by Lucas Togan

Even when his popularity grew, Etisalat failed to capitalize on the developing brand and kept his terms and conditions unchanged.

“Is this not that Etisalat guy”, I asked my colleague as I picked up the daily on her desk. It had a spread of SAKA (the Etisalat funny man) wearing yellow and above it was an MTN caption. I immediately thought to myself, “Chei, these people and their love for money sha”.

I gave the matter no further thoughts till this evening when my wife broached the topic again (This was after NEPA had graciously delivered a very high voltage to my flat that blew my decoder – preventing me from watching the football game – and inadvertently made me available for a chat with my wife). This began a series of analysis and counter analysis of his reasons for moving. As neither of us had any facts, we just conjured theory upon theory of why, how and when he must have made his move. In the end it was agreed that his contract must have allowed the move in some form.

Just before I succumbed to sleep, I ran into an article online “WHO REALLY PORTED SAKA?” This is where I finally got the juice of the matter. As it turned out, SAKA had been contracted as a regular ad model for Etisalat and was treated as such. Even when his popularity grew, Etisalat failed to capitalize on the developing brand and kept his terms and conditions unchanged. This is where the brilliance of the MTN group hit me. They had recognized the best way to communicate their message of the new number portability service being rolled out by the NCC. By porting SAKA from Etisalat, they have not only humanised the number porting idea but they have also acquired for themselves a popular brand ambassador. Needless to say that MTN has tied the knot, well well, with this one and no other operator can use the same idea again.

If there’s anyone reading this in Nigeria who’s wondering what porting means just ask them to see how seamlessly SAKA changed from Etisalat to MTN without changing his name, it is with such ease that you can now change your network operator without changing your mobile telephone number.

Me sef go soon port. Ini mini manimo…

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.