Dangote Cement wins best quality brand award in West Africa

For the umpteenth time, leading cement brand, the Dangote Cement has won the coveted West Africa’s Best Quality Cement Brand of the Decade award.

The foremost cement manufacturer in Africa won the award with its novel Dangote 3X (42.5) brand.

At the award presentation in Lagos organised by the Institute of Brand Management of Nigeria (IBMN) at the weekend, Dangote Cement was adjudged as Africa’s number one cement by all standards, as the company was said to have contributed tremendously to the infrastructure development not only in Nigeria but Africa as a whole through its offshore business units.

Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Stanley Ohenhen, a fellow of the institute and an Assistant Professor at Bowen University congratulated all the winners and encouraged them to continue to show quality in the products and services to the public. He explained that the institute is a platform to develop professionals in the practice of brand management.

He saluted the management of Dangote Cement for its role in making Nigeria self-sufficient in cement production challenging other brands to emulate the brand. Mr. Raphael Agbaje, Marketing Manager of Dangote Cement Plc received the award on behalf of the company.

The institute is a professional membership organisation for Brand management and Branding experts. Since its inception in 2007, the institute has been at the forefront of developing Brand management and Branding as a profession in the country assisting Executives and their organisations to improve their performance and achieve success through knowledge, education and professional development.

IBMN, a not-for-profit, organisation prides itself on ability to provide varied educational and networking opportunities that help Executives to grow in their Professionalism and directly impact the Quality of life.

IBMN was established in accordance with treaty signed in 2007 at a conference organized by the International Brand management and Association (IBMA). The Institute of Brand Management of Nigeria is a corporate member of International Brand Management Association (USA).

In his response to the new award, Mr. Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief, Branding & Communication, Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), said the Group remains at the forefront of African enterprise and that the brand since inception, has touched the lives of many by providing their needs and empowering the continent of Africa.

He said, “People do not have relationships with products, they are loyal to brands and that is why we have designed a strategy that creates a purpose for our brand for long-term consumer and stakeholders’ engagement. Because we understand the power of brands, we have positioned all our businesses to be consumer-centric so that it can inspire millions of people behind it.

“This cuts across our manufacturing concerns like Cement, Petroleum, Agriculture food, automobile etc. By nature, our brand listens and our customers’ opinions will always remain on the throne and shape the products and services we serve them.

“Given our believe in the promise of Africa, our brand has ensured that the story of who we are and our role in the empowerment space have never been lost on us. Our purpose has been to continuously showcase Africa as the bride of global investors and bedrock of development investments. Hence our inspired multi-billion dollars investments in Nigeria and over 14 African countries that will propel the continent into greater prosperity.

“Our brand is a promise of jobs, improved standard of living, economic growth and empowerment for Nigeria and the African continent. We have embedded operational excellence in all we do across our businesses and to underscore this, every milestone has been celebrated as if it were the destination itself.

“Very important to us as a brand is ‘Thought Leadership’ which is an inroad to ‘Market share Leadership’ and increased customer base. We have built organizational capability to sustain this by deploying hybrid systems, processes, environment and knowledge-based to enable the people to exceed on their deliverables. As a brand, we have built reward systems to support performance excellence and compliance with working according to our brand values system. That is why the Dangote brand is creating its own future underpinned with a pay-off line that represents the core business direction and purpose, providing needs and empowerment.

“One strength of our brand to mention is our professional control of a sustained PR communication and campaign ecosystem that is not only aggressive, but which consistently reinforces the new business direction and purpose. This is especially important as we need to remain visible in the public space and maintain high public presence for our CEO to lead from the front in the consistent articulation of the business core messages. This also helps us define the brand, its core values, personality, over-arching proposition and key consumer take-outs.

“We build our brand from inside out making sure every single employee knows the values and knows how to act in accordance with them in everyday customer and colleague interactions

“When it comes to innovation and application of technology, our brand leads with Product innovation that reinforces brand strength and energize the Business. It is important to have an energy in the business that continually supports a winning attitude and service excellence. To do this, continuous innovation, messages to the staff and customers remain critical.”