Hauwa X Chicken Republic X Chowdeck

Marketing is an aspect of business that is either done intentionally or unintentionally, especially if it is on social media. Why do you think brands are setting up social media accounts? and spending so much to show up in your face? They want to sell whatever they are offering to you and the wise ones know how best to persuade you to part with your money legally.

Like the Chicken Republic. Fun fact, it's been a while since I bought food from Chicken Republic on Chowdeck but this refuel meal slash drew me back in. So I think I'm one of the many people who contributed to the success of this campaign. What's the campaign?

Na Hauwa start am.

I was in the middle of work one Wednesday when I decided to get some distractions and I found myself staying glued to my phone screen to hear what Hauwa has to say in her video this time around because she always has something interesting and intelligent to say.

To my dismay, she was calling out Chicken Republic to reduce the price of their refuel pack to #1,000 as opposed to #2,000 due to the ongoing inflation in the country. ????

When I saw that she included that she was going to pay for 100 people, I chuckled because right there, I knew it was an ad. Not like she couldn't afford it on her own, but as a creator, for you to mention the name of a brand with your full chest and also include that you will pay for 100, it's either you were paid to do it or you will be paid for it.

By the way, I'm Hauwa's fan. I love her courage to spew out the crazy thoughts in her head on social media unlike some of us who would rather laugh at those thoughts in our head while having a shower or doing whatever we enjoy doing. ????

Back to the conversation, after watching the video, I did 2 things:

1. I checked the comments and quotes to see that people were tagging Chicken Republic and I just moved on.
2. I decided to check how much it was on Chowdeck and saw that it was about #2,000.

Meanwhile, Chicken Rep had gone ahead to tag Chowdeck in a bid to convince Chowdeck to slash the price.

Some hours later, I had totally forgotten about this episode and was on my way home from the office only to find a freshly printed billboard on Osborne and that was when it dawned on me that it was indeed a marketing campaign. Now, this marketing campaign was a hit from my perspective. Why?

1. The brand(s) went for an influencer whose content appeals to their target audience - young people who could afford a 1k meal.
2. The influencer is also notorious for her witty ability and creative prowess which made the campaign look more like a regular video she would make than a paid ad. (I do not have evidence that confirms if it's a paid ad or not)
3. They made sure that the people who needed the product saw the campaign. For example, a few weeks back, while preparing to write an edition of this newsletter I did a survey on a popular neobank and discovered that the majority of the users who took this survey had no idea that some features exist on the app which is a no-no for me.

The people you're creating, iterating, and implementing should know about what you're doing. Your campaign or product feature update is only successful to the degree to which your users know and use them.

Customers are not magicians so there's no way they would know that refuel is now 1k on Chowdeck if they did not see it on major billboards at strategic locations. The keyword: Strategic

4. They had the whole campaign figured out or so it seemed. Most likely, they had the billboards printed the day(s) before the campaign was launched. Judging by the sleek billboard designs and installations.

5. If there's anyone who has never had a chicken rep meal, this would drive their curiousity to find out why is there so much noise about this brand and their meal.

Influencer marketing is sweet but it becomes sweeter

• when it contributes to your ROI or your business goal that season.
• when the influencer's audience is your target audience.
• when your audience can afford what you're selling to them

Finally, as someone on Twitter mentioned, "This is what happens when you don't give an influencer a script and you allow them to be themselves" (can't remember who said this). I also have this notion that templates will do more harm than good by making sure that we are confined to a box with zero concern about the impact or results of tasks and activities.

I leave you with this quote, “People Do Not Buy Goods And Services. They Buy Relations, Stories, And Magic.” — Seth Godin

Thank you for reading to this point. If you enjoyed reading and you find this insightful, please like or react to this episode and share it with someone who might need this.