‘Successful branding requires cutting edge strategy, expertise and experience’

Chizor Malize is the CEO of Brandzone Consulting, a strategy-led brand consultancy with a portfolio of brands from sectors that include Oil and gas, automobile, airline, manufacturing, hospitality and banking. In this interview, Malize whose branding agency recently developed the new Fidelity Bank brand,gives insight into strategies for successful brand roll-out in an increasingly hostile business environment. Excerpts:

This is a seemingly crowded place that you play in working with top Marketing Directors, CEOs and Visionaries of organizations, how do you differentiate Brandzone?

Brandzone is a World- Class, globally inspired brand consultancy driven by cutting-edge strategy, creativity, excellence and quality. We are famous for helping organizations understand the peculiarity of their consumers and aligning their branding initiatives and program to their business goals. Our major point of differentiation is that we combine strategy, creativity and the science of marketing in bringing solutions through innovation to businesses. We bring clarity to organizations by helping them better understand the role of brands in achieving their business goals. We design and deliver innovative programs and initiatives that bring brands to life,creating brands from the inside, with clear and measurable impact on bottomline.

So what is the role of branding and how can organizations tap into this for successful brand roll-out?

Brands play a key role in the choice the consumers make, whether they are buying automobiles, milk or soft drinks, or even a fashion piece. Brands play a key role in the consumers’ decision process. The reason consumers go back to their favourite car brands, their favourite milk brand, their favourite soft drink is because they strongly believe in the brand and the company that owns the brand.

Branding helps organizations and businesses influence consumer decisions positively and invariably attracts markets and drives profitability. Branding is therefore not just about logos and colours as it is perceived by some.

How is Brand success measured today? How and when can a brand claim to be successful?

Successful brands are measured through their brand strength, financial analysis and the goodwill the brand attracts. The brand strength is indeed what drives consumer choice. The strength of a brand is the reason a consumer would choose a brand over another. It is the degree to which a brand is strong enough to sustain itself in a competitive environment. This would of course attract positive financial gains and brands who have planted themselves in the hearts of the greater number of consumers often times have goodwill. Although goodwill is an intangible asset, most often consumers would forgive or ignore the  “sins” or “failures” by brands with very high goodwill.

So how does digital technology affect the way that brands are managed today? What are the new ways and how can brand and marketing professionals leverage these new ways?

The rise of digital/mobile/social technology has radically changed the process of branding. Branding is beyond creating an identity or positioning for a business or a product. Brands of the future must work with consumers to co-create value in a manner that is truly meaningful to the consumer. Owing to the evolution in technology, customers are fully engaged in the marketing processes today.

Today,an average consumer irrespective of what advertising says, will do a self-evaluation of products himself. He does his own comparative analysis of pricing from different sellers before a choice is made. The consumer decides what channels (Place) he wants to buy from and how he wants the products to come to him. Communications is in the hands of the consumer today as much as the seller. So digital technology has disrupted the original structure and branding and marketing experts need to elevate their game too.

How do you rate the campaigns we see today? To what degree do you think they can be described as creative?The word “campaign”means different things to different generations of consumers. In the past an organization can make products, get them on shelves through retailers and create advertising or what you call campaign. Today’s consumers are smarter. They want to have positive experience with the product and/or the business. Again technology, digital, mobile have made this co-creating and involvement possible. This is what today’s campaign should be about. CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT!

So how would professionals begin to upscale within these new dynamics to be able to deliver effectively?

This can be done through new learning and increased skills acquisition. There is not a thing like too much of knowledge. At Brandzone, like you are aware, over the years we have created a very interesting platform called BrandPlatform Lecture Series. This platform is for increased training and knowledge dissemination. Our quarterly Brand Leadership Programme attracts the industry thought leaders who form the faculty at these seminars and workshops. They include senior marketing and communications directors from top brands such as GlaxoSmithKline, Coca-Cola,First Bank of Nigeria etc. Participants are drawn from top and senior branding and marketing professionals who find the seminars a great platform to learn and grow in their understanding of these new trends.

This year we are taking this process a bar higher. We would be running the inaugural Brand Innovation Conference. The conference, which is the first of its kind, is themed “Branding in the New Normal”. In a world driven by digital/mobile/social technology, the branding and marketing professionals must continuously upscale their knowledge and understand the opportunities inherent in these new technologies.

This sounds very interesting. Can you provide more details about this conference?

As mentioned earlier, the rise of technologies has transformed the marketing and branding paradigm. Today’s consumers are engaging very differently with brands owing to the growing power of the connected consumer and an explosion of new technology tools.

The full-day conference focuses on how branding, marketing and communications experts can reach today’s technologically savvy audiences, build deep customer relationships, and connect with the consumers in a positive way.

The Brand Innovation Conference would attract over 200 top branding and communications professionals and provide an opportunity for individuals to learn and connect with other professionals in the world of branding and communications.

You were recently appointed as a jury member for the U.S based REBRAND 100 Global Awards for 2016,what does this mean to you and Nigeria?

The annual awards programme by REBRAND is international and is the world’s most respected juried award honouring excellence in brand transformation work, expressed through re-branding and brand redesign process.

My appointment to this jury panel is purely on merit and obviously in recognition of some of the great work we do at Brandzoneand in this market as a forward-thinking and dynamic brand consultancy.

As the only juror selected from the African continent, I am deeply honored to join some of the world’s best branding experts as a jury member working with some of the world’s industry best over the next few months, in taking decisions that would positively impact businesses and organizations across the world.

This process would bring fresh insights and perspectives that can positively affect branding and brand management in our local market here in Nigeria as well as bring tremendous opportunities to the African continent.

Are you satisfied with the level of Nigeria’s current image, if not what else can the country do to further build a positive image.

The image of Nigeria or what we can call Brand Nigeria is still evolving. Every country requires emphasizing their unique and positive characteristics. When the image is positive and is successfully transferred, there is positive impact on both the economic and political status of the nation.Unfortunately there are several misconceptions regarding nation branding.  The most common is to think that nation branding is simply the development of a logo or advertising campaign. Another frequent mistake is not involving the diverse local stakeholders. Advertising and mass orientation campaigns cannot do any magic to deliver the required buy-in, neither would they make the execution successful if there is no stakeholder buy-in.

Considering the several attempts at re-branding Nigeria in the past, it has indeed become more pertinent to focus on successfully creating this BRAND NIGERIA given all the baggage we carry as a nation at this moment. To achieve this, the approach must be strategic, practical, realistic and consistent. Again, cutting edge strategy and expertise is required to make this process a success.