Branded by Africa

“If [Africa] had positive brands, which create a positive image of the continent, we’d be spending less on debt, keeping money in the continent,” says branding and marketing guru Thebe Ikalafeng as we chat in his Bryanston boardroom at Brand Leadership, a company he founded to promote the continent’s brand and agenda. 

He makes an intriguing connection between brands and the contribution they make to a country’s economic welfare. 

Anyone meeting Ikalafeng cannot miss his infectious enthusiasm. But nothing fires him up like talking about African brands and the contribution they can make to raising the continent’s image and prosperity. 

I ask Ikalafeng, who confesses to having “incredible over-confidence”, about his transition from being a successful corporate marketing executive (including at Colgate-Palmolive and Nike) to a relentless advocate of brand Africa.

He readily agrees that, while being the face of Nike, his personal identity was intertwined with that of the sporting brand. “How you saw me in corporate was a reflection of what it took to credibly be in corporate those days, which represented a certain image. I projected how a successful person looks in corporate.  

“But then I started to worry that I was seen as ‘Thebe from Nike’. When I left Nike I was concerned about being reduced to a company or a piece of cloth. I still have an incredible collection of suits, shoes, ties of whatever international brand you can think of. I hardly ever wear suits now.” Today he’s dressed simply in dark pants and an Afro shirt. In place of the fresh-faced look of his younger days there’s a fuller, grizzly visage. 

It turns out the sartorial change was preceded by a profound, transformative shift in Ikalafeng’s worldview. His ideology, if you like.

I don’t want to preach buying African brands and arrive in Giorgio Armani. My actions must be aligned with my words and my physical look.

—  Thebe Ikalafeng

“I wanted to focus more on thought leadership. As I got into thought leadership I began to ask myself why we are not celebrating African brands — realising there were no great African brands I’d heard of.” 

The 2010 soccer World Cup provided the great spur for Ikalafeng, who formed Brand Africa as a non-profit outfit two years earlier. After the tournament, he established the Brand Africa Forum, which brought in people from Kenya, Ghana, Malawi — a mixture of corporate and marketing people. The purpose was “to leverage off the goodwill of the World Cup, to build an African narrative of a capable — not corrupt — continent, a creative, not diseased, one”. 

“I realised that this continent would like to get together and talk. One of the most important quotes was from Jay Naidoo (then minister without portfolio), who said America has an agenda for Africa, China has an agenda for Africa, Europe has an agenda for Africa. But Africa has no agenda for Africa. I then said we need an agenda for Africa,” says Ikalafeng. 

He started by launching Brand Africa 100 — Africa’s Best Brands, as an annual metric to measure how Africans perceived African brands. It has been coming out for the last 14 years. 

“In the initial omnibus study, we asked: what’s your most admired brand? Only 33 of 100 brands that Africans admired were made in Africa, including MTN, Dangote. And over a 10 year average only 20% of brands that Africans admired were made in Africa. Which meant that Africans were rejecting anything made in Africa. 

“It bothered me because a country’s brands become a factor of its image. We know the US through its brands. If there was no McDonald’s, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, MTV and Facebook we wouldn’t know America as well as we do. The picture they painted for us is that the US is a land of opportunity, the entrepreneurial capital of the world. 

“Even before the [Donald] Trumps of this world there were only two things distinguishing brand America — slavery, to which was linked the civil rights movement, and the brands. The brands are what they exported, how they built America,” says Ikalafeng.  

“In 1933 the US congress decided to enact the Buy American Act, which directed that government procurement constitutes a minimum of 50% of things made in America, including American labour and materials. [Joe] Biden came in 2021 and upped that to 65%. What that did was to build the strength of the US.  

“We, on the other hand, borrow everything from outside. We are dependent on trillions of dollars in aid which has only created dependency, including on the World Bank, IMF and the likes.” 

Ikalafeng says research has shown that Africa’s negative brand image entails a punishing cost. “Because of that image, (based on corruption, poverty, crime) we are paying much higher interest rates on our sovereign debt. If we had positive brands, which create a positive image of the continent, we’d spend less on debt — keeping money on the continent, creating our own industries, creating our own jobs and funding our own development agenda. 

“At the moment we are at the mercy of many ‘benevolent’ programmes, like Agoa — where others say ‘we’ll open up our markets for you to bring in a little bit of your produce, but you must open your markets wide open for us’. We have high unemployment among young people. We have instability, rising crime, corruption caused by aid and debt as well as a negative perception of the continent.” 

He added that in South Africa the private sector drives 87% of the country’s image and value, the public sector just 13%. “This means if we can fuel entrepreneurship, build industries, fuel the private sector and have good governance, we’ll be able to rescue this country and this continent from dependency.”

He’s sceptical of grand pronouncements by continental leadership. “The AU in 2013 came up with what they call the new vision for Africa, where they said we want to create a prosperous, peaceful and integrated continent. There was nothing new about that because if you go to 1963, May 24, when Kwame Nkrumah and 32 other leaders got together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, they had a blueprint for Africa which spoke of a common passport for Africa, a common currency and defence system.  

“Vision 2063 is kicking the can so far into the future that by the time the future arrives all of us will be dead.” 

In his view, “the private sector is that young guy called Bathu, called Drip, Maxhosa, creating African brands. It’s your Dangote, Safaricom, Ethiopian Airways, all brands run and led by entrepreneurs.” 

“If we can create made-in-Africa brands, we are able to move goods across the continent made here and retain money on the continent — and fund our own development agenda. That’s what I’m about, what drives me every day.  I’m not a politician; I’m not an NGO to drive an aid agenda, I’m not the private sector. But I can use my brand expertise to drive a brand-led African renaissance.” 

Ikalafeng has travelled the continent more than most people, having visited all 54 countries. His experiences are detailed in his latest book, The Traveller – Crossing. Borders and Connecting Africa. He embarked on the quest after meeting an east Asian electronics company executive who had done the same to achieve his company’s dominance in Africa. 

“At that point I’d been to 15 or so countries. I decided to go on the road because I wanted to see Africa not through a South African lens but truly through an African one. When I go to these countries, I always leave South Africa at the airport and keep an open mind. I take the countries as they are — to be able to speak with authority, credibility and authenticity about them. I ate what they ate, lived where they lived, dressed how they dressed and shopped where they shopped. 

“In the process I began to discard the Western way of how to present myself. I now only wear African-inspired clothes — because we are significant people and our culture is significant. I wear that when it’s formal and important. When it’s insignificant and everyday I wear Western.   

“That’s important because how you present yourself, what you are selling, how you say it must be aligned. I don’t want to preach buying African brands and arrive in Giorgio Armani. My actions must be aligned with my words and my physical look. I have no problems with Western brands. I just want African brands to give Western brands a fair fight. The more our entrepreneurs see those of us who are ‘influential’ walk the talk, the more confidence it gives them to do more of what they make.”

Does he have a favourite country? “I’ve no favourite country because every country has its own magic and a different impact on you. When I got to Ethiopia I understood what identity means — on language, food, dress, religion. They constitute a singular identity. They are incredibly spiritual. I like that about Ethiopia — other than the fact that in 1896, led by Emperor Menelik II, they resisted colonisation by Italy. Every time I go there it emphasises to me that we can be our own people, proud of our culture and identity, and we don’t have to succumb to anyone.  

“Every time I go to Liberia I love the purity… I like the idea that in effect it’s the one country, established by freed and rebellious slaves, that was never colonised. 

“In Nigeria I like the self-confidence of the people. In Ghana and Morocco there’s a strong culture. Botswana is a very strong country. I like that re Batswana ro rotlhe (we are all Batswana) and everyone speaks Setswana. There’s no issue of translating conversations for a white person. It’s a country that has never sought a bail-out or loan from the IMF or World Bank.” 

And his African heroes? “They are as diverse as the purposefulness of (Ghana’s founding president) Kwame Nkrumah in propagating Pan Africanism, the clarity of Thabo Mbeki in his commitment to an African Renaissance and the selflessness of (late Zambian president) Kenneth Kaunda.” 

Ikalafeng, a graduate of Wits University and Marquette University in the US, sits on the council of the Sol Plaatje University among his many leadership hats, and reflects with mixed emotions on his birthplace of Galeshewe, Kimberley. It “is a very sad microcosm of the challenges South Africa faces. Rampant alcoholism, youth unemployment, no jobs, no industry, still hot as hell”. “It represents pretty much the narrative of South Africa today, where blacks are mainly consumers, rather than the producers.” 

And yet, he says: “Kimberley is a foundation of who I am. Our number plate was CC (we called it the city of civilization). I grew up with that narrative… of having the first trams, the first street lights, the diamond rush… we viewed it as the catalyst of South Africa’s success.”