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-18^th April, 2009. Do not miss this, you can send mail to: info@michaelsage.org or call 07029778785 for participation enquiries.

As the battle ground begins to shift from traditional mainstream mass media to digital media, the fierceness of the battle will soon be felt more on the cyberspace because customers now have a say. It is wise for brands to develop a strategy on how to play the game according to the rule. I must admit as I commented on a forum recently that in our environment here, the battle is more pronounced in the mass media broadcast advertisement than in the digital media. But soon, as we have in advanced countries, the scope of the marketing channel will change for good.

Brand engagement marketing will become the answer to the above. It will create avenues, privileges, rights to enhance marketing effectiveness to a new elevated level. Brand engagement marketing will mop up the merits in online social phenomenon available through dialogues, forums, blogs, vblogging, podcast, YouTube. This requires adequate training and know-how though.

As a form of digression, I want to point out that the re-branding of Nigeria project can annex this opportunity. There are a whole lot of opportunities to gain here. Brand marketers who are not versed in this new phenomenon will not be able to offer much value to the brand. I do think every employee should be brand’s marketer at a various degree. A guru has noted  ‘a brand has two major functions: innovation and marketing- every other activity is cost’.  For Brands- personal, corporate, service, product, national- to be successful brand engagement marketing should be the backbone of the brand’s savvy marketing activities. This is because brand engagement marketing permits the marketers to establish a virile, vibrant brand and create loyal users, fans with upward revenue drive for ROI on marketing.

In a recent research publication by Silverpop, they define “Engagement Marketing” as ‘a marketing approach which -is in contrast to traditional brand and direct marketing strategies- allows a brand customers and prospects to shape the company’s marketing…this start when someone takes an action and initiates a dialogue in requesting information about the brand’.

The foundation as I want to believe is brand’s internal brands, personal brands and by extension visuals like websites, emails, product packaging which through their activities affect point of contacts perception. My submission is that brand engagement begins with every internal brand though the responsibilities may be heavier on marketing, brand management, corporate communication department.

In my study of innovation, I have come to like Tom peters’ definition of the use of the word. Tom Peter says ‘Innovation is a number game, the guy who tries the most wins. He goes further to say that innovation can thrive where there is right brand culture, positive mindset that is willing to try it first, try again and talk about it later’. The need for Value acceleration has become more relevant now during recession than any other time. People stick to what save them cost instead of buying for gratification during recession. Customers want to conserve the little in their hands and invest in what gives them much value. Any brand that can accelerate value through innovation, proper communication will not be affected by the crunch. The traditional approach to brand business will fail any brand and it will show when they become irrelevant.

Whatever is said in the promotion of recession, crunch, a brand with right attitude to acceleration of value will remain relevant. During recession many customers think about cost effectiveness of every purchase because they have little money at their disposal. A brand positive mindset to acceleration of value through innovation will become an antidote to failure or irrelevancy. Let us examine few factors that can help brand innovation which will eventually enhance brand’s profitability during recession.

1. Across the board communication: None of your brand champions is totally useless. After all, the brand would not have hired a fool in his entirety. More importantly, realize that each of your employees has contacts outside the brand’s community. They also relate in a way with the brand’s customers. In a way they will have access to one information or the other about the feelings of your brand users. Learning to ask them of how to improve value for the brand users will not be out of place.

2. Power of sharing and connection: the brand should not be afraid of connecting with the idea of a weird member of the brand champions. Be interested in sharing what you think will work. Inputs from others can safe you from unnecessary wastages.

3. Active engagement: In addition to the above, learn the rules of active engagement. Tolerate both foolish and fantastic ideas if you want to get everyone involved.

4. Celebrate failures: Thomas Edison would not have been known if he gave up after series of failures. He celebrated his failures by saying “I just discovered how it would not work”. Believe me, innovation as Tom Peter says is “commitment to excellence, fun, scary, enthusiasm, passion, life at the speed of light.

Let me conclude today’s piece by saying ‘whenever anything is being accomplished, it is done by a monomaniac who believe it can be done, if you care enough, you will experiment and not worry if it goes wrong.