Your African PR Isn't African Enough

by Ronelle Bester

Ronelle Bester

Founder & Account Director

With over 20 years of experience in PR and Marketing, Ronelle is one of the South African communications industry’s most influential voices. It was during her four-year tenure as the Marketing Manager for Dimension Data that Ronelle discovered her passion for the technology sector, and she went on to open Red Ribbon Communications. Ronelle has lectured extensively at Varsity College and UNISA and she attained her BTech in Public Relations Management from UNISA in 1996. Ronelle is a farm girl with a city heart and a love for traveling, trail running, interior and all things beautiful.

The technological revolution sweeping the world is beginning to have a profound impact on the African continent. Now approaching 226 million, the number of smartphone connections across Africa has doubled over the last two years, according to a report published by GSMA on Africa's mobile economy. This leap coupled with the growing number of technology hubs and companies in major African cities is a boon for tech investors.

Africa is not one big country

Looking at Europe, no one would apply the same communication strategies to Sweden and England respectively, so why do people so often think they can copy/paste their way through Africa?

The African continent has high levels of cultural diversity, uneven patterns of political and socio-economic development, and of course, different languages. Needless to say, modern African countries are at different stages of industrialisation and development, and their appetite for, and understanding of, technology differs vastly.

Local content

This underscores the need to avoid generalisation. Local data, local customer references and a local spokesperson are the main ingredients for a successful communications campaign. Creating one piece of content and simply translating it is not going to yield the results you are looking for.

We encourage our clients to invest in local research for valuable and relevant data. Local statistics are very rare and a high value is placed on it by the media.

Localising is one of the most important actions companies must take with content development, because without it you can never be relevant, and relevancy is the highest currency in the game.

Local connections

It is very important that tech companies engage with a partner that understands the country so that they can guide them. We advise our clients against trying it out themselves or sending someone from South Africa, and to rather appoint a local partner who speaks the local dialect, or partner with a distributor that could assist them to sell their products to somebody that already has the right contacts.

This is the same for their communications. Once it’s time to communicate their successes and start to establish themselves as an expert in that country, it would be advisable to look at a local PR agency as well. At Red Ribbon we have partnered with local freelancers across Africa to be able to communicate properly in all aspects, down to using a local copywriter.

What communications do you need?

Regardless of the region you’re looking to tackle, making the decision to expand into uncharted territory can be daunting. And getting it wrong can also be extremely costly. That’s why it’s vital that companies make sure they are fully prepared for any market expansion and take the time to develop an international PR and marketing campaign that can be applied to their target markets.

If you’re looking to discuss your communication needs in Africa, I would love to connect over a call.