One Acquisition, many Benefits

Following its recent acquisition of Zain Africa, Bhart Airtel aligns with Ogilvy Africa Prima Garnet group and promises to spend 35 per cent of African marketing budget in Nigeria. By O’Lekan Babatunde
The recent $10billion dollar acquisition of  Zain’s Africa operation by India’s Bharti Airtel is gradually having a spillover effect on the marketing communications’ service consultants and ancillary service providers to the company. Albeit, unfavourable to the incumbent agencies.
M2 can authoritatively disclose that Airtel, the new owners of Zain business have entered into a partnership agreement with marketing giant, Ogilvy Africa, to handle its entire marketing communications businesses in Africa.
The move will ensure that Ogilvy manages Bharti Airtel’s marketing business in Nigeria and 14 other African countries where the mobile telecom company has operations, courtesy of the buy-out.
Ogilvy Africa is setting up a specialist Pan-African business unit, Team Airtel, which will be exclusively dedicated to delivering integrated marketing services  advertising, media buying, market research and public relations on the juicy account.
The appointment continues and extends Ogilvy Africa’s existing relationship with the network, as it had previously been responsible for media planning for Zain across Africa.
As the company prepares to re-brand, Kohli Manoj, group CEO, Bharti Airtel International, says Ogilvy Africa will partner with Airtel “to guide its long-term brand building across the continent and will provide overall creative direction and media planning and buying for Airtel’s African businesses and executing campaigns in each of its markets on the continent.”
Manoj adds that “Given their breadth and depth to support Airtel right across the African continent, we believe we have the right partner to successfully take forward our brand strategy.”
In the same vein, Miles Young, global CEO, Ogilvy Group has pledged to bring the telecom brand to life. “Through the acquisition of Zain’s assets in Africa, Airtel has a very strong platform on which to build. Team Airtel’s role will be to bring the Airtel brand to life in every one of its African markets and we have brought together a very strong integrated marketing team which is dedicated to this task,” he says.
In Nigeria, it will be a happy home coming for the brand as the Lolu Akinwunmi’s led Prima Garnet Ogilvy will be working round the clock to “welcome back home” the brand which it handled from inception as Econet and Celtel up till 2004.
Akinwunmi, group managing director (GMD), Prima Garnet group sits atop companies made up of Prima Garnet Advertising, Cutler OgilvyPR, Media Share (specialist media buying agency), and 141-Worldwide (a second line agency) among others.
It is also noteworthy that the GMD has had meteoric rise within the Ogilvy African network, currently sitting on the board of the company with responsibilities for overseeing the West African sub-region.
Having become an important hub for the network in West Africa, this invariably means that the Prima Garnet Group will have its hands full within the next couple of months with responsibilities on the Bharti Airtel business going beyond the Nigerian shores.
It will be recalled that the erstwhile high-flying agency recently went into recluse no thanks to the dwindling fortunes of agencies due to the global economic meltdown and the continuous decline in advertising spends.
Akinwunmi however did not agree the agency was in a lull. While confirming the development in a chat with M2, Akinwunmi explained that contrary to insinuations that the agency who resigned the Celtel business in 2004 was broke, the agency actually improved its bottom-line last year with about N300 million. This is why despite the current frenzy of retrenchments in the industry, Prima Garnet did not sack anyone, Akinwunmi says.
The new Airtel business strolling into its kitty is enormous and therefore offers great relief. “To get a piece of business of this magnitude at a time like this is divine and it will be an opportunity for us to continue to prove our competencies  strategy and creative wise and our adherence to global best practices across board”.
Speculations are rife that this particular rebranding assignment may post a bit more difficult challenge both to the agency and new owners of the business especially in Nigeria. This is premised on the belief that the subscribers to the network which started business as Econet in Nigeria have grown weary and tired of the incessant ownership and name changes. These have seen the brand donning garbs such as Econet, Vodacom, Vmobile, Celtel and Zain.
Further findings reveal that the group is working on dedicating 35 per cent of the total budget for its 15 countries in Africa to the Nigeria market alone.
Akinwunmi revealed to M2 that Airtel expects heavy volume from Nigeria as the biggest market and sure holds the highest prospects, it will therefore make economic sense to make commensurate investment in the market and also in marketing communications.
He disclosed that the Prima Garnet Group is working on setting up dedicated teams for the Airtel business such as it did when it won the BAT business years ago. “The volume is huge because of the telecom giant’s desire to impact the market, I can confirm this,” Akinwunmi says.
Investigations also reveal that the brand owners (Airtel) has commenced work on strategies to deploy in giving subscribers enough reasons to stick with the brand after five metamorphoses with the sixth in the offing.
The telecom operator does have supporters, as some, protagonists consistently argue that it’s not about the name of a brand, but the quality of services and a brand’s customer service approach that matter to a consumer.
It will be recalled that shortly before the Airtel deal was concluded, Zain PR business moved from The Quadrant Company to Blueflowers. Its advertising which used to reside with ZK Nigeria for upwards of about four years also suddenly became a rolling stone with stints in Wunderman Nigeria among other agencies. Perhaps, this is why the materials for the brand currently bear no tag line.
But this recent development is perhaps the first time in a long while a brand owner of this magnitude will consolidate its entire marketing communications businesses and briefs into one group. A decision considered by many as tough, it now behooves the Akinwunmi led group to be on its toes and justify the investment as Airtel’s different marketing functions gradually find their ways to the Prima Garnet Group, Nigeria’s affiliate of the WPP’s Ogilvy Africa courtesy of global agency network alignment.