Brand strategy should be responsive to different cultural nuances – Salami
By Felicia Nwosu
Experiential expert and marketing strategist, Kehinde Salami, Group Chief Executive Officer, Ideas Holdings Ltd, has said that for a brand strategy to be effective in building a stronger brand, it must take a holistic approach of being dynamic and responsive to different cultural nuances in order to entrench its identity in the minds of the consumers.
Salami averred that a well-structured marketing strategy must instil an element of culture into its brand’s DNA because consumers exist in a cultural ecosystem, and that every brand must learn to accommodate this in its journey to winning the consumer. The agency boss said this on “Brands And U”, a Classic 97.3 FM programme, while dissecting the topic, “The Role of Strategy in Building Brand Story”.
“Brand strategy sums up the business beyond making money. It defines what the brand is and what sets it apart in terms of unique selling point (USP), and how it wants its customers to perceive it. With the advent of technology and increased social inclusion, consumers are now more informed than previously was the case, with respect to brands expectations and in fulfilling their standpoints. We are now seeing the increasingly important role that culture is playing in brand strategy and in execution, consumer’s usage, habits and attitudes,” he said.
Mr. Salami urged marketers to leverage culture to help strengthen brands and promote strong cultural affinity.
“Let’s take a look at our beloved Maggi, for example. The brand strategy is based on different cultural nuances. Consequently, the brand strategy is set up to address the various target groups differently from one region to the other,” he said.
The former manager of Tequila Nigeria, while explaining the similarity between strategy and brand story, said brand story focuses on need; while on the other hand, advertising is both about needs, which is emotional, and want, which is irrational.
“It is extremely similar. A brand’s story is the cohesive narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings which are created by a brand in a conscious bid to inspire an emotional reaction. The only difference is that where a brand’s story strictly evokes an emotional reaction, advertising on the other hand, goes beyond an emotional reaction to include irrational behaviour, because advertising is about perception which is meant to lead to action,” he explained.
The marketing consultant argued that a brand will necessarily have five key recognizable features which form part and parcel of its identity.
“These features help the brand to create uniqueness and differentiation and these include the brand image, which is the look and feel, and all its physical attributes. So, brands are not human beings but they behave like human beings.
“The second one is the brand positioning, which some call brand promise, and then brand personality and culture. Finally, there is the brand association. When all these aforementioned come together, a brand can effortlessly create its own uniqueness and identity, Mr. Salami noted.
He further identified some differences between storytelling for a brand and experiential marketing.
“Story telling as a narrative falls within the art of the creative space, and creatives are charged with the responsibility of coming up with that story, and telling it in a compelling way that will get consumers to do something. Experiential marketing is taking that story and then bringing it to life in the physical form across different channels. That is why marketing is very interesting because within the marketing space, there are different specialists.
“The creators and those who do the activations of the experiential marketing – everybody works together, taking a cue from the creative idea that starts from the story. None of us works in isolation. We work together to create something that is bigger than each and every one of us. Experiential marketing essentially takes that particular story and then brings it to life in a way that it will get consumers connected as well as invoke reactions,” he concluded.
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