Summary

Every two years, 24 nations across Africa convene for the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament. For one month, some 800 plus million people are glued to their TVs—and their phones—to watch games and stay up to date with the third most-watched soccer event in the world.

This year, to take advantage of the energy around the tournament, mobile carrier Orange launched an RCS Business Messaging bot across six participating countries, making it the world’s first multi-country bot. The rich and interactive user experience provided users with up-to-the-second information on scores, standings, teams, and more. By the end of the tournament, Orange had doubled their active users of RCS Business Messaging in Africa (and tripled them in Senegal). The bot also generated over one million messages, making it one of the top RCS Business Messaging bots in the world, based on volume of messages sent.

The Goals

With a presence in more than 18 African countries, Orange wanted to raise awareness of RCS Business Messaging among their African customers. They used the momentum around the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament to launch a bot specifically for the competition, debuting it six countries at once, and making it the world’s first multi-country RCS Business messaging bot. Yassine Hamoudi, Communication Services Director at Orange, shares, “We wanted to raise awareness for RCS Business Messaging, increase our active user base, and let users discover how engaging the service can be.”

The Approach

On the first day of the tournament, Orange launched their bot in six countries: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Madagascar, and Senegal. Once live, Orange gained adoption for the bot by promoting it through SMS, Twitter, and grassroots initiatives in stores and at stadiums.

The bot offered customers a truly rich interactive user experience. It let users tap buttons to access information on the latest scores and standings, team updates, player profiles, and upcoming matches. Orange was quick to react when users requested new features, such as real-time game notifications. “Our goal was to be agile. We were listening to our customers and adding features as fast as we could,” says Hamoudi.

The Results

For Orange, the bot not only helped strengthen their relationship with consumers, but it also drove RCS Business Messaging awareness and usage. During the month of the tournament, Orange doubled their active RCS Business Messaging users and tripled them in Senegal, one of the finalist countries.

Orange’s creative applications with the bot showcased just how powerfully RCS can engage users: one-third of users had an impressive average of 25 interactions per conversation—something that is impossible with the one-sided nature of SMS marketing. Overall, the bot generated more than one million messages during the month-long tournament, making it one of the top bots in the world for the most messages sent.