Econet Wireless uses YouTube for PR in Nigeria dispute with Airtel

In mega disputes the kind Econet Wireless International fights globally, you need neutral parties seeing things from your angle, and as many voices on your side as you can get. When you understand this the way Econet does, the logical decision to take is to go out there and tell your story; the whole story according to how you saw things unfold from the beginning. Either that or the traditional media will tell it for you. Now the media are known to like taking sides and which side they take depends on many factors beyond anyone’s control making them a very unsafe bet.

Social media provides a convenient solution to this problem. It has made it possible for people and companies to easily tell their stories and to do it at a very low cost. Econet is taking full advantage of this. On 15 February, an Econet YouTube account, EconetSolar, posted 11 videos of the Founder and Chairman of the group Strive Masiyiwa, telling the Econet side of the story.

The videos are averagely 3 minutes long and have Masiyiwa speaking about the setting up of Econet Wireless Nigeria, the beginning of the disputes, the parties involved, the 2012 court ruling, his examination of the Bharti Airtel response. The last video in the series has him speaking about what this means for corporate governance in Africa and the rule of law.

The EconetSolar account itself was created 2 months ago to post videos about the new Econet Solar product launched around the time COP17 time.

Here’s the first video in the series:

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Masimba
akangwara Strive
http://www.byers-design.com Byers Design
Great information, bad video editing, shifting from one camera to the next, quite annoying at times!
Dhoni
cases are not decided on social media, they are decided in courts. This on its own shows Econet is not convinced they are in the right and are trying to gather as much support as they can agains’t Bharti’s appeal of the judgement.
Lol
Econet thats being cheap
Ba nhingi
have you considered this might not be PR but just a testimony?
419
Part of the reason Masiyiwa won the battle in Zim was that everyone including common man on street sympathised with the guy. He was a victim of a crooked system and people identified with his struggle. Same tactic here at work here. Will it work? doubt local Zimbos will emphathise with him this time but those are not the ones he’s after. The world will. Nigeria is known for its corruption and this is something he refers to in the second video when he mentions some state leader who he says has been arrested. his case is I’m the victim of a very corrupt Nigeria. the world will identify with that.
Chirau
Having gone through ALL THE VIDEOS I couldnt help think if I was on using an econet connection that would have been no less than 200MB of youtube data and at 10 cents per MB that’s at least $20 to hear why Mr. Masiyiwa believes econet is still relevant in Nigeria as an Investor.
Put in his shoes I would have paid the $8 million and gone on business as usual and would have watched the business grow to a billion dollar business that it has become, one can only hope that the name goes back to econet as the original technical operator and they get their 5% of the current valuation of the business.
Mukanya
I have no problem with the video editing. I downloaded all the videos and the sound was rather low. Other than that I think it’s a terrific effort because it neatly summarises a complex and lenghty case that i had lost track of with all the twists and turns. I admire this means commitment and persistance to pursue justice. 99% of us would have paid the $8 million and proceeded to become gazillionaires. I can only hope that Econet are eventually awarded the relief they have so valiantly fought for

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