Power belongs to consumer, not brands – Sherif Akinpelu
By Felicia Nwosu
Sherif Akinpelu, Lead Strategy SPV Communication Solutions, has reiterated that power belongs to the consumers and not brands, noting that as long as the consumer holds the purchasing, he will continue to sit as the king.
Akinpelu who gave this submission while explaining what the power shift between consumers and brands mean for companies pointed: “There is actually no power in the hands of brands except special brands that decide to chart a cause for consumers to follow. But even when that brand is special, and it is influencing how consumers behave, brands like Google, the power is still with the consumers, because you can have a product in the market, and if the customer would not buy them, then, what are you going to do? Customer is king, which is why brands marketing people should always make sure that they listen to the customer, and if they cannot go directly to the customer, there are strategists and account planners like us who will give them a reality check on what is happening outside there.”
Giving his view on how media buying and planning have digitally impacted the industry; the brand planning manager maintained that every chosen channel of dissemination depends on the brand’s purpose.
“I am not a media specialist but all I can tell you is that it depends on the objectives of the brand. Each media channel touch-point has its role to play. Radio is very good as a reminder medium, television helps to build brands, digital helps to drive quick buying and selling, so it depends on what that brand wants to achieve. Don’t forget the purpose and then the behaviour, when you focus on what you want to achieve, it is going to help you determine the kind of touch point that you would use to achieve that,” Akinpelu explained.
Pointing out various steps some of the agencies can adopt to improve on value offerings for their various clients this year, the founder & chief clarity officer urged brands to deepen their penetration, expand their lines of offering to consumers, enriched with value addition and accelerated by technology. He revealed that data and understanding consumer behaviour are paramount in achieving marketing goals.
He noted: “I think a lot of agencies are aware that playing in a particular niche alone is not going to solve the problem, so it is about value chain creation. They need to broaden their scope. We as agencies need to embrace technology so that we can better serve our clients. If we do not do that, clients will go after those who can offer that service and we will miss out.”
“So, value chain, technology, collaboration with players in that space like Andela and Google, programming, data analysis, behavioural science, those are adjacent spaces that agencies need to tap into to be able to create end -to end value for clients. At our end at SPV, we are moving to that stage whereby before our clients will even create a product, they have reached out to us to say, we have this business idea, what do you think?”
Akinpelu, the brainbox behind the growth and success of SPV extolled the recently launched audience measurement by the federal government, for evaluating reach and frequency as part of its drive for professionalism among advertising practitioners. Sherif excitedly said that it will be of immense benefits to all stakeholders in the industry.
“That is a very wonderful development. It is a win for media agencies, for brands, when they are spending money, it is the same way when you are running a digital, and your budget determines the number of people you reach. For media agencies you can put money and value, side by side, and then you know you are not wasting it. For the consumer, it also helps them have access to more interesting content that appeals to them. It is a win for everybody, and for the FG, it is also going to help them raise their revenue, which will position Nigeria better as a country where investors should come into,” he concluded.
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