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It is essential for brands to present attractive offerings that will add value to consumers’ experience.

The present market
realities have made brands adopt strategies aimed at engaging consumers
and also building brand loyalty. The lifestyle of the consumer should
be given utmost priority in service delivery.

Brand offerings
should be able to deliver creativity, excitement, and entertainment, as
it fosters physical and emotional connection with the brand. Today’s
consumers are dynamic and vibrant and they want a brand that can fit
into their lifestyle and give them worthwhile experiences.

In fact, consumers
now want to create the brand and own the brand. They want offerings
that meet their desired taste and the brand they can use as a means of
self expression. This supports the “MSP” i.e. Me Selling Proposition
standpoint, which places a renewed focus on the consumer.

This is perhaps the main rationale for DSTV Mobile’s offering of ultimate mobile TV entertainment for the consumer.

When DSTV Mobile
launched months back in the Nigerian market, it was readily accepted
because it represented entertainment, information, and value added
services to consumers. Hitherto, they watched DSTV in the comfort of
their homes, but with DSTV Mobile, television is in their hands. This
is one visible way to build brand loyalty and followership.

A unique selling
point was a free trial for the subscribers, which is key to creating
value. The strategic intention is to align with the needs of the
upwardly mobile and constantly on the go consumers who desire to have
fun and excitement as they move on in their pursuits.

DSTV Mobile is on
both MTN and Glo networks, making it easier for subscribers to have
first hand information and knowledge about happenings around them. This
is a vantage way to connect and build brand loyalty.

Brands remain
vibrant and relevant when they focus on key consumer segments; it has
become imperative to meet the expectations of today’s consumers with
ideas like DSTV Mobile. The consumer culture is rapidly changing and as
a result, brands should adopt strategies to remain relevant.

Brands should also
identify key gaps in the lives of their consumers and bridge these
through innovation and value service. Nigerian consumers have a passion
for football, including foreign football clubs, and this is one area in
which DSTV offers enormous benefits.

Through the mobile
television in their hands, and as long as they are connected to DSTV
Mobile, they cannot miss any of the exciting matches. DSTV Mobile makes
subscribers optimise the quality of their viewing time and also get
premium content and programming on their phones.

Consumers are
attracted to brands that simplify their lives. This is one thing that
DSTV Mobile has done so well. Subscribers will not only be loyal to
such brands, but will ultimately create a community of brand loyalists
by enlisting others to share the same experience. This makes the brand
stand out as one of the very few that matters in the marketplace.

Any brand that keys in to the lifestyle of consumers ultimately creates an enduring experience for them.

With about 70 per
cent of Nigerians falling under the age of 35, the youth of our country
form a sizeable and important voter demographic. Given the right degree
of mobilisation, we can easily become the most powerful voting segment.
But to be powerful, we must all make a conscious decision to unite. The
recent calls for youth focused debates present an opportunity for this
sort of unity.

A number of
electoral advocacy groups have recently sprung up across our country.
From non-profit initiatives to the release of inspirational songs such
as The Future by Nigerian photographer/singer, TY Bello, the clarion
call for youth agency in the April polls is slowly but surely
reverberating across Nigeria.

Following the
footsteps of the recent governorship debates held in Lagos, civic
organisations are also calling for youth focused Presidential debates,
where our nation’s young people can question this year’s candidates on
how they plan to tackle problems facing the youth. These are good
developments.

In past elections,
disillusioned by rigging and voter intimidation, many Nigerian youth
watched the process from the sidelines, allowing the imposition and
selection of candidates that we had little faith in. This year,
Nigerians have been promised a free and fair electoral process and
young people registered in droves. Given the sheer number of registered
youth preparing to cast their votes in April, young people need to be
paid the homage they deserve by this year’s Presidential candidates.

The reason why
Nigerian youth have hitherto not been taken seriously by Presidential
candidates is primarily because we have never come together under a
united front. Unity amplifies voices and gives teeth to demands for
better welfare and accountability. It also connotes seriousness and
commonality of purpose. This year, us young people must come together
and speak with one voice.

Many Nigerians have
wondered if the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia can be
replicated on our soil. The word ‘revolution’ often conjures images of
violence, bloodshed and war. But there can also be ‘mental revolution’.
There is no need for bloodshed if united voices can communicate the
same message effectively to our country’s aspiring leaders.

The mental
revolution we need is one that recognises the power and right of
Nigeria’s young people to make demands. It should also recognise that
for youth to be taken seriously, we must strive to understand and fully
participate in the issues that affect us. In unity, we should then ask
for these issues to be addressed. Most importantly, the mental
revolution should recognise that Nigeria’s youth have the capacity to
be the most talented, creative and entrepreneurial of young people in
the world. Any administration that seeks to diminish this potential
through ill-conceived policies will either be voted out of office-or
not voted into office, in the first place.

The message from
Nigeria’s youth to the 2011 Presidential aspirants is simple: we will
only vote for the candidate(s) who we believe can best tackle the
challenges facing young people.

Nigeria’s youth will only be taken seriously when we recognise the
power of our collective voice. Now is the time to ask our Presidential
candidates what concrete plans of action they have laid out for 70 per
cent of our nation’s population.

Last week, five
children from a family in Imo State lost their lives when their home
went up in flames. This happened after a keg of kerosene bought by the
mother of the house exploded. The woman herself survived, albeit with
severe burns all over her body.

Tragic as this
incident was, the affected family does not hold the dubious distinction
of one with the highest casualty from kerosene-related explosions. Last
month, Hope Adeleke, a policeman serving in Delta State, lost all
members of his family – six children and their mother. The woman and
her children got burnt while she was in the process of refilling a
lantern.

For some months
now, explosions linked to adulterated kerosene have been spreading
death and misery across several states in Nigeria. The epicentre of
this tragedy, however, appears to be Niger Delta states of Edo, Delta
and Rivers. Parts of the southeast have also been affected, as
unscrupulous traders mix chemicals with either diesel or kerosene to
increase their profits from selling the products. Within the past two
months, some 45 cases of kerosene explosions have taken place in Rivers
State, accounting for 15 deaths.

It is no small
irony that the section of the country most affected by this tragedy is
the oil producing part. But that is possibly due to the fact that there
is an abundance of products that could be used to adulterate petroleum
products in the area, as well as the presence of hundreds of illegal
mini refineries. The defence minister recently said the government was
aware of the existence of 300 illegal refineries in the Niger Delta.
The military joint task force has, indeed, been destroying these.

But that has not
done much to prevent families such as Adeleke’s from falling victim of
this macabre trade. It is also glaring that other government
enforcement agencies have gone to sleep over the issue. Instead of
rolling out robust measures to identify and penalise those behind the
criminal activities, agencies such as the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) have
done little other than offer platitudes to Nigerians.

A well-publicised
statement from the NNPC advised Nigerians not to patronise fake
purveyors of adulterated fuel and only buy the products from trusted
sources. Which would have really worked well had the corporation taken
time to explain how to identify these fake purveyors.

An official of the
DPR, who recently took a bunch of journalists to the site of some
illegal refineries operating in Mbiama, Ahoada Local Government of
Rivers State, was also kind enough to advise the reporters that her
organisation has no legal power to prosecute the youth behind the
operation, especially as it was unable to provide the criminals with
any alternative means of livelihood should their petroleum business be
closed down. Now, that certainly takes the cake in official ineptitude.

At other times,
officials of the DPR have blamed fuel tanker drivers who are members of
the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers or private
depot operators. But the import of this blame game is that there is no
government agency actually working to safeguard Nigerians from killer
fuel.

And it isn’t as if this is a recent occurrence.

The Fire Disaster
Prevention and Safety Awareness Association of Nigeria, a
non-governmental organisation that has been working to secure some
relief for victims of kerosene explosions, said a study it conducted in
2002 showed that over 300 lives were lost during an earlier outbreak of
kerosene-related explosions in Edo State and other parts of the
South-South. Many of the victims of the earlier explosion are still
living with the agony and pains of the tragedy. Perhaps our nation has
shrugged off their predicament because most of them are poor and weak.
But, surely, these are the group of people most in need of government
support?

Although elected officials are currently caught up in a frenzy to
convince us to vote for them in April, they should not overlook the
fact that they still have a nation to run. Inability to ensure the
provision of safe kerosene to Nigerians may not seem like an issue
worth focusing on during campaigns. But how many votes can the
politicians hope to get if their supporters loose the all-too-crucial
fingers to fire from kerosene explosions?

My column today
makes what I hope is a non-utopian argument for why social
conservatives are right to welcome the recent evidence that American
teens and 20-somethings are waiting somewhat longer to have sex. And it
pivots, in part, off this post from Dana Goldstein, in which she argues
1) that premarital sex has always been with us, 2) that even if people
are sleeping together more casually than they did generations ago, it’s
just because they’re marrying later, and 3) that anyway, there’s no
need for anyone to feel “anxious about 50-year macro social trends that
have brought about unprecedented gender equality and personal
fulfilment.”

I take up the
first two points in my column, arguing that it makes a huge difference
not only whether people have premarital sex, but how early and how
often and how casually, and that this is what social conservatives
think changed for the worse starting in the 1960s (and has changed for
the better, albeit on the margins, more recently). But I think it’s
worth saying something about the third question, because it’s crucial
to the debate over how we should think about the sexual revolution and
its consequences.

Did the social
trends of the last 50 years bring about “unprecedented gender
equality”? Absolutely. Did they bring about “unprecedented personal
fulfilment”? Well … for some people they did. But it’s very easy to
find indicators that paint a more complicated picture. Female happiness
has dropped since the 1970s, despite enormous female economic gains.
Marital happiness has dipped as well, even though fewer people get
married and it’s easier to leave an unhappy union. And then of course
there’s the impact of higher divorce rates on children’s psychological
well-being, the impact of rising single parenthood on child poverty,
and so forth.

The crucial
question, to my mind, is whether all of the social changes that swept
America in the 1960s and the 1970s are a package deal. Writers like
Goldstein seem convinced that everything goes together – that the
cultural shifts that have made our personal lives more unstable and
(possibly) less fulfilling are inextricably bound to the shifts that
made female equality a possibility, and then more or less a fact. Hence
their reflexive hostility to the idea that anything could have changed
for the worse in American sexual culture: To suggest that the general
welfare might be enhanced if teenage sexual activity were a little more
stigmatized or divorce a little harder to get, in their eyes, is to
implicitly suggest that women belong in kitchens and finishing schools,
rather than boardrooms and the Senate. It’s the slippery slope in
reverse: Many progressives and feminists have committed themselves to
an absolute defence of everything that changed during the sexual
revolution, out of a fear that one concession will cost women every
gain.

Needless to say, I don’t think this is the right way to look at it.
The connection between feminism and sexual permissiveness strikes me as
historically contingent rather than strictly necessary, and the
economic and social gains that women have made since the 1960s seem
robust enough to endure – or, more likely, continue apace – even amid a
reconsideration of some of the social changes that accompanied them.
Yes, an ethic of sexual restraint can be turned to patriarchal ends,
but so can an ethic of sexual permissiveness, as anyone who’s hung out
in a frat house for any length of time can attest. And the fact that
smart feminists like Goldstein feel compelled to act all blasé about
the pornography industry, lest they give an inch to the forces of
reaction, seems like one of the more regrettable aspects of the
contemporary cultural debate.