Brooks & Blake, DKK Win MTN PR Account
Adeniyi Jones based Brooks and Blake led by Sola Fijabi and Temitope Jemerigbe’s DKK the 360 degree integrated marketing communications company have been awarded the public relations account of MTN Nigeria after a competitive pitch according to sources close to the intensely contested pitch has revealed.
Akin Adeoya’s MarketingMix Ideas Limited, eleven years veteran and incumbent on the account and Calistux Okoruwa’s XLR8 with about seven years on the corporate communication half of the account may soon be handing over to the new winners.
MTN which recently bagged MARKETING EDGE Brand Leadership Award in the Telecoms Sector has been renowned for applying avant-garde creative PR ideas and strategies as a building block for its ever rising brand equity. Indeed the ‘YHELLO’ telephony giants rise into stardom of the Nigerian telecoms firmament has been accentuated by deployment of right elements in the mix, above or below the lines.
It is in view of this strong market positioning that industry sources are of the consensus that the new review may not be unconnected with the brand owners desire for top grade service delivery in line with unfolding market dynamics and the brands overall marketing and corporate objectives.
When MTN launched into the Nigeria market, its PR account was handled by Corporate and Financial TBWA/Concept Unit. The aggressive PR support at launch help the brand first to market positioning with its pay-off line ‘Best Connection’. Mike Meze and John Ehiguese were the frontline account service executives on the account alongside Emeka Madueguna the MD/CEO.
In April 2005, it launched ‘Everywhere you go’ to harmonise and create a universal brand promise in all MTN operations across the continent.
As the brand was growing in customer categories, it became pertinent that new properties needed to be acquired to engage the different segments of its growth, MTN had to acquire more marketing properties including MTN Polo, MTN Golf, MTN Marathon, Who-Wants-to-Be- a-Millionaire and other highly popular and patronized products in varieties and geographies. Polo for example was in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Abuja and Lagos; ditto for golf and the assignments required a second line formidable PR agency that ultimately brought in MarketingMix Ideas.
The baptism of fire that brought MarketingMix Ideas was the 10 day Kano Polo of 2005. No media leveraging in print, radio and television in those days comes close the performance of the agency then. Of course MarketingMix Ideas won the account and was thereafter retained for eleven years being one of the longest term in the industry retainership history in PR.
The trajectory of MTN campaigns in Nigeria up until now is legendary. It launched the ‘Go’ campaign with a view to positioning the brand as a company that encourages men and women to go and conquer the world, knowing that man desires to live a better life, desire a secured future, progress and change.
‘Everywhere you Go’, a family extension of the ‘Go’ strategy was said to have been anchored on MTN’s core values of leadership, integrity and can do spirit which the then MTN General Manager, Consumer marketing, Kola Oyeyemi followed up quickly with ‘Moving you ahead’, ‘Mama na Boy!’ and the corrective ‘Mama na Girl ’that was coined to balance the furor that ‘Mama na Boy’ generated. The strategy perhaps resolved the riddle but the brand also benefitted immensely from the debates thereof generated.
A senior industry analyst says, “Baring any business or other strong macro-economic earth-quake that may inform shift of position at the MTN Nigeria office this most lucrative PR accounts will be flowing from new houses”.
Brooks + Blake is made up of a formidable team of consultants with over 30 years of combined experience from PR, Media, Advertising, Brand Management, BTL activations and a background involving procurement of marketing services.
The head consultant, Sola Fijabi is a chartered marketer (CIM UK), and an alumnus of Leeds University Business School, UK. He has over 12 years cognitive experience in marketing communications.
Multiple awards winning Temitope Jemerigbe assumed the position of Managing Director at DKK in 2012 and have since renewed and redirected the agency in its new focus of consumer engagement through the science and art of marketing.
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