Professionals identify major challenges faced in H1 2022
By Zion Rufus
Shaped by inflationary pressures, surge in oil and gas prices, considerable market turmoil across sectors, and a fresh threat of recession, it is safe to say the first half of 2022 was turbulent and challenging.
At the beginning of the year, marketers and advertisers anticipated a “smooth and yielding” year as projections from all corners revealed that not only will the economy return to normal, it would as well surge beyond pre pandemic levels. However, unexpected events have overturned earlier projections.
As the year splits in two, we have collated some notable challenges faced by experts in different fields.
Oti Ukubeyinje: Senior Vice President, Products, Terragon Group
Challenges:
Emigration and the scarcity of talent
ADMARP President and digital marketing expert, Oti Ukubeyinje has identified emigration and scarcity of talents as one of the biggest challenges faced in the first half of 2022.
Fueled by the increased demand for creatives and the newfound love for remote working opportunities, H1 2022 recorded a massive talent shortage across industries. According to a Korn Ferry study called Global Talent Crunch, the current talent shortage could create 85 million unfilled jobs and close to $8.5 trillion in unrealized revenues if unaddressed by 2030.
Data privacy demands and its impact on the advertising ecosystem
Increased demand for consumer data privacy has mandated the shift to first party data. In the wake of Google and Apple no longer allowing advertisers to follow users across the web with browser cookies, and as privacy-related data restrictions continue to expand, marketers have been forced to back away from third-party ad tracking and focus instead on data directly provided by users that the brand owns, or first-party data.
Franklin Ozekhome: Chief strategy officer, Identiture
Challenges: consumer apathy, lack of creativity, fresh thinking and innovation, financial liquidity, and short term planning
