interview
MutiChoice has entered into strategic partnership with Konga Pay, an online shopping outlet. In this interview with Kasie Abone, MultiChoice’s Marketing Manager, Mrs. Chioma Afe said the collaboration is aimed at providing alternative convenient payment options to meet subscribers’ needs. Excerpts:
May we meet you?
My name is Chioma Afe. I am the marketing Manager of MultiChoice. I handle Brand Strategy, marketing execution for GOTv and DSTv brands.
What is Konga/MultiChoice partnership all about?
Konga is an online retail store; one of the leading ones in Nigeria. MultiChoice is the leader in video entertainment. Part of what we try to do is bring convenience to our subscribers in terms of payment and a lot of people now are going mobile; they are going online to make payments; to keep in touch with what is happening out there. And so what Konga and MultiChoice have come together to do is also to enlarge MultiChoice payment platform through Konga Pay where you should be able to pay for your subscriptions through Konga Online store.
How convenient is Konga Pay?
I think it is actually very convenient. Over time Konga has been able to simplify their payment processes; they have made it very convenient for their customers. So I believe they would apply the same method, the same thinking to Multi Choice customers who I think are also regular shoppers who also want to pay for their subscriptions. I envisage it is going to be quite simple.
Specific benefits to subscribers in semi-urban and rural areas
If you look at the number of customers Konga speaks to, they speak to a broad demographic audience. They speak to a wide audience across Nigeria. They deliver pan Nigeria which means they have customers in most remote locations which sometimes you may not find MultiChiice dealer easily. Banks are every where but what we have done with Konga is to say this is another opportunity, another avenue and as they are widespread we want to be everywhere because that is our mission and vision; to provide video entertainment services across the country. So, this gives us another opportunity.
Duration of the partnership
For as long as possible. We have been working with other payment platforms for a long time now; Konga is here to stay. MultiChoice is here to stay. So, I think this continues.
Communicating the service to the semi-urban dwellers and areas with limited internet service
For those ones, beyond the online platform, this is just one of the payment platforms. In big cities, semi-urban areas, you can have some locals that may use this platform. On internet connectivity it is not everywhere yet but for GOTv for instance, we have GOTV recharge cards sold by banks, canvversers and umbrella points in the villages you find on the roads.
We try to distribute those recharge cards and so we encourage our subscriber s because recharge cards are something we know that has penetrated as low as possible demographic wise. And people know that they scratch, they load, they dial or SMS or whatever to a short code, they are able to get their systems active again. I think something like the recharge cards is a way of reaching the less urban areas.
What is new for MultiChoice Subscribers this season?
At the middle of November we launched two promotions for the festive season, the GOTv and we also launched on DSTV. DSTV we call it DSTV Upgrade Season because we envisage that because it is getting to thirteenth month in terms of salaries and people get a bit more money; people have families coming home, they are willing to spend a bit more money. So, we put on our decoder that if you are buying our Zappa decoder which is our baseline high definition decoder, that plus the dish plus one month of family subscription o family bouquet you pay N15, 000 (fifteen thousand Naira) to upgrade you to the next higher level. That is our offer to you. We discounted the cost of the bouquet and the bundle together and we upgrade you to the Compact package. And we are running the ‘Spin The Wheel’ promo. And when you buy, you don’t just get a discount and upgraded you can go online to play the ‘Spin The Wheel’.
You can see our roving activation team going around and you can try to ‘Spin The Wheel’ with them. For GoTv we have a bundle offer for three months plus the box and antennae for N6, 900 (six thousand nine hundred Naira). So you have three months subscription which covers you until February 2016. And you also have the box and decoder bundles together and there is still also a raffle draw you can participate in. we have weekly winners.
Right now what we have done is to shift out some of those materials like rice oil, small generator; items we feel people will appreciate in this season to or various regional offices and they are doing road shows and going to markets. As you pay, as you renew, as you buy your box you can try the raffle draw and you can win something as well for new and existing subscribers who renew their subscription. Same thing with DSTV, if you renew your subscription you will be qualified to ‘Spin The Wheel’ as well.
Repeating movies on African Magic, don’t you think it is a reap off on subscribers?
I don’t think so and I will explain. Over the years African Magic is about twelve years or so old. When we started we had one or two channels. We have grown to eight channels. And what we have done is that we have these channels spread across various bouquets. We did have this complaints some years back on Yoruba and a few other channels when they said we needed more current movies, we needed more movies. Now the first thing I knew that African Magic has done is that they invested even more. I think now every year they buy between seven to ten thousand titles locally. For our Nollywood producers just to refresh it. But you also have to bear in mind that in as much as we are buying the content they are producing you can’t have fresh content every hour on the hour. You know how broadcast programmes go.
What I know is that people get to watch a certain sets of our programmes in the morning and you and I that are on the road or at work in the morning and when we return in the evening unfortunately your child or mother or nanny who was at home in the morning has watched that movie in the morning but you haven’t watched it, and you come in the evening you catch it. So what we try to do is put it that way so that everybody gets to watch the sets of the movies that we have.
And we do this quite often in African Magic. When we started I think we were buying like about one or two thousand titles every year. But right now I have it on record that we are buying over five thousand titles every year and we do plan on increasing that. And we have other platforms like the box office where we buyer even fresher Nollywood movies as they come out. For instance there is a movie of South African that came out this year (2015), Genevieve movie that just came out; something that will go on box office first; we envisage that when she gets out of cinemas and she goes on pay TV.
So there are new ones that are coming; Obi Emelonye’s movie that has premiered; we are partnering with him on it. Our plan is that when he is out of box office and h is on cinema he will be on Pay TV. Because there is a sequence on how these movies come through to Pay TV or our regular platform. So it is a continuous process of improvement and I do know that we have done a lot better from the time people complained that we are not doing enough or we are not fresh enough.
Do you believe that Multi Choice is doing enough for their subscribers to be happy?
I believe that we are human beings and that there is always an opportunity to do more that is why we have this partnership with Konga; we are doing a promo now. If I feel we have done enough as a business we won’t be doing a promo now. We felt we haven’t done enough for our subscribers this year. No; not all.
On Compact Plus for instance not all the live matches were available to Compact Plus subscribers complained at the middle of the year May/June (2015). What we have done now is to open up all football matches to Compact Plus subscribers in recognition of the challenges people are facing now. What we are saying is that “We hear you. We are ready to open our system through the season to end of May 2016. If they have access to all live matches that is our way of saying we hear you, we are trying to do more.
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