The Honorable Deputy Minister for Communications

The Director General of the NCA

Tigo Management, staff and customers

The Media

All protocol observed

• It’s a pleasure to have you all here tonight, thank you for being part of this exciting night.

 

• To begin, I want all of us to take a little trip down memory lane to 20 years ago.

 

• Do you remember the first time you saw a mobile phone?

 

• How did it look like? (pause)

 

• Big, bulky and heavy, right?

 

• I have even heard they were jokingly referred to as ‘bars of soap’.

 

• In those days, the only thing you could do with those phones were make calls. You couldn’t even send a text message – something we all easily take for granted today.

 

• Fast forward today, our world full of smartphones, high speed internet, social media, apps and all sorts of technological advancements.

 

• According to the experts, the future for digital technology looks like a never-ending airplane runway with technology travelling faster and faster. While our world has always experienced change, the rate of change is speeding up.

 

• Tonight, we’re here to celebrate how our brand, Tigo, has kept pace with all these changes over the past 24 years, since we launched as Mobitel in 1992 with a little over 27,000 subscribers.

 

• I’m sure we all remember the timeless phrase, “megyina abonten na mekasa”.

 

• In 2003, we rebranded Mobitel to Buzz and moved from analogue to GSM. To reflect the standard brand name across all our operations, we became Tigo in 2006.

 

• From ‘Express Yourself’ to “Smile, you’ve Tigo”, a lot has taken place in our business.

 

• Since I joined Tigo in April 2014, the company has been on a remarkable transformational journey to become the brand of choice for digital users in Ghana.

 

• To achieve this, we have done a complete overhaul of our business model, focusing on building a business with a long term strategy and some quick wins.

 

• To be able to get where we are today, we had to invest millions of cedis in building a stable and reliable network. Our network availability has improved from 88 to 99 percent within 1 year.

 

• We have completely changed our product portfolios – we introduced new products for today’s digital savvy customer and have sanitised and simplified all our products and services.

 

• On the customer front we have improved our service levels from 11 to 78 percent in 1 year and customer satisfaction has improved from 38 to 64 percent within the same period.

 

• Today our brand is loved by many.

 

• We look and feel different from what we used to be. For starters you may have noticed the shift in our advertising to include emotion and humour. Our colours are no longer red, green, yellow and blue. We are royal blue with crisp white.

 

• Now more than ever, we are perceived to be a very exciting brand.

 

• We have the attention of all industry players and Ghanaians because we have become smarter in the way we do business, and are attractive to top professionals, investors, partners, suppliers and most importantly to customers.

 

• As Ghana’s first mobile network operator, we remain committed to staying on the cutting edge of technology, bringing firsts that empower every Ghanaian to do more with digital technology. It’s something we call the ‘digital lifestyle agenda’

 

• Statistics show that 90 percent of all adults have their mobile phones within arm’s reach every hour of every day. There are 6.8 billion people on the planet and 4 billion of them use a mobile phone, but only 3.5 billion of them use a toothbrush.

 

• In today’s world where everything is becoming electronically connected: products, people, companies, countries and more, the only way forward for Tigo is to empower businesses and customers, especially the youth, to improve their lives by using technology to their advantage.

 

• A lifestyle, driven by mobile and digital technology is where the future is, and that’s where the new Tigo is as well.

 

• Our new tagline “Live it. Love it” isn’t just advertising slogan – it’s a new approach and a new direction for us. The tagline reflects our ambition to improve internet penetration in the country, and to make the internet, and all the amazing features it comes with, a way of life for Ghanaians.

 

• We want every Ghanaian to live the best possible life, and love every single moment of it, because of the power of digital technology.

 

• Today we have a much healthier business growing on revenue.

 

• I would like to specially thank to our customers for being loyal; Tigo staff for your hard work and dedication over the past 2 years to get us this far, and the government and our regulatory partners for providing a conducive environment for us to do business.

 

• Ladies and gentlemen, our brand transformation represents where we are today and our vision for the future.

 

• Live it! Love it!

 

• Thank you.