French au Francophone, Regulated Industry and Rich Media Jokes

a QCX Africa publication

Hi QCX People!

The more we bury ourselves in African marketing, the more opportunity we find. This week, we’re highlighting some amazing areas of opportunity that we strongly recommend you look at. Enjoy…

Côte d’Ivoire 🇨🇮 Africa's Sweetest Startup Hub (TechSafari)

• Why it actually matters: Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos… These are the only 3 African cities known to pretty much anyone in the UK/EU/US who plays in the startup or tech world. But Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire is both up-and-coming and under the radar, while having 73% mobile money penetration, 10m more cellphone connections than there are people, and a currency pegged to the Euro which adds stability.

• Côte d'Ivoire stands as a gateway to Francophone Africa (those countries with French as the primary language), boasting a strong economy and promising growth opportunities. Notable Ivorian startups across various sectors have highlighted the country's untapped potential. Emphasising unique market dynamics, Côte d'Ivoire offers a platform for leveraging growth within the broader context of Francophone Africa.

Marketing Insight: Most of Francophone Africa (some 20 countries!) are heavily French, to the extent that English is rendered useless. While English-based marketing can be effective in European countries, where most people can still read English, this won’t work well in this region. Moreover, ads translated to and catering to French speakers are few and far between, meaning your French ads would stand out!

Nigeria’s Prembly is building security products for emerging markets businesses (Disrupt)

• Why it actually matters: Africa has historically been seen as an insecure destination for travelling, sourcing and even acquiring users to digital products and services. Prembly showcases that the continent is making strides in the direction of secure internet access, KYC processes and generally making digital activity safe, verified and secure.

• Prembly, a security infrastructure company, expands beyond identity verification with AI-powered solutions. It aims to address market gaps in emerging markets, offering tailored security and compliance services. With revenue generated from screenings, it aims to establish a presence in developing markets.

Marketing Insight: With local KYC and identity verification proliferating rapidly across Africa, new verticals - which previously have been circumspect in marketing into Africa - should increasingly open for business and market into Africa. Cryptocurrency, financial services and insurance of some such industries for which Prembly and similar services are now making Africa worthwhile.

R83m and three and a half years later only one RDP house to show for it (MoneyWeb)

• Why it actually matters: Stories indicating corruption and incompetence have gained an uncanny degree of attention in South African pop culture. Headlines like this are both startling and common, which ironically leaves opportunity, of course from a political and business standpoint, but also from a marketing one.

• Namibia Stop 8 Housing Project in South Africa faces delays, with only one RDP house completed out of 343. Bureaucracy, Covid-19, and relocation challenges contribute to the setbacks. An additional R43 million is needed to finish the project, raising concerns about progress and irregularities.

Marketing Insight: Local South African influencers have grown rapidly of late by producing content that mocks headlines such as this one. For marketers, content leveraging this pop culture fad (such as rich media content banding onto the absurdity of such headlines) is likely to produce significantly more engagement - which as the primary indicator of quality for social and search algorithms will in turn produce ROI.

Fact: ‘Q’, ‘C’ and ‘X’ are the English denotations for the 3 most common linguistic clicks in African languages. If you can say all three clicks, three times in a row fast, you can legally call yourself African.