BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

A well-known marketing adage states that a bad product will not last very long in the marketplace. No amount of sales, advertising or promotional effort will do it any good if people simply do not want to buy it. As any first-year marketing student knows, and in the words of famed marketing guru Philip Kotler, the marketing concept states that ‘the key to achieving organisational goals consists in determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors’: In today’s bitterly contested global marketplace, countries have customers and competitors too. South Africa is no exception.

South Africa is competing with other countries for the attention and favours of a number of different types of customers. Whether or not these customers give South Africa the nod will depend on the ‘product‘ they are offered, and the experiences they have with the products of other, competing countries. If South Africa Inc. is truly going to emerge, both the government and the people of this country need to recognise and acknowledge that South Africa has many different kinds of customers with different needs and wants. These include, for example, current nationals, nationals who have emigrated, potential immigrants, tourists, current investors (both domestic and foreign), and potential foreign investors. In each of these instances, the country’s customers need to know that the `product‘ they are ‘buying’ or are about to ‘buy’ satisfies their needs better than the ‘product‘ of another country.

Having achieved that, the government will then have to develop the country into the right kind of ‘product‘ for each of the target markets identified. The end result has to be more than just an image of the country that is projected to the country’s prospective customers. South Africa, the product, has to be attractive enough for the various target markets to want to buy into it.

As with any marketing strategy, an understanding as to what one’s customers are looking for is the proper starting point, after which the product has to be designed around these requirements. This should happen before any marketing takes place, and, perhaps, more importantly, what is offered to the ‘customer‘ has to be better than the products of competitor countries. Furthermore, the convincing has to take place in the mind of the ‘customer‘ in question, and branding and marketing therefore have important roles to play. However, in the case of a country, the kind of society through which the country functions underpins all of this, as does the value system to which it adheres. These will have a long-term impact on the country’s success with a ‘customer‘. For example, it is all goodand proper to embark on a communication and branding exercise aimed at persuading people to visit South Africa as tourists. The images of our beautiful beaches, mountains, game reserves and so on may well seal it in the mind of the tourist customer. However, all that effort could very well be undone if the tourist customer does not feel safe in the country or has a bad experience, one which is serious enough to convince the tourist never to come back.

This means that our government has to shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for creating the conditions conducive to the needs and wants of the various customers it wishes to target. However, the core premise of strategy remains the same: South Africa must want to put itself into a more advantageous position in the global marketplace relative to competing countries. And it must do so where it matters most — in the minds of its various customers. We want to be the preferred tourist destination. We want foreign direct investors to choose South Africa over other nations. We want our graduates to stay in South Africa, and build their careers and raise their families here. We want those who have left to return. And we want our citizens not to give as much as a second thought to leaving for another country.

Marketing a possible South Africa Inc. goes far beyond branding the country and creating the right image and perceptions. Granted, nation branding assists a country to communicate with and differentiate itself to various audiences. However, in terms of developing long-term growth, relying solely on branding is too superficial an approach. Also, a lot of nation branding tends to be aimed at foreigners to improve the image of the country in their eyes and minds. However, it is also vital to speak to the citizens of this country. South Africans also need to have the right image in their minds if they are going to continue to live in the country and be part of the stock of human capital. The marketing of a country like South Africa needs to be part and parcel of continuous economic planning. Strategists should begin with the seven-point infrastructure.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Marketing South Africa Inc. part 1

• South African Bee Tax: Application of BEE to Taxation
• Modern Money — Asset and Liability
• How about selling Assets to your Black Partner? Will it award for your BEE score?
• South African BEE Spending Exclusions
• Substituting Debt Growth for Taxation
• BEE Capital Structure and Expenditure Calculation part 1
• Modern Money — Asset and Liability continue...
• Like BEE or NOT You Have to Give Assets to Black
• South Africa and Globatisation: Quo Vadis? (THE FUTURE)
• So How Does One Market South Aafrica INC.? continue…