When KISCO started, plenty of people told us a digital-first agency was premature for Zambia — that the market still ran on radio, print and word of mouth. They weren’t wrong about the present. They were wrong about the direction.
Follow where attention is heading
Smartphone penetration was climbing fast, data was getting cheaper, and a whole generation was moving its attention onto Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok. You don’t market to where the audience was — you market to where it’s going. Digital-first was simply skating to the puck.
Digital-first never meant digital-only. The smartest play was always to lead with digital and let broadcast and out-of-home amplify it — the same idea, reinforced across every channel a Zambian actually touches in a day.
The early-mover advantage
Betting early meant we learned the platforms while they were still cheap and forgiving. By the time digital became obvious to everyone, we’d already made our mistakes and built the systems. That head start is hard to buy later.
The right time to bet on where the audience is going is always before everyone agrees with you.
Two years on, “digital-first” isn’t a bold claim in Zambia anymore — it’s just how marketing works. We’re glad we believed it early.