The Problem

Events & Marketing in Africa and the developing world as a whole is not without its complexities. For example, lack of infrastructure can hamper a company from launching new and innovative products especially if the products or services rely on things like the internet or reliable power to be able to function properly. Lack of infrastructure can also hamper the exposure of products to such a widely spread out market. Events also bring a unique set of challenges. If it’s a product launch, mother nature plays a much larger role in the success of an event and if your event is a conference, the potential for problems grows exponentially. Transport in the developing world has the ability to breakdown with a click of your fingers. 

What makes the Events & Marketing team unique?

A multi-faceted team that has years of experience between them. The unique element of this team is that they are all from the regions you want to work in. The team is made up of local staff who know the regions and know the politics but have been trained with a western ethos and most importantly an eye for the finer detail whilst also keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Being from the regions, they know how how to for example, circumvent issues with local government and they have flagged them in the planning stages and have multiple solutions just in case that issue does come up during the contract.  For certain contracts, a combination of this team and the travel & logistics team working together gives clients multiple tangible benefits from working with us. A one stop shop for all services means the client doesn’t have to shop around. 

What services can this team provide?

For the marketing side, whatever strategy you may be looking for, be it for a single objective or an 18-month multi objective strategy, the team will help create the core of the strategy using comprehensive market sector analysis coupled with basic psychological underpinnings. Using that analysis, they will then create actionable elements that will help best achieve the end objective or objectives of the strategy, be it for example, a set of experiential events over a 12-month period to launch and build awareness for a company’s new product to the consumer market in Nigeria. After review and agreement, the team will then execute all elements of the strategy and after completing, review with the client how the strategy worked out for them as a company.

For events, the team will take each event be it linked to a marketing strategy or a conference for 1000 delegates and examine all the elements and ultimately what is the desired end result. What are the elements of the event and how can they be delivered and how can we not only add value but ensure a client gets return on what is significant investment. If required, the travel & logistics team are brought in during the planning stages to add a fresh perspective to trouble shooting potential issues and problems. An event plan is formulated taking into account all variables and then executed with a review process at the end of the event with the client.

An example of the team in operation

The team was approached to handle a summit for 2000 people in East Africa. We were tasked to handle the conference site, day to day transport, a social program for the evenings, full delegate travel services to and from the host country, airport ground transfers, hotel bookings across the host city for delegates and other event amenities and services such as security, VIP hosting and conference material creation.

The events and marketing team ran point and working with the travel and logistics team secured the conference site and planned the sessions and then using a network of suppliers for all the elements above, took each element and after tender processes, secured suppliers for those elements and planned their tasks with them and had contingencies in place could any element fail. This all came into a working event plan which was executed successfully with both teams overseeing the suppliers and stakeholders involved and troubleshooting where needed and after all payments were handled by our finance co-ordinator, the client left the host country happy and content that his organisation’s summit had been a success.