(HERALD) SUNDAY MAIL EDITORIAL COMMENT: Let’s promote our local brands

SUNDAY MAIL EDITORIAL COMMENT: Let’s promote our local brands
Sunday, 17 July 2011 00:27 Opinion

Mazoe orange drink, one of the most successful local brands.

SINCE the gazetting of Statutory Instrument 8 of 2009, which essentially allowed the wholesale importation of basic commodities to plug the shortages on the local market, local goods have generally played second fiddle, especially against products imported from South Africa.

Local consumers generally seem to favour the imported goods, maybe justifiably so because most commodities offered from across the border have been tried and tested for both quality and durability. So powerful has been the “Proudly South Africa” label that some local groups will go to any lengths to be identified with it.

This is the power of branding. However, branding is meaningless unless consumers know that they can truly trust the brand and proudly identify with it. Therefore, for Zimbabwe, the “Buy Zimbabwe Campaign’’ is a good platform to strengthen and promote local products, first locally and then regionally and internationally.

The campaign has emerged as a valid initiative that will hopefully correct the anomaly which has seen more consumers opting to be identified more with foreign than local brands.

For Zimbabwean goods to find a place on the global marketplace, they must first make a mark locally.

What seems to lend credence to the initiative is that it has been born out of a lot of introspection, especially after the formation of the inclusive Government in February 2009.

A recent study conducted by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe indicated that 90 percent of local consumers preferred goods that are of good quality and are also durable irrespective of their origin.

The same number also noted that, all other things being equal, they preferred local to foreign goods. This is a good starting point for local manufacturers.

And with the Buy Zimbabwe initiative — which has pledged to provide a platform where all local goods would be rigorously tested, qualitatively branded and marketed under an insignia to be used to penetrate regional and international markets — then good local brands should be able to make their mark on the global market.

Over the years, Zimbabwe has seen some of its brands like Mazoe orange crush, Econet Wireless and Tanganda tea penetrate the international market. More local brands are capable of doing the same with the necessary support.

Therefore for the Buy Zimbabwe campaign to succeed, it needs to be properly resourced and supported by all players, critically the triad of Government, business and consumers.

Of note is that the South African government, through the department of trade and industry, provided 50 percent of the funds that were needed to drive the “Proudly South African” campaign.

On the overall, at least R60 million or US$8,5 million (at that time) was dedicated to the growth of the campaign which aimed to change the perception that overseas brands were better than home-grown brands.

Therefore it is also crucial in Zimbabwe that every key member plays their part to ensure that the local initiative becomes a success.
Government, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, the Standards Association of Zimbabwe, business and consumers must play their part to ensure that these efforts succeed.

It is in everyone’s interest really.

Emerging economies such as China have for long been using this principle in order to ensure that they promoted domestic-led growth.

Today, Tsingtao Brewery is the biggest in China and has managed to eclipse foreign breweries simply because the Chinese know that there are positive spin-offs in promoting their own brands, which of course are rigorously tested for quality.

The time for Zimbabwe is therefore now. As the country emerges from the decade-old recession, it needs to assert itself and re-establish its dominance locally and regionally.

This is the only way to reverse the de-industrialisation process.