The Tribe was first used with regards to branding by Seth Godin. Each time I have thought about the notion of tribe, I consider the depth that African should have that we do not. Not only as an individual but as a professional in the field of branding particularly when it comes to brand’s tribe. Average African should understand the concept of tribe more than the westerner. We were raised within clan, we were told from birth to be our brother’s keeper. The kind of individualistic culture that we have now was alien to us.
Most adult African understand what village life is. We were brought up to be your brother’s keeper. The communal spirit is unparalleled. The village administration, governance is all inclusive. No one wanted to be loner. Africans are people with communal, tribal mentality. Today all that has been lost. No wonder African brand professionals have to be taught again the element of tribal connection on a successful brand. As African professional I do think we should be in the forefront in applying the tribal elements to build our brands so the world can copy us. The challenge of African brands have been our inability to follow establish path, wanting to become like the Jones, copy and paste syndrome, inability to fashion out correct adequate strategy irrespective of our environmental, cultural challenges.
Seth Godin describes a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea’. How many of our brands can pass the test above? How many of our brand’s stakeholders are really connected/ Do we even give the stakeholders a platform to connect? Are we not interested only in getting from our community if we have one? The internet has provided several platforms to build tribe, but do we have brand strategists who are showing the way? Most of what we do know with our brands is to engage in interruptive marketing which results are often counter productive.
Like we know, a tribal do not just surface, it is built on structure of communal survivability; it is built on sharing and caring. Tribe is not built on selfishness.
Ed Welch also says “to implement tribe concept, everyone from the CEO and janitor should be working to building a meaningful connections with customers’.
My question today is why is it that African brands are not building tribal brands with all its opportunities? Why don’t we take advantage of our in-born traits, cherished qualities to maximize values in our brands? There is greater value in a brand that has tribe. It works best for all the stakeholders. Every one gains and there is absolute unity, peace and prosperity. I guess it is time to go back to basis. Strong connection among the stakeholders especially employees and customers will bring greater profitability. Not just a customer service unit will do, everyone must become tribal ambassadors, and marketers etc everyone must be making connection. Building and strengthening meaningful connection will lead to healthy customer tribe- Ed Welch. This will facilitate tribal explosion in terms of idea, product or service advantage.
If you do not know how, PERSONAL BRANDING AND CORPORATE SUCCESS SEMINAR will offer opportunities on how to do this. This seminar holds in Lagos Nigeria on the 17th-18th April, 2009. Do not miss this, you can send mail to: info@michaelsage.org or call 07029778785 for participation enquiries.
Related posts:
