Building Bridges for Creative MSMEs Through Strategic Branding
Case Highlights
Client: NIPBD
Department: Capacity Building
Themes: Entrepreneurial skills, Branding
Service: Innovation Sprint
Industry: Culture and Creative Industries
The Challenge
MSMEs need support to build strong brand presence and bridge gaps in branding knowledge for impactful representation at CANEX Summit. The challenge lies in equipping them with the tools to create, sustain, and communicate their brand effectively on a larger stage.
The Approach
Turipamwe’s two-day workshop for NIPDB Technovation Social combined branding knowledge and one-on-one coaching. Day 1 focused on customer needs, while Day 2 refined Unique Value Propositions, fostering innovative ideas and strong brand strategies.
The Result
The workshops enabled 12 CCI participants to represent Namibia at Creative Africa Nexus 2023, highlighting their talent and industry potential.
The NIPDB Technovation Social is a biannual event established by the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) in support of the Culture and Creative Industries (CCI). Through its mandate to ‘unlock opportunities, enabling a better quality of life for all Namibians’, the NIPDB facilitates the initiative in order to coordinate efforts to enable sustainable enterprise development and market access opportunities for the talented Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) within the CCI.
Talented and scalable 12 participants were selected for this program from a total of 70 MSMEs who applied. They were afforded the opportunity to attend one of Africa’s largest CCI platforms, the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) Summit at the Inter-Africa Trade Fair (IATF). CANEX Summit is the biggest gathering of creatives on the continent. It brings together the diaspora to showcase, exhibit, and network with policymakers, prominent investors, financiers, thought leaders and other creative sector practitioners, featuring top brands, artists, musicians, producers, and distributors.
The Challenge
Whilst the MSMEs show incredible business potential, they also require adequate assistance in establishing a strong brand presence on a larger scale at the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) Summit at the Inter-Africa Trade Fair (IATF). This shows that there is a lack of knowledge about the elements that are essential to create, maintain and communicate a brand with impact.
The Approach
The brief was two-fold:
1. Build knowledge of branding and 2. Coaching one-on-one
Turipamwe offered the NIPDB Technovation Social a two-day Co-Creation workshop that answered the brief by facilitating a holistic and purposeful experience in Brand Development. Using the design thinking methodology, we exposed the participants to a new approach to developing and maintaining a concrete strategy to new or updated versions of their brands.
Day 1 concentrated on defining the primary customer and understanding their needs, laying the groundwork for branding.
Day 2 then shifted to refining the Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and evaluating existing solutions. By connecting customer insights from Day 1 with the UVP exercise on Day 2, the approach aimed to inspire innovative ideas and fortify participants' business concepts, setting the stage for a robust brand promise.
The Results
The outcomes of the workshops were notable, as the 12 participants exclusively from the Creative and Culture industry represented Namibia in the prestigious Creative Africa Nexus 2023 event. The rigorous selection process and exclusive focus on CCI businesses underscore the success of the workshops in attracting and nurturing promising talents within the industry.