BEDIA to roll out brand campaign

MBONGENI MGUNI
Staff Writer | Tuesday April 27, 2010 00:00

 

Within the next 18 months, BEDIA and its consultants plan to finalise guidelines on the use of the brand and secure public and international buy-in on the new brand through consultative meetings and extensive educational campaigns.

BEDIA and its branding arm, Brand Botswana, on Friday unveiled the new national brand and strap line designed to market the country's competitive offering to tourists and investors.

The brand features an insignia representing the sun with rays thematically representative of Botswana's various natural and social attributes while the legend on the strap line reads 'Our Pride, Your Destination.'

Speaking at the brand's unveiling last Friday, BEDIA Chief Executive Officer, Jacob Nkate, said in view of the largely negative international perceptions about Africa, it was critical for Botswana to distinguish itself and its competitive offering via a simple but effective brand. He said the brand would need to first achieve buy-in from Batswana, then the world, to be successful. 'In Africa, we are lumped together as a useless lot and I believe we have to brand ourselves and stand out,' Nkate said. 'This is not a once-off event, but only the beginning. We have to engrain this image in the mines of our people, then the rest of the world.

'This will take a lot of imbibing or taking up, and I'm sure that we can do this. This brand cannot be about the government or from the government; it's the responsibility of everyone who cares about Botswana to take this brand and run with it.'  The brand unveiled is the product of a process dating back to 2006 when the former president Festus Mogae initiated the Brand Botswana process. Stakeholders involved in this process subsequently unveiled a brand with the strap line 'Opportunity and Tranquillity Beckon' in December 2007, but the brand was met with resistance from various publics, particularly the strap line.

Trade and Industry Minister Dorcas Makgato-Malesu said opposition to the initial strap line was decisive. 'It was very clear that people thought the strap line was too long, convoluted and tongue-twisting,' she said. 'Maybe if you took apart the strap line and explained what it meant, it was actually a good strap line. However, people wanted something simple that could be translated into Setswana.'

 The Minister said at that time, the brand's stakeholders had stressed that a brand was a dynamic process that evolved over time. Thus, when criticism of the strap line arose, another consultative process began, which culminated in the production of the brand unveiled last Friday.

'We are now showing the result of that consultation and this final produce, we believe, should be able to appease a good number of people,' she said. 'Not everyone will be happy, but perhaps a good number of people will be.' Echoing her (Makgato-Malesu) sentiments, the BEDIA CEO (Nkate) stressed that the creative process of building the national brand required a timeline after which implementation of the resultant brand could commence.

'We cannot spend the next three years doing the same thing over and over again,' said Nkate. 'There cannot be one thing that we can all agree on. We are aware of the criticisms of the previous strap line and we believe we have come up with something simple enough. We are asking for everyone's support because there's evidence that countries that wish to distinguish themselves need imagery or signage as branding.'