Gilbert Ekwugbe writes that the MTN-UduX streaming partnership boosts Davido and alerts new route for tech OG
For readers under a sure age, the time period “BOGOF” in all probability evokes solely clean stares. Ask anybody born earlier than the mid-Nineties what that time period means nonetheless, and their eyes will gentle up as they recall a once-in-a-lifetime promotional marketing campaign within the early 2000s when GSM know-how was nonetheless thrilling and new in Nigeria. MTN had taken what seemed like an enormous danger on the time to supply a free SIM card with each new SIM card buy, therefore the promotional time period ‘Purchase One Get One Free’ (BOGOF). The danger paid off spectacularly and the remainder is historical past. If the BOGOF marketing campaign now looks as if a very long time in the past, that’s in all probability as a result of within the 20 odd intervening years since then, every thing has modified.
That was a time when trendy Nigerian music was in its embryonic section and the idea of widespread web entry on low-cost smartphones in Nigeria was totally hypothetical. Again then, the boy who would sometime change into the pop megastar Davido, was a spotty preteen who in all probability didn’t realise how huge a future he had forward of him. 20 years and a number of hit data afterward March 5, 2022 at London’s O2 Area, Davido had one of many largest nights of that future on the launch live performance for his newest album “We Rise by Lifting Others.” Aside from the star-studded artist roster that included Yung Bleu, Patoranking, Mayorkun, Reekado Banks, Adekunle Gold, Zlatan, Teni, Tion Wayne, Pop Caan, Skibii and Ckay, the sheer dimension of the live performance was emphasised by the huge variety of folks throughout Africa who streamed it reside. This unprecedented attain was the results of MTN’s partnership with the livestreaming app uduX, which had the unique licence to stream the occasion. Launched in 2020, this partnership showcases a brand new frontier of MTN’s evolution from telecoms firm to a “digital-first” firm.
MTN and Leisure: An Interlinked Progress Story
At each level over the 20-year love story between MTN and the Nigerian leisure trade, the established order has all the time seemed everlasting and unchanging to many. On the daybreak of the GSM revolution, when the backbones of MTN’s providing have been name and SMS companies, few believed that the corporate’s interplay with leisure might ever transcend sponsoring a couple of reveals. When the push towards cellular Web took off within the late 2000s, fewer nonetheless believed that anybody in Nigeria would ever be capable of make web entry and pricing accessible sufficient to disrupt the “purchase my (hopefully non-pirated) CD for N100 and possibly come to my present” enterprise mannequin of Nigerian music on the time.
Between 2010 and 2020, web entry, web enabled units and information packages turned ubiquitous throughout Nigeria, due in no small half to MTN’s protection and pricing selections because the undisputed market chief. As soon as the first problem of fundamental telephony and no less than 3G web entry had been solved, the alternatives for the music and leisure trade inside this new internet-first panorama rapidly started to emerge. Out went the ever present CD pockets and disc participant, to get replaced by first mp3 information, after which by music and video streaming cellular apps. From virtually zero as at 2002, the NCC put Nigeria’s whole variety of cellular web customers in 2021 at over 101 million – a humongous market alternative for internet-first leisure codecs if there ever was one.
With this explosion in Nigerian and African utilization of streaming companies got here a much-needed second wind for the enterprise of music and leisure in Nigeria. Along with headline sponsorship of music platforms akin to Challenge Fame and several other standalone concert events and reveals, MTN’s largest success in selling leisure has been to offer the inexpensive net infrastructure that’s creating new ecosystems to assist and promote artists and creators each day. Musicians, comedians, net content material creators, dancers, actors – everybody within the African leisure ecosystem – have benefited from aggregating audiences and revenues. And that is the place the uduX partnership referenced on the outset makes an attention-grabbing entry into the story.
uduX Partnership and MTN’s New Frontier
Just lately, MTN unveiled its new brand and company identification as a part of its acknowledged mission to rebrand itself as a “digital-first” firm. The transfer was broadly anticipated as a result of as is well-known in company circles, a enterprise that’s not always innovating and shifting ahead is in reality shifting backward by default. In an African market the place it has already achieved near-universal voice, textual content and Web protection, what else is left to overcome in these areas? Retaining a singular give attention to preventing battles which have already been gained has by no means been MTN’s fashion in any case. For an organization that has publicly acknowledged that it goals to steer Africa’s progress right into a digital future, the rebrand is precisely what to anticipate.
Commenting on the partnership, Adia Sowho, the Chief Advertising Officer MTN, mentioned, “MTN understands that to actually unlock the total advantages and potential of the digital world, folks require a mix of progressive pondering and the appropriate instruments. MTN goals to drive a optimistic shift in Africa and harness the continent’s boundless alternative, and finally in delivering its imaginative and prescient, MTN seems to drive progress additional by way of motion and doing. Our dedication is to constantly evolve and discover modern initiatives that present worth to all our stakeholders.”
The partnership with uduX, which introduced Davido’s O2 live performance to a livestreaming world viewers is a cornerstone instance of the corporate’s new route. Recognising that its preliminary mission of fixing phone connectivity and web entry challenges throughout Africa has been concluded, MTN’s new focus is to leverage on the infrastructure it has constructed to launch and assist new platforms and industries within the digital area as a part of Ambition 2025. Below the partnership, MTN subscribers get entry to discounted information packages for accessing content material and streaming limitless music on the uduX app. Because of this African pop stars like Davido and Wizkid can now attain hundreds of thousands of their followers with actual time reside performances that they may not in any other case have been in a position to afford. This improves fan engagement and creates new alternatives for future artist revenue streams.
Talking on the launch of the partnership in December 2020, the previous MTN Nigeria Chief Digital Officer, Srinivas Rao mentioned, “Our younger prospects are obsessed with music. That’s the reason we’ve constantly supported the event of the native music trade. We’ve partnered with uduX as a result of we consider of their capability to ship high-quality, curated music from world wide, and contribute immensely to the continued development of the music trade in Nigeria. “[…]This partnership reaffirms our dedication to supporting the expansion of indigenous firms and content material by way of lively collaboration.”
When he made these feedback little over a 12 months in the past, it might need appeared but once more, that MTN was setting its sights on a goal that nobody else might see or discovered achievable. As soon as once more because it was within the 2000s, 2010s and at Wizkid’s reside streamed “Made in Lagos” present in November 2021, the aim was achieved quietly and with minimal fuss. Or maybe, not so quietly, as Davido’s followers throughout Africa watched him shut down London’s O2 Area.