MTN was established in South Africa in 1994 and quickly expanded operations, now serving 233 million customers in 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East. MTN is the #1 player in 14 out of the 22 countries in which it operates1. Products and services include voice, data, digital, fintech, devices, cloud, IoT, managed networks, and infrastructure.
Why we chose MTN
• As we contemplated private sector brands to include in our case study series, we wanted to include a brand that was well known and respected in Africa, where many of our public sector case studies are based. MTN met this criterion; it is recognized not only as a leading brand in Africa, but also a leading African brand. Based on an annual brand ranking conducted by African Business Magazine, MTN came in at #8 of the Top 100 most admired brands in Africa (and the only brand in the top 10 that is based in Africa). Similarly, based on Kantar’s Brandz, the largest global brand equity study, MTN ranks #5 among South African brands.
• We also wanted to include a brand that had a strong presence in several different countries, enabling us to evaluate the degree to which a successful brand balances consistency and local relevance.
MTN differs from our other case studies in two ways:
• We did not have as much information about MTN’s brand and marketing best practices as we did for our other case studies. Although MTN is recognized as a leading African brand, there is very little that has been written about its approach to branding and marketing. We reached out to MTN leaders via LinkedIn but did not receive any responses. However, in comparison to our other case studies, we did find more information on MTN’s employee strategies, which provide examples of a strong culture focused on customer service and clarity on the brand vision;
• For most of our other case studies, we considered how one specific marketing campaign brought to life each of the five sub-elements of the campaign strategy best practice; however, for MTN, we noted different examples that demonstrated different campaign strategy concepts. We found it helpful to use a variety of campaigns to best illustrate the concepts and provide more variety in our case study examples.
1) Gilbert, Paula, “MTN aims for 300m group subscribers by 2020,” Itweb, Aug 07, 2017; 2) “Africa’s Top 100 Brands in 2019 – Global brands dominate Africa,” African Business Magazine, May 30, 2019
INTRODUCTION
Findings
• MTN stands out for its focus on customer experience. All MTN activities -- investments in technology, innovation, employee training and development, business evaluation, executive compensation, etc. -- are grounded in MTN’s strategy to provide the “best customer experience.” This shifts MTN’s focus from technology to the customer. As a result, MTN excels in audience engagement, delight, and overall brand and campaign resonance.
• MTN is a strong example of an organization that focuses on employees as the most important resource to exceed customer expectations, deliver results, and bring the brand to life. In the words of MTN’s president, “we are a firm believer that to achieve the best customer experience, we have to start with our employees having the best employee experience.1” To create this “best employee experience,” MTN made “win employee hearts and minds” one of its six core strategies, created a center of expertise focused on the employee experience, and measured employee engagement (through employee NPS (Net Promoter Score), and employee culture survey results).
• MTN is also a great example of a strong overall parent brand that has different marketing executions and campaigns to target different regions and audiences -- and drive awareness of different products and services. Given MTN’s breadth (presence in over 20 countries in Africa and
the Middle East), depth (products and services that include devices, voice, data, financial services) and markets (consumer, business, and wholesale), this balance -- between parent brand equity and locally-relevant campaigns and promotions – can be difficult to manage. While we did not find details on how MTN maintains this balance, we hypothesize that there are at least two enabling factors: (1) a strong overall brand that is integral to the corporate culture, enabling all employees – not just the marketing team -- to have an understanding of the brand; (2) a CMO for each country, who presumably has responsibility for driving both business results and brand strength in each region.
• While it may be obvious that a brand is more than a logo, MTN proves this point. Even if the MTN logo were removed from a piece of communication, it would be obvious that it is from MTN. Through consistent and clever use of color, consistent use of specific language (“y’ello” and “bright”) and an overall optimistic look and feel, MTN manages to communicate “MTN” without having to show the letters “MTN.”
1) From employee experience to human experience, Global Human Capital Trends, Deloitte, April 11, 2019
MTN INSUFFICIENT DATA
1. IDENTIFY THE AUDIENCE AND BEHAVIOR CHANGE OBJECTIVE
MTN is a private sector company operating in a highly competitive market segment; it is therefore not surprising that we found no information on their audience. For this reason, we did not score this best practice. The available information describes the company’s business segments, depicted below. These include: the consumer segment, which serves both rural and urban consumers with a focus on youth (given the large and growing youth market in countries where MTN operates1); the enterprise segment, which includes large as well as small-medium enterprises; and the wholesale segment, which serves other telecom and technology companies that purchase MTN excess capacity.
1The youth market in MTN countries is forecast to grow by another 50 million within the next few years, MTN Group Limited, Integrated Report for the year ended Dec 31, 2018
MTN INSUFFICIENT DATA
2. UNDERSTAND THE AUDIENCE
MTN describes several initiatives in the company’s 2018 annual report that require in-depth customer understanding (some of these are highlighted below). However, the specific details about the audience – how they approach audience understanding, what they know about their audience, etc. -- are not publicly available; for this reason we did not score this best practice.
FROM 2018 ANNUAL REPORT:
HIGHLIGHTS THAT SUGGEST
STRONG AUDIENCE UNDERSTANDING
“...We also have deep customer insights with local knowledge and presence: by understanding customers’ needs we can offer locally relevant content...”
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