An exciting way of fulfilling a brand’s promise

Talent discovery has gone beyond the ordinary; it is never the business as usual. It has become a business which every resourceful brand jostle for, to make impact in the society.

From music to fashion and now, sports, most especially football, talent hunt has become a major tool to find and raise ordinary Nigerians beyond their shadows.  There is no gain saying that, through this avenue, Nigerians, especially the youths have relied on their passions to reach the limelight and make ends meet.

Today, one’s passion has become a fortune-opener and a platform to make a living. In this, sports are very crucial, and when one talks about sports, most especially in the Nigerian context, football becomes most paramount.

Therefore, it has become as addictive as a drug among many. To take advantage of this, proactive brands who believe in the future of every football talent, have developed programmes on how to discover, nurture and enrich the lives of every Nigerian youngster who has a football talent and the passion to pursue it.

Over the years, MTN has never left anyone in doubt of its determination to make life better for all its consumers. It has been involved in a good number of initiatives that are directed towards making the lives of the people better in what they do. In this MTN Project Fame and MTN Lagos Street Soccer readily come to mind.

 Meanwhile, in 2011, in addition to its existing live-enriching projects, the company came out with an unprecedented initiative; MTN Football Scholar, a youth soccer camp, which focuses its attention equally on football and academics. 

Considering life-after-career of most existing players worldwide, more relevantly Africa, which has evidently shown that it is paramount for them to have something to fall back on after an active football career, the initiative provides a platform for Nigerian’s best student athletes – soccer players that are academically sound, to earn scholarships to America universities.

The initiative is already in its fourth year, while the brand is fulfilling its brand promise of enriching life, the initiative is waxing stronger, yielding good fruits, purposeful dividends and receiving several accolades from far and wide, with young Nigerians travelling abroad to fulfil their dreams of becoming educated soccer stars.

 While the first edition (2011) produced the likes of Richard Ochefije, who is currently at the Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut; as well as Abdusalam Oganla-Abdusalam and Ifeanyi Edemba, Knox College, in Illinois studying for degrees in Economics and Conservation and the Natural Sciences respectively; Anthony Amolo, is in Berkshire School, a preparatory academy in Massachusetts.

The six finalists in 2012 edition, include Precious Ozoh(Holderness School, US); Oyeniyi Adebare(Skidmore College US); Figbe Prosper(The Loomis Chaffee School, US); Tapshak Augustine (Kiski School US);  Ekeh Shadrack (The Hill School, US); and Sampson Isaac (The Masters School, New York, US).

Meanwhile, in 2013, eleven finalists were produced. These talented youngsters have also gained admissions to study various courses in US universities.

It is obvious that the initiative is being driven by the company’s commitment to, resourcefully touch its subscribers’ lives in many positive ways through their passion points. The brand has ensured that they make the people happier with what they believe and associate with. 

 Speaking on the initiative, Kola Oyeyemi, the company’s general manager, consumer marketing, said that the company places premium value on its subscribers and nothing is too big to be done to prove it.

“Our subscribers are the reason we are in business, it is an undeniable fact that we are committed to a brand’s philosophy of enriching the lives of consumers, so MTN Football Scholar is one of these ways.

“It is an initiative that is established to nurture young footballers who can combine education and sports, with the hope that after their football career they can still practise whatever they study in school. Today a good number of our young people are benefiting from this initiative and they will continue to increase,” he assured.