countries?
When it comes to creativity and execution
both in terms of the concepts and the
quality of execution, we are really at par. In
UK what they mostly have is the common
cost-effective form of advertisement,
not the full wrap. The full wrap is very
expensive because it is very laborious, it
requires a lot of people and you know
for them they want something that is
automated and straight forward so to date
still ninety percent of the advertisement
on buses abroad are done by just using
frames. There are standardized frames
that are already attached on the buses, an
empty frame which they just slot the ads
in. They are therefore able to change any
number at a go, which means efficiency
wise they are leaps and bounds ahead and
their standardized buses have the same
exact dimensions of the frames.
In Kenya our bus bodies are what we call
hand-built; the head is an FH, it’s not
a ready-made bus then they take it for
body building, which means you could
have even forty buses from the same
company say KBS, but they will each have
different dimensions and measurements.
We are not standardized like that in our
nature, every bus has some difference in
centimeters. On efficiency we are low,
that’s why we are called developing, we
are always learning, and that’s good, I
would rather be called developing than
developed because developed means I
have reached my maximum potential.
And it’s the standard way
of doing things?
Yes but I told you in the end when it comes
to the final output, while for them they
are just doing frames which means again
the coverage surface area is only twenty
percent of the bus and the full product is
too premium while for us we are giving
the full run as a standard, it is the basic
you will expect because it works for this
market, it makes the buses look beautiful,
the owners of the buses are happy because
they love it, its beauty to them.
And if you would just
comment on the level of
uptake, how would you
compare with the other
developed countries?
We have created transit media to
In Kenya, out of home media current-
ly is still dominated by billboards and
street boards which to me is passive me-
dia, it gives you a passive audience be-
cause the moment you pass a billboard
or a street board it’s not going to follow
you. But our media is with you, you are
stuck with it.
be a respected industry, but the
penetration scene is very low compared
to the developed countries. Majority of
companies have spared huge budgets for
transit media. There is better regulation
for using billboards; because for them they
do not want the clutter, there is respect,
if you go to London or New York there
is a rule that there can only be this many
roadside billboards. Unfortunately, we
don’t have those regulations and it is at
the expense of our environment, you see
putting up these metallic structures means,
we must cut down trees. I think honestly
our country needs to revisit this policy on
regulation as it looks weak at the moment.
Tell us what you’ve done to
reach where you are today?
I believe in two laws; the law of attraction
and the law of creation. I always suggest to
would be entrepreneurs that your thinking
capacity is what is going to set you apart
from everybody else because we all have
exact same human anatomy but what
separates me from everybody else is my
ability to think, my ability to innovate, my
ability to be different, my mindset is my
differentiator. What differentiates success
and failure is your mindset.
I always have my law of attraction
switched on, and my mindset positive as
much as possible, of course you will always
have challenges but setbacks to me are
learning opportunities not reasons to give
up. The day you quit is when you are called
a failure, otherwise you are just learning.
And for me it’s important that somebody
has that strong mindset, you have to be
patient, you have to persevere during the
testing period when what you are trying
is not working out but as long as that
mindset, that thinking, that reaffirmation
is there then you will be able to wade
through.
Find your differentiating factor, the
success you will get from creating your
own thing, the returns will be much
more than trying to go into a space that
already has so many players. Rather than
being a ‘me too’, create your own thing,
the more crazy it is the better because it
means copying you becomes difficult so
innovate, stay ahead of the crowd, disrupt.
What do you do in your free
time, what are your hobbies
like?
What keeps me energized is my love
for music, my passion for football, and
reading books!
Thank you, we really
appreciate, that has been an
excellent discussion and am
sure my colleagues in the
marketing field will learn a
lot through this discussion.
Thank you.
Pauline Mwatu is a Marketing
and Market Research specialist
and a director at Tried Approach
Limited, a research outfit defining
and providing custom market
research solutions. You can engage
her on this or related matters via
mail at: P.Mwatu@triedapproach.
com.