Industry leaders caution brand custodians on religious, cultural nuances
By Felicia Nwosu
Industry thought leaders in Nigeria’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) space have highlighted the need for agency practitioners and other stakeholders to draw a line between creativity, culture and religion, while keeping in mind the differences that abound among adherents.
Specifically advising agencies and brand custodians to be more sensitive to religious and cultural backgrounds of consumers in their conceptualization and execution of marketing campaigns, the experts noted that brand messages must be cautious as creativity is complex and culture-sensitive.
Commenting, Chris Wulff-Caesar, the Cluster Marketing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc., urged marketers to put sensitivity in view in all their marketing campaigns while encouraging them to accept their mistakes and move on whenever they fall out with consumers.
“When you are confronted with something you didn’t do so well, don’t try to be cunning about it, accept it and genuinely move on. Sometimes you miss a certain level of sensitivity; but once you are called out, it is important to recognise that because you are just a custodian of a brand.
“If the consumer says I am not happy with this, what business do you have trying to explain that you were doing it for them? In creativity, one of the things that have to be looked at is sensitivity and sometimes what doesn’t pose sensitive in the morning in Nigeria, may likely pose sensitive in the afternoon. Nigeria a year ago is not the same Nigeria today. In creativity you must always have to put your finger on that pause; if you push too much you may end up getting something else,” he said.
Another industry thought leader and creative expert, Olukayode Oluwasona, the Chief Executive Officer of 1201 Brandsway Limited, a Multi-Channel Marketing Communications company, noted that similar cultures exist across Africa, adding, however, that in few instances it is a matter of degree and tolerance. Such cases, according to him, is the function of the account planning unit to understand the peculiarities and innuendos of the different classes of the target audience they are trying to capture by undergoing an extensive research before launching such campaigns.
“If you do a research or a knowledge based campaign or creative, you are not likely to run into trouble about culture, tradition, religion and many others unless you deliberately want to offend sensibilities which I know some creatives and agencies do. They will risk it and tell you that it gives popularity for people to talk about you. Then they tell you that they will manage the negative after effect later, which is quite unreasonable and unethical – but it does happen. But for the fact that you have followed the normal course of doing creative and of developing campaigns, it should not put you in that kind of problem,” he said.
He enjoined professionals to always think of the sensitivity of the consumers with attention to their backgrounds in terms of religion and culture.
“You would have been able to understand what they called account planning as well, you would have been able to understand your target audience and should be able to know that these people will not accept this kind of campaign, knowing that they will be offended with such kind of copy. Even if you would run into trouble, it would be minimal, say 80/20%. So just do a thorough job and be responsible. Deliberately plan not to offend people’s sensibilities and then you won’t have a problem,” Mr. Oluwasona advised.
On his part, Idu Raphael, the Chief Executive Officer/Chief Creative Officer at Poke Ltd, pointed out that the best creativity in advertising relies on context. He maintained that context creates resonance for the audience with the brand.
“If I insert a product in a context that it otherwise would not exist in, the audience would better relate to the product through the relatability of the context. When it comes to religious and cultural context in advertising and relatability to the audience, interpretation is key to helping you draw the line and determine what your audience response will be. If you allow more room for interpretation, then you may have fewer hardcore religious people complain and more moderates appreciate the creativity,” he said.
The strategist opined that the Nigerian audience is being deprived of the opportunity of interpreting marketing campaigns by themselves.
“Sadly many good Nigerian ads do not allow enough room for the audience to interpret the ad by themselves. In an effort to make sure the audience gets the message, you give them too much of the message and incite rancour. In fact, many ads that incite religious rancour could still have been good ads if they left out copy or some other unnecessary context detail. So my rule is to allow room for the audience to interpret the ad more. When it comes to religious and cultural context, it’s highly relatable on visual cues. So say less in words,” he concluded.
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