July 21, 2009

Finding the right Agency to focus on marketing and advertising Kenya is not an easy task. There are myriad of factors that have to be taken into consideration before the selection process even begins, the location, the industry experience, the agency services and specialty, the budget involved and probably what I find more important - THE FIT.

When all is said and done, personally I think what it all boils down to is the FIT. You hire an advertising Agency for their ability to listen, understand and effectively respond to your needs. Now if you think about the FIT in convenctional terms then this is something that can be accomplished by any Agency - BUT… BUT if you think about how to translate this into actionable insights based on how you understand Kenya then you have various problems that can happen.

My objective with this tumblr blog is not to highlight all these problems, however I hope to share my own personal opinions with some of the problems I see each day.

Call me crazy or insane but the first problem here is with this face of Kenya - And this is the face of Kenya in EU/UK regions. Subsequently the Agency selected by KTB to market Kenya in the US has an interesting face too - I will post that next week :-)

•
May 24, 2009

Jeff Koinange has been one of the more inspiring media personalities in Kenya over the last few years. His new K24 initiative seems to serve up unbiased content with a stint of brutal honesty about how things really are in Kenya.

This particular excerpt features some interesting insights on the current state of the Tourism industry in the country. The budgets apparently being cut by 67% leaving or no opportunity to continue the on going marketing efforts as well as planning for future projects.

However please note also that majority of the items mentioned on the clip pretty much focus on capturing tourist from countries abroad and not really countries in and around East Africa.

•
May 21, 2009
Understanding Search Results - "Kenya"

Above is a search query string performed on Google on the search term KENYA. Its an interesting place to start when you start thinking of Marketing a country based on search results. But am sure some people would wonder why this argument holds any weight either way.

Indulge me for a moment, taking into consideration that the country is currently only engrossed in print advertising, conferences, trade shows and possibly some TV media, but nothing significant on search -

So let consider the following figures.

Google’s search market share is currently at 63.7%, Yahoo is at 20.5% and MSN is at 8.3%, Ask at 3.8%.

What this means in English is that Americans conducted 14.8 billion searches at the core of the search engines. Google of course accounted for 9.5 billion of those core searches followed by Yahoo (3 billion) and then MSN (1.2billion).

That said lets take this a step further now that we know that the average American will probably log on to the Internet, perform a search query to find more information on his topics of interest (in this case we are assuming the user will search the term “Kenya” to get more information about the country).

Using some of the free tools made available by Google - Google Trends or Insights // we can start to make some meaningful assumptions about how to better target the American consumer and also how to better understand search interests on Kenya as a country. Given the fact that majority of the American consumer market will utilize search as one of their purchasing/shopping habit considerations it makes sense to think about search as an alternative to marketing Kenya.

Therefore here goes:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=kenya&cmpt=q

Thats a URL string with a search variable “Kenya” showing the Google insight details.

Its interesting that it seems as though only Kenyans (in Kenya) are interested with news or items related to their country, according to this tool. The Keyword/term “Kenya” ranks the highest in Kenya and in regions around Kenya, mainly Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and other East African regions.

(To me this would mean that the biggest tourism markets for Kenya would be around the country and not really abroad - it appears that we need to leverage efforts locally to lure in more regional tourist and or investors because they are keen on getting more information and details about the country)

Also from this we can see the next best search term closely associated with “Kenya” is Kenya airways, Kenya News and Nation Kenya and so forth.

This therefore means to me that if I was working on Branding Kenya or marketing Kenya, I would work closely with Kenya Airways and Nation Newspaper to develop an identity that would closely promote the country in effect with the country’s’ core image objectives.

Other interesting insights include the rising search results, Kenya Obama, Kenya elections and possibly Safaricom Kenya. These are all areas of interest to me as an online marketer because these few brands or properties are organizations I would want to closely monitor and or work with to develop better visibility because people are already looking for them.

Either way back to the initial Query performed on Google (Kenya)

Its encouraging that the first three returned search results are actually Government properties.

Magical Kenya - is run by the KTB
Wikipedia results on Kenya - Which I hope the Govt had a hand in establishing :-)
The Governments gateway into the country - Kenya.go.ke

Anyway so what does all this mean?

Am not sure really at this point - but what I can say is that its great that the Government portals index well on search - but am not sure if their content is relevant to the average user researching on “Kenya”

•

So the Government has been working on reviving their failed Brand Kenya project, its interesting when you think about some of the reasons they came up with as to why the initial project failed (majority of the issues sited included lack of adequate financing I guess for Ad budgets amongst other costs). Its just interesting to me that all these scholars think that building the image of the country has a lot to do with financing and advertising. Its also interesting that this Government thinks branding is something you do when everything else fails - Branding should be part of the product, part of the people. The BRAND Kenya has been built over time you cant buy your way out or into the Kenyan brand today its impossible.

To me creating an image for a country is cheaper and starts with the people themselves and their leaders. If your President offers public apologies to his wife on national television, if your prime minister gets baptized by a lunatic religious leader, if your country is constantly in the news with some riot or demonstration then no amount of advertising or marketing can save your BRAND

•

I think am just rumbling now because I cant stand seeing Kenyans act out a scene from a local play in order to get Americans excited about Kenya. Maybe Kipchoge Keino should have ran the marathon bare feet, maybe that would have been a better strategy for selling Kenya! Either way these Kenya Tourism online folks take the crown this week. Kenya Tourism Online - http://kenyatourismonline.com/default.aspx has gone all out on this African/Kenyan journey. Surely with the the Internet these people should realize that a lot of Americans are over exposed to other details about Kenya. (just google Kenya and see what search results come up)/ or better yet youtube Kenya and see the search results and a lot of learnings can be gathered from the video clips.

This is surely not the way to market Kenya, because to the average American he automatically will expect this when he lands at JKIA - at which point your thief taxi cab driver will gladly demystify the international myth.

Luckily this is a private company - although its not as if the Government has different initiatives :-)

•

Its always interesting when you see how old school Kenyans perceive their country to be. Lets take for instance this clown! (No pun intended). Lives in the US, owns a marketing firm that hopes to market Kenya in the US/UK/Canada market. The only way he felt it impactful to communicate with ignorant westerners was to dress up in Maasai and talk up his country.

Perhaps someone should tell him that Kenya has changed over the years - Tourism also has evolved, the people who travel to Kenya don’t really come to see the over evolved Maasai’s anymore. I mean where do we get off creating an image for a country that has already changed?

Honestly I don’t see any Chinese or Arabs dressed in classic traditional attire trying to talk up their cultural sources of interests. Funny enough this guy sounds like a Kikuyu or a Kamba - yet he is dressed in Maasai!!! so am confused - if its a marketing gimmick is misleading.

Why hasn’t anyone thought of trying to capture the burgeoning teen market in the US/UK that frequently will travel during spring break. Mexico and Spain are parked with kids touring and enjoying their first and second years in College. Am sure Mexicans are not throwing up their traditional attire and linguistics to capture this market. Mombasa is a modern haven for many westerners thats why most tourist end up at the coast - the sun is just a plus but the activities available in Mombasa which mainly comprise nights of endless partying and drinking and prostitution are what most tourists come for.

Anyway this is one way not to market Kenya in 2009

•