and value of several categories .
Zimbabwe is a classic example of how economic decisions and performance has had implications on marketing and business in general . For a long time , economic challenges in this country forced many businesses to shut down including those that were in the giant agricultural sector , hyper-inflation made doing business extremely challenging and at some point in the latest years , due to foreign exchange controls , moving money out of the country became a serious challenge - exchange of goods and services became difficult and in some cases , intercountry contracts were discontinued .
As at 2016 , Africa was estimated to be home to around 1.2 billion people – by any measure , a huge number of people and growing at an average of 2.3 % every year . What is unique is its young population – with estimates at 40 % of this population being under 15 years and just over half are up to 24years old .
This relatively young population can provide an opportunity for many businesses in terms of getting young consumers early enough in their lives and staying with them through their stages of life as source of revenue – and we know how many businesses and brands in general have set targets on youth – with products , services and communication .
The risk is the reality of high levels of youth unemployment means they would probably also not have much money to spend . Some businesses have taken this to the next level by coming up with youth empowerment initiatives .
Levels of literacy are improving across the continent , but reality is that there is still a huge proportion of the population that is still illiterate and would need to be communicated to in different languages - for message to be relevant .
Most of the population is still in the rural areas running subsistence farming to survive but the rapid movement of population into urban areas means that many countries will struggle if they are not already , with problems of the urban poor . Commercially speaking , it means that even in the urban areas , addressing affordability , providing the right pack sizes are part of success factors for some of these observations .
From the 1990s to date , the political profile , though developed from what it was , is still very varied across the continent and we cannot universally say that there is ONE Africa as far as political maturity is concerned . Even though , on average , there are about 15 to 20 election programs in Africa every year , there are still places where armed conflicts still exist to date and are potentially no-go zones for businesses , local or foreign .
Then , there is the big debate of the African middle class and how it is growing – and the opportunities that have or will come with it . There are varied points of view but at least , we know that there is rise of affluence in the continent .
My point of view is that beyond the dollar measurement of who is a middle class , there is need for deeper analysis of potentially varying lifestyle dimensions within the so called middle class to identify the real marketing opportunities .
Beyond this , middle class would also behave differently country by country – compare a monied Nigerian middle class versus a Kenyan middle class – very clearly , they would be different , and part of the difference would be driven by cultural differences , difference in what they perceive as success , what they are exposed to , availability of products , services and channels . All these complex dynamics have implications on how we market when we say we want to market to the ‘ African middle class ’. There are potentially ‘ types of middle class ’ – psycho-graphically speaking .
Finally , looking at technology , though lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of adoption of technology , the rate of growth is very rapid and in some obvious cases like use of mobile money , staying ahead of the world – MPESA is a global pride for Kenya as she leads the world in evolution of mobile money into mainstream e-commerce platform and possibly beyond – innovation expands possibilities !
Any Marketer would know that as technology & technology related innovations take their place in the new marketing world , the consumer is still generally the same – the only major change is the expansion of touch-points making connecting with consumers more complicated than ever before .
Taking note of this and the fact that digital maturity varies across the continent means that again , we can land a blanket digital strategy across markets in Africa – it is important to match digital engagement plans to country specific digital profiles for better results . Obvious point though is that traditional media is still dominant in the continent – radio , TV always take the lead .
In the end , we may look at Africa as ONE – and yes , there may be a number of reasons to carry this notion – from the similarity in some cultural dimensions to the unbeaten spirit of resilience we see across the continent but in business terms , it would be worthwhile to remain sensitive to the small yet critical differences that have implications on commercial success in what one would by now , refer to as ‘ Many Africas ’?
Enock Wandera currently serves as the Chief Client Officer at Ipsos Limited . You can commune with him on this and related matters on mail via : Enock . Wandera @ ipsos . com .