Women of Rubies
Category

womenofrubies

Category
In self development By

TALE ALIMI: 5 MARKETING LESSONS FROM NOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS

2016 will be remembered as the year of Nollywood blockbuster movies.

As the year was rounding off, we were inundated with the promotion of various new movies, most of which had great reviews from TIFF (Toronto international film festival).

I was spoiled for choice trying to decide which ones I was going to watch, but I finally settled on a few good ones and I must say; they were worth the time and money spent.

While I was giving them kudos for putting out good production, I was not paying attention to the effect it was having on the economy until the beginning of this year.

A few days into the New Year, myself and a business partner were analysing the 2016 economic performance and expectedly, most key sectors had a decline in growth due to the recession, but the tourism and entertainment sector experienced growth mostly fuelled by the growth in activities in Nollywood.

Last week, one of those movies shattered the current Guinness book of record for highest earning film in West Africa with revenues of almost half a billion naira in a country that is supposed to be in a recession!

I immediately put my business strategist hat on to glean marketing lessons from these blockbuster movies that businesses can apply to grow their revenues.

Lesson 1: Mass appeal
These movies had an appeal that cut across social, religious or gender class. They were mostly easy to watch, relatable and connected with current cultural nuances. Even the movies that were based on historical events created enough nostalgia that made you feel like you were relieving the past.

When you position your product or service to appeal to as many people as possible in your selected market space, you are going to sell more or reach more people and in turn earn more revenue.

Lesson 2: Inclusive campaign
In this age of social media, it is very easy to carry your customers and fans along, as you create anticipation for your products or services. Some of these movies carried fans along by showing behind-the-scene pictures, videos and even involving them as the script and characters developed.

By the time the movies came out, the fans appetite have been whet consistently, that they were ready to run to the cinemas to watch them.
When you are creating your products or services, you can leverage on instant feedback from your prospective clients or fans to ensure that you are creating something they will buy.

Lesson 3: Influence marketing
Meet and greet with celebrities during movie premiers and launches have become commonplace. Most of the cast of these movies were present in various cinemas to meet with their fans, and fans were willing to go to the cinemas several times to meet with them.

The use of influence marketing has become quite popular, as you see major brands signing up celebrities as brand ambassadors.

I quite like the idea of the celebrities leveraging their influence to mobilize their fans to see their movies and take selfies with them. Small business have to also begin to find ways to leverage influence marketing to drive revenues.

Lesson 4: Community mobilization
People were encouraged to see the movies over and over again with their family member, friends, colleagues etc. I heard some stories of people who went to see a particular movie 5 times!

Using social and peer influence to mobilize people is one of the most effective ways to market products and services and it is quite popular among network marketing companies.

You can create a marketing campaign that encourages your customers to carry their friends and colleagues along and you will have a marketing team without the payroll!

Lesson 5: Sweeten the deal
Isn’t it amazing that you could watch a movie that cost you under five thousand naira (refreshments included) and stand a chance to win a phone, car or even a trip abroad? Movie promoters have become apt at sweetening the deal for movie goers.

Even though just a hand full of people will eventually win, but it gives people something to look forward to beyond just watching a movie, because you could get over 10 times or 100 times the value of your investment  – if you win in the raffle draw.

These five lessons are not exhaustive, but I believe you can draw some inspiration from them as you create your future marketing campaign.

If you want to get specific strategies and tactics you can leverage to drive your marketing activities and increase your revenues, then my upcoming Marketing master class will benefit you. You can learn more about it and register here.

Tale Alimi

About Tale Alimi

‘Tale is an Entrepreneurial thought leader, foremost Business expert, coach& strategist with an expertise in guiding business owners and professionals to up-level their business and revenues. She is on a mission to help people find their niche and stop the struggle in starting and growing a business which she personally experienced in starting and struggling in several businesses before she finally began to achieve success. She has a Masters in Business Administration from Lagos business school, a certificate in personal coaching from the coaching academy UK and is currently the Lead coach/CEO at Tale Alimi Global( talealimi.com.com). Get daily business inspiration when you follow her on twitter (http://twitter.com/talealimi) and Instagram(https://www.instagram.com/talealimi).

by
Keep Reading
In Interviews&profile By

#INTERVIEW| ”THE ONLY THING LIMITING YOU IS YOURSELF” -CHIOMA MADUEKE, CO-FOUNDER, ZIDORA AID FOUNDATION

Chioma Madueke is a Geophysics graduate, a serial entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. She runs Zidora Consults; a travel and tour company, and Zidora Real Estate; a real Estate company. She is quite passionate about putting smiles on faces of the less privileged, and making the society a better place. She co-founded Zidora Aid Foundation; a not-for-profit Non-Governmental charity organisation borne out of the need to help alleviate the suffering of  Nigerians and by extension , the world.

