When brands banter customers react. @Staroil and @GOILPLC.

StarOil has been on a playful brand banter with their GOIL counterpart in recent days and I can't seem to get enough of it.

GOIL had reduced their prices, a move that was matched by StarOil. To take things a notch further, GOIL announced free breakfast for their customers at their Nima Roundabout station and subsequently announced a similar gesture at their Asamankese branch.

"We encourage all our customers to pass by and have breakfast there and come back home where they belong," StarOil's response.

Attempts to downplay GOIL's free breakfast initiative have sparked a wave of reactions and content pieces unknown in Ghana's petroleum downstream.

In one such post, StarOil shows a train full of people and insinuates that after eating GOIL's breakfast, their customers will still drive towards their station to fill their tanks. They subtly frame the whole free breakfast move as a gimmick that would hardly make any impact on their competitor's numbers.

Personally, I love it when brands are more vocal, open and personable. For brands that are hardly personable, some of these interactive approaches drive engagement, excite their base and draw out their human side. The brand personalities that marketers speak about should not just be left in boardrooms.The marketing community needs more of such healthy, engaging and exciting content to chime on. This is how marketing grows.

This is how marketing becomes more responsive, flexible and touches base with the changing dynamics of the business environment.As an IMC specialist, I have been impressed by how these two brands have creatively integrated their offline operations into creative online activations.

This brand stringing is required as more OMCs join the battle for supremacy. You recall GTV's banter with DSTV right? As the seemingly playful brand battle gathers momentum, it is the reaction of some customers that even leaves me more excited.

In this article, I have shared some screenshots for your laughter Maybe, "vawulence" marketing works really well in our part of the world. For starters, these companies, like many of their counterparts, have reduced their ex-pump prices as global crude oil prices ease, amidst a stable microeconomic outlook. Ultimately, these two brands have found a creative content rhythm where they beat the drums on how far they could go to satisfy their clients.

This is not just a price war or a frisky brand banter. This is truly how brands should be: personable, relatable, accountable and responsible.

Samuel Boateng Osarfo

Communications Manager HRFocusAfrica

Trainer