A scene from the movie, “Materialists”:
Harry: I’m Harry
Lucy: Lucy… You’re the brother
Harry: Hmmm
Harry: You’re the matchmaker
Lucy: What are you doing at the singles’s table?
Harry: My mother wants me to marry
Lucy: I can help you with that
Harry: I saw you recruiting earlier… A wedding like this must be a gold mine
Lucy: There’s a lot of opportunity here for our company
Harry: Your sales pitch is perfect… because you make it feel like it’s their idea… It’s not like you’re telling people they need you. Nobody wants to hear that… If they need you, then something is wrong with them. Instead… you’re saying: “You could do this on your own, but if you’re lucky enough to afford me, why not?”… You’re a luxury good… Then they really do feel like they need you… just like they need every luxury in their lives… Once you get your first R400 haircut, you can’t go back to Supercuts, can you?
Lucy: It’s easy
Harry: No. You’re really just good.
One of the most misunderstood disciplines in marketing—particularly within African enterprises, SMMEs, and even public institutions—is selling. Too often, selling is reduced to pleading, discounting, or loudly announcing need: “We need customers.” Yet a short exchange in the film Materialists quietly delivers one of the most profound lessons in modern marketing: people do not buy because you need them; they buy because they desire what you represent.
When Harry tells Lucy that her pitch works because it makes people feel like the idea is theirs, he is describing the holy grail of value-proposition marketing. The strongest brands do not shout “you need us”; they whisper “you could do this on your own… but why settle?” That distinction is everything. It reframes a product or service from being a remedy for deficiency into a symbol of aspiration.
This is the philosophical shift African brands must urgently embrace.
For decades, much of our marketing language has unconsciously positioned African enterprises as “catching up,” “emerging,” or “needing support.” While these descriptors may reflect structural realities, they are disastrous as brand narratives. Markets do not reward pity. Markets reward confidence, clarity, and desire.
Great value propositions do three things simultaneously:
First, they communicate capability. The customer must feel that the brand is competent, credible, and proven. Not through noisy self-praise, but through calm assurance, consistency, and evidence.
Second, they communicate choice. Lucy’s genius is in saying: you don’t have to use me. This creates psychological freedom. And paradoxically, freedom makes the option more attractive. People resist coercion but lean into autonomy.
Third, they communicate elevation. A luxury is not defined by price alone; it is defined by the experience of “never wanting to go back.” Once you taste a higher standard, mediocrity becomes uncomfortable. That is the ultimate goal of a value proposition: to redefine what “normal” feels like.
In practical terms, this means African marketers must stop centring their messaging on survival and start centring it on significance.
Not:
“We are a small black-owned business trying to make it.”
But:
“We deliver a level of insight, craft, and cultural intelligence that changes outcomes.”
Not:
“Support local.”
But:
“Choose excellence that happens to be local.”
This is not cosmetic rewording. It is strategic repositioning.
Selling, at its highest level, is not persuasion; it is theatre. It is the staging of meaning. It is the careful orchestration of how a brand makes people feel about themselves when they choose it. Lucy is not selling matchmaking. She is selling status, ease, discretion, and access to a better version of one’s romantic life. The service is secondary. The identity upgrade is primary.
The same principle applies whether one is marketing bottled water, a municipality, a jazz festival, a film, a consulting firm, or a nation.
At Brandhill Africa™, we often say: people don’t buy products; they buy futures. They buy stories about who they are becoming. A compelling value proposition, therefore, must answer a deeper question than “what do you offer?” It must answer: Who do I become when I choose you?
When that question is answered convincingly, selling stops feeling like selling.
It becomes seduction.
It becomes invitation.
It becomes inevitability.
And perhaps the most important lesson from Harry’s closing line—“No. You’re really just good.”—is that behind every elegant value proposition is substance. Positioning can amplify excellence, but it cannot replace it. You cannot present yourself as a luxury if your operations feel like a bargain basement. Strategy and execution must move together.
For African brands seeking global relevance and local dominance, the path forward is clear:
Build real value.
Articulate it with confidence.
Present it as a choice, not a plea.
Frame it as an upgrade, not a rescue.
When we master this, we stop asking markets to take us seriously.
They simply do.
Tujenge Afrika Pamoja! Let’s Build Africa Together!
Enjoy your weekend.
Saul Molobi (FCIM)
PUBLISHER: JAMBO AFRICA ONLINE
and
Group Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Brandhill Africa™
Tel: +27 11 759 4297
Mobile: +27 83 635 7773
Physical Address: 1st Floor, Cradock Square Offices; 169 Oxford Road; Rosebank; JOHANNESBURG; 2196.
eMail: saul.molobi@brandhillafrica.com
Website: www.brandhillafrica.com
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