 

Childhood

I will say in a way it did because I grew up with a strong mother figure and I got my first love for business , entrepreneurship and charity work from my mom. My father is also an entrepreneur and a businessman , I believe I got my sense of accountability and my flair for figures from him.

 

Meet Me
My name is Mrs. Chioma Madueke , I am a Wife ,mother and a serial entrepreneur. I run a travel and tour company that assists people to get visas and book flight tickets :Zidora Consults, a real Estate company ; Zidora Real Estate , and I am also a Co-founder of a charity organisation ; Zidora Aid Foundation. I was born in Calabar , I studied applied Geophysics at the University level, I am a moralist by principle , I am passionate about God , family ,business and the society.

Zidora Aid Foundation
Zidora Aid Foundation ZAF , is a not-for-profit Non-Governmental charity organisation borne out of the need to do our bit to alleviate the suffering of my fellow Nigerians and by extension , the world. We seek to empower women , educate children and better society. We do these through sustainable programs like the EDUCATION 2020 project and the Zidora Infant Nutrition programs designed to empower , educate and subsequently eradicate suffering and poverty. We also distribute relief materials , food materials and study material to all who need it , we provide legal and medical aid , as well as financial empowerment programs .

 

Motivation
I will say I am motivated by “people” , I am very interested in human beings ,from the mallam selling biscuits and sweets out of a kiosk to the market woman , to the CEO of a fortune 500 company , I am interested in people , their thought process , their dreams , fears, hopes, the relationships they form, what makes them tick basically.

 

Greatest reward
I think the greatest reward is that feeling of satisfaction that I am doing exactly what I was called to do. When I first graduated and started my various businesses , I was caught up in the rat race of trying to make money and more money…But as I grew and evolved , I began to be affected by the stories I heard , the suffering of people which I encountered and I realised there is more to life than the next big business or investment , I sought out ways to help someone other than myself hence Zidora Aid Foundation.

Challenges
I think the foremost challenge as a woman is the work-family balance. I believe this is a challenge faced by women all over the world but we are able to achieve all we achieve even while doing family duties because us women are blessed with the power to multi-task. Another challenge is the Nigerian factor , some imposters who approach zidora aid foundation seeking for assistance when they really do not need it but as an organisation , we have ways of verifying claims and this has helped us.

 

Projects and activities
Zidora Aid Foundation spearheads the EDUCATION2020 project ; a project designed to wipe out illiteracy in rural communities by the year 2020.At ZAF , we believe the best way to wipe out illiteracy is through education. Hence , ZAF through the Education2020 preoject is building schools , distributing books , school uniforms and other study materials to students aged 2 to 18 years in rural communities. We are also committed to enrolling students who can’t afford JAMB /WAEC registration fees as well as awarding scholarships to outstanding students and organising extra lessons for students who aren’t doing well in their studies. This is a project very dear to my heart.
I am also organising a forum for Women in Real Estate ,encouraging women to take charge of their finances , their future and make wise real estate investments.

 

On giving up
Yes , sure . There have been points in business when I felt like throwing in the towel but I am well aware that so long as you keep keeping on ,persistent and consistent ,then you haven’t failed just yet but the moment you quit , then have you failed. When I first got into the travel industry , there were so many challenges but we were able to build Zidora Consults to what is it today ; a company that a very high success rate with various country’s visas, exceeds our set targets and goals and does work we are proud of.

I am a Woman of Rubies
I am a Woman of Rubies , because I am diligent in my work , mindful of my household and doing my bit to better the society. It may not be possible to have it all at once but I believe we should at least attempt to have a balanced life. I am a product of my experiences and the lessons life has taught me , I am wiser and stronger than I used to be , I have a solid foundation and I pray daily for wisdom to handle challenges life throws at me.

 

Final Words To Women
Women are the most fantastic species God created , we are blessed with so much skill set and wisdom and it is possible to achieve just as much as the men folk if not more. God has blessed you with a far superior brain and a fantastic skill set which if well utilised , will change the world. The only thing limiting you is yourself ,whatever a man can achieve , you can do too and surpass. As women , we are the bedrock of society , the anchor that holds it all together. Together , we are greater than the sum of our individual parts, let us shun the stereotypes and uplift each other because together , we will achieve more than we can achieve individually.

by
Keep Reading
In Interviews&profile By

WHEN I FOUND OUT AT 14 THAT I WAS HIV POSITIVE, I DIDN’T THINK I WOULD LIVE TO SEE 18,I AM TURNING 22 THIS YEAR – SAIDY BROWN, ACTIVIST & HIVICTOR

Since Saidy Brown tweeted about her status, thousands of people all over the world have re-shared her hopeful message, with many praising her courage for speaking publicly about her own experience with the virus.

Activist Saidy, who describes herself as an HIVictor in her Twitter bio, has been speaking to the BBC about the extraordinary reaction to her post, why it took so long for her to be diagnosed and how she is turning a predicament to a cause.

Meet Saidy

I am a 21 year old girl from a small township in the North West called Itsoseng,I am a sister,a daughter a niece and an HIVictor.

Finding out

When I was 14, I went to a youth day event to represent my school. At the event there were people who do HIV tests, counselling and everything else.

“When we got there, they asked us if we would like to test. I was one of the people who got tested. That’s how I found out.

“I was shocked, I was in denial, I couldn’t believe it. I was only 14 at the time so I was like: ‘How? I’m only 14… I haven’t done anything. How?’

“But when I got home and told my aunt and she was the one who told me that no, I’d actually been born with it. My parents had died from Aids-related diseases, which I had never known.

“My mum passed away when I was 10, my dad when I was nine.”

Living with HIV

I initially wanted to cry, but I couldn’t because I knew that if I cried, everyone else would know before I even tell them, so I just kept it to myself. I was confused though, I mean, I was 14,I could not understand how I could possibly have HIV. “I have not necessarily been discriminated against. I can say that I was discriminating against my own self, from around 14 until I was 18, because I didn’t want to talk about it. Only my family knew; no-one else. Once I reached 18 I decided to start disclosing. It’s been better and wiser. “Where I come from [Itsoseng, a small town in South Africa’s North West Province], I’m the first person to ever come forward and talk openly this way about my status. “But the response and the support is there because whether it’s me or someone else, the reality is that people are living with HIV, whether we talk about it or not.” “

Viral tweet that got people’s attention all over the world

I feel happy at the fact that people saw that tweet and they were interacting, meaning we were talking about a subject that is deemed “unspoken”, so I was happy. I’ve always disclosed my status. I started disclosing it when I was 18. I usually use Facebook to talk to people about HIV and Aids,” she says. “But I’ve been having this urgent feeling to post it on Twitter, so it wouldn’t be just limited to my Facebook friends. I needed the world to get into conversations about this virus.”

Love life

“I’m in a relationship currently. It’s very amazing because usually I disclose right at the beginning of the relationship. “So once the person decides that they want to stay with me then it’s all good, but if they decide to leave, it’s still fine.

“I won’t hate them because people still have their own issues regarding HIV. I don’t really blame the person who says: ‘No I can’t stay with you because you’re HIV-positive’. I’ve had someone say that to me in the past. It hurt a lot. But after a while they came back and apologised. We’re on speaking terms now, it’s fine. I’ve forgiven them.”

What Inspires Me

I am inspired by my courage to live despite everything bad that comes my way, my fighting spirit.

Turning my Predicament to Passion

I knew that pity was only gonna kill me. I wanted to speak up for my parents as well, because I feel like had they been more accepting, they probably would still be here.

Scared of death?

Yes, I have been through stages where I genuinely thought I was going to die at some point, as I stated in that tweet,  never expected to even see my 18th birthday.

Staying healthy

“I’m really not a person who is more conscious about what I eat, but I make sure that I take my pills at the right time every night. I don’t skip them.

Connecting with other “HIVictors”

Currently, I just connect to most people through social media, it has been a great help in me getting my story across. Having people tell me that I gave them a new meaning to life, that my story encouraged them not to give up, especially my fellow HIVictors, is a reward for me.

HIVictors who inspire me

I love Criselda Dudumashe, I also love my big sister and mentor Lebogang Brenda Motsumi. They give me all the hope in the world.

My strength and fighting spirit makes me a Woman of Rubies

The fact that I don’t let my conditions define me. That I fight for healing and once I have healed,I fight to heal everyone else in the similar situation.

Message to women living with HIV

I need for them to understand that the past can never be changed, but we can control our futures… we are not victims, we are HIVictors.

by
Keep Reading
In self development By

AKUDO ABENOGWE-ADEBAYO: ON CRUMBLING MARRIAGES…DON’T LIVE A LIE

Marriages are falling apart and that is no news. What is news is the way and manner at which the institution is breaking. Our forefathers clearly understood the purposes of marriage and placed optimum values on the marriage institution. These days, however, people have little or no respect for marriages.

I think people are more in love with the idea of getting married than the married life itself, and I stand to be corrected. Do you know the level of planning, excitement etc that women especially put into their wedding? The hair must be right, the makeup great, the outfits perfect, the venue wonderful, the food and drinks amazing, the music and entertainment outstanding. In fact, everything must be perfect. However, little or no plan is put into the marriage on how to face the expected challenges that comes with it. What often happens is that after the glitz of the ceremony, the day breaks and the challenges comes, you see the couple falter and give up even without trying.

Truth is, marriage is as hard as life. Life is hard, but you see us trying to survive and conquer all odds to be successful in life. But we hardly make such efforts to survive our marriages and conquer all odds to be successful at it. We give up and use every available excuses to defend ourselves. I will try to analyse the various angles to the recent breakup of the marriages of Tonto Dikeh and Ubi Franklyn, the best way I can, bearing in mind that there are three sides to a story, your side, my side and the truth.

Ubi Franklyn fell out with his acclaimed girlfriend Emma Nyra and went public with gory details about her, painting her black and him white. In the same process, he got engaged to Lilian Esoro and they went ahead and got married. Lilian Esoro was matured enough not to speak about Ubi and Emma Nyra’s controversy, but she married him because they were in love right? After their grand wedding, Lilian and Ubi would put up happy pictures and cryptic words showing them living their lives on social media. Meanwhile, there were were already cracks in the wall, and it finally happened few months after the birth of their son.
Lilian walked out of the marriage citing almost the same issues that Emma Nyra claimed she went through in her relationship with Ubi.
My question is, why make so much effort to show a façade on social media when it’s not the reality of that marriage?

Now, Tonto Dikeh got married to Olakunle Churchhill in a secret wedding that shocked everyone. While I gave kudos to her for managing to keep her relationship out of the public until they wedded, I was mostly impressed that she seemed to have turned a new leaf. What with all the inspirational and almost spiritual messages she would often post on her wall, her fans were ecstatic for her. I got a bit worried when she would post every little thing about her marriage on social media. She would write epistles on special occasions and eulogise her husband, calling him all sorts of nomenclatures and praising God for giving her such a loving husband. I felt that all was not well, and that it was a desperate attempt to cover up something and create a different picture from reality.

And suddenly the cookie crumbled, now Tonto is singing a different song. There has been accusations and counter accusations from both parties, the husband whom Tonto used to paint as a demi-god has now become the devil himself. The most funny of them all is Tonto’s recent claims that she lied on social media to paint her husband in a good light. That is absurd because we didn’t ask you if your husband was a saint or not, we didn’t even need to know if he was the perfect husband or not period!

A lot of responsibility of the marriage is placed on women, especially christians. This is because we are homemakers, we are builders, we are shapers. Remember that the Holy book says ‘whoever finds a wife finds a good thing’. It didn’t say a woman will find a husband. It is the man that will find a wife, and she will be a good thing to him.

Make no mistake ladies, we have roles to play in our men’s lives. We have the power and ability to build, shape and make our homes into what we want it to be. We shouldn’t give up on them just because there are issues, rather we should help them get the help they need as the case may be and if that doesn’t work we would know we tried our best.
Don’t waste so much energy displaying perfection on social media, and to the world… instead of building your home. It should be the other way round. Ask God for the ability to forgive all wrongs, conquer every challenge and survive the odds in marriage. Don’t live a lie; if your spouse sees your effort in making the marriage work, he/she will join you and you will both make sacrifices for the good of the home.

My 2 cents, see you next week.

Akudo Abengowe-Adebayo is a multiple award winner, with over 8 years in the media industry. She also hosts (Love Moments With Akudo) and is CEO of SATT Media, a content and media marketing company. She blogs at Akudosworld.
She is married with two adorable kids and loves Jesus with all her being. She is a TV addict, loves dancing and traveling, and a lil gossip now and then. Follow her on twitter@akudoabengowe or instagram@akuabengo

http://akudosworld.blogspot.com.ng/

About Akudo Abengowe-Adebayo

by
Keep Reading
In fashion&style By

FIVE NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES GIVING US SERIOUS NATURAL HAIR GOALS

The journey to having and maintaining a healthy, long, and full natural hair is not an easy one and if you are not a patient person, it can be quite frustrating. Doing the ‘Big Chop’ takes a lot of courage and determination, most especially for people that don’t really fancy low-cut. But hey, the whole natural hair must-do routine which includes weekly or bi-weekly shampooing, conditioning, deep conditioning, protein conditioning, GHE, pre-pooing, daily-spritzing, wearing a satin bonnet/sleeping on a silk or satin pillowcase, etc, will be worth it in the long run…only if you exercise patience.

Let’s check out photos of five Nigerian celebrities that are really inspiring and giving us serious natural hair goals!

OMONI OBOLI

 

ADESUA ETOMI

 

 

BEVERLY NAYA

 

 

DI’JA

 

 

NSE IKPE ETIM

by
Keep Reading
In Career Gems By

HARVARD FOUNDATION HONOURS RIHANNA AS HUMANITARIAN OF THE YEAR

Rihanna received the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year Award at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre yesterday, on February 28, 2017, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rihanna was honoured because of her work in her native island of Barbados and the charities she has founded over the years, the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations.



During the ceremony, Rihanna thanked the university for the honor and delivered an inspiring speech.

by
Keep Reading
In Interviews&profile By

MEET  FLORENCE ADEPOJU, THE WOMAN  WHO LAUNCHED AN INTERNATIONAL COSMETICS RANGE FROM HER PARENT’S GARDEN SHED

Florence Adepoju worked on make-up counter in Lakeside Shopping Mall in Essex, when she was just 17 and studying for her A-levels at sixth-form college.

She noticed the lack of make-up suited to darker skin tones, so she decided to start her own makeup line one day.

She later studied Cosmetic Science at the London College of Fashion, where she did her dissertation on how colour affects different people’s perception of lipsticks.

As part of her dissertation, Florence put together a business plan and social media campaign. This eventually helped her to apply for a business grant from the college, which she used to set up a business.

She launched MDMflow, a lipstick line of bold, bright, highly pigmented colours designed to suit black women.

MDMFlow takes its inspiration from the mid-nineties to early-Noughties hiphop videos that Florence grew up with, and features a range of lipsticks in richly pigmented shades of black, blue, orange and pink.

Florence’s lipstick line which started producing from her parents’ garden shed is now being stocked in Topshop.

In an interview with FEMAIL she says:

‘I was struck by the lack of choice there was for women with darker skin,’

‘Brands would bring out limited-edition capsule collections, but none of the make-up would suit me; the foundation wouldn’t be dark enough or the lipstick wouldn’t be bright enough. I always found it disappointing.’

‘I worked at Space NK throughout university, and people were always requesting shades like blue, but there weren’t many on the market,’ Florence said.

‘They’d see people like Rihanna wearing crazy colours and they’d want to copy her.’

 

by
Keep Reading
In Career Gems By

VIOLA DAVIS BARES IT ALL , TALKS ABOUT GROWING UP IN POVERTY ON THE NEW ISSUE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S

Beautiful Oscar winner Viola Davis is the cover star for People Magazine‘s latest issue.

In the magazine, the actress opens up and talks about the struggles of growing up in poverty and how her talent propelled her to success later in life.

Read excerpts from the interview below

On Growing Up in Poverty

I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me. We had nothing, I cannot believe my life, I just can’t, I’m so blessed. I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry, I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it.

It became a motivation as opposed to something else — the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don’t see you, I chose from a very young age that I didn’t want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it. A yard, a house, great plumbing, a full refrigerator, things that people take for granted, I don’t.

On deciding to become an actress

I first envisioned myself as an actor after I watched Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman when I was a child.

It wasn’t until then that I had a visual manifestation of the target I wanted to hit, It also gave me hope for the future and a different life for myself, she helped me have a very specific drive of how I was going to crawl, walk, run from that environment.

by
Keep Reading
In Career Gems By

FAMOUS “DASHIKI” PRIDE SISTERS CREATE FIRST AFROCENTRIC EMOJI KEYBOARD CALLED AFREEKMOJI

Remember the Danshiki sisters? Mirian Chinyere Ugokwe, Lilian Chioma Ugokwe and MarySonia Chizoba Ugokwe,  three sisters from same parent have once again created an Afrocentric emoji, called AfreekMoji.

AfreekMoji is a medium these sisters and entrepreneurs hope to share and educate the world about their beautiful African culture.

The sisters, aged 22 and 21 years old (Mirian and Lilian are twins), were born and raised in Aba, Nigeria, but they presently live in the US.

They are also the founders of Danshikipride, an international African clothing business.

With parents who are entrepreneurs, these siblings had always wanted to be entrepreneurs too, so, when they moved to the United States in June 2007, they decided to keep their African upbringing alive.

 

 

by
Keep Reading

©2025. WomenofRubies. All Rights Reserved.