The management mood was apprehensive to this plan. This was a huge change considering how traditional the brand was, the level of investment and how novelty of the category we were venturing into.


After a regulatory move to standardise Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) valves in the Kenya, the LPG space became increasingly competitive and created a space for illegal refiller (refilling major player's cylinders and illegally selling these).

This meant that TOTAL as a major player was increasingly losing market share. I proactively put together this marketing plan to guide TOTAL (now TOTAL Energies) to define an inhouse New Product Dev' approach to capitalise on bulk LPG, a move I thought would help TOTAL as a major defend its market position (that was increasingly under threat).

The first year is monthly and it gets less granular over time because I had a better view (and control) over the year within which the plan was developed. It was rational not to get too detailed as time progressed to accommodate evolving business needs.

I estimated the budget through a lot of research, previous experience (research, mystery shopper, staff surveys, participation in tenders - are activities we had previously participate in therefore had this information) and reliance on key project team members that had a diverse range of experience and access to budget numbers.


This objective (Transform the brand’s reputation into purchase growing market share by 20% by sustaining safe operations) was the most important because this had a direct relationship to the bottom line. This was the main reason to take on the diversification strategy.


Activities that had dependency on internal staff had a higher chance of success; market research, distributor recruitment an POS branding, incentive scheme awards, sales visits and price surveillance.

Contracting a local cylinder manufacturer was more experimental. It was dependent on having a local supplier that met all our safety requirements and participating in reticulated LPG tenders (the local market is highly influenced by kick backs - it is likely without these we wouldn't secure a reticulated LPG tender).


We would need the MD's buy-in to deliver against this.

Kawira Irambu 

I created this document offered a guide on how TOTAL Kenya would improve competitiveness. 

Strategic Marketing Plan at Total Kenya

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