TIA: Liberia

Innovative Mobile Marketing

Everyone has a cell phone in Liberia, but there has been little in the way of differentiation among providers.  We use Cellcom, which is the slightly more expensive provider that most Liberians would say has more exciting marketing.  I think I remember seeing somewhere that Cellcom has about 41% market-share versus LoneStar’s 48%.  Most of both companies customers are very much at the bottom of the pyramid, often living on less than a dollar a day and maintaining little loyalty to their cellular providers.  If people have money to buy minutes (called “scratch cards” here), they do but it may be weeks or months before they top off their minutes.

In a very interesting departure from Cellcom’s typical win a car or a house promotions, the company has announced they are launching “Free Mobile Life Insurance.” All you have to do is name a beneficiary when registering your plan, buy at least $5 per month in scratch cards, and have some “peace of mind” knowing your family and friends will be covered with up to $10,000 USD in life insurance benefits.

This strikes me as pure genius — life insurance is not otherwise readily available and people are constantly asking for money to bury loved ones. Cellcom has tremendous potential to create brand loyalty with this initiative.

As if that we’re enough, earlier in the week Cellcom announced a new strategic partnership with Google (likely connected in some way to the State Department’s Women’s Technology Delegation that visited Liberia earlier this year).  Cellcom customers will be able to use Gmail’s SMS Chat feature, which I can only imagine is going to be a big hit (http://allafrica.com/stories/201107290704.html).

It’s really exciting to see some local attempts at mobile innovation at the bottom of the pyramid.  If these initiatives are handled well, Cellcom is going to make a fascinating case study one of these days.