Digitisation is beyond communication channels – Ukubeyinje
By Abimbola Mohammed
Oti Ukubeyinje, President of Association of Digital Marketing Professionals (ADMARP), has advised brands to change their perception of digitisation. According to him, the era of viewing digital as a channel is over as it has become experience.
Ukubeyinje gave this advice during his presentation at the MARKETING EDGE’s first Quarterly Virtual Summit.
The digital professional, while speaking on how the theme of the Summit, ‘Brand Management Imperatives and Challenges in a Post-Recessionary Economy’ affects the digital sector of the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) industry, said: “As a brand there is need to move away from seeing digital as a communication channel only. It is very important that brands have to think about digital as an experience to start building the type of experiences that will enhance whatever form of channels or touch-points that are available to the consumer before establishing presence online.”
According to the digital communications expert, regardless of recession or pandemic, there is constantly increasing access to Internet information for consumers. So penetration continues to increase as data and devices become easily available. What this means is that digitisation is no longer about people gaining access to the Internet from their offices or work computers, but from their mobile devices and other devices that continue to give them access. Therefore, brands are dealing with increasingly informed, empowered, emotional and connected consumers. And as a brand, this continues to present new opportunities and new challenges on meeting up with consumers’ demands.
His words: “Because of our peculiar kind of economy, the fact that Nigeria is just coming out of recession and the kind of system that the government runs where people do not benefit from government, consumers tend to turn to brands as an institution of help. So, what you find is that a lot of people have given up on the government and they now look towards the brands. The expectation from the brand is very heavy in the situations where, in the simplest of ways, the average Nigerian digital consumer looks towards the brands for succour.”
He explained that right from the very beginning, digitisation goes beyond having a social media page where you post things that you are doing, your offers and all that, noting that it should be a holistic, consistent experience. “Let digital be seen as an experience across the centre where you are enhancing the process of reaching out to your product being purchased and consumed, and even building that loyalty or relationship that is expected post-purchase. There is need to move from communication skills or perspective to communication behaviour or experience behaviour where digital serves as another experience or touch-point opportunity so that brands can consistently solve problems arising from the behaviours that consumers are posing in their day to day interactions with brands.”
He added that there is increase in demands from consumers from brands and brand ambassadors, stating that this is really because lots of consumers now have access to brands. “They no longer have to read about a brand on the newspapers or watch it on TV; there is immediate access to feedback. So there are lots of demands from brands. Consumers want brands to relate with them on social media platforms like they are friends. So when this does not happen or when brands do not respond to their demands in time, they easily call out the brands on their social media platforms. They also expect brands to give them the kind of experience they get from other brands regardless of the kind of services or products those brands offer. Consumers are always expecting the ‘wow factor’ even from non-competitive brands.”
“So you will find out that brands are easily called out in places like Twitter and other social media platforms. Lots of brands are even scared to establish a presence on these platforms; they will rather trade the games than go down the slope because when the community of these consumers come upon you it can be quite tough. Brands are no longer competing with their industry mates; the experience on digital shows that they are competing with another organisation regardless of the industry because people are looking for unique experiences.”
Uti observed that when agencies are planning creative ads based on prediction or data that are available to them, the ideas are always top notch at the creative stage, but could be misinterpreted by the consumer because of bottled-up emotions.
“Creative ideas are always interesting; something that would be very interesting during creative conception hit the platform and it receives completely differently from your expectations because what people are feeling is totally different from what a lot of predictions or data projections have put in front of you, the emotions are completely uncontrollable.”
He identified the use of all available data on the customer, leaving nothing out, as the surest way to deal with consumer demands in a digitised world.
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