The most expensive assumption in the room
When a broker says "let's run our Africa campaign," the mistake is already made. There is no Africa campaign that works, only a Nigeria campaign, a Kenya campaign, a Cote d'Ivoire campaign. The continent spans dozens of countries, languages and regulatory regimes. Treating it as one audience produces marketing that is generic everywhere and persuasive nowhere.
What actually differs
Language. English in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. French in Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Benin. Swahili in Tanzania. A translated campaign reads as foreign and fails.
Regulators. The FSCA, the CMA, SEC and ARCON, the CMSA, the AMF-UMOA and COSUMAF each shape what you can say and how.
Payment habits. M-Pesa in Kenya, Orange Money and MTN in much of West and Central Africa, bank transfer and cards in South Africa. The funding step has to match.
Trust and sophistication. Nigeria runs on deep skepticism, South Africa on comparison and experience, emerging markets on early curiosity. The same message cannot serve all three.
Localisation is not a translation pass
Real localisation means building the campaign for the market from the start: the language people think in, the payment methods they use, the fears they carry, the proof they need. It is not running one creative through a translation tool. Our translation is not localisation piece goes deeper on why that shortcut costs deposits.
What a localised approach looks like
Start from each market's reality. See how it differs across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Cote d'Ivoire. Shared brand, localised execution. That is the only model that scales across Africa without diluting into noise.