EATERIES, MARGARET THATCHER AND AGEGE BREAD...

Today I am writing on a topic that most people will find decidedly odd,

Agege bread.

Makes no sense? Well at least not yet. For those of you who have never been to Lagos State and have never tasted this delicacy, I offer my condolences.

It is a very normal looking brick-shaped [as most of our local bread is shaped] of bread with a fan base numbering in tens [if not hundreds] of thousands and a taste that’s not only addictive but so rich that you just KNOW that it has to be bad for you [Indeed I heard about a year ago there was a big hullabaloo by health officials who said research had shown that it IS harmful, potassium bromate et al]

But why am I telling you about it? Why should you care? This began as a random thought – on marketing and a simple question

Why do loaves of bread have labels?

As to the larger size ‘family’ loaves I can think of a few reasons. Since they are usually whole family meals/breakfasts, there is a chance of brand loyalty – where a family can adopt one brand and stay with it [more out of convenience than loyalty really]

Also when traveling or intra-city commuting and a sweaty roadside hawker thrusts a loaf in your face unasked, [he must have a 6th sense that tells him you’re hungry] you can take a look at the label and in a haughty tone tell him that you don’t buy this brand – then sweeping a fast eye over the rest of his wares, you note a brand he doesn’t have and then loudly ask if he has that brand, and that it is the only one that you buy.

You see, that way you can turn him down, hide the fact that you’re broke and appear to have high taste in pastry all at the same time.

I’m not talking about the family loaves. I’m talking about those generic 30 naira bricks [and some, if not most, of them are as hard as bricks]

I decided to investigate. 100% of all respondents I interviewed said the same thing. Nobody reads those damn labels

So I took the questions to the bakers and the retailers. Answer = The labels are there to inspire loyalty between retailers and bakers. Does it work?

HA!

What’d did they expect? That we would all clamor for our favorite breakfast sawdust brick? And that the retailers who had to throw away a third of their stock daily would stay with them long enough to build a bond of any kind? Retailers tend to switch bakeries on the average of every three weeks.

And then there’s Agege bread. A veritable institution. A few days after I ingested my first loaf I was a hopeless addict. I mean it’s been discussed on NTA network shows. I have heard at least two songs ENTIRELY dedicated to its virtues AND seen an accompanying video on network TV. I’ve witnessed foreign exotic vehicles stop by the road side to buy the Big Powerful Oga in the back seat his daily fix...

Here’s a fun fact,

Agege bread has no label.

The point? You should have reached it by now. All the pizzazz, glamour and packaging in the world won’t build a brand for or save a product that is of low quality, no remarkability and has no value to offer

Forget the wrapping and trying to create perception. CREATE VALUE!

Yes sometimes value and pizzazz do go hand and hand, but sometimes value alone is enough...

That’s how institutions are born.

Let me tell you how NOT to build an institution. Go to the famous Allen Avenue, Ikeja Lagos State. Whirl around with your eyes closed and point to any building. There’s an 80/20 chance that you’re pointing at an eatery or clothing store.

Eatery 80%, Clothing store 20%

Doing what worked for ‘that guy’, or following an industry ‘standard’ is the worst thing that you can do. At best you simply become an unofficial brand extension of the pioneer.

Look at it this way; True or False all the eatery’s you’ve ever been in are all clones of each other?

See how ripe that market is for someone who is ‘label-less’ but with a menu that actually tastes like it’s worth the prices these clones charge? True, these eateries make money but in doing so they leave the REALLY big money right there on the table for some unknown to pick it up and walk away with it [basically what Bill Gates and Microsoft did to IBM and the ‘giants’ of their time, and Wal*Mart did to Sears and Co.]

If you REALLY want to talk cloning I have two words only to personify the ENTIRE trend.

Pure. Water.

Enough said.

So you have two choices. Spend a lot of money dressing up a monkey and try to pass him off as a woman, or dress up a teenager girl to pass for a grown woman...

Only one of them has a chance to really ever become one

And like Margaret Thatcher once famously said “Being a Leader is like being a Woman; if you have to tell people that you are, then you are definitely not one...”


Victor Sanchez Aghahowa