Rogerwilco 2024 Township Customer Experience (CX) Report

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Now, Roger Wilco has released the 2024 Township Customer Experience Report, offering valuable insights to consumer behavior within South Africa's Township economy. Now, the report examines key factors such as trust, brand discovery, e-commerce adoption and concerns around counterfeit goods. Now, Mongezim Daddy, senior brand strategist at Roger Wilco, joins us on the line to share some insights. Mongez, a very good evening and welcome to

power business. Good evening. Thanks for having me. Mongezi, can you, I guess, start by giving us an overview then of the 2024 Township CX report and what motivated its creation? Absolutely. I think as an overview, we do this year and year. We've been doing this report since 2021.

And the reason we do it is because you want to share insights with marketers with brands about the township markets, but also we also want to understand the township market ourselves as a digital marketing agency so that it informs our own strategies, but also the strategies of brands so that brands don't

get it wrong whenever they get into the township market. And that is basically why we do it. And the biggest thing that comes out of the report this year, I mean, there are a number of things, but the report this year has really themed the township is everywhere. And this really talks to the fact that the township is no longer a place that is geographically isolated outside of urban or financial or commercial centers.

It's really, it influences brands, the community's influence culture, the community's influence all spheres of society. And that's what we are seeing in this year's report, because to your point about having counterfeit brands and goods that are making their way into sponsor shops, we ask communities how they would prefer to verify

the authenticity of a product and whether a product is fit to consume and 80% are telling us that they are ready for digital verification methods, whether that's scanning a car code, whether that is

checking a brand social media account or checking a brand's website to see that what I'm buying at a sponsor shop or at a supermarket is indeed what the brand manufactured and it's fit to consume. So these are some of the things that we investigated just to get a sense of the annual and the only trends that influence what we term the township economy.

All right. And then how then has the focus then of the research evolved since the inception of this report? And what sets this year's findings apart?

So how it's evolved is that we realize that there are certain things that you can track here on here, but things change so much in the time of economy every year that you can't really track the same things all the time. That's the first thing. The other thing is that there's this shift in trust within the time of economy where

For instance, in 2021, we were seeing that the trust in the sponsor shops had declined quite a bit. But the following year in 2022, the trust had increased again. In 2023, people were telling us that they're spending 50% of their income in the township. And this year, the trust has once again declined in the sponsor shop because of what's happening, but also it has increased in favor of the supermarket. But what we're also seeing is that

It's not, we always talk about the small business versus the big business in the township market, but what we are seeing and what's standing up for us is that this is an ecosystem, an ecosystem where the small business that operates sometimes has a symbiotic relationship with the big business or the supermarket that operates in the same space because it helps to lift

the economy and that's I suppose why I would refer to it as an economy because it's an ecosystem of businesses that serve the township customer and I think the biggest thing is that we also ask people how they discover brands in the township market and overwhelmingly of course word of mouth is one of those things but TV is still very significant and

the talk about the death of TV is something that keeps coming up among marketers, but actually TV is still very significant. And we are realizing that TV is no longer a thing that you sit on a couch and watch, but TV has become increasingly digital. So this sort of merge between what's digital and what's terrestrial in terms of

You know, media consumption is becoming blurred more and more. Very interesting, you know that. But you know, Mongezi, given then the declining trust, why do you think it's important then for brands to have a deeper understanding of the township economy and what roles does this report play in facilitating that understanding?

I think the biggest reason to do so is because the township residents, we polled over 1,600 township residents in all nine provinces. And what they are telling us is that they buy brands or they buy from brands who understand them.

So the reason this report is significant and the reason that the brand needs to understand the township market is because people want to be understood. People value customer experience, not just customer service, but they value the end to end experience of a brand, the end to end experience of

what you market to me, if I'm in Santa and I want the same experience, the same great experience when I'm in Timbi South, I care home. So it's basically these kinds of things. And that's why it's important for brands, because we sometimes brands and marketers

Outside of the township, wanting to do things with the town market without really being on the ground to understand how their products are used and consumed all the time. For instance, there's a way in pay model that is rising in the township market where people are buying a single teabag, people are buying one egg.

to go cook, people are buying one nappy to go use at home. So it's all of these dynamics that make the township very unique. And again, I'm very, I'm very careful to say the township because no two townships are the same. No two communities are the same. It varies from township to townships. And it's also very important for brands to understand those dynamics as they enter

These townships are where their product is no longer sold in a supermarket, but it's sold in a sponsorship where it's weighed and paid for by someone who trusts the sponsorship owner. Yeah. And I guess I'm curious to know then from you, what role does education play in helping consumers differentiate between counterfeit and authentic goods? And how can brands contribute to this effort?

I'm careful to say education because in some instances a counterfeit product is as good as the real thing. And sometimes the idea of

fake is something that one person chooses as being, you know, their theme of choice, right? So I'm very careful to talk about education, but what I can say is that brands need to have digital verification methods that enable the consumer who buys at a sponsor shop to quickly

Um, snap the QR code, um, check the brand and, and compare it with something that they've seen before, something that they can go into a Facebook or whatever to just see that. Okay. This is the real thing. This, um, you know, this logo looks like the real logo and this expiry date looks like the real thing because.

It's really about brand safety that brands need to be careful of. Education plays a very important role, but sometimes the counterfeit thing is as good as the real thing.

I want to dive into the report because e-commerce adoption in townships has grown significantly with 40% of respondents shopping online in 2024. What factors have driven this growth and what more can brands do to accelerate adoption? One of the biggest things that we are seeing across the board is a goal in threat of trust.

So there has been an increase in trust in the platforms that people shop from is the first one. The second is the growth in connectivity to the home in townships. So it's no longer a thing of I have to buy data on my phone to shop. I can shop because I have Wi-Fi at home. And that contributes quite a lot in this space. And that's one of the things that we are seeing.

and brands can really make themselves more visible in these spaces. One of the things I'll go to that I mentioned in the report is that if I'm in what's considered an upmarket part of town, brands target me on social media and other platforms that they are marketing. But the moment I get away from that, from these upmarket parts of town, I'm in a township and I'm now relaxed in a space where I can now shop

I seem to have fallen off the radar to the very same brands that were targeting me. So they don't see me when I'm in a township, but they see me when I'm in an upmarket part of town. But to this point that the township is everywhere, it just means that understand the consumer and be useful to the consumer wherever they are. And that's how bands can help to drive it.

And I guess, you know, just finally then the report mentioning the township culture transcends then geographic boundaries, how can brands ensure then authentic representation of this culture in their messaging without resorting to stereotypes? I think one of the biggest things is

research number one, you know, research the community be part of the culture. So one of the biggest things that when we were launching today, our panelists were saying is brands tend to parachute themselves into a township and parachute themselves out of the township in very many ways. And that is

precisely what they shouldn't be doing. They should try to get into the culture, be part of the culture, and really embed themselves for the long term, rather than, you know, a once-off campaign to, you know, to sell me a bag of rice or maze me or whatever the case is. You need to be there.

as part of the culture, because if you're there as part of the culture, then you realize what the stereotypes are, and you communicate at the level of people, and you improve that customer experience, which is a golden thread that township residents are telling us is very important to them. All right. I guess on that note, we'll leave it there, Mongezi. Thank you so much for your time this evening. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

All right, fantastic. That was at mongazim.de, a senior brand strategist at Roger Wilco taking us through their 2024 Township Customer Experience Report. You've been listening to Power 98.7 podcasts. For more podcasts, visit Power 987.co.za or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.