CIPR International organised a session on ‘Building Digital Bridges: Shaping the future of African Communications’ with panelists from across Africa on Thursday, 25 May 2023, Day 4 of Africa Communications Week (ACW).
The panel moderator, Samantha Seewoosurrun, Chair of the CIPR International Committee and Founder of pan-African news agency Platform Africa, welcomed the audience to World Africa Day and introduced the panel consisting of stellar speakers such as South Africa’s Laura Cooke, Head of PR, Social Media and Content Marketing at Showmax; Mauritius-based Michal Szymanski, African Entrepreneurial Development Specialist at UVU Africa; Nigeria’s Femi Falodun, Executive Director at BlackHouse Media (BHM); and Kenya’s Neema Mutemi, MCIPR CIPR Course Lead, University of Nairobi.
Setting the stage for the discussion on borderless communications in Africa, Samantha mentioned that intra-Africa trade counts for only 16% of total exports, meaning that much work must be done there, and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is a key step in that direction. “For today’s panel, we shall assess how we can bring elements such as FinTech, technology, digital, data, linguistic and cultural pillars together for shaping African communications, especially if we don’t see them in isolation,” she reiterated.
How does FinTech transform lives on the ground?
Michal started the discussion by noting that we, as communications experts, must avoid labelling every activity as FinTech just because it is a cool catchword. “FinTech is used by communications experts as a catch-all phrase for everything. It started from a good point but has been communicated badly – we must avoid this pitfall. As much as 53% of all investments into the continent last year were in the FinTech space, so we acknowledge that it is the hot piece of cake on the continent.” Going beyond to address the question, he stated that he was attracted to FinTech primarily because of its potential to touch and transform lives on the ground. “The whole financial model around the world is skewed, and FinTech has the power to change that. At the end of the day, we need to make sure that money moves from Point A to Point B while bringing costs down, empowering people and giving consumers more choice. As an example of local innovation, a start-up in South Africa based credit ratings on pre-paid airtime – they built a financial model around these credit ratings, thus challenging the status quo.”
He noted that 60% adults in Nigeria are unbanked or under-banked, while the same is true of other countries in the continent as well. In South Africa, if you have 17.3 mn people on bank accounts for social grants and they withdraw their money once a month, is it fair to consider such people banked? “There are a lot of innovations on the ground in Africa. We must communicate the value we provide to the East and West. FinTech has the power to challenge the status quo.”
On being asked what entrepreneurs must do to attract the right investment on the communications front, Michal noted that we as Africans tend to undervalue ourselves and don’t effectively communicate. When we see money on the table, we need it badly, so we fail to tell our story right, he rued. The best innovation and the best products can fail without effective communication, he stressed.
“If you communicate effectively about what you are doing and how you are doing it, the money is out there,” Michal emphasised.
Challenges in breaking into the social media market as a first mover
Femi noted that in 2013-14, BlackHouse Media (BHM) faced a market where internet penetration was as little as 21%. “For us, back then, the challenge was recruitment of the right talent to assess traditional content and convert it into digital. That is something we don’t consider as being special anymore, but back in the day it was a unique skillset that BHM had and for a long time we were boxed into a corner as ‘those digital guys’. We again had to fight to get more respect in the mainstream market,” he averred. “Young people are usually early adopters of new technology, and we are lucky to be a young market. It was difficult to find expat talent, so we learnt along the way – experimented internally and externally. Another challenge was that most of the brands we were working with at the time didn’t appreciate the skillset or saw the digital ecosystem as important. But today, no one calls themselves digital marketers anymore because digital is a firm part of the overall marketing mix – no marketing plan is complete without it! Everything quickly blew up later, so we were in the right place already.”
He noted that what worked for BHM was that the team understood channels like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook which is what a lot of the brands were asking for. However, another challenge was that a lot of these aspects went out of the PR domain and these briefs found themselves in the hands of influencers and advertisers – PR lost out on the opportunity a bit. He soberingly noted that he was seeing the same happening now that there is an explosion of AI tools and the key question to ask is – Are we going to be ahead of the curve this time around?
“Experimentation helps, and then adopting the successful use cases. We are hopefully going to take advantage of AI and not be left behind like the social media era,” he concluded, in response to the challenges faced by BHM when it started foraying into the social media domain in Africa.
On storytelling, Femi noted that Africans are the best storytellers in the world. He harked to the fact that it’s a warm country and as a Gen Z he grew up at a time where he was fortunate to listen to his grandparents tell tales by moonlight. “During the colonial era, stories were told by those outside the continent. So, Africans need to be more aggressive about telling African stories the African way. Nigeria has 50 ethnic groups and languages so there is so much we can do. For local stories, there is a ready audience, but we didn’t know that Africans loved these stories till technology came to the rescue and showed us as much,” he emphasised.
While Nigeria Radio Station earlier had a lot of music from the US, with government policy change and organic creative explosion among young Nigerians, there has been more local content creation – and now Nigerian music is finding its place under the sun with key youth ambassadors taking the content global, he remarked. That is a signal and sign that people love local content and will consume it if it is made available, he averred.
