Every now and then, a social media event occurs which reminds us about the importance of a seamless strategy and the impact of brilliantly planned tactics. On October 24 2018, one of those events took place. Some people are already referring to October 24 as ‘National Stew Day’ and honestly, saaameee!.
Wizkid’s internet breaking video for his single, ‘Fever’, featured Tiwa Savage as his lover and the internet cannot keep calm. Starboy’s video filled 7 slots of Twitter’s trending spots and penetrated everyone’s Instagram ‘discover’ feed within hours of release.
The Tiwa and Wizkid romance strategy, much like the Wizkid and Davido beef strategy, has been months in the making and finally climaxed in one steamy Meji directed clip that has everyone in Nigeria buzzing. Whether or not Wizkid and his team consciously plan the themes of his year long strategies is inconsequential. Why? They’ve hacked a special formula and have been able to harness results from it time and time again,
The Wizkid and Tiwa stew timeline goes back to 2015 when Ms. Savage released her sophomore studio album, R.E.D. One of the tracks on R.E.D., ‘Bad’ , featured Starboy and while the song was a solid tune, it was not enough to spark dating rumours. Even in the music video for ‘Bad’, there was no apparent chemistry between the two. If the strategy was to position Wizkid and Tiwa as unconfirmed lovers, then this first tactic is very important. The takeaway from ‘Bad’ is simply that Wizkid and Tiwa make good music together. Starting the strategy with this tactic allows fans to always have an introduction to the duo that is not particularly romantic.
One of the major points of debate from the ‘Fever’ music video and even in the past year in general, has been whether or not Tiwa and Wizkid are romantically involved or otherwise. The first tactic creates a reference point that fuels both sides of the argument, creates engagement and most importantly, sells the music.
From the Aunty and brother relationship in ‘Bad’, we see Tiwa and Wizzy evolve into their ‘best friend’ phase which was cemented with their massive hit that was ‘Ma Lo’. The important part about this next tactic is time. They gave the strategy time to evolve and ‘stew’ in, no pun intended. One of the key criteria for any strategy to be successful is time for people to live in with it. When brands rush strategies by placing tactics back to back, they deny their target audience an experience and it is that experience they need to properly bond with your brand.
Without a time to ruminate, the Wizkid and Davido beef would have fizzled out and gotten lost in the noisy world of social media. Without time to sit in, the Wizkid and Tiwa Savage would have also been too much too quickly and people would have moved on from it. This bring us to the very next tactic, positioning. Whether it was Tiwa dedicating her Headies to her ‘best friend’ or Wizkid bringing out his ‘best friend’ at his sold out London show or even Wizkid and Tiwa being spotted on lunch dates together, positioning brands and content marketing is very crucial.
The very last tactic has to be a befitting finale. We don’t know for a fact that Tiwa and Wizkid are done milking this strategy but if they were, ‘Fever’s viral status as a pop culture conversation is just what the doctor ordered. Much like the iconic hug between Davido and Wizkid at Wizkid’s concert, the music video for ‘Fever’ is the type of social media event that the fans will eat up, gladly.
Playing the strategy for a longer time would find Wizkid running the risk of losing people’s investment and attention. Knowing when and how to quit a strategy is just as important as starting one.
So maybe the Stew days are not behind us, but one thing is for sure: Social Media is Wizkid’s game center, and he is playing us all like a fiddle.
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