‘Experiential marketing is biggest tool to engage consumers for value’

Owolabi Mustapha is the CEO of Maxxconnection, a five year old experiential marketing agency based in Lagos. Within five years of operation, it has made great strides in creating platforms for brands and consumers to interact with results to show. Owolabi said CMOs now appreciate the value experiential activity has brought to the marketing mix. He discussed other advantages and challenges the industry faces. Experts

What is your assessment of the experiential marketing industry so far?

Experiential marketing industry started very small some years back.  Advertising and other segments of IMC had led the pack until about a decade ago when experiential took the center stage. Before experiential, CMOs of multinational were skeptical, about the value of experiential. But it is interesting to see these days that everybody now appreciates the value of what experiential has brought in the mix of marketing. Today, multinational now invest more in the experiential industry.

Experiential was a major form of brands connection in 70s, then it disappeared to re-surface again in late 90s, what happened?

It was not experiential that time. It was just promotional activity as part of advertising. The traditional advertising used to have promotional part. At that time, there were not really media independent agencies. The practice then used to be a one-stop shop where advertising agency used to have media and promotion department among others. With the evolving and dynamic world, the media has to change direction. Because of the evolution of media in conventional advertising, they had to carve out their niche out of advertising.

It is argued that experiential activity is expensive in the basket of media, PR, advertising and digital, do you agree?

Experiential is about value and value comes with cost. The argument whether it is expensive or not should not arise because experiential gives the most value. Others don’t translate to target engagement as experiential does. The value of experiential is not quantifiable.

Another challenge is that experiential is limited in scope and  operates in a particular area, what is your comment on this?

In marketing, you need to identify the challenges that you want to address. After that you still need to distil your target audience. If my target audiences are in a particular area, I don’t need to waste time and resources being everywhere. If your target audience is the entire nation, of course experiential marketing can address it. There are different strategic approaches to address different challenges. Majority of multinational companies have more of experiential agencies working for them than the other agencies. This is global phenomenon. You can employ advertising to reach to mass audience and use PR to allow people read about the product but  when it gets to the point that the product needs to be dropped directly to the people that need the service, it is experiential. The value comes when the people engage the product or buy it.

To what level would you say the government has engaged experiential firms to deliver services to the citizens?

It is interesting to know that some of the biggest campaigns from government are handled by experiential firms. For instance one of the biggest campaigns in Lagos is the count-down in December. This is a multi-million naira project. The activities around it are driven by experiential firms. For us, we have worked with a couple of state governments in Nigeria. We have done lots of political campaigns. Other experiential firms are doing other activities for other states. Experiential marketing is one of the biggest tools to engage people for value.

What is the place of measurement   in experiential marketing activity as clients are passionate about impact?

There are different approaches to measurement. It depends exactly on what you are measuring. If it is data, experiential marketing delivers it and that is why multinationals are engaging experiential agencies. Secondly, there is the connection and the experience which experiential gives. We are bringing experience that is uniquely designed for a particular product on the table. I repeat that experiential is not about cost but the value. Unique experience that comes with experiential marketing lives with the people and it leads to uptake. In terms of creativity, experiential agencies are doing very well. They come up with ingenious creativity. We have done job for a client that involves brand engagement, sales and CSR at the same time. Any other IMC segment will address just one of them but we addressed the three challenges. The Nigerian Bottling Company campaign of taking people off the street was conceptualized by us. It was an idea of taking people off the street without applying force by giving them opportunity to sell NBC products and rewarding them with N1m.

You established Maxxconnection 5 years ago, so what actually motivated you to start the firm?

Movement is normal occurrence in human life either through challenges, the creative ingenuity and other couple of indices will determine movement. We looked at the industry and there were some quacks within the industry space, others are not tech driven and we thought that there was need for a unique agency that prides itself on creativity and technology. Our campaigns exhibit these features. Our Coca Cola campaign was example of really driving engagement.

Your work on Campari drink was marvelous with Tuface as the ambassador. Could you talk more about it?

In Maxxconnection, we take research very seriously. Before any campaign, we engage thoroughly on research. Research gives you  insight of what you want to do in the short, medium and long term period.  We did extensive research on Campari as a brand. We looked at the journey of Campari and found that it was perceived as  drink for the old. But these days, youth mix it with their beer. The campaign was driven on proper positioning of the drink as a youthful brand. Again, Trophy Beer is now everywhere but some years ago, it was perceived as Yoruba, Illesa drink. We are part of the success story of that brand today. The consumers are telling the story.

How do you see experiential business in the next 5 years and where is the place of Maxxconnection?

A whole lot of things will change for us and for the industry in the next 5 years. There will be a lot of strategic association and affiliation either local or foreign. Experiential will be placed in a better position as it is happening globally. There will be a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the industry.  Also there will a lot of tech driven activities in the industry.

Could you to talk more of your strength and challenges?

We pride ourselves to be very young and this reflects on the employees. We believe that the power belongs to the youth and that is one of the strengths. We have also tried to retain most of our staff since inception. The challenges are enormous. It is a systemic and national problem. For instance the forex is not bringing strategic investment into the country.  If this does not happen, it then limits most of the activities and number of clients for agencies. We have two clients that ought to have come in three years ago, and they are not certain about Nigeria’s system. Secondly electricity is a major challenge. It is costs us heavily to fuel the generator. There are a lot of unprofessional agencies in the industry and unfortunately, some clients still work with them because they charge ridiculous fees and some clients have got their fingers burnt.  Financing and funding is a major challenge for the business as single interest rate is difficult.