‘ Infinite Future’ is big for global brands, says Ogunyomi
Olateju Ogunyomi is CEO of the new digital marketing company, ASPORA. A brand builder, Ogunyomi describes her journey in the world of advertising and marketing, as well as a the ‘ infinite future’ digital marketing offers global brands. GREGORY AUSTIN NWA
At what point in your life did it occur to you that you want to be a marketing communications practitioner? What is your journey so far?
ILEARNT at an early age how to identify and analyse competition, how to use SWOT ( Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to understand what needs to be done to survive, and the importance of using creative and strategic conversations to achieve my goal.
Another critical thing I learnt is behavioural analysis and change. However, I didn’t know the terms until I got to the polytechnic. When I got the admission to study mass communications at the Ogun State Polytechnic in 1997 and my dad insisted it had to be law, I analysed my situation and strategised on what to do to get what I wanted. Although, dad delayed until admission closed just to make me give up, I was ready to do part- time which was for three years instead of two – there is always a price to pay ( smile). So, my venture into this career is not by luck, coincidence or what is available, it is what I have always wanted to do. On my career journey, I started out at BCOS in 2001 as an OAP before moving to Lagos in 2002 for greater opportunities like many others. Then, I worked as a freelance presenter on a programme on Eko FM called Property Network, did a short stint at OshodiIsolo Council secretariat for a year, and later worked at TQA Communications as an ad hoc staff at events for Nestle – maggi cooking competitions and Milo basketball, Nigerian Breweries – AMBO box office and Business Retreat, and CocaCola; for three years. I finally got my first agency full time job in 2008 before moving to Criterion Communications, which later launched as Ogilvy.
As the first staff of Ogilvy, you left to take a break. Are you quitting marketing communication?
I needed that break badly. Some people believe that I was not smart to have resigned without getting another job. Others think that I could have taken a long leave to rest and then go back to work. But the truth is that I don’t know how to stop when I feel that there is work to do. There is this sense of responsibility that makes me feel that I have to make sure everything is fine, and that makes me restless and push myself more even when I am ill. So, at the time I resigned, I knew if I didn’t, something will go wrong. All the medical checkup I did came back with warning signs, so it was a decision that if I make again, I won’t think twice. However, quitting Marcomms is like telling me to commit suicide. I am very restless, and I thrive most with challenges. Serving brands is what I live for and the only thing that has always kept me on my toes is this profession… honestly, it seems like a till- death- do- us- path relationship. So, I am not quitting. But I am starting a new agency called ASPORA. ASPORA is a Digital Marketing Agency with strategy, integrated communications, and consultancy offerings. The company’s vision is to take brands into the infinite future, and that future is Digital. For me, digital is not about just selling products or creating amazing designs, it is about building relationships. The brand’s personality and character are what the digital natives experience when they connect with a brand, and how that experience makes them feel, is what makes them hold on to the brand. We are here to take brands through the process of building a life of its own that will become its true community and help it achieve business growth. We intend to connect and infiltrate their world through MeMedia to understand and measure share of mind and share of heart to build brand value and a positive direct relationship with consumers and advocates, using best practices. Most importantly, we want to deliver business value. We believe value is about human connection, and that is what matters.
Why do you think digital is the future of advertising?
You need to understand that in every second, 500hrs of videos are uploaded on Youtube, 150,000 users share messages on Facebook and 147,000 photos are uploaded, Instagram Ads receive 138,889 clicks, 41,666,667 messages are shared on Whatsapp, 208,333 meetings are hosted on Zoom, 404,444 hrs of videos are streamed on Netflix, 316 people join twitter, 52,083 people connect on Microsoft Teams, 69,444 users apply for jobs on Linkedin, Amazon ships 6,659 packages and above all, 1,000,000 dollars is spent online. All per seconds! And the most interesting thing is that it can be measured, and brands can use the learning algorithms to discover and understand the behaviors of those users that connect with their business goals. So, brands should stop seeing social as another digital channel for just support or visibility. Social has become the new mass advertising with the ability to hyper target personalized messaging. Many brand managers believe in what we call the ‘ vanity metrics” in the form of “engagement and likes”, to measure the success of their brands when actually, the KPIS should be “awareness, consideration, and action” in alignment with the business goal. It is very necessary to understand that data has proven that optimising towards engagement just target the ‘ engagers’ who are not necessarily the target, and “click happy” audiences rarely purchase. Ultimately, there is absolutely no correlation between engagement and brand effects metric!
But don’t you think brands are creating posts and engaging their audience already?
Marc Pritchard, P& G’s brand officer said, and I quote, “we fell into the content crap trap”. That is exactly what is happening to many brands. It is not the quantity of post that makes the target want to keep coming back to your page or be part of your community, it is how you make them feel. Creating many posts can easily make brands lose the customer’s attention. With the intensifying battle for attention and the shrinking target’s attention span, most of the things created become ineffective, uninteresting and does not inspire them, and brands need to cut through the clutter. My effective way of doing this is for brands to move to the transformative stage. This means that brands should start building content in line with consumption habits and not a “one for all” approach. You have to get the target’s attention in the first second or they move on. Therefore, what is missing in today’s digital marketing is the understanding of where the brand’s personality and the consumer’s habit meet, how it fits into the ecosystem, and how it should be measured. It cannot be one- size- fitsall approach. And I think we keep making the same mistake as we do in the traditional advertising where we do not analyze brands deep enough to understand where the messages need to be to connect with the right target. For example, outdoor; should our messages be on only tricycles or BRT buses, or inter- state buses or billboards, or on all? What is the bottom line to the client’s business? It has now become imperative for brands to develop contents that enable them to build and maintain relationships. I call it “predictable but innovative”
What is your team at ASPORA looking like?
Our team at ASPORA excites me because we have from start- up designed a virtual office structure and a cloudbased engagement system that allows us all to work from anywhere in the world but still deliver fast and strong. We have an internationally experienced crew with global marketing experience and strong brand- building bonafide. Our Directors and Consultants are able to offer our clients case- study evaluations based on international references but with local market intelligence and the nature and level of digital penetration in each instance. I feel really blessed to lead this exciting team and we are energized to bring a new colour and energy to how brands engage Nigeria’s huge generation of digital natives.
What is ASPORA’S brand promise? How do you hope to make a difference?
What we offer are bespoke innovative analytical tools to assess the paradigm of brand personality, channels, consumer behaviour, messaging and alignment. We apply this analysis, bespoke, to every brand we are privileged to support. We encourage robust investments in digital marketing and embrace measurable milestones that prove our analysis and solutions. And we do this understanding the pressures that brand teams face and the dynamic and sometimes tumultuous nature of the marketplace and the intensity of competitive activities.