Legends project flawed

NOW that the frenzy around the Home of Legends campaign appears to have abated, it is perhaps the time to raise the strategic, content and political communication flaws of this campaign.

Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana (“Home of Legends brand can reshape poor image”, August 7) and Advocate Sonwabile Mancotywa (“Battle, mission sites can amplify Legends project”, August 19) hailed the campaign as a timely tool to brand and market the province.

I disagree because, in its current form, the campaign is miles away from branding, positioning and marketing the Eastern Cape.

Listing names of well-known personalities from the Eastern Cape does not define how you are dealing with the challenges that relegate the province’s image and reputation to the national lower ranks.

For a long time the Eastern Cape has been synonymous with corruption, poor academic performance, delayed service delivery, poor road infrastructure, bad audit opinions, funding of minor projects and being a poor investment attraction.

Given this context your branding, communication and marketing campaign ought to tell your audiences how you are addressing these challenges, improving administration, fast-tracking delivery, improving development to create opportunities for the locals and investors.

The first attempt at branding, which was headed by the erstwhile provincial head of communications, Phila Ngquma, highlighted opportunities for growth and development in the province.

How we deviated from that to a mute Home of Legends campaign is a mystery.

A careful examination of KwaZulu-Natal, the province many compare the Eastern Cape with, reveals a clear strategic communications, branding and marketing effort that has positioned that province internationally as a force to be reckoned with.

In KZN a decision was taken to use its heritage as a marketing and branding point to boost its tourism in general and travel, leisure and tourism in particular. Creative consultants were briefed to focus on the institutions of traditional leadership, heritage, diversity and the natural offerings of the province including the weather and infrastructure.

They shied away from accentuating the already known individuals and focused on the collective and total package of the province.

At the operational level, the branding of the province was two-pronged – tourism and service delivery and investments.

The provincial tourism authority focused on building equity in its travel and tourism products to stake a share in the international market, hence the “Wozani – our Kingdom calls” campaign.

For the service delivery and investment branding, the provincial government focused its branding on delivering services, making the lives of their populace better and termed it, the Masisukume Sakhe campaign.

My point here is that the Home of Legends campaign was ill-conceived and, as a result, it carries with it misgivings rather than achieving what it was intended to.

For KZN, using heritage worked in that every feature of their tourism was housed under a massive international campaign to attract visitors to the province. As a result, KZN has the enviable status of being a global player in tourism, eventing and facilitating business meetings.

The success of the Masisukume Sakhe campaign, the brainchild of the erstwhile premier, Sbu Ndebele, is shown in the massive government infrastructure, the boom in terms of human settlements, social infrastructure, business opportunities and foreign direct investment.

Branding and marketing campaigns are not about faces and names but about communicating what you are offering to your audiences – in this case, communities. Audiences of communicated messages always look for take away, be it educational, awareness, or incitement to purchase.

Focusing your provincial branding on individuals is bound to have caused problems: First, you will miss some individuals, as was the case with the Eastern Cape campaign; second, if you rely on history to position your ailing brand, you run the risk of having to contend with a list of controversial individuals selected by many.

Speaking to the Eastern Cape ANC’s cadre forum, the party’s secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, warned the province about the dangers of relying on history.

Conversely, successful brands look for modern, relevant figures who their customers can identify with. For example, Hansa’s current multi-media campaign is focused on telling the stories of the success of young black entrepreneurs. When Coca-Cola launches any branding campaign, it easily and clearly communicates a message that will inspire audiences.

Instead of spending money on the Home of Legends, the province must focus on its administrative successes, on infrastructure growth and on investment in education.

It must look at foreign and domestic investment in its best performing industrial development zones, schools infrastructure successes and clean audits for the office of the Premier and the provincial Treasury.

I know many might not want to hear this but, just like KZN, the Eastern Cape must – at the operational level – separate its branding into tourism, service delivery and investment.

It must market government progress in eradicating mud schools and bucket toilets, rural development and agricultural programmes that are underway, increases in access to free basic services, increased water investment by rural municipalities and the increasing number of graduates whose education is funded by the provincial government.

For me, Home of Legends is a mute campaign that just brags about who was born in the province. Branding and marketing campaigns have focus groups that give feedback about the campaign from conceptualisation to activation.

If this one had focus groups, none would give it a thumbs up.

The current leg of the campaign, which was forced by a public outcry after the Mbeki family was left out, makes the same mistakes of the first leg, focusing on the popularity of certain individuals.

Another critical error made in marketing lies in what I call the Mandelarisation of our heritage. While Mandela is an international icon, it is wrong to focus every government communication, marketing and branding effort on him and him alone, as if he worked alone.

What does being the home of legends mean to a family waiting for a social grant, to a child looking for her parents, to an elderly couple waiting for a home, to students looking for bursaries, to small businesses looking for business funding, to a farmer looking for land, to a local community whose clinic doesn’t have medication, to rural communities who have been begging government for tarred roads since time immemorial?

To me, fixing your administrative challenges, allocating more resources to attracting investment and developing small businesses, and saying masisukume sakhe strikes a chord that invites me to be part of growth, transformation and development.

This is far more successful than saying you are from a Home of Legends.

Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha is a public servant writing in his personal capacity