Inside AZAM: one of Africa’s top brands

AuthorEdward Harris
PositionCommunications Division, WIPO

Now, its owner, the Bakhresa Group, is expanding AZAM across East Africa and Southern Africa. This is just the latest development of a trademark that was born in the 1970s in a street-side restaurant selling donuts.

For Abubakar Bakhresa, Executive Director and son of founder Said Salim Bakhresa, the AZAM odyssey holds lessons for entrepreneurs across Africa, and indeed across the globe, who seek to use trademarks to promote their products.

Building a brand requires a long-term vision

“There are no quick answers to developing a brand; it’s a challenge,” Mr. Bakhresa says. “But if you have a very long-term view, your business and your brand will succeed. You have to develop a brand that is not just encompassing your market. You have to have a vision that it can grow beyond your market. You have to believe in the brand.”

These days, a stroll through the bustling markets of central Dar-es-Salaam feels like walking through an AZAM corporate display case. Young men pedal tricycles mounted with AZAM-logoed refrigerators, from which they sell AZAM ice cream. Shop fronts display the wide range of AZAM products: bread, milk, pasta, flour, cola and other soft drinks. Bakhresa trucks transport AZAM goods between depots and restaurants, televisions connected to AZAM cable boxes show AZAM news programs, and AZAM commentators enthusiastically broadcast the fortunes of the AZAM football team.

The Bakhresa Group is now an industrial conglomerate with annual sales of over USD800 million and thousands of employees across East Africa.

The price plus quality challenge

But this wasn’t always the case. Abubakar Bakhresa’s father, Said Salim Bakhresa, began the company in the 1970s, selling baked goods and other comestibles out of a small restaurant. Reflecting Dar-es-Salaam’s unique cultural mix as a trading center on the Indian Ocean, AZAM is derived from Arabic and Urdu terms meaning “great”.

The current logo, which resembles a wave, came later. But the AZAM name has persisted through the company’s rapid growth. This, Mr. Bakhresa explains, is because the public perception of the mark converged with the company’s focus on quality and price, which are key in a country like Tanzania.

“When people came to Africa, they thought the people do not require quality, that they require price. But we managed to get the correct mix – we match quality and price and that has been the success of the brand,” he says. “To achieve that is a challenge.”

Two linchpins of the AZAM...

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