On earning the title “I solve (business) problems”, Part 2.
See the link to part 1 at the end.
Very early in my career as a digital strategist, I was fortunate to land Dangote Flour Mills as a client. At the time, Tiger Brands had invested in the company and owned equity, so it was named Tiger Brands-DFM, where DFM stands for Dangote Flour Mills. At the time, I managed their social media, and despite not being a full-staff member, I visited their factory at Ikorodu regularly and attended annual staff retreats because being close to the ground helped me with my job. One of those visits was instrumental in saving the company millions of naira in advertising.
When I visit the factory, I like to roam around, at least in the areas I was allowed access to, such as HR, marketing, and some parts of the factory. On this day, I overheard a conversation in marketing about a “Buy One, Get One Free” (BOGOF) campaign that Tiger Brands-DFM wanted to run for Dangote Noodles. The idea was that anyone who bought a box of noodles would get another free, no questions asked.
While this was a fantastic idea, there were two problems with it- the first problem was that I was not in the room when this was being discussed, but this was not as critical as the second problem, which was that Nobody (at the time) actually liked Dangote Noodles.
How do you convince the Head of Marketing, who had already paid for ad slots on BRT buses, Billboards and many other platforms, that said product wasn’t liked in the market? Mere word of mouth would not cut this and it would be her word against mine. I needed something more substantial for this, so I turned to Twitter (now X) and ran several searches using variations of the company and product name. This yielded a gold mine of several people complaining about the product, some going as far as asking anyone interested to come pick them up for free. Several screenshots later, the first problem was solved- I was immediately invited to an emergency meeting with said head of marketing and many other C-suite executives.
At the end of the meeting, the campaign was immediately put on hold, the screenshots were sent to the laboratory and research department, and the product- Dangote Noodles- was returned for further development.
Dangote Noodles is no longer in the market, and Tiger Brands has left Nigeria, but without my input, that campaign would have failed at that time, wasting all that money.
Since then, I have solved many more problems, saving several organizations and several millions of USD, thus the title “I solve (business) problems” has stuck with me.
