Positioning Safaricom’s Innovation Center and Flagship Product Bonga

Company Description

As a company with over 35.6 million customers and the inventor of a globally renowned money transfer platform, innovation is deeply embedded in Safaricom’s business model, thus the need for great product positioning. The Safaricom Innovation Team (Safaricom Alpha) was tasked with creating new and innovative solutions to help drive key business objectives and solve pressing problems in the society. As the communication Lead at the Innovation department, I  was responsible in positioning Safaricom’s innovation center and flagship product Bonga:

• Putting together compelling messaging to drive product growth
• Going deep into  the product and engage with customers in new, creative ways
• Develop strategies for both customer acquisition and retention
• Research the market to understand competitive and market dynamics, and use that understanding to guide all other teams

The Problem

M-PESA had become synonymous with Safaricom, a Kenyan innovation that makes it easier for people to send and receive money as well as make payments. However the M-PESA experience was really fragmented with consumers being exposed to different experiences in a way that either delayed or reduced the number of transactions being made per customer in a day. Safaricom was seeking to consolidate the M-PESA experience by merging two of the most heavily used services within the network through the ‘Bonga App’ i.e messaging/chatting and making transactions. This was to make M-PESA more of a social platform rather than just a transaction platform

The Solution

As the Communications Lead in the Innovation department working at the intersection of product, sales, research, engineering, customer success and marketing enabled me to see how placing a nimble team in front of a complex problem and providing them the resources they need produces winning results that greatly impact the business and the customers. I saw how working with entrepreneurs and other local and global partners to invest in disruptive technologies in e-commerce, health, education, startup scene and other consumer facing applications was beneficial to the overall business objectives of Safaricom. Our teams aspired to make discoveries that impacted everyone and create next-generation technologies that push the limits. These solutions had to be well positioned and scaled into different markets/customer segments in positioning Safaricom’s innovation center and flagship product Bonga and my communications role was to support the product team, engineers, researchers, data analytics and Q.A deliver this seamlessly.

Key Outcomes

• Developed a clear product voice for Safaricom Alpha’s flagship product ‘Bonga’ to existing and new customer segments increasing overall product growth.
• Built an active user base of more than 30,000+ people in less than 6 months for Bonga through excellent user engagement, strategic partnerships, event marketing and narrative design.
• Successfully led release marketing and product launch activities to increase adoption and engagement post launch.

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