Deploy design thinking to deliver brand solution – Dr. Onyeali Ikpe
By Abimbola Mohammed
Dr. Ken Onyeali Ikpe, now Non-Executive Director, and Board member of TROYKA HOLDINGS, has called for new approach and application to the art of marketing communications. He pointed out that design thinking should be employed by industry practitioners to move advertising out of the downstream conversation.
The brand architect and advertising guru, who made this call during an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE, revealed that the relevance of the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) practice is under threat because the market and consumer dynamics have shifted, making advertising a commodity.
According to him, the advertising practice is known to be firmly rooted on the “road well travelled” and this should not be the case in a world moving at a supersonic rate.
“We are in the era of consumer consulting, not mass communications. We therefore need to retool, re-educate and re-equip to deliver solutions rather than advertising,” he said.
“Advertising professionals need to be aware that they are not just to create advertisements. They are to dimension the consumer journey and decipher pain points and deploy solutions using communication to solve them. Making art, storytelling and culture communication may be at the core of what we do, but a good dose of design thinking is required today to plug into the relevance block chain. Stories should strive to convey deeper thinking and messaging that reflect the real world and not just depict it,” he added.
Comparing the level of creativity, talent quality and skill set put in planning and production before this era of complete digitization, Dr. Onyeali Ikpe noted that things are now different in the digital age where everything is done at the speed of light, as people are chasing output instead of outcome.
“In today’s world, the consumer has little patience and zero tolerance for tired clichés; they are hungry for storytelling that is genuine, capable of uplifting the human spirit. Creative professionals who take the time to really understand their audience will create campaigns that spread emotions and inspire one another. We need to be more deliberate than what we see today,” he noted.
The accomplished advertising expert, while admitting that the practice has changed, also advised Nigerian advertising professionals of the need to understand the century and relative issues of relevance in order to help keep the marketing communication practice productive as it was back in the day.
Recall that Dr. Biodun Sobanjo, Chairman and CEO of TROYKA HOLDINGS Limited, in a separate interview, had earlier called for more wholesome creativity.
“I would like to see creativity much more wholesome and much deeper than what we are seeing now. Even if you want to use our cultural values as Nigerians, as the arrowhead of our communication, I will like to see deeper thoughts going into our productions. What I tend to see these days is a lot of people using artists to sing and dance, it has to go beyond that so that it does not become a question of once you have seen one, you have seen all. I tend to see a lot of that unfortunately,” Dr. Shobanjo said.
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