Mdundo ad tool ‘lifting’ brands in Africa

The company, which revealed it had hit 20.3m monthly active users (MAUs) in June, said the highest performing campaign reached an overall brand lift of 85%. 

“We have increased the average brand uplift for our advertising clients by an average of 8%, with the most noticeable impact towards the end of the customer decision making process, impacting consideration, favourability and purchase intent by an average of 10%,” Mdundo’s head of brand partnerships, Rachel Karanu, said.

“It is extremely satisfying to know that the return on investment for our clients is directly related to our campaigns driving impact in addition to incremental reach across all key markets.” 

The best performing campaigns in the past 12 months were Kenya Cane with an average uplift of 85%. The Best Awareness campaign was for SportPesa Tanzania with 65%, while Guinness Smooth had the highest performing Consideration campaign with 191% growth. Castle Lite Tanzania had the highest impact on Favourability with 114% growth, whereas Captain Morgan was at 101% in terms of the highest Purchase Intent.

Saracen Media’s digital lead for East Africa, Ryan Majiwa, said: “The Mdundo platform offers our clients high quality reach in the mass market audience that is hard to reach as effectively for the cost through other marketing channels. In addition, their Brand Lift tool provides us partners with insights into the behaviour of our target customers, both on and off the platform because of how closely their audience mirrors the actual market allowing for effective campaigns.”

Mdundo says it aims to provide Africa with easy and legal access to online entertainment by delivering locally relevant content, formats and channels. It also seeks to drive value per user through premium products and telecommunication partnerships.

Its music service is primarily used by a mass market audience with limited access to streaming services and social media apps. The music is free of charge but the customer is exposed to advertising.

The company has also reported that its user base in Kenya grew to 2.8 million MAUs this year, a 110% increase from June 2020, making Mdundo one of the leading online services in the country with 12% of Kenya’s 23 million internet customers using the service every month. The company says it aims to amass 25 million monthly users by June 2023 and 50 million by June 2025.

Nigeria is Mdundo’s biggest market with 4.9 million monthly users, followed by South Africa (3.7 million) and Tanzania (2.4 million). It also has strong user bases in Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, the DRC, Zambia, Sudan, South Sudan, Cameroon, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Malawi.