Kantar Group engages Nigerian marketers, points way to consumer engagement, ROI

Kantar Group, a member of WPP and one of the world’s largest insight, information and consultancy groups has held a one-day empowerment marketing strategic session with Nigerian marketers who are presently under intensive pressure from  marketing budget cut and demand on them by their managements to demonstrate the financial impact of their activities.

The session held in Lagos and attended by marketers from various organizations including banks, telcos and FMCGs was principally designed to assist the marketers to navigate the challenging times by creating clear understanding of what their consumers want and how their consumers are behaving in this changing world. The forum was expected to assist them to create messages that resonate with the consumers through use of appropriate media platforms for proper engagement and effect on ROI.

Marketers around the world are faced with the same challenge to maximise ROI from communications on more screens with smaller budgets in the face of consumers who are also less receptive. This is in addition to empowered consumer, intensive competition with low barrier of entry, pressure on pricing in the market and gloomy economy.

In her presentation, Karin Du Chenne, Chief Client Officer, Insights Africa and Middle East at Kantar therefore  believed that marketers need to be dynamic,  focused and ahead of consumers whose world is changing fast. 

The consumers are changing very fast and they are becoming more connected leading to more confidence and how they are doing things such as embrace of ecommerce. Under this environment, Karin therefore said that brands need to create connection with the consumers in different ways than the brands are used to in the past which was just lineal type of advertising.

It is about creating the conversation and how they can use the wonderful opportunities available to create brands stories that resound with consumers which would help them to connect better, she said.

She told the audience that the world is now mobile-centric and “in an era of Micro-moments it’s important for brands to be a part of the conversation and be consistent across touchpoints”. For instance, social media is a daily habit in Nigeria as Facebook, Snapchat Youtube and twitter dominate usage which offer opportunity for brands to engage consumers.

While emphasizing that great content marketing is timely, relevant and shareable, Karin said consumers do not discriminate; they connect whenever and wherever throughout the week. “Given the amount of time in traffic there is a huge opportunity for brands to create interest using Mobile”, she further said.

In his presentation, Daren Poole, Global Brand Director Creative Development, Millward Brown believed that in the face of multiple channels for engagement and cut in marketing budgets, great creativity is the key to ROI.

“For the same spend, creatively awarded campaigns increase a brand’s share of market 10 times more than other campaigns”

On ensuring that content delivers ROI, Daren explained that brands and ads must have instant meaning.

He also told marketers to advertise brands and not products. Explaining further, he said “so many Ads tell consumers what they already know about brands for a long time.  If it is toothpaste they say it makes your teeth clean with fresh breath etc. but if you develop a sense of meaning for different brands, either rational or emotional, then you have competitive advantage and much chances of holding market share”

Listing the attributes of balanced brand to include: knowledge (easily identified), experience, emotion, meaningful and different, Daren  said in brand communication “It’s not just what you say, but how you say it”

Charles Foster, CEO, Insights Africa & Middle East traced the trajectory of advertising from 1900 when outdoor was introduced; TV advertising in 1920s and radio advertising in 1930s to rise of market research in 1940s 1970s saw the development of Ad and brand tracking by Gordon Brown and Maurice Millward in the UK to introduction of social media in 2000s

Looking at the future, he said there will be growth in predictive, ROI and rapid ways of anticipating consumer behavior; Automation will lead to industry specialising in the “Why” rather than the “What”; data source agnostic will drive down data collection costs and change the skill sets in the industry. He said  democratisation of media – market leaders like Facebook & Twitter who currently rules the Internet will see strong challenges for the throne.

Also speaking, Adeola Tejumola CEO for West East and Central Africa at Kantar Consumer Insights, TNS, Millward Brown explained that the event was an opportunity for Kantar to engage its clients. “Our clients including ourselves are not immune to the current challenges in the environment. One of the ways to help our clients is to bring in understanding of what their consumers want and how their consumers are behaving in this changing world. This would allow our clients the opportunity on what to change, engage their clients in this changing world. The benefits of this are immense. It is  to bring in innovative ideas on how our clients can now channels their scarce resources”.

“We are saying to our clients that we can help them make those decisions and in addition to that we can bring to them innovative ways to carry out those tests. Our clients are looking at ROI and we are there to help them achieve that”.

Daniel Obi