Marketers need to revisit branding and marketing fundamentals – Kazeem
By Abimbola Mohammed
Ilyas Kazeem, Marketing Director, Food Commercial Division of Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN), has said that the easiest way for marketers to navigate the challenging opportunities in a disrupted world is to revisit the fundamentals of branding, marketing, as well as what marketing stands for. This, he noted, will serve as an eye-opener, a pathway and methodology of winning against competition.
Mr. Kazeem stressed that the methodology of winning and staying ahead of competition is to continue having that winning proposition with the consumers while revisiting the fundamentals of branding and marketing.
He made this assertion during the just concluded MARKETING EDGE ANNUAL NATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS’ SUMMIT with the theme: “The Sustainable Growth of Marketers: Adapting to Challenging Opportunities In a Disrupted World”.
His words: “We’re in a very disruptive place in the world, marketers are thinking of how to navigate this disruption, and one of the easiest ways to get this done is to go back to the fundamentals of branding and marketing. To continue having that winning proposition, we need to be asking the right questions. As brand marketing people, how do we better the lives of consumers? How do we still ensure that there will be a proposition that will continue to bring consumers a better choice at the point of purchase?
“We’ve seen consumers reacting in four different ways which are squeezing, swap, switch or scram. They’re also looking for more affordable brands; we’ve seen them leaving the overall category and looking for something else, a mortality product. So, the key question is, as brand marketing people, how do we still ensure that there will be a proposition that will continue to bring consumers a better choice at the point of purchase?”
He added that consumers are spending less right now, which is also impacting their choices at the point of purchase. “We’ve seen a huge drop in brand loyalty. As at this time last year, we’ve had 30% of consumers who still consider that they have brand value, but consumers are now less worried about brand loyalty.”
Speaking on the strategy that marketers could deploy to retain consumer loyalty as well as prospects, Mr. Kazeem noted that insight is key to wining and retaining the consumers.
“Having clear understanding of the landscape, having clear understanding of the segmentation and communication on product benefit, a clear understanding of the essence of the brand, the distributor in case of a competing brand, will help retain customers to your brand. Understanding the essence of the brand is a key motivator that will drive purchase.”
“Having clear understanding of the market, the consumer, your own proposition in terms of the branding, is what we call the big idea. One of the ways that you can actually check and evaluate how strong your big idea is to stay true to what your brand stands for. Your big idea needs to have a connection, a relation to what they are looking for. Be very simple, not complicated. Use clear, simple creativity, a communication strategy that will be able to send the message in a very simple way. Be unique, distinctive and inspire application,” he advised.
Concluding his session, Kazeem said: “In this kind of disruptive environment we find ourselves, our focus is to be on the fundamentals of building, strong fundamentals backed by insights. Then we can have a stronger chance to win in the disruptive world that we find ourselves.”
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