The Kakawa Brand

Kakawa, a discount house owned by a consortium of 8 banks, needed answers to key questions. How do you progress a brand in a market where the concept of your business (discount house) is not well understood? How do you go beyond being a B-2-B (meeting the liquidity requirements of banks) to becoming a B-2-C (selling financial products directly to the consumer)? How do you transform an existing brand into one that is distinct and creative?

Alder identified the critical factors undergirding the company’s products & services. They were safety and security. (The products were backed by Federal Government Treasury Bills & Bonds and a key shareholder was the largest & most capitalised bank in the country). These selling points were incorporated into Kakawa’s marketing communication.

To develop the corporate brand, bold, non-traditional marketing communication concepts were employed and the company’s Annual Reports featured cutting edge design concepts. This was done to project the innovative and dynamic nature of the Kakawa brand. The Annual Reports have since become the company’s major marketing tool.

Kakawa’s brand has achieved increased recognition and garnered considerable equity in the market. The company recently spawned an Asset Management company and Alder has been retained to do the brand development work for the new company.


About Kakawa
Kakawa is a financial services institution owned by a consortium of eight reputable banks in Nigeria (FirstBank, FCMB, Guaranty Trust Bank, New Africa Merchant Bank, Prudent Bank, NAL Bank, Lead Bank & FBN Merchant Bankers).

The company has evolved from being an essentially mono-product institution into being the pioneer for the marketing of Treasury Bills to individual investors through the introduction of proprietary Treasury Bill Backed Investment (TBBI) products.