eBusiness Weekly
Leslie Mupeti
Senditoo is one of the fastest growing startups in Zimbabwe.
The company was started after one of its founders, Takwana Tyaranini lost his job of 15 years as a mental health practitioner in the UK. The company started as an application for sending airtime back home in Zimbabwe. Fast forward to now, the company is offering its services in over 140 countries including 39 in Africa.
They have a network of over 400 mobile operators and an impressive line-up of international investors. The company targets immigrants from countries such as Nigeria, India and of course Zimbabwe- which at one point represented 70 percent of its total transactions. In this article I’m going to be diving deep into the Senditoo brand strategy and why it’s working.
Ingredient One – Simple logo
The main aim of a business is to get recognized and its logo plays a great part in that.
People recognize simple logos better than complicated ones because they use less text and visuals.
A person sitting in a kombi has at most 10 seconds to look at your logo on a billboard. Will they remember it?
Text based logos like the Senditoo logo express the character of a brand through typography, form and color. Text based logos are timeless and independent of the business area.
Why you should consider a text based logo.
a) To emphasize the name of the company. There are no distracting visuals and graphics to divert the audience’s focus. The more people see your name, the sooner they’ll remember it.
This is important for those who enter the market and want to become recognizable. The focus is 100% on the company name.
b) To stand out from the competition. Choosing a symbol can be difficult and challenging task. For example, for a new restaurant (burger icons, hens or snack bars are overused).
A text based identity helps differentiate your company from the competition due to a wide range of colors and fonts.
The logo has a few subtle graphics on it in the form of a smile which is made up of the two “Os” on “Senditoo”.
This creates the impression that once you complete a transaction with the company you will be happy or that the company is happy to do business with you. This represents the smile the company puts on customers’ faces.
Senditoo makes use of a sans serif font which is easy to read on PC, mobile phone even when zoomed in low resolutions.
The logo is stylized in green, orange and sometimes purple. Green is the color which represents growth, nature, renewal and rebirth. Another association of green is “getting the green light”- to go ahead or taking action. It’s a good choice for financial companies since it reminds consumers of money.
Orange is a color which represents joy, warmth, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, determination, heart and health. Orange commands attention without being as overpowering as red. It is more friendly and inviting and less in-your-face. Orange is an inviting and playful color.
Ingredient One – Personal branding
According to Jeff Bezos, a personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
Personal branding is the intentional effort to promote yourself in a way that establishes credibility and builds authority.
There are many examples of people who have successfully used personal branding to grow their businesses. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Richard Branson are some of the most popular examples.
It’s hard to think of Senditoo without thinking about Takwana. Takwana is the face of the company and his personal brand is tied to the company he co-founded.
Takwana usually posts inspirational videos on his facebook, reminding his loyal followers that he came from nothing and that if they believe in themselves they can achieve what he has been able to achieve in his life.
One of his posts’ caption reads, “We come from small towns with sad stories so we never hustle to impress or be in competition with anyone cause all we want is to change our storyline and fight battles our parents never won sahwira.” Takwana has adopted the motivator personality type. He is enthusiastic, cheerful and outgoing.
He typically has a relaxed, casual manner when speaking and he enjoys regularly building new relationships.
Motivators are usually open and easy to approach which rubs well on the Senditoo company giving the impression that the company is easy to do business with.
He brings energy and a sense of fun in any environment he is in which also rubs well on the company making it funny and energetic.
He alternates the inspirational videos with regular light hearted jokes such as : “No man should watch his girl pay for anything woo.
That’s why I wait in the car zvangu,” giving his followers a good laugh.
There is also something about the way Takwana dresses.
He is almost always dressed in a Senditoo t-shirt, colorful African shorts and a pair of Nike Airmaxes. In one of his facebook posts, he joked about how when he started the business he was always dressed in suits because he thought that business was putting on a suit.
The fact that he has a signature dressing style makes him memorable especially since there is no other company executive in Zimbabwe who dresses like that in public.
Takwana dresses a lot like most Silicon Valley tech CEOs who want to be taken seriously for their minds and productivity and not clothing or fashion sense.
But there’s a thin line between not caring about fashion and not caring about yourself. this makes Takwana’s dressing style an art because dressing like you don’t care without actually looking sloppy is in fact an art according to vox.com.
Your clothes and presentation speak volumes about you as a person. It’s more about what you’re communicating intentionally or unintentionally and less about fashion.
One can tell a lot about someone’s personality, politics and age just from looking at their clothing choices.
Leslie Mupeti is a graphic designer and brand strategy expert. He can be contacted on +263 785 324 230 and [email protected] for feedback.
