The power of crowds possessed by Wildebeests on the move into a new season is unstoppable; as is the two dynamic behaviours of South African when exhibiting ubuntu (love), and xenophobia (hate) for any cause.
Understanding how South African citizens can fall on one side of love in droves, and the next minute propel toward hate, will help brand owners and businesses know what I first called “The Wildebeest Theory” in Zimbabwe. It applies to South African consumers, as does to most of Southern African markets like Botswana and Zambia. Consumers, rather, citizens, move in droves like wildebeests when consuming products and services.
The South African citizen, as a consumer, can be best understood by the behavioural study of the wildebeest of the Savannah woodlands, how they are passive for long then when time for migratory change come, they have power of crowds overwhelms predator or whatsoever challenge ahead.
Therefore, the Wildebeest Theory is a consumer behaviour thinking proving that consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa behave like the Wildebeest herd, possessing Migratory Instincts that engulf Swam Intelligence to move from one season into another, one dispensation into another, and more.
This theory explains consumer behaviour in relation to Herding, Migration, Swarm Intelligence, Rainmaking, and Crowd Sourcing, imperative thinking that brands, businesses and leaders need to understand in pursuit of socioeconomic health.
Understanding the Wildebeest Theory will help brands, businesses, industries, educationists, trendsetters, and even politicians in shaping the socioeconomic matters.
Those that have lost millions of dollars, votes, followers and influence have done so by not having a full appreciation of the way the South African consumer behaves in the market as does the wildebeest in the heat of the Savannah.
The Wildebeest only migrates, moves, implements change when time has come and there cannot be a reversal; in season change is inevitable.
Migration is a phenomenon known not only to the wildebeest but also to the Bantu people, that make up most of South East Africa, over 500 million in populous. Wildebeest inhabit the plains and open woodlands of parts of Africa south of the Sahara.
The South African, like fellow Bantu people cross South East Africa as dwelling in economic circumstances that are plain, bare open to all manner of vulnerability; some that are in woodlands, face the thorny thickets of socioeconomic challenges, a need for constant reform being evident.
Breeding in both takes place over a short period of time at the end of the rainy season and the calves are soon active and are able to move with the herd. Nevertheless, some fall prey to large carnivores.
Wildebeest often graze in mixed herds with zebra which gives heightened awareness of potential predators. They are also alert to the warning signals emitted by other animals such as baboons.
The South African consumer is power of growth and develops whatsoever environment they are in, and the need to multiply goes beyond the challenges they face such that the carnivores are incapable
There is a consumer that has heightened senses toward brand, business or leadership behaviour in the space they forage for livelihood. There are two types of Wildebeests – Black and Blue; the expressive difference between the two being that the black do not migrate and the blue are migratory in nature, other than possessing other differences.
The blue wildebeest lives in a wide variety of habitats, including woodlands and grasslands, while the black wildebeest tends to reside exclusively in open grassland areas.
There are two types of South African citizens, as in other African countries, the passive and the aggressive, existing in the same market space for brands and businesses to access.
It is the aggressive consumers that actually determine what is foraged on and there is a need to pay attention to such a consumer. The passive love comfort, the aggressive are comfortable in creating discomfort for themselves just like Sniff and Scurry in “Who Moved My Cheese”, to find Station N (New).
In some areas the blue wildebeest migrates over long distances in the winter, whereas the black wildebeest does not. Blue wildebeest are mainly found in short grass plains bordering bush-covered acacia savannahs, thriving in areas that are neither too wet nor too dry.
They can be found in habitats that vary from overgrazed areas with dense bush to open woodland floodplains. The timing of their migrations in both the rainy and dry seasons can vary considerably (by months) from year to year.
Factors suspected to affect migration include food abundance, surface water availability, predators, and phosphorus content in grasses. Phosphorus is a crucial element for all life forms, particularly for lactating female bovids.
As a result, during the rainy season, wildebeest select grazing areas that contain particularly high phosphorus levels. One study found, in addition to phosphorus, wildebeest select ranges containing grass with relatively high nitrogen content.
Like Wildebeests, the Phosphorous Factor drives is the reason consumers and citizens migrate from one place to another, on season into another. Phosphorous is what wildebeests value as it affects their growth enabler and the affects the growth of their species; they propel toward environments that possess such nourishment.
Take away that growth enabler and the consumers in your market space will effect change. Like wildebeests, the progressive and growth oriented consumer must always be placed in favourable environments by brands, businesses and leaders.
A brand, business and leader must at least become a Conservationist in order to always manage the environments, reforming regularly, offering fresh nutrients in due season, in which so ever dispensation. The brand, business and leader must become a Rainmaker in order to stay on top of the situation (discussed more below).
Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world, its fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity.
While having the appearance of a frenzy, recent research has shown a herd of wildebeest possesses what is known as a "swarm intelligence", whereby the animals systematically explore and overcome the obstacle as one.
Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behaviour of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. SI systems consist typically of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment.
The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of "intelligent" global behaviour, unknown to the individual agents.
The South African consumer, though controllable through herding, possesses swarm intelligence which must not be ignored by brands, businesses and leaders as that herd will use is strength to effect change. Wildebeest live in groupings called herds. Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group (herd), maintaining the group, and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those.
Herding can refer either to the process of animals forming herds in the wild, or to human intervention forming herds for some purpose. While the layperson uses the term "herding" to describe this human intervention, most individuals involved in the process term it mustering, "working stock", or droving.
Some animals instinctively gather together as a herd. A group of animals fleeing a predator will demonstrate herd behaviour for protection.
Herds are mastered by Shepherds and destroyed by Predators. The South African consumer markets are collections of persons whose grouping are like herds, and knowledge of herding is paramount for the success of a brand, business or leader.
Under political and economic pressure, the South African has moved from being a forager and has become a what looks like a hunter to them that assume that the migration is violent; migrating into better seasons and territories is engrafted in the Bantu DNA.
Just like Wildebeest migration, when the time for change has come through swam intelligence, the herds, consumers, gather the power from its crowds and begin to move into a new season; whose understanding ensures success of a brand, business or leader.
The gathering of crowds to effect change can be best understood as Crowdsourcing that the South African consumer, just like the wildebeest, harnesses and implements change.
Crowdsourcing, a modern business term coined in 2005, is defined by Merriam-Webster as the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially an online community, rather than from employees or suppliers.
A portmanteau of crowd and outsourcing, its more specific definitions are yet heavily debated. This mode of sourcing is often used to divide work between participants, and has a history of success prior to the digital age—"offline".
By definition, crowdsourcing combines the efforts of numerous self-selected volunteers or part-time workers; each person's contribution combines with those of others to achieve a cumulative result.
Crowdsourcing is distinguished from outsourcing in that the work can come from an undefined public (instead of being commissioned from a specific, named group) and in that crowdsourcing includes a mix of bottom-up and top-down processes.
Regarding the most significant advantages of using crowdsourcing the literature generally discussed costs, speed, quality, flexibility, scalability, and diversity. In order to master crowds that possess swam intelligence and a market that has a high demand of nutritious livelihood, the brand, business or leader must become Rainmaker; creating and managing seasons in the form of self-reformation.
To stay ahead of the negative effects of the Wildebeest Theory in consumer behaviour, the brand, business or leader must, through the Rainmaker Theory. The Rainmaker Theory denotes that every rainfall and every storm within a season of rain has an author and that is the person to watch as opposed to gauging the strength of the rainfall only.
When storms rise, many watch the clouds; the Rainmaker Theory says that you look at the one that makes it rain. Rain in Africa is believed to be brought not only by Mother Nature’s seasonal dictates, but also the results of the efforts of Rainmakers.
It is known when the season for rain is due and the rain is not forthcoming the leadership consults a rainmaker. Rainmakers are also known to avail themselves in dry lands whence thirsty grounds are yearning for rain, thus serving; yet so, there is a catch.
The rainmaker is the maker of rain and all rainmakers have an objective, that objective understood will go a long way to know the end game of the seasonal rains. Within the theory and thinking of rainmaking, there is need to always question all the methods, practices, track record of the rainmaker to understand what the current efforts will result in.
In science, Rainmaking, also known as artificial precipitation, is the act of attempting to artificially induce or increase precipitation, usually to stave off drought. Brands, Businesses, and Leaders must make it happen; they must produce the rain that creates and grows the nutrients necessary for the consumers and citizens to consume; rainmaking is not an option.
In African, and also South American cultures, in summertime during a drought, for instance, the rainmaker would dance and sing songs on the plains, and the activity was believed by others in the tribe to magically cause clouds to come and bring the life-giving rain.
The Rainmaking Theory consolidates all these to highlight the aspect of a rainmaker answering a need by making it “rain” for the landscape for the benefit of specific leaders; and self.
A brand, business and leader must study the wildebeest, understand migration, and know how to manage environments in order to stay ahead for profit and developmental growth.
Source: TheBehaviourReport
