Akosua Adoma on Fueling Economic Inclusion and Building Brands that Drive Social Change

In this episode, I was joined by Priscilla Gbewonyo (aka Akosua Adoma), a digital marketer dedicated to community-driven growth and placing purpose at the heart of marketing. Priscilla shares how she crafts campaigns that move beyond hype, leveraging authentic storytelling to empower underserved communities and fuel economic inclusion in emerging markets. The conversation unpacks actionable strategies for building brands that drive social change, offering a vision where purpose and profit work hand in hand.

Building the Mindset: The Genesis of Belle Minds

• Akosua’s journey was inspired by the strength of women in her life, like her mother, who navigated many trials and tribulations.
• The goal of Belle Minds (Beautiful Minds) is to empower young women by building a resilient mindset, helping them overcome the “victimhood mindset”.
• The initiative focuses on ensuring girls know they can achieve what they set their mind to, overcoming fear.
• Belle Minds has helped over 2,000 young women gain leadership and career confidence through conferences, social media, and a podcast.
• Akosua shares how empowering stories from young women, such as an entrepreneur building an organization focused on sustainability in a male-dominated field, push her to continue her work.

Fintech for the Informal Sector: Motito Pay for Me

• Motito Pay for Me is a fintech tool providing alternative financing options, acting as a peer-to-peer funding breakthrough.
• The company addressed the challenge that many people in the informal sector and young people lack the collateral (like property documents) required by traditional banks to obtain loans.
• Motito offered options like “pay for me” and “pay small small”.
• It successfully gave over 10,000 unbanked people access to assets.
• Digital Marketing Strategy for the Unbanked: Instead of directly targeting individuals in the informal sector, Akosua focused on marketing to organizations that represent groups like government workers, who could then relay the information to their members.

Amplifying Local Businesses: The Akwaaba App

• Akosua is currently working with the Akwaaba App, a travel tech and lifestyle company.
• Akwaaba App connects travelers, diasporans, and expats coming to Ghana with verified local businesses.
• The service verifies businesses for legitimacy and excellent service and offers guidance on how they can improve customer service.
• It addresses the challenge travellers face in finding trusted services, preventing them from being scammed after spending hours searching online.
• The app also benefits people living in Ghana by helping them find reliable services.

The Power of Storytelling in Digital Campaigns

• Akosua emphasizes that storytelling helps the audience understand why a business exists and the impact it seeks to create, fostering conversations within the sector. This differs from traditional, “right in your face” advertising.
• The most effective tool used by Akwaaba App, especially for capitalizing on events like December tourism, is short-form videos, particularly user-generated content (UGC) or influencer videos where users share how they benefited from a business.
• Storytelling Case Study: The Akwaaba App reward system was launched to reward users for utilizing app features. The campaign featured authentic videos of small businesses, mentioning their history and vision. This “gamified” approach ensured that the business’s name resonated with the 12,000+ followers, increasing their mindshare even if they didn’t win the reward.

Akosua Adoma on Challenges and Empowerment Through Digital Tools

• Marketing Challenge: A major challenge is that small businesses often lack the social media presence or manpower to handle incoming customer inquiries effectively, as owners are spread too thin across various roles (finance, logistics). In modern times, marketing is synonymous with digital marketing, requiring businesses to pull their weight on their personal platforms.
• Digital Empowerment: Akosua Adoma argues that young people “do not really have a lot of excuse” for not learning basic digital tools.
• The Global Scale: Digital skills close the global gap, as things are changing extremely fast, requiring constant learning (even platform interfaces change weekly).
• “You have to constantly learn and you have to constantly be a new woman” to overcome the victimhood mindset and improve skills.

Looking Forward

• Akosua uses AI (like ChatGPT) as an assistant to help manage the workload between her 9-to-5 job and Belle Minds.
• She aims for Belle Minds to become a platform where individuals, regardless of their profession (e.g., medical doctor, hairdresser), can learn and apply the latest tech trends to stay current and competitive.

Final Takeaway

• Akosua Adoma stresses the importance of guiding your mind and heart and being very intentional about the content you consume.
• Content is often created solely for engagement, meaning creators may put out unverified information designed to manipulate emotions.
• Listeners must verify information before acting on it to prevent “garbage in, garbage out”.

Find the Podcast

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Production: Produced by Bildx Studios and recorded at Trybal Mark Studios 13th Street, Tantra Hills, Accra.