Safaricom Honors Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan Olympic Marathon Champion

Safaricom rebranded M-Pesa’s logo in honour of Eluid Kipchoge, as an act of loyalty and support for the Kenyan Olympic marathon champion who became the first to finish the race in less than 2 hours. M-Pesa’s logo was changed to “Eluid” and the numbers “159” to anticipate the victory.

Safaricom also provided free internet for subscribers to live-stream the marathon from 8 am to 4 pm on Saturday 12th October 2019. Kipchoge was made Safaricom’s brand ambassador in honour of his athletic feat. Over 3 million subscribers dialed *159# to take advantage of the 1.59 GB promotion bundle that lasted till midnight.

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“Kipchoge is a reflection of our strong network and wide coverage. For every Kenyan, Kipchoge is a reflection of our resilience and determination as he has taken on challenge after challenge. This is a superhuman feat that takes great talent and effort to even accomplish. In this regard, we will be going beyond having Kipchoge as our ambassador; equally, Safaricom will also become Eliud Kipchoge’s ambassador,” said Michael Joseph the acting CEO of Safaricom.

M-Pesa is a mobile money platform that has over 26 million subscribers in Eastern Africa. This has turned out to be a great marketing strategy as Safaricom took the bull by the horn, even before the race took place. The hashtag #Eliud159 with the M-Pesa logo had more than 11 billion impressions for 5 hours successively on Twitter, making Safaricom the first ever Kenyan brand to trend for that long. With Kipchoge as ambassador, Safaricom will reach more people around the world.

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