Evaluating the Impact of Digital Marketing on Consumption
Despite the debate that often trails digital marketing, experts who assembled recently to look at brand positioning in the digital age, differed on whether business owners in developing nations are adequately connecting with consumers via the platform. Ra
It was a moment of truth and appraisal recently in Lagos when top marketing professionals and experts in digital marketing and public relations came together to weigh the impact of digital marketing on consumers and brands. Issues were raised, examples were provided and questions were answered. At the end, all the speakers admitted that digital marketing has come to stay but there was also a view that the hype is more than its result.
The occasion was at the Marketing Edge Brands and Advertising Excellence Award & Annual Summit 2016, with the theme; “Brand Positioning in a Digital Age: Challenges in a Developing Market.”
In his remark at the event, the Managing Partner, Market Space, Mr. George Thorpe, decried the inability of corporate companies as well as Small & Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to adequately connect with their consumers in transacting their businesses using digital marketing.
He stressed that the world is going digitalised especially as more new technologies are unfolding on a daily bases adding that there is an exponential growth in the adoption of mobile devices with access to the internet, as about 85million GSM subscribers use the internet from their mobile devices in Nigeria.
To him, there is a marginal growth of consumers in the digital space compare to the previous years but added that many organisations were grappling with the difficulties of meeting the consumers’ demand in a digital market.
“In Nigeria today, the larger more established corporate organizations are struggling with the challenges of restricting their marketing organizations to fully capitalise on today’s opportunities. The vast majority of SMEs have yet to connect with the potential benefits of digital marketing that comes with greater brand equity, increases sales, better customer awareness all at a drastically lower cost,” Thorpe said.
According to the Market Space boss, both corporate organizations and SMEs have failed to commit adequate resources in their personnel, training, developing new content, tracking and follow through in engaging consumers in a digital space, affirming that engaging consumers directly was falling sharply for many organisations in the digital marketing world in Nigeria.
He pointed out that the migration from the traditional market to a digital one has led to the proliferation of digital marketing agencies stressing that the market space was also bedeviled with a myriad of problems not limited to market research, strategy focus, planning and execution of discipline of marketing theory and practice.
“Digital marketing is the use of digital channels-corporate websites, online communities, internet search and display advertising, mobile technologies, online videos and social media such as Facebook, Twitter to reach consumers and build stronger relationships. But most companies have failed to adequately do profiting transactions in a digital space” Mr. Thorpe stressed.
He brought humour to the discussion when he said digital phenomenon is upon Nigerians like a ton of bricks driven by an exponential growth in the adoption of mobile devices.
Market understanding The Managing Partner at Brandzone Consulting, Chizor Malize, who is known to have contributed to the success of many brands in Nigeria, made a robust case for brands to join the digital bandwagon. She noted that the youth market in Nigeria was a great force in the market space, arguing that brands that desire to win their loyalty must discover their favourite platform of engagement.
In her presentation, the charismatic brand expert admonished that any serious brand manager must be abreast of trends among consumers. “Brands need to know that a lot of young people are moving away from facebook and instagram and going over to snapchat. If they don’t know this they will then be concentrating their marketing effort on the wrong channels and will not get expected outcomes,”
The expert also added that with digital marketing, brands can achieve more in a shorter time than they would without digital marketing. She stated that technology has made a lot of things possible as it has made the ability to reach more people possible and given voice to the voiceless.
Like Malize, the CEO of Neukleos, a digital marketing agency, Bukola Akingbade, said with technology, competition is no more within a particular environment but global. She gave example of Uber competing with locals in taxi business. She went further to give a more graphic representation of how the digital space has now created bigger possibilities for brands by helping them to reach wider and more diverse audience in a much faster time.
The digital expert noted that with digital marketing local brands can now compete on the global stage without the rigour of opening physical offices around the world and big international brands like Uber can also be accessible to consumers in Nigeria with little or no cost. Akingbade on this basis concluded that Nigerian brand owners who desire growth must inevitably leverage technology to achieve their goals.
Another top player in the digital marketing space in Nigeria and co-founder of Red Media, Mr. Chude Jideonwo emphasised the need for brands to pay attention to the streets because that is where trends in the market place are inspired. “The mass market is not influenced by those who have Phd or live in Lekki, but by the streets. That is why brands must study and pay close attention to the streets. Power has changed hands from company executives to people on the streets” he said.
To further explain this, he pointed out how a street slang by musician Olamide “leave dirt for LASTMA” became so popular that it inspired one of Sterling Bank’s campaigns. Between digital and traditional marketing If there is any area of agreement among the speakers while the session lasted, it was the evaluation of whether digital revolution is a threat to traditional marketing or not. From the Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria, Seni Adetu, to Thorpe and Jidenwo, the submissions were the same; digital and traditional are complementary tools in marketing.
Adetu said that core principles of marketing will not change because of the emergence of digital marketing, adding that the core principles required for marketing include ability to generate deep consumer insights, ability to develop scalable ideas that may be executed brilliantly and ability to anticipate future trends.
The marketing expert also told marketers not to make the mistake of considering Nigeria as one country of people in their marketing approach as there are different lifestyles and religion that distinguish people.
For business owners to excel in today’s market, Adetu advised them to study the parts of fish which give it its power. He said the eyes are for insight and research; the tail gives it power which indicates brand management, new strategies and innovation. The fins are for balance, which is for ATL and BTL purposes.
Despite his achievement in the area of digital, Jideonwo was also fast to tell his audience and stakeholders in the marketing industry not to get too excited about the internet or overrate it because there are still millions of young people, especially in Northern Nigeria that are not on the internet. According to him, to reach this group of people, the traditional media remains the primary source of information. To this end, brands that desire to engage them can only do so through traditional media like TV, radio, and newspapers.
“For this reason, traditional media is still very key and inevitable for brands that want optimum returns on their investments. Some people do not know that Galaxy TV is still the most watch television channel in Nigeria and not Hiptv or SoundCity,” he said.
Also speaking during the question and answer session, Thorpe warned that for all the frenzy about the digital marketing media, it still lacks an empirical evidence to prove its performance. That according to him is the primary weakness of the digital marketing and that is where traditional media still has an edge.
Earlier, the Publisher of Marketing Edge, John Ajayi had explained that the summit is aimed at initiating conversations that are germane to the growth and development of the industry.
He said this year’s topic was a reflection of the objective reality in the market as well as a testimony to the dynamics of the times. “Indeed, brand owners and service providers operating within the gamut of integrated marketing communications have been facing challenges resulting from offerings of the new dawn”
Consequently, the times and its challenges call for a deep introspection and prompt proactive efforts. It is a time to rethink, retool and restrategise to be able to take advantage of the opportunities available in the unfolding world, Ajayi said. He also noted that the 2016 edition of the awards have been expanded to include new categories that celebrate young practitioners, stating that the decision was taken to encourage productive competition in the creative industry.
Peak of event What appeared to be the climax of the event was when the 87 year old Mr. Ted Mukoro was announced to be honoured as the Nigeria’s advertising titan. Mukoro, a foremost copy writer is renowned for his well scripted ‘shine shine bobo’ which was used to change the fortune of Star Larger beer.
On hand to present the award to Mukoro was the chairman of the occasion, Sir Steve Omojafor. The chairman, who is the CEO of STB-McCann Group, had in a short tribute, praised Mukoro for his impact and outstanding legacies in the advertising profession. He evoked emotions when he recalled with nostalgia how Mukoro mentored him and took him through the rudiments of copywriting.
In all, the award had 44 categories. Some of the winners of the night were; SO&U Managing Director, Mr. Udeme Ufot, Channel Television boss, John Momoh, Chizor Malize, MTN, Noah’s Ark, Chivita, Red Media, Peak Milk, and Star larger.