On Wednesday, May 25, 2022, lovers of Africa across the world joined the continent to celebrate Africa Day.
Commemorated on May 25, 1963, this year’s edition was held on a theme that focused on the importance of addressing malnutrition and food insecurity on the continent.
However, this year’s edition was special with many events held across the continent, especially in Nigeria where Africa’s Best Brands 2022, were recognized and awarded at an elaborate event at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.
As expected South African Tourism (SAT), a leading tourism brand and destination promoter, graced the occasion for the first time and also made a huge impact. For its participation, tourism destination brands are being considered in subsequent editions of the award.
Speaking at the event, Thekiso Rakolojane, Hub Head, West Africa, South African Tourism, noted Africa’s Best Brands Awards 2022 offered the continent the opportunity to celebrate Nigeria and the continent-wide creative excellence.
“For us at South African Tourism, it is important to be part of Nigeria’s creative excellence. We are here tonight looking at some of Nigeria’s best brands, not just in Nigeria, but across the continent”, he said.
Rakolojane disclosed that African brands are coming of age and are competing in the whole world today, with brands such as the Dangote Group among the best global brands.
“At South African tourism, because we aspire to be a brand that competes globally, it is important to associate with platforms like Africa’s Best Brands and hence every single marketing we do is informed by insight and research.
“So, organisations like Kantar are important to us because they give us consumer research that says to us these are the decisions that Nigerians make when they are going to travel to any destination, and these are the decisions that inform Nigerians to buy certain products”, he further explained.
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Speaking again, he noted that SAT takes the research-based insights to formulate the right communication message to communicate to Nigerians and other countries where it operates.
“Associating ourselves with such platforms is critical because it therefore means that we will be addressing the direct aspirations or anything it desires from the right consumer segment”.
He also called for the need to include tourism and destination marketing brands in the Africa’s Best Brands’ platform.
Worried on why on platforms like this, tourism and destination brands that are trail blazers in the realm of stimulating consumers’ demand are not recognized, he promised to engage with the organisers so that it would be brought to the fore.
“We need to get destinations to be part of this, but our participation now is going to inform the inclusion of tourism brands in the next awards”, he enthused.
But if tourism and destinations brands finally make it to the Africa’s Best Brands platform, he insisted that South Africa would win all the awards.
He also said that South Africa is open for business and SAT is out to re-engage the potential Nigerian traveler because they are avid travelers. “When it is summer Lagos is empty, people want to go everywhere and anywhere. To be selfish, I want them to come to South Africa, I want when summer comes, every corner you find a South African, you must see a Nigerian traveler; that is my desire”, he said.
Further highlighting why SAT is wooing Nigerian travelers, he disclosed that Nigerians are nomads, travelers and explorers by nature.
He also expressed his excitement over the commencement of the travel season in South Africa starting with the successful hosting of Meetings Africa and Indaba this year, developments that mean that South Africa is open for business.
It would be recalled that the majority of the over 30 countries that participated at this year’s Indaba were from the continent, while SAT targets to double the number next year.
“Our recovery strategy is in full swing, we are no longer in the first phase, and we are in the third phase, which means South Africa is open for business.
“Meetings Africa happened, Indaba happened, we are now going to summer, festive is coming, we are inviting Nigerians to come back to South Africa, airlines are back, South African Airways is about to make a major announcement later in the in the year, a lot of developments are happening in this market and if you are not coming to South Africa I don’t know where else you are going”, he said.
He hopes to re-engage the Nigerian and West African market with the 67 travel agents from Nigeria that participated at Indaba this year through the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA).
“For the first time in the history of Indaba, Nigeria had 67 travel agents, 20 of them were hosted by us, the rest came on their own to visit Indaba.
“They came through our partnership with NANTA to Indaba to make business deals, using the deals they signed up at Indaba to market South Africa for summer. That is the essence of what we have done and we are happy to be associated with them and we are supporting them to promote summer,” Rakolojane concluded.
Among the 100 Top African Brands awarded at the night, Nike, Adidas and Samsung emerged Overall Africa’s Best Brands in the first, second and third positions respectively, While MTN, DStv and Dangote Group emerged Most Admired African Brands in the first, second and third positions respectively.
Dangote Group, MTN, and DStv also emerged as the top three Most Admired African Brands in West Africa.
GTBank, UBA, ECOBank made the Most Admired Finance Brands in West Africa category, while Top Three Brands in Nigeria went to Coca Cola, Apple and MTN. But Dangote Group, MTN and Innoson made the top three Most Admired African Brands in Nigeria, while DStv, CNN and Channels TV made the Most Admired Media Brands in Nigeria.
Giving out the awards to the deserving winners, Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman, Brand Africa, organisers of the award, congratulated all the brands for their creativity and quality that has endeared them to customers, impacting the continent and leveling up to compete globally.
He called for more patronage of African brands as most Africans still patronise more foreign brands than those from within the continent.