“Technology came and helped with propagation and amplification of local content from Africa. What companies like Showmax are doing is taking African film and content across the continent and even beyond – we just need to ramp it up and do more!” he concluded, noting that Afrobeats are big across the continent and African musicians are winning Grammys on their own right. Brands must be authentic and respectful of the culture, he cautioned, and noted that PR and marketing agencies need to step back a bit and recognise what’s happening around them.
Cultural and linguistic sensitivity to be built into social media platforms
Neema echoed Femi who spoke of being a young millennial, and introduced herself as an older millennial. As older Africans, we already have a disconnect with the youth on cultural and linguistic grounds, she noted. “Even as we speak of being champions for the youth of Africa, we carry the baggage of biases. I like to be aware that I also fall into the partly disconnected group. I try hard to keep up with TikTok and Instagram, but I find it too fast paced for me. If you feel me, you do not represent the youth and what their culture is supposed to be,” she candidly stated.
She went on to ask the probing question of what role social media platforms play in shaping culture and linguistic aspects. The way we envisioned their role in their lives, the way we envisioned their utility, is very different from how they have shaped up since inception, she noted, adding that such platforms have completely metamorphosised since and become the main source of news. “It has gone to the point where social media drives what we call news. Youth are incredible agents for agenda setting, and now when you talk about the role of social media, we need to appreciate the role of distortions of access. Those who have proper bundles for hours of downloading and streaming, have more power and thus there is differential access across Africa where download speeds and internet penetration is varying,” she soberingly remarked.
She elaborated on the point that, since information is power, distribution of democratic governance and power is determined by access to information – no wonder that lots of elections in Africa are being governed by the information shared on social media. She exclaimed on the levels of unequal access when you think of those who are posting hundreds of videos of TikTok everyday while their cousins upcountry have load shedding! Social media has also completely changed the workplace – it has also meant that certain degrees earned in college may be less relevant from an employment perspective today, she rued.
Neema then moved to the social media driven algorithmic marketplace of ideas – who decides what you see and what you don’t see? Who are the people who see the same message that you see? Who benefits from what you see on social media – who benefits in terms of message amplification and who benefits financially from the message virality? She noted that algorithmic justice means you either being denied or being allowed to benefit from access to information that truly means something to you.
On how to measure the impact of social media platforms, including with the use of AI, Neema replied that this is one of the most exciting aspects of social media. The AI revolution has completely changed the space, she exclaimed! ‘AI is not new though, we just didn’t know it was called AI,’ she explained, noting that all the tools we use for brand measurement and social media listening already use AI. As one of her most used tools, she noted that RedTrack has a few chapters dedicated to explaining their use of AI while Meltwater too is a great social media monitoring tool that uses AI. We also have tools that give in-demand reports that provide these online – most of them are free, she remarked. What’s new is who has access to these tools and technologies, she averred, noting that this again has opportunities and limitations as AI tools are finding themselves embroiled in new regulations like GDPR and the new EU law on digital safety. “When you think about it, the information they pitch to you as advertiser or give you as marketers – they don’t have the liberty to disclose as much information as possible – we need to stay abreast of new evolutions in these laws. We have a generation that did not give consent for photos to be posted online by their parents. It creates a dichotomy as most people are not aware, especially in Africa, that they can demand access to who has seen their photos, their online presence, etc.,” Neema noted. She also noted that she likes to bring in her data scientists at the start so she can explain to them what the campaign is for – to improve it or give insights for the future – and at the University of Nairobi, she was privileged to work with cutting-edge data scientists who can design customised tools for campaigns. “None of these companies for PR measurement is based properly in Africa. We need to see more investments in PR measurement to ensure cultural sensitivity. In Africa, we need to take ourselves seriously and see lots more African innovators go into PR measurement and developing tools or see more serious investment from global and traditional leaders investing in measurement of African social media, activity, and language,” she concluded.
Streaming services reaching vast audiences across Africa
Responding to how Showmax reaches an audience across multiple countries, Laura noted that she was privileged to work with traditional storytellers across their core entertainment business since 2016, before Netflix had even launched. “Main media wasn’t even covering streaming back then because it wasn’t even here! To see how much the different categories have grown – whether social, digital marketing, FinTech, or streaming – and to see the rate at which everything has grown has been quite phenomenal – and how world leading the quality is of the work that we do in Africa. And Showmax is of course the leading streaming service from Africa, made in Africa and for Africans! This has been quite a learning journey as we come up with more Showmax originals on how we tell local stories and market them. The appetite for local content in local languages is universal – people want to see their world reflected in the stories they watch – and this is reflected in the top 10 shows across main markets like Kenya or South Africa. This translates into the PR and social space as well. You can’t really separate those anymore – and what’s on social is in the news! News articles are often just summaries of tweets since that’s where crises and news break,” Laura explained.
She noted that Showmax has expanded beyond South Africa into Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and many other countries through the MultiChoice group. “We avoid having a blanket approach, and ensure we have a local flavour, slang, and nuance. In order that we don’t come across as a disconnected brand that doesn’t know what’s happening on the ground, we work with in-market PR specialists and copywriters, and local agencies that know the market really well,” she exclaimed, noting that the response on Showmax and on social has been humbling – the more local they have become, the more conversation driven the social media space is. She added that a key catalyst has been letting community managers respond in language and really get that fan, local voice alive. Letting the teams talk about the stuff they love in the local language and in the voice of the local audiences has been transformational, she averred.
On obstacles faced by Showmax, and overcoming them towards a Borderless Africa, Laura noted that Showmax was the first streaming service to offer online downloads, something that was shortly followed by Netflix and many others – as an insight that it was important to give the local audience a way to watch even if they weren’t on WiFi thus increasing the level of access. On top of that, Showmax crucially focused on how the streaming experience uses as little data as possible – it has some of the lowest possible data settings you can choose from, out of 4 settings where the lowest is 50 megs for an hour! Also, customers can pay in various ways – Vodacom airtime, mPesa or MTM mobile – and that’s really important, Laura emphasised, as credit cards are not a prevalent payment mode unlike advanced economies. In terms of storytelling levels of access, one can watch anything, anytime and anywhere, she noted. For example, on Real Housewives of Lagos, lots of people tuned into the viral series to follow it from all parts of Africa, not just Nigeria, she exclaimed, adding that she wanted to mention that as Africans, we won’t let these local difficulties such as load shedding stop us from doing what we want. With youth, social and all this digital innovation – the professionalism of anyone producing on the ground is phenomenal – doing a great story despite issues like load shedding and putting it up on TikTok is amazing, she averred.
Face of future storytellers of Africa, five years from now…
Michal replied that he hoped FinTech entrepreneurs would be the face of the future storytellers of Africa. “The beauty of what’s coming up – whether it is labs using magnets and lights to detect malaria out of Uganda or Sulphur towers to power devices off solar in South Africa – the need on the ground is real and their communicating these personal stories and the reason they are doing it is critical. We need to see more African success stories being told by Africans,” he concluded.
Femi hoped AI would NOT be telling the stories. “Entertainers will continue to tell African stories and even entrepreneurs will need entertainers to tell these stories,” he emphasised.
Neema noted that she didn’t see the geographical binary working here – and that storytelling has the potential to cut across even global borders and create ambassadors from Asia and America. “What are the issues that youth care about today and are going to influence them today or tomorrow? They will galvanise support around these issues as long as they care about them – I see young people being the storytellers of Africa.”
Laura noted, “It is Showmax’s ambition to be the leading streaming service for Africa – so watch this space!” with Samantha concluding the session after asking a couple of audience questions.
The first question came around how African businesses can leverage digital connectivity to reach new markets in the continent. To this, Femi noted that opinion shapers will be a great way to reach new markets, while he echoed Neema’s point that, as the world’s youngest continent, what African youth care about will also be a key driver of digital trends. He concluded that brands need to harness the power of storytelling through entertainment to better promote their products and engage their audiences.
The second question was how PR practitioners can ensure that AI-driven analytics are used effectively for decision making rather than relying solely on automated recommendations. To this, Neema noted that AI tools don’t have updated information, but it is instead their ability to synchronise data that makes them powerful – however they lack nuances that are based on cultural or geographical sensitivity. Until AI tools can evolve real time like languages do, we still need humans to do extra work, she noted, concluding that we can start with AI tools and then supplement with human judgement to plug in the gaps.
Will there ever be a Borderless Africa for communications?
Michal noted that the wide range of nuances we need to address means that it is difficult to have a truly Borderless Africa. In FinTech, central banks might need to take a backseat and let people play, he concluded.
Femi concluded that the challenges in the way of that are politics and he didn’t see politicians collaborating to create a Borderless Africa while he saw technologists and creatives doing just that! He noted that he was putting his faith in youth and creatives to break the borders, just like elsewhere in the world where consumer cultures are overlapping, and that would continue to happen, and at a faster pace, as technology gets better.
Neema noted that we will have it, and in some ways, it is already there. Youth are driving it, she remarked, based on three cases against Meta in Kenya that have been brought by South Africans, two Ethiopians and a class action by 184 young techies helmed by a South African and a Nigerian. When you look at this, the power to assess opportunities and seeking justice – in this case challenging the social media algorithm that endangers lives by instigating violence – the fact that this is being pursued in Kenya by non-Kenyans already shows that we are closer to a Borderless Africa, she remarked. Together as an African market, if we speak in one voice, we can achieve a lot through AfCFTA for instance, she emphasised.
Laura remarked that ‘the borders might never be completely gone, and it would be a real loss if we didn’t have local flavour, nuances and colour from different markets.’ Having said that, she noted that streaming globally and through Africa was cutting across borders and this would just grow more as we learn from other cultures around us, she concluded.
To watch the full recording of the webinar and see the panelists for yourself, click here!
