Whilst many ask where the future of global publishing is headed, it seems that a team of young Ghanaians are providing some of the answers, notably for Africa, thanks to their local digital platforms aimed squarely at millennials under the OMG Voice brand.
The brainchild of Jesse Arhin Ghansah, Prince Boakye Boampong and Dominic Mensah, who recently graduated from Silicon Valley’s YCombinator, OMG Digital is a new media company that publishes hyper-local pop-culture content for a mobile-first pan-African audience. Since its launch in February 2016, OMG websites have aggregated monthly content views of over 90 million, a monthly social reach of 80 million, with 4.5 million readers to the website each month. Currently operating in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, the 25-strong team create and curate hyper-local listicles, pictorials, videos and memes that are tailored to specific African countries and cultures.
The fact that the OMG platforms have built such a loyal audience in such a short space of time means it has attracted the attention of some big-name advertisers looking to work with them, and, subsequently, the interest of VCs. This week, the team announced that they had closed on a Seed fundraise of $1.1M from international investors Kima Ventures, Soma Capital, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Social Capital, M&Y Growth Partners, and Macro Ventures, with participation from a number of Angel Investors including Josh Buckley of Mino Games, and Founder of Off-Grid Electric, Francis Xavier Helgesen.
I spoke to Jesse Arhin Ghansah, OMG Digital’s CEO, to reflect on his media company’s successes and how he and his team now intend to build the company across the continent.
Who are OMG Digital and what is your goal?
OMG Digital is a new media company targeting Africa’s millennial population through hyper-local pop-culture content. Currently we have two digital brands that are up and running – OMGVoice which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Buzzfeed’ of Africa and our culinary brand Servepot, which focuses on African food culture and recipes. We’re also on the verge of launching two new verticals on travel and technology. Our mission is to create the most powerful and influential African digital media brands and platforms out there.
How has being a part of Y-Combinator informed your business strategy as a company?
The main takeaways we’ve gotten from YC in general are to talk to your users and to continuously iterate using the scientific method i.e. paying attention to your core metrics + feedback and adjusting accordingly. That’s how you build a product and company people love. YC also pushed us to move very quickly and take bolder steps in conquering our markets.
How has OMG Digital played a catalytic role in transforming the digital publishing market in Africa?
Back in early 2012, when OMGGhana (which later evolved into OMG Digital brand) started, the digital content space was dominated by traditional media companies that were just trying to recreate the print experience online. Content was predominantly hard-news and politics. We recognized the demand for social and entertainment content among millennials and moved to serve that space.
Due to our rapid growth, we have inspired a number of millennial-focused media companies and startups in our markets since then. Now everyone’s trying to do social content and distribute more heavily on social media platforms. We have also turned the heads of some digital media giants from the ‘West’ who now see Sub-Saharan Africa as a valid and ripe market to test-out. Some have actually reached out to explore some forms of partnerships to tap into our audiences.
What kind of content are your audiences and advertisers most interested in and how is the content sourced?
We have a dedicated editorial team made up of the best content creators on the continent thus, we are able to easily create original and relatable content that hits home with our readers. Our community teams also curate relevant content from a plethora of sources including forums and social media platforms.
We have so far published close to 20,000 pieces of content since we launched and have garnered a lot of insights into the types of content that resonates with a particular demographic. From our engagement data, emotive and nostalgic content constantly top the charts with our audiences while brands feel comfortable pushing their message with more identity-related and uplifting content.
What significance is there in using hyper-local content in connecting with millennials across Africa and why is this important for brands and advertisers?
Part of the unique challenge is that our market is the most diverse continent on the planet. There is no such thing as a ‘homogenous’ African. Because of that, you have to have a content strategy designed around producing very specific (yet nuanced), locally relevant material for several different audiences. Ghanaian, Nigerian and Kenyan millennials, for example, do not react to content in the same way. This goes for any other African country. And it’s not only different subject matter — different African audiences prefer different types of media, and different themes. By going hyper-local, our content, no matter the vertical, is always relevant to our audiences.
For brands and advertisers, this means that there is no such thing as a single ‘African consumer’; and for campaigns to work, they need to make sure that they’re connecting with their audiences in the right way.
What business case do advertisers and new investors have for partnering with OMG Digital?
Global brands as well as advertisers and investors now understand the growth metrics Africa presents them, yet they may not quite understand how to actually connect with this new digital generation, which is where OMG Digital comes in. Brands can’t rely on creating advertisements which have no value for the audience and rely on intrusion and repetition as a mnemonic. The best way to reach people right now is through content and with the right strategy across many networks and platforms as possible. You can use it to sell a brand without having to annoy a user. This is super-powerful. We know the various audiences, how to interact and engage with them and the most importantly know the nuances involved in these discrete markets. There are not many companies that can compete with us on that right now.
Our investors realize that we are right on the front-edge of the internet explosion in Africa and are well on our way to becoming a defining digital media company of this new generation.
What are your plans for this round of seed investment of $1.1M?
We plan on using this investment to launch into four more countries, grow our engineering team and ramp up our video creation capacity.
What does the wider market and growth potential across Africa look like for OMG Digital?
Our initial to market strategy was to tackle the English-speaking countries which naturally form the bulk of the internet population in Africa. This worked well for us and we’re really excited about the momentum we have gathered so far within our primary markets of Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. Our aim is to dominate the social feeds of every African millennial using our brands. The next step on the way to that process is opening up our brands to South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, and Tanzania. This will give us a 70% market reach of the total online millennial population. And once we’ve established ourselves in a large enough number of markets across Africa, we’ll be ready to roll out continent-wide.