influencers. See, don't joke about the power of influences today. Ghana is now driven by influencers today. Even them, even the musicians have not come to understand the power of influencers. Yeah, they use musicians to drive their music for them. It was never a thing five years ago that you use you you get influencers to drive music for you. They they pay for TV arts, uh, go to TV3, go and pay for arts. We we call it music, music, uh uh music interlude or whatever, they'll play music at some point and promote. But today, influencers drive everything. So, my advice to a lot of brands: don't take these people for granted.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

So, commissioning music and using an existing music, you know, because the pin Alomo had used when Alomo used Bembraco, they used the song. Yeah, um, maybe Mar Guizo, that song. Would you if you had the opportunity to, and this is a general song, not tied to any brand per se, but if you had the opportunity to commission a new song or write on an existing song like uh B a Diana Club, which they used OC the OCDSA, yeah, what would you go for and why?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:26

I think uh now I'll do for my own song.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:29

Why? Because I think that if you use an already existing song, it already has an appeal, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:36

That's for the short term because an existing song has a moment. Okay, okay, and you use the existing song because you have certain cues in that song. For example, we didn't talk about the Unilever. The campaign for Univer at that time was best of happiness. Okay, and that's where we use the happy song from uh Fire O'Viders.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:01

Because I'm happy that I also they had a similar one in South Africa as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you know Unilever is uh sunlight is everywhere. So campaigns are called we we adapt campaigns from region. So if this campaign is working in in this particular region, we can bring it back together. The resistance song part has this short-time uh memory because songs keep changing. Like today, Sarkordia song in 2000 and 2014. There's a new song he has released. So you now jump and love the new song, so you move on. You cannot use artists every time. But what your own song does for a brand is to help with recall even if you are old and you hear the song, you remember the brand, not the artist or the the moment that you heard the song. So my biggest advice is create assets that the brand can own and let the music speak with the brand stone because it stays forever.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:10

See, I love this song from Gino, the truly cares, it will never die.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:16

Why? Because whenever you're using the brand, you tend to feel the love that you're using. It is your own song. You get the point. Yeah, the same with Kivo Gary Mix. As I was saying, R in it is is a is a it's something that will recondition your mind, especially with the kids. When they're eating and they're thinking, Kivo guys, you get the point. So using your own asset has a bigger advantage over an existing existing one is for just quick attention. That is for just it's not for campaign building, it's for for you to be noticed, it's for people to see you, and that has a short-time memory. But if you want to have that long-term record, you need to create an asset that speaks the brand, have the brand tone, brand characterizes, brand cues, and all those things involved. Even for 20 years, when they play, you'll still remember Sunlight Stop Room. Everybody still remember Sunlight, Sunlight World. This is a song for them. That song had changed in many ways, beats, but the sequence of the song is the same. You get the point. So they he he created a song for them, but they use the the the voice of uh Obrafo and Tic Tac too.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:53

Oh, you mean a song um a brand song that didn't have an influence on that?

SPEAKER_06 1:25:56

No, that they have influential on it, but they they they adapted it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:59

Golda used to have gold, uh, drink it, enjoy it, gold.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:04

I remember that. Yeah, no, there used to be a song before that one too. It's about some old stuff. But what I'll say is that commissioning your own song gives you a big advantage because today there are a lot of creative minds. AI is there, there are so many high-level creative directors who can give you songs that are uh see drives change. Yeah, so the call to action in the trial pact is very key. These powerful created assets tend to fall on you for you to love the brand. Because if you understand the power of music in life, in personal life, you understand why it helps commercials to go very far. Today, when you check with the FDA or advertising association, you they'll tell you we have over 10,000 ads being produced in the last 10 to 15 years. 10,000 as how many of them do you remember? Barely, but those that you remember are those with powerful songs. True. This song, I have vitamin, yes. You get the point. These are songs, these are our commercials you still remember because of the song, not because of the product anyways, it's a song. I'm I'm not able to recall a lot of them, but trust me, anytime you remember uh that is more than 10 years, ask yourself why do you remember it's because of the song. And the song is not because it's an existing song, but it's also a created asset for that particular brand.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:53

You know, I think I agree with you um to some extent, because when we're whilst we're talking, I was thinking. Thinking about, hmm, but you know, we at the None Club is an Osibisa remake. But Michael told us something here that it was they commissioned a different person. It wasn't Osibisa Wisan's talk. Someone did that. The lyrics were they only used the beginning, everybody get on down, but the rest of the lyrics were different. So I think to some extent, I do get it. Evans, thank you so much. Um, this has been very, very, very powerful. We would bring you back. I'm sure my my viewers would want to see you again. If you made it to this point of the video, I want to say thank you so much, and I hope you did find it insightful. Please do like, comment, share with any of your friends that you think would find this as exciting as you did. And also, please do subscribe to this channel.