Survival strategy: Ad agencies plot launch of experiential marketing arm

In May 2009, this Media Business page predicted that Below-the-Line (BTL), one of the marketing strategies through which brands are promoted, will dominate marketing communication following the rising cost of mass marketing and the increasing desire by organisations to bond directly with consumers.

With recent developments in the industry, this is playing out as corporate organisations are resorting to below-the-line marketing, which consultants called strategic business promotion.

Though there is no available data on the total spending on BTL, but the list of marketing agencies operating in the sector has multiplied, indicating buoyant sector and organisations’ shift to BTL marketing.

Recently, a few agencies in the BTL segment of marketing communication industry came together to spearhead an association, Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN), for the industry with open doors to admit new members who merit the standards.

The intention of the association is to give a face to the industry as it has the objective to attract government patronage. “Government is the biggest spender and it is unfortunate the industry has found itself locked out from government. This is partly due to lack of industry face that government can approach,” Kayode Olageshi, the new president of the association, who is the CEO of Towncriers Communications, said at the inauguration of the executive in Lagos.

BusinessDay gathers that there are over 80 firms operating in the BTL sector from about 15 in 2008, with operators expecting more entrants. Recently, the CEO of X3M Ideas, Steve Babaeko, said “it is going to launch an experiential marketing arm.” It is also gathered that other agencies are perfecting their plans to launch their arm of experiential marketing agencies.

Ehi Braimah, CEO, Neo Media and Marketing Limited, an integrated marketing communication firm, had earlier said that globally, “what is happening now is that media budgets of big brands are moving from Above-the-Line (ATL) to BTL because consumer experience is the in thing. That is why brands are now emphasising on activations. The consumer must feel, see, taste, hear and touch the brand and that is experiential marketing.”

Also recently, Nigeria hosted the first ever international experiential marketing conference. Wole Olagundoye, CEO, EXP Nigeria and organisers of the African Experiential Marketing Summit, said “spend is moving towards experiential marketing and it is about time people start to take it seriously and try to give the industry the respect it deserves in order to harness the proper dividend experiential marketing has to offer to marketers.”

On why experiential is not embarked upon by banks, Olagundoye said “every single sector can benefit from experiential marketing and the reason why you are not seeing too much work on that end is because of how things are done in that sector.

“Normally the banking sector is very conservative, they hardly do stuffs. But go and check the banks that are doing things, they are doing it using experiential marketing. GTBank is one bank in that space, Enterprise Bank which was formally BankPHB, Keystone Bank are engaging experiential marketing methods. It is not as if they are not doing anything, it’s just that the number that are doing is very small because they are a conservative industry and they don’t do too much of experiential marketing.”

Experiential marketing as organised industry is relatively new in Nigeria and the marketing approach is fast gaining momentum as advertisers search for easy and cheaper ways of connecting with their consumers.

By: Daniel Obi