SBCC Summit 2016 CommTalk: What's Brand Got To Do With It: Behind The Scenes Of Yegna

“Yegna is a brand rooted in Ethiopian culture and built on a big idea”. This CommTalk took place at the First International SBCC (Social and Behaviour Change Communication) Summit in February 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The CommTalks at the Summit were 10-minute "TED Talk" like presentations that focused on experiences from the field, and presented an opportunity for organisations to share their innovations, successes, challenges, and lessons learned. In this recording of one of the CommTalks, speaker Jess Majekodunmi, brand strategist at Girl Effect, talks about the Yegna campaign in Ethiopia and the use of brand building to change behaviour.

As explained by the speaker: “As a brand strategist for Girl Effect, an organisation which aims to create positive social and behaviour change for adolescent girls, the question I am asked most about my work is not “Why girls?” or “What is the girl effect?”. The question I am asked most is “What’s brand got to do with it?”. Jess Majekodunmi’s talk seeks to explain this question.

She introduces her talk with a storyline from the Yegna radio drama - about a girl who runs away from home when she is forced to leave school in order to get married. This radio drama is part of a bigger brand called Yegna, which was launched in April 2013. In addition to the radio drama, the project also includes a talk show, advertising, and a girl band with music hits, concerts, and music videos. Majekodunmi explains that the ability to unite all those products is tied to their thinking around brand and brand building and the idea that together the effect is better than the sum of its parts. The Yegna brand also functions to give all the communications a sense of shared value, meaning, and purpose.
Majekodunmi goes on to explain that the key to any successful branding is to tell a story and that Yegna tells a big story about a big idea - girlhood. Girlhood is celebrated in a positive way throughout all the media as people are more likely to change if they feel positive about that change and themselves.

She makes the point that Girl Effect blends brand building methodology and behaviour change theory and development frameworks, and that Yegna uses these tools to allow new ideas and behaviours to be made visible and appealing. These ideas are then delivered with consistency from a trusted source.

She acknowledges that changing behaviour is not an easy process as it is shaped by social, economic, and cultural factors. For this reason the Yegna brand and its planning is guided by insights. The four insights are:

1. Insight into consumers - includes understanding what holds girls back. Research showed that girls in Ethiopia (1 in 5) have no friends. The branding therefore seeks to challenge isolation by championing the collective identity and friendships.
2. Insight into how change will actually happen for girls - there is a need to involve those that have power in a girl’s life, so the brand also draws in brothers, mothers, and fathers through the music, radio and talk shows, which are designed to spark conversations in wider society. The aim is to normalise girlhood and reframe girls for everyone, not just girls.
3. Cultural insight - the brand works with culture to make sure there is authentic change from within. It builds on the Ethiopian belief that the strength of Ethiopia lies in its diversity, so Yegna seeks to celebrate girls as a positive and unique part of Ethiopian culture. This is evident in the name itself - Yengna means “ours”, which stresses how Yegna is owned by girls and all of Ethiopia.
4. Media insight - reaching large audiences is important when tackling social issues. The project therefore uses different media to introduce new ideas and information, and to inspire discussion. The brand also offers huge potential to use a variety of media products to reach large and diverse audiences.

She concludes that Yegna represents a powerful new approach in the development space - a brand that reframes girls and a brand that creates a multiplier effect. Brand therefore has everything to do with it. There are enough brands out there today that reinforce negative stereotypes about what it means to be a girl and how to behave. The world needs brands that put girls first - a brand that can “change the world for girls so that girls can change the world”.