// Sponge launches office in Nigeria
01.10.09
Following the great success of their first project in Africa, Sponge has now opened an office in Lagos to expand their activities in that market.
Sponge started working in Nigeria at the beginning of 2009 with an ambitious project for Etisalat, the UAE network operator that launched in Nigeria in 2008. The campaign centred around a $1m prize, the richest promotion ever seen in Africa. Sponge delivered all mobile components including text competitions, a loyalty scheme, a viral scheme and an mTicketing solution for a series of live events and TV shows.
The campaign has so far generated over 7 million responses and has led to a very significant jump in new SIM activations and ARPU.
Following this success, Sponge has launched an office in Lagos with a team of four, led by Dayo Elegbe. That team has now launched an English Premier League themed promotion for Etisalat and have more in the pipeline.
Nigeria has recently overtaken South Africa as the largest mobile phone market in Africa with 68m active mobile subscribers. The mobile is essential to people’s lives in Africa: 90% of all phone lines are now mobile and for 70% of web users this is how they access the internet.
“We’re really excited by the opportunities in Nigeria and across Africa. The Etisalat project has been so successful that it has grabbed the attention of every brand manager in the area” said Dan Parker, Chief Executive of Sponge. “We have a strong local team in place in Lagos, backed up by the technology and experience we have deployed in Europe and North America.”
