2025 Budget: A marketing post-budget review

By Professor Robert Ebo HINSON

The Finance Minister of Ghana recently delivered a hope-filled budget for the people of Ghana after a period of encouraging economic progress for the country. As expected, the raft of post-budget review fora focused heavily on the finance, trade, governance, and economic transformation (or otherwise) implications of the policy statement.

I author this article to offer perspectives on what I consider missed marketing, customer experience, nation branding and business development opportunities in the recently presented Budget.

A comprehensive assessment of the 2025 Budget through the lens of modern marketing, nation branding, customer experience, and market competitiveness reveals an important pattern. Although themed “Resetting the Economy for the Ghana We Want,” the Budget presents itself primarily as a stabilisation and restructuring document.

When evaluated using frameworks from contemporary marketing strategy, competitive positioning, customer value creation, and transformative service delivery, it becomes evident that the Budget does not advance an explicit marketing philosophy, nor does it demonstrate a clear market orientation. It lacks customer insight, does not articulate a nation brand positioning logic, and reflects limited competitiveness consciousness.

Absence of Marketing Awareness

This absence of marketing awareness is not peculiar to this Budget. Over the last two decades, national budgets have only included faint sprinklings of tourism slogans or general statements about projecting Ghana abroad.

The 2025 Budget is economically framed, but not market framed. It provides governance oversight, but it does not offer clear marketing direction for the nation. Some colleagues in the marketing academy may argue that such guidance should come from a national branding office—but Ghana does not yet have one, regrettably.

The Budget therefore provides administrative direction but does not establish a clear international positioning strategy for Ghana. This leads naturally to the subject of nation branding.

Nation Brand

A modern nation brand requires a clearly defined value proposition, an articulated competitive positioning statement, a narrative identity, identifiable pillars of differentiation, and measurable perception management indicators.

The Budget contains none of these. Even the closest references—renovating missions abroad or hosting summits—represent administrative activities rather than brand strategy. A country that does not intentionally shape perception becomes defined by media narratives, rating agencies, competitors, and external observers.

As far back as 2014, I spoke at a Workshop on “Supranational Place Branding and Sustainable Development: Africa and the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda” at the Radcliffe House, University of Warwick, UK, where I argued that majority of the countries in Africa are not communicating comprehensively online.

In a presentation entitled: Why the Muteness? Africa Speak, the World Listeneth” I posed five provocative questions: What type of Brand Africa do we want? What will the unique selling proposition of Brand Africa be? What level of resource commitments do we need for a strong effective Brand Africa? Who will initiate the Brand Africa effort? and Who will oversee the nurturing, monitoring and evaluation of Brand Africa? I lamented that African nations still had not taken full control of their brand narratives—and over a decade later, there remains much room for improvement.

Economic Diplomacy

The Budget does acknowledge economic diplomacy, referencing a planned diplomacy blueprint, participation in global engagements, and the hosting of high-level meetings. However, it does not define target markets, articulate export promotion strategies, link diplomacy to trade outcomes (even though the Foreign Minister has recently announced KPIs for ambassadors), set targets for FDI attraction, or provide metrics for global reputation enhancement. Diplomacy without market orientation risks becoming ceremony rather than commerce.

Consumer Rights

Modern marketing also requires functioning domestic markets, yet the Budget overlooks consumer rights, protection from pricing abuses (despite the cedi stabilising without corresponding price reductions), market fairness, product quality assurance, and digital fraud safeguards. Ghana still has no Consumer Protection Strengthening Plan, no National Market Conduct Framework, no Customer Redress Mechanism Reform, and no Standards Enforcement Acceleration Strategy. A nation cannot industrialise with unprotected consumers and unregulated value chains.

A market-driven economy must nurture innovation, startup ecosystems, SME capability, access to markets, and brand development. Yet SMEs are not segmented, startups are not structurally supported, there is no policy for commercialisation of innovation, no marketing capability development, and no export-readiness framework. SMEs remain treated as tax subjects rather than national growth assets.

Service Standards

A modern state also evaluates turnaround times, service standards, citizen satisfaction indicators, complaint resolution, and digital access experience. The Budget has no customer experience transformation agenda, no service performance commitments, no national or sector service charters, and no citizen experience dashboards—even though many senior officials have acknowledged that this is precisely what the country needs. Ghanaians are still treated as passive recipients rather than customers.

Digital Services

The Budget mentions digital passports and HRMIS expansion, but does not engage digital brand positioning, digital export capacity, creative economy scaling, digital commerce readiness, or a national content development strategy. One of Africa’s fastest-growing export categories is digital services and content—yet Ghana is absent.

Diaspora Engagement

Although the Government has shown commitment to diaspora engagement—demonstrated by new envoy postings and policy signalling—the Budget contains no clearly articulated diaspora economic programme, no diaspora loyalty branding, and no diaspora capital mobilisation strategy. Given the scale of remittances, skills, networks, and influence available, this omission is a significant missed marketing opportunity.

AfCFTA

Ghana hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat, yet the Budget does not provide an AfCFTA-aligned branding strategy, a cross-border trade marketing plan, a continental positioning statement, or an export competitiveness framework. Ghana risks being the host of AfCFTA, but not a winner in AfCFTA.

Closely related to the AfCFTA issue is tourism. The Budget references tourism only through isolated activities, not as a national branding platform. There is no destination marketing strategy, no themed experience development, no city branding, and no cultural capital monetisation plan. Ghana is still not marketed as premium, distinctive, experiential, or unforgettable. The “Black Star Experience” should be elevated into a fully-fledged destination marketing strategy that contributes meaningfully to economic expansion.

Conclusion

The 2025 Budget is, in many respects, an excellent policy document that builds on the successes of the NDC Government after ten months in office. However, it contains significant marketing gaps that future budgets must address. As it stands, the Budget does not articulate a nation brand, has no marketing philosophy, no consumer protection strengthening initiative, no customer experience transformation agenda, no clearly framed diaspora strategy, no defined SME marketing ecosystem, and no AfCFTA competitiveness plan.

We can—and must—do better in the next budget.

The post 2025 Budget: A marketing post-budget review appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story