In an innovative move that is bound to transform the advertising and market research industry in Nigeria, leading media planning and buying agency in Nigeria, mediaReach OMD has launched its newest innovation, OMD Consumer intelligence platform.

The OMD Consumer Intelligence platform launch held on the 26th of March alongside the agency’s 25th year anniversary was attended by notable dignitaries in the society.

The occasion included a panel session with the conversation centered around “Redefining Marketing Strategies with Consumer Intelligence”. It was graced with the presence of key industry figures such as Cassandra Uzo-Ogbugh, External Comms and Partnerships Manager of Reckitt Sub-Saharan Africa; Oreoluwa Atinmo, Marketing Director of GB Foods Nigeria; Patrick Gomes, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer of Omnicom Media Group; Kunle Faloye, Head of Marketing and Strategy of Emzor Pharmaceuticals and Brenda Nwagwu, CEO of QTV Media.

The panel served as a platform for thought provoking and insightful discussions on the need for accurate and genuine data for a successful marketing strategy.

Speaking on the role of data in planning decision making, Cassandra Uzo-Ogbugh, External Comms and Partnerships Manager of Reckitt Sub-Saharan Africa, stated that data is key in driving decisions with clients.

She said, “When you are in an industry where you have mass market products, and you have a whole section of consumers across different industries, how do you determine how to communicate with them? That’s where the data comes in. It’s so easy to assume who your consumers are, but really the data is the one that tells us who they really are, what they do. So the data is so important.”

She further mentioned that collecting, analyzing and interpreting data was not without challenges.

“The first thing with data is the data source has to be genuine. What’s the source? How is it carried out? What’s the panel? What’s the panel’s goal? Is this a true representation of my consumers of my target market? One of the major challenges we have is the source of the data. How is it carried out? The second challenge is the scope of the research or the focus of the cultural lens that drives the data that you have received. The cultural lens is not what gives you extra wisdom to know how to differentiate or how to target your consumers.”

Echoing the local nuances and lenses that are looked at when analyzing data, Kunle Faloye, Head of Marketing and Strategy of Emzor Pharmaceuticals, emphasized, “We would basically focus on cultural trends that are skewed to different regions. And the experts in those regions are the ones that then revalidate whatever decisions we’re proposing based on the data we’ve gathered. So at the end of the day, once we put data together, we come up with a hypothesis, people from the different regions or channels will then help validate whatever hypothesis that we have. So that way, the conditions taken are specific to cultural needs.”

Speaking on Ad testing and how organisations can improve on it, Oreoluwa Atinmo, Marketing Director GB Foods, stated they barriers such as time and budget can limit a brand when it comes to ad testing.

In her words, “It takes 12 calendar months to launch a campaign. By the time you brief your creative agencies, you do your debrief, you have a revert one, revert two, internal alignment, all of that, time is going. When it gets to the time to do this test, sometimes you can collapse it into one. Whether we do both pre-link and link is also a factor of how strategic is this brand. I believe that some of the greatest campaigns have been broken without any test because the way the questions are structured. There should be some level of balance so that you do not lose creativity and at the same time, you’re not wasting money.”

Corroborating Oreoluwa’s take on Ads testing, Brenda stated that testing is important because of the kind of massive investments that are made.

“Look at it from the point of view of the brand owner, look at the process and the timing. Try to figure out a way of mitigating your risk just a little bit because you have a hundred people around you. People tell you to spend five million, check it out and test it and track it. Testing is absolutely important.”

The panelists expressed enthusiasm at the launch of the Consumer Intelligence platform with great hope that it would improve the accuracy and genuineness of data when collected, answer unanswered questions and further make their work easier just as artificial intelligence should.

The OMD Consumer Intelligence is a result of over two years of hard work in partnership mediaReach’s research partner, Geopoll. OMD CI tool is designed to delve into the world of real-time consumer insights, covering media consumption habits, brand health and advocacy sentiments, ad testing reports, including agile custom surveys, that provides brands with invaluable insights and data as recent as yesterday to elevate strategic marketing decision-making.

mediaReach OMD is West and Central Africa’s No.1 independent media specialist. It is focused on developing & providing world class media planning and buying services to leading international clients across this sub-region. Starting operations in 1999, mediaReach OMD has grown to become the biggest media agency in West & Central Africa today.