IMC experts hint on what digital tech holds in store for 2022

By Felicia Nwosu

Due to the rapidly evolving global economy and digital transformation, industry experts have hinted that digital technology holds a transformative prospect for business leaders in the IMC industry in 2022. On this premise, they have stressed the need for practitioners to embrace digital technology to enable them carve out a successful future in managing their digital marketing strategy.

This they averred, will help guard against various discrepancies while enabling them face core challenges associated with providing satisfactory customer experience with the emergence of new technological realities.

Some industry eggheads, who spoke with MARKETING EDGE, noted that while the pandemic ravaged businesses, Nigeria’s economy was sustained by the digital sector, which was short-lived with the ban on twitter by the federal government seven months back, but was later restored after the economy had lost an estimated sum of N10.72 trillion ($26.1billion) according to Netblock’s Cost of Shutdown Tool.

President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN), and Managing Director/ CEO, Chain Reactions Limited, Israel Jaiye Opayemi posited that 2021 witnessed an explosive growth and the trend will be strengthen and maintained in 2022, where digital ecosystem remains the venue where content creators will be driving awareness and sales, adding that social commerce is expected to grow exponentially. The PRCAN president reaffirmed that the IMC landscape is evolving at per second, thereby overriding old methods of doing things through the help of digital enhancement.

“Some of the things that we still do today manually such as media monitoring are going to change. Some years ago you would need a team of lawyers to sit down and manually write a legal opinion for you, today, a legal opinion can be written by robots for you. What will take a team of lawyers seven nights, reading and researching, the robot will put it together in less than an hour and it will be delivered to you, so are we prepared for that and are we investing in it, these are some of the conversations that should be taking place this year. That is why I said 5G is not about just calls but about internet of things, IOT”

Femi Adelusi, President, Media Independent Practitioners of Nigeria (MIPAN), and Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of BrandEye/Mediaplus, in his own assessment, said the year will be driven by digital disruption that will propel content consumption on various social media platforms and also, commerce that drive transactions on scale, will grow across in the economy

“This year, through digital, we will be looking at the current motivations of the consumers, the current pains that they have, and how we can speak to it. How is his life media consumption habit changing between then and now? We can see for example how online streaming or video streaming, how that is changing rapidly, movie consumption, how that and lifestyle are changing. We should be prepared as there will be a demand for knowledge and capability building.”

“For me, it is a big tool that can only aid us depending on how we embrace it. If we bring it into an operational perspective, it can only make us work faster, smarter and easier. When you bring it in terms of strategy and how they impact on decision making, it is also strong and positive, because, then, we got the useful insights which we can use to balance the creativity, insight on data, access to big data, on consumer lifestyle, profile, understanding the consumer now than pre-Covid.
Tunde Shobanjo, Head of Business/Chief Operating Officer, Leo Burnett Lagos, has said that the advent of COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased consumption of technology through various technological applications and software, thereby enhancing modes of business operations as well as accelerating the growth of the creative advertising and marketing industry, including the quality of business delivery.”

“Like I said, we have been forced to evolve very quickly with these new ways of delivering results to clients, we have also been forced to step away from the traditional ways of doing things and embrace technology. I can see in the coming months and even the year, there will be a lot of opportunities and I can expect that even our clients will be very surprised and impressed by some of the solutions that are coming from Nigeria agencies who are using technology to deliver stellar and amazing works for our clients.”

“In 2022, through digital,, we should be able to deliver not just our clients but to the consumers out there, we are entering into the space of gaming, content development, there is actually going to be quite a lot that we will be doing, so brother Shaggi and Mr. Macaroni’s of this world need to watch out because we are going to be their competitors.”