Financial Brands Take Shines Over Others at Easter
Leading financial brands in the competitive Nigerian financial and money market weekend led the pack of brands that used the Easter celebration to further connect and bond with their consumers and target audience.
Specifically, the leading financial brands were Avant grade and creatively innovative in their good will and felicitation messages communicated to their target audience during the Easter celebration.
The brands who took the lead in this historic, beautifully crafted creative messages published as advertisements in most national dailies are First Bank of Nigeria, Union Bank, Access Bank, Zenith Bank and FCMB. Others are Polaris Bank, UBA, Wema Bank, Sterling Bank and Fidelity Bank. Others are Eco Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Gtbank. These banks who are noted and renowned for their ever captivating creative copies did not disappoint industry observers in showcasing their brand essence, promise and vision through the campaign at Easter.
Some of them went a step further by extending the campaign to strategic billboards, radio and Television all in an attempt to remain connected to their customers most of whom were in regular engagement during the Easter holiday through mobile banking.
Some of the captivating creative messages by the financial brands which got the average banking audience engaged and connected to their choice financial brands can be reviewed as below; Topmost without any particular ranking was First Bank newspaper campaign message which says: “He paid the price for us to rise…
HAPPY EASTER.
For FCMB, it is the graphic illustration of the symbolic nails and the crown of thorns which captures Easter mood creatively with its copy.
Symbols of the greatest love of all…
At Fidelity, it was in line with its tradition of being loyal, fidel and faithful as it connects with the theme: “Today we remember his sacrifice”.
First Bank also played on its premium and brand positioning positions in one of its Easter creative materials when it said: “He put us all First” on the graphic illustration of the cross.
At Eco Bank, it was Easter rewards, redefined etc. Despite that almost all the financial brands made use of the newspaper adverts channels, digital and TV; majority of advertisers in the small and medium scale enterprises as well as brands in the FMCG sectors completely ignored the popular newspaper and TV adverts channels. Although some few players still got engaged with their target audience during Easter celebration through digital channels, they were nonetheless non challant and less aggressive in taking full advantage which accrued to them for full consumers engagement at Easter. While they were Luke-warm in being part of the consumers passion at Easter by promoting some key activities through sponsorship, some leading FMCG brands failed to key into some of these consumers engagement events that could have given them requisite leverage and brand equity building and engagements. For the telecom brands, the story was quite different as the players in that market as usual showed up prominently in associating with consumers thereby further strengthening and boosting their loyalty with their various subscribers.
Meanwhile, MARKETING EDGE intelligence reports have revealed the reason behind brands lack luster response to deploring their marketing efforts towards engaging consumers during the recent Easter celebrations. Although some brands engaged in sales promo to catch in on the buying mood and purchase needs of the consumers, the real brand building initiatives were not given deserved attention. Our market research and opinions polls have attributed this unconcerned attitude to a plethora of reasons and factors.
Speaking on the issue, Chief Executive Officer of Noah’s ark, Mr. Lanre Adisa, a foremost creative agency chieftain, “most brands especially the SMES did not feature in newspaper adverts as part of their engagements platforms because they don’t have the big budgets and wallets like the bank. It is only the banks that could afford the luxury that newspaper adverts have become.
Unlike the SMES, Adisa said the banks have more than enough money to throw around, while hinging the low patronage of adverts in newspapers on the sector which charge high adverts rates. Although he said some of the brands and SMES have limited themselves to digital platforms to get more value for their money in terms of reach, he nevertheless was of the opinion that it is not too good for the brands not to have had their presence in the newspapers during the Easter season especially in communicating their message. His words;
“I won’t say most brands shy away completely from engaging consumers at Easter. Some of them could be seen communicating during the period through the digital channel with the high rate of newspaper adverts, and the reach the medium delivers, some SMES won’t simply go near newspapers. It is about the question of the value such investment will deliver. Rather than go for newspapers, SMES brands opted for the digital channel. But is that the way to go, I will say NO. But the newspaper sector should look into the value it delivers, Lanre Adisa suggested.
Amplifying the above position, the category manager at Promasider, Mr. Yinka Amuwo, said the issue must be holistically considered against the micro and macro economic situation in the country.
Specifically, he said most FMCG brands have very limited budgets for marketing hence, the option to be very selective and careful in channel consideration and deployment.
He blamed the economic recession which has seen most companies grappling for economic oxygen to remain afloat as the companies are recording shrinking sales while unsold inventories are on the rise. Besides, he said the recession has badly affected Consumers Purchasing power thereby putting most brands in market dejavu.
Nonetheless, he added that some brands still explore the comfortability options by engaging consumers through other platforms.
His views; “Yes, we all know that recession has played a major role in FMCG’S reviewing its channels options, because these days’ brands budget are limited. But we still have some other key consumers engage in activities that FMCG keyed into. Brands new approach in these days of low budgets is to key into beneficial engagements that are considered capable of delivering requisite value and not necessarily throwing scarce funds around”, Amuwo hinted.
But these views were pooh-poohed by Mr. Adeyinka Adebayo, Executive Director media planning and buying at Media Reach OMD. The renowned media maverick blamed most brands for failing to catch up with consumer passion points. Specifically, he stated that “it is quite unfortunate that a couple of brands are yet to take full cognizance of the need to catch up with their consumers at their passion points, adding that this serious omission may not be unconnected with poor strategic thinking and planning. While he was of the view that it is true that brands budget are low, hence the need to be careful on engagements selection, he insist that most brands who failed to support social events that took place during Easter where no less than over seven thousand consumers were in attendance was recorded at a sitting was a poor judgement.
He categorically cited the social activities at Eko Hotels, Lagos where popular comedian Mr Ali Baba pulled huge crowd, yet no major brands were visible as sponsors as a major weak points for the FMCG brands. He stated further that rather than key into these key social activities with huge audience delivery, some brands now contend with spending huge millions on their own independent shows and activities which at the end of the day won’t guarantee them desired leverage in terms of visibility.
His advice; ‘it is only when brands begin to connect with the target audience at their passion points that they can be said to be truly engaging. Look at the series of social entertainment events during Easter, see what happened at Eko Hotels, Muson center and some amusement parks, how many brands were spotted to connecting with the consumers. There were practically none, except for a few. Brands, he advised should do a rethink and review their strategy by catching up with their consumers at their passion points instead of limiting engagements to their own internal projects and shows.
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