Creative agencies must adopt products reformulation strategy, says Osunsoko
An Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) industry expert, Sam Osunsoko, has advised practitioners in Nigeria’s Creative Advertising Industry to think towards reformulating their products and services delivery if they were to survive the present economic realities and the dwindling fortune of their business.
Giving this advice recently, Osunsoko, Managing Partner at Cognitio Communications Nigeria, observed that operators in Nigeria’s creative advertising industry were presently experiencing continuous decline in the economic fortune of their business and this is owing to the fact that clients were increasingly moving their budgets away from creative sector unto other segments of the business.
Featuring as special guest on MARKETING EDGE on TV, a TV programme aired on TV Continental, the astute advertising practitioners said that business operators in the creative sector should as a matter of urgency refocus their strategies and adopt more proactive approaches by reformulating their products and services delivery to consumers.
“If you are talking about the marketing budget being moved away from above the line advertising, the only solution to that is for practitioners to reformulate their products. The days when clients used to allocate 60% to 70% of their budget to above the line marketing are gone and are gone forever. Reformulating your product as a professional is the way to go,” he said.
The Agency boss, who took a critical assessment of current trends in Nigeria’s IMC sector, especially during the turn of the third quarter of the business year 2019, noted that the industry had faired not badly in the period, adding, however, that there were yet other areas that needed to perform better.
“I think the industry is healthy, you could say that the industry is nearing maturity. But we are beginning to see some symptoms of unhealthiness within, particularly in the last one or two years.”
According to him, the advertising sector was bedeviled with quite a number of seriously challenging issues notably among which includes the raging controversy surrounding the regulation of online advertisements and the prolonged delay in re-constituting the governing council of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON).
He argued that APCON being the only statutory agency empowered by law to regulate advertising profession in all ramifications was well inclined to regulate everything advertising across the board.
On whether the industry could go the way of consolidations similar to unfolding trends in the banking and insurance sectors of the economy, the agency boss noted that the consolidation approach may not work out in the advertising sector, pointing out that while the factor of size could be said to be of advantage to banking and insurance sectors it was not the same in marketing communications.
“For me, I’ll not advocate for the type of consolidation we saw in the banking industry. There is actually a lot of difference in this industry than in the case of banking and insurance. So, it might not apply. Brands are looking for agencies that may or may not be big; what matters is being able to service clients across all their needs,” he said.
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