BOOK REVIEW: IT'S A DEAL!
BOOK REVIEW: IT'S A DEAL!
Wednesday, 29 November 2006 09:17
The South Africans are here and they are dead serious about conquering the Kenyan market along with the rest of the African market. Through SAT (South African Tourism), which has express support from the Government, the South Africans recently held a four day tourism exhibition at the Village Market where the visible agenda may have been to attract Kenyans to visit South African but the hidden agenda I felt was the shifting of the African centre away from Kenya and towards the Southern African nation. While South African tourism may not be the agenda of this piece, what we can learn from South Africa’s brands is. When it comes to South African brand stories, not many can beat the Vodacom story.
“It’s a Deal” is designed as a coffee table book and is an absolute keeper! It tells the story of how the Vodacom brand was built from scratch. It includes hitherto unknown details from the players who were instrumental in building the brand. The book has a foreword by non other than the great Nelson Mandela, the iconic first President of the new South Africa – the best endorsement a modern day South African brand can dream of. Nelson Mandela credits Vodacom with contributing toward the repair of South Africa’s social fabric and commends the brand for being a partner in the new South Africa. With over 35 interviewees quoted in the publication, nobody can raise a voice to say the book isn’t thorough.
Authored by Judy Van Der Walt, long term PR consultant for the Vodacom group and published by the Vodacom Group, the book is quite a public relations gem. Judy, a communications graduate and experienced journalist having worked for various newspapers and magazines has the unique benefit of having been one of the few people involved with the company even before it was named. After its formation she handled its PR up to 1999. The story is obviously one sided but it is factual and worth a read between the lines. The writing style is simple and one can tell that the author is a journalist as she pries into details most of us would gloss over. Through the use of interviews, Judy is able to piece together a story that no individual would be competent to tell. The author’s own writing is interspersed with “statements”, “quotations” and “writings” from some selected interviewees. This does well to both punctuate and enrich the Vodacom story. Photographic images of South Africa are used liberally in a way that brings the story to life.
“It’s a Deal” is divided into nine chapters which are written in chronological order. The first is entitled “Fertile Earth” which tells of how a group of progressive South Africans led by Jack Clarke, the chairman of Telkom set forth on the path to revolutionizing telecommunications in their country. Others on the team included the likes of Allan Knott-Craig, Ben Betts and Andile Ngcaba, among others. It wasn’t easy to convince the powers that be to go with wireless phone technology with GSM being the technology of choice. The following quote from Allan Knott-Craig summarized the team’s predicament: “You wouldn’t believe it today but there were many people who said, ‘Who would want to walk around with a telephone in their hand? Are you crazy?’ We had to work hard to sell our vision.”
The second chapter, entitled “To Compete or not to Compete” tells of the various alliances that had to be forged to move the project forward. Passions ran high when the issue of competition was discussed. Just to underline how important to development the cellular network issue was, the cabinet was deeply involved in the negotiations. Dawie de Villiers, the then Minister of Industry and Commerce probably settled the matter when he said “I am convinced that the introduction of a modern mobile communication system would be a huge benefit. However it should be largely owned and managed by the private sector”. And so his words did eventually come to pass. It would be unfair not to briefly relate the story of how the decision to allow competition was finally nailed on the head. This actually happened on a Sunday afternoon at an airport! Jack Clarke was determined to see that Telkom owned 50% of the cellular network and called up colleague Daniel du Toit and the then Minister for Finance Derek Keys for a meeting. It so happened that the only time the minister could spare was just before a flight. The minister listened sympathetically to Clarke and Daniel, missing three flights in the process! The fight was won. The new cellular network would go on to connect 50,000 subscribers in the first five weeks of operation and the industry would have 150,000 subscribers within four months. The potential market size according to a Telkom commissioned Coopers & Lybrand survey was 150,000 subscribers by the year 2000.
The announcement that two cellular network operators would be licensed came during a major telecommunications event, Telkom 93. From then “the heat was on”. Chapter four tells of how the future ANC government was suspicious of the speed with which such a strategic project was being pushed through the system by a government in the dying throes of its reign. Sceptical commentators had coined the term “yuppie toys” to underline how unaffordable the new handsets would be. The tender process went relatively smoothly with Vodacom and MTN emerging victorious. Interestingly, MTN gets absolutely no “airtime” in this publication. Considering that the publisher is the competition and the author a long serving Vodacom PR consultant, I shouldn’t really be surprised.
Vodacom had a partner in Vodafone of the United Kingdom, hence the similarity in their names. The Rembrandt group, agreed to take up 15% shareholding which was set aside for a South African investor after some jostling and some high level meetings with the likes of Walter Sisulu and even Nelson Mandela himself. Vodacom held nothing back when it came to making alliances. The author, using the words of Johann Rupert, narrates how a meeting with Mandela took an interesting turn when it veered off into politics and Mandela criticized FW de Klerk. Johann Rupert of the Rembrandt group went ahead to remark that we all make mistakes and added that Mandela himself had suggested that 14-year-olds should vote. Mandela fiercely told Rupert to sit down, not amused at being criticized in the presence of a third party. That incident was the beginning of a relationship where Mandela treated Johann Rupert as an errant son.
Chapter five, aptly christened “Making Friends” tells of how some of Vodacom’s most crucial partnership deals were struck. These include the “Pick n Pay” distribution deal. Teljoy, whose founder Theo Rutstein believed in selling cell phones to everybody was also an important partner. Another important “member of the club” was actually Finnish, Kari Marttinen. He is credited with paving the way for South Africa to become a signatory to the GSM MoU.
“Navigating the Future” which happens to be the sixth chapter relates a story of how ANC called a press conference in September 1993 just after the government had announced the winners of the cellular network licences. In its announcement, the ANC termed the process as “unilateral restructuring and privatisation of the telephone industry”. The issue culminated in a meeting between Madiba and FW de Klerk, one of the major bones of contention being that there was no provision for black empowerment and that the ANC reserved the right to revoke the licenses. Black empowerment won the war and ANC did not revoke the licences.
The eighth chapter of this book of the Vodacom brand’s memoirs tells of the anxious days around the roll out. The cellular networks were running helter-skelter to cover the country ahead of the 27th April 2004 general elections. Allan Knott-Craig, CEO of the Vodacom Group relates how he convinced shareholders to spend R10 million on advertising. He was convinced, and rightly so, that the first network to establish its brand name in South Africa would become a leader from the word go. By November 1993, a whole seven months before roll out, Vodacom was running adverts. Retail outlets which had the Teljoy and Vodacom brands inundated the country way ahead of time. The government also bought into the technology to facilitate communication during the historic general elections. As South Africa was born, so was Vodacom, a brand that had become a true partner in the new South Africa.
More than ten years after initial roll out, the Vodacom brand has wormed its way into the hearts and minds of South Africans by consistently delivering on its promise while being involved in every aspect of South African life including sports, arts and community activities. Vodacom’s advertising has not been lost on the audience and it consistently scores over 80 percent on the likeability scale. Vodacom had transformed itself into a true Pan African network with operations in Tanzania, Lesotho, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Every brand has a story to tell and every brand should have a story it is yet to tell if it is to keep its audience is interested. As far as brand stories go, this one captures the human side of the brand but lacks the more holistic view of the brand I hoped to get.
© Brandscape
First published in SOKONI magazine
