I keep seeing this “Detty December” conversation on my timeline. Everyone has an opinion. Here’s mine, not as NDC or NPP, but as a Ghanaian.
I read somewhere that a former colleague, Bernard Sokpe, came up with it for a Mr Eazi concert in 2019. If you know Bernard from his Vodafone years – ICONS, 020 Live, Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, you know he’s a brilliant mind when it comes to digital strategy, marketing campaigns, and reaching the then Gen Z. The current Gen Alpha may be wired a little differently.
. @mistameister emphasizes on keeping the original term ” detty december ” on#MMRS with @RevErskineGH #DettyDecember #YHolidayHavocConvo #YHolidayHavoc25 #YHolidayHavoc#YFMGhana pic.twitter.com/5eB1FnnbU3
— YFM ACCRA (@Y1079FM) December 23, 2025
The first time I heard the term “thunderclap” was during one of our brainstorming sessions with the in-house Vodafone campaigns team – Brand and Corp Comm. Bernard introduced it, I am not sure if he coined it or if it existed before, but the concept was brilliant. We had a series of activities planned across the country, and he suggested we synchronise the entire Go-Live Strategy so everything launched at once, nationwide. One moment of coordinated impact. That’s what a rebrand needs, a thunderclap, not a whisper.
I’ve been fortunate to work on four major rebrands in my career, projects costing millions of $$$. My first was AirtelTigo. Let’s not get into how the business is doing now, that’s a different conversation. At the start, the focus was on regulatory approval, so rebranding came at the last hour.
When approval looked likely, we quickly held strategy sessions, and the first agency came in to present. Their recommendation was not AirtelTigo or the red and blue colours. Sometimes a simple, naïve question would have the room debating for over an hour, eg, what would make for an easy transition, integration and recall, given the brand equity both Airtel and Millicom (Tigo) had built in Ghana?
Even the inspiration for painting faces red and blue came from a photo of a seven year old’s birthday party, where he and his friends had joyfully painted their faces as different animals.
Here’s what I learned. When a name already exists and has gravitas, you don’t simply tell people you don’t want it or how to think. You guide them by not leaving a vacuum.
My simple logic is that it’s like a change of name for us as individuals. The name my parents gave me at birth is Gifty Osei Boakye. For the first two decades of my life, that’s what I was called.
Later, I changed it to Gifty Bingley. I didn’t go around telling people not to call me Gifty Osei Boakye. I changed it, used it consistently and people adjusted.
Now apply the same logic to an institution. Take AMISOM, for nearly two decades, that was the name the world knew for the African Union Mission in Somalia.
When the mandate changed from both the African Union and United Nations Security Councils, no one put in effort to tell people to stop saying AMISOM.
Instead, we executed by transitioning to ATMIS, with a full rebrand of assets, collaterals, properties, and campaigns to embed the new name with clear KPIs for TOMA, buzz, stakeholder alignment, the works. No vacuum. No cautioning people. Just a series of strategic executions.
So here’s my point: if you don’t like the name “Detty December” or “Year of Return,” you don’t need to go cautioning people not to say it. What you do is come up with a different name or concept, test it with focus groups, rebrand, and execute. If you want “Akwaaba December” or “Obaake December” or “December in Ghana” test it, and execute.
It’s been talking, talking, talking, even with ORAL. Press conferences, social media posts, ministerial announcements. But talk doesn’t recover loot, and talk doesn’t rebrand December for both domestic and international tourism. Execution does.
And to those making political capital out of this and comparing, Ghana suffers not a political party.
Merry Christmas 🎄
About Gifty Bingley
For more than 25 years, Gifty Bingley has worked with some of Africa’s leading telecommunications and government organisations, focusing on modernising and evolving communications, PR, Branding, Internal communications, CSR/Sustainability, and Government relations capabilities. She currently leads communications and public information for the African Union counterterrorism and peace-support operations in Somalia.
