Client: MTN

Project: MTN Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Synopsis: MTN is the leading telecom operator in Nigeria. The brand, as part of its strategic approach at controlling the larger percentage of the different market segments, took over the ownership of one of the major audience engagement television programmes that falls within its master brand segment. The consultancy has managed the programme from the PR perspective since 2006.

Situation Analysis: The telecom market in Nigeria at that time was quite competitively stifling. The three dominant players were exploring every available marketing opportunity to get larger chunk of the market.

The Who Wants to be a Millionaire (WWTBM) was a global brand and its original right of sponsorship was owned by a competing network. This network had managed and run the WWTBM programme in the country in an uninspiring manner for sometime and later relinquished its franchise right. Despite the apathy that the members of the public had grown for the programme, MTN Nigeria decided to take it up, repackaged and presented it to the Nigerian public in acceptable way.

The Challenge: The consultancy was tasked to package the programme in an innovative way that it must be acceptable to the public. We were to erase the project’s brand association with the former telecom sponsor from the mindset of the public and reposition it aggressively as an MTN property meant to empower the Nigerian public positively.

Our Strategy: We designed a thematic campaign in the media that supports a sales promo that was built around the project. Based on this, the consultancy proposed a three-pronged event activation medium to generate top-of-the-mind awareness that helped drive subscribers and non subscribers’ participation in the TV game show and thereby ensure incremental usage and subscriber’s acquisition growth for the brand.

Our Tactics: A media stunt launch of WWTBM campaign: The idea was to invite major stakeholders to present MTN sponsorship package of WWTBM in a very innovative and creative way. Guests were invited with a cheque format invite. The cheque instructs payment to the bearer to the tune of N1 million. This was meant to create the anticipation to attend the event and some media hype was generated.

The general public was encouraged to send text messages to be part of the event where selected participants had the chance to win N1 million.

Media simulation and analysis were utilised to optimise the relativity of the show. Information made available to the media guests was disseminated in a very creative manner thereby creating interesting angles for the PR write-ups.

Results: The turnout at the launch was unprecedented. It enjoyed positive media reviews as the most credible TV game show sponsored by MTN. The communication strategy employed at the launch made it an interactive event that create content for PR support and credibility.

Major influencers that attended left the venue with positive word-of-mouth information and thereby encouraged participation in the WWTBM.