This webinar is generously sponsored by Babble viewing facility, West Midlands, winner of the MRS Operations Awards Best Viewing Facility – Experience & Impact
As part of our international research webinar series, we are now proud to introduce three ICG members who’ll give us some cultural insight, do’s and don’ts of doing research, and some great anecdotes, about doing research in Africa.
Our Speakers
Emil Brune, African Grey
30+ years’ experience of growing brands
I’ve been immersed in the world of brands and consumers for 30+ years now. My experience is multifaceted having worked for advertising agencies, brand companies and consultancies. I have extensive global research experience and am equally confident with quant and qual methodologies.
My primary interest has always been to use research as a tool to enable better decision-making, selecting the best methodologies to achieve project objectives. My guiding philosophy is to ‘Get thinking straight before moving to action’. Often, this involves protecting shareholder value by culling poor ideas. Clients compliment me on my ability to get teams to grasp the practical implications from research.
In my previous corporate life at Diageo, I led global thinking on consumer segmentation, portfolio planning, opportunity identification and consumer / shopper trends. I also led their African research teams, which enabled me to build connections and friendships across the continent. I spent the majority of 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after Diageo asked me to go back to Africa to help build capability across their marketing, insights and innovation teams.
I founded African Grey in 2016, having long been frustrated by agencies who charged exorbitant prices, delivered poor quality research and had a lack of empathy for African consumers. The aim was that African Grey would help teams get closer to their target consumers in Africa and hence make better decisions.
Emil’s sector experience includes: APPAREL Sporting and Outdoor AUTOMATIVE Cars, Fuel, Tyres BEAUTY Cosmetics, Skincare DRINKS Beer, Bitters, Cocoa, Malt, CSDs, Energy, RTDs, Spirits ENERGY Solar FINANCIAL Banking, Insurance, Pensions, Investments, Neobanking, Cryptocurrency, Buy Now Pay Later FMCG Dairy Products, Lab-grown meat, Oral Care, Pilchards, Plant-based Products, Tobacco ONLINE Social Media, Search PROPERTY Commercial Retail Ikea, John Lewis SOCIAL Clean Cooking TECH Mobile Networks, SIM Cards, SAAS.
Emil holds an MBA degree from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and a Sloan Masters degree in Leadership and Strategy from London Business School.
Andrew Onyeagbaku, Mojo Africa
Andrew has 2 decades of experience working in brand consultancy having started his career in Japan and then moved to London where he worked at Flamingo and then Clear before dedicating his focus to the African continent. He is multilingual speaking, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, English and Igbo, which helps when clients from that region look to enter African markets. He runs two companies, Mojo Africa and Kimoyo Insights.
Mojo was founded in 2015 and is a strategic African Cultural Insights Consultancy. Using a plethora of innovative & proprietary investigative means we help clients better understand African markets so they can successfully create better products, services, and marketing strategies attuned to those markets.
We are a diverse group of African aficionados living in and engaging exclusively with the continent and its diaspora 24/7 to offer unparalleled cultural insights and innovation inspiration to help clients take advantage of the opportunities in Africa, one of the fastest growing regions in the world.
We work with multidisciplinary teams, and with people from various African backgrounds to help crack each challenge. Our approach is collaborative with our clients but we are not afraid to challenge and lead where we feel this will lead to stronger and more enduring project outcomes.
We conduct market research qualitatively and quantitatively. We conduct cultural and semiotic analysis of African markets to give clients a culturally informed competitive edge when engaging with local consumers. We guide clients through innovation processes to help them create new products, brands and services.
Some of the industries we have worked in include: automotive, education, non-profit organisations, agritech, bigtech, fintech, edtech, healthtech (social) media, gaming, FMCG, Alcohol, oil & gas, alternative energy, etc
We’ve worked on projects looking at the semiotics of the dairy category in Nigeria, helping clients understand the meaning and relevance of magic in order to inform advertisement. We’ve created video consumer personas for consumers in East, West, NOrth and South Africa for a leading alcohol brand and we’ve helped the Migration Policy institute understand challenges for African economic migrants following the correct proceeds to being able to effectively make remittance to and from Africa.
Kimoyo, was founded in 2020 and also focussed on the African continent. Kimoyo leverages its huge consumer database and AI analytics platform to deliver rapid ‘autopilot’ insights to clients across the globe helping R&D, Innovation and strategy teams make informed decisions about pricing, purchasing and new innovations.
Sharon Matike, Afrique Monitor
An astute Africa business consultant and market researcher with a keen commitment to helping clients navigate complex business environments by providing strategic insights, inputs, and recommendations.
Sharon works to provide on the ground information, comprehensive data,reports, insights and analysis, contact and client tracing for organisations interested in doing business in Africa.
Her company Afrique Monitor based in Cameroon with footprints in over 35 unique African markets provides services such as market entry research, data collection, quality and quantitatively product research, corporate investigations and africa business consulting.
Sharon works with a number of multinational businesses on their Africa strategy and is an associate of Anteris management consultancy based in the UK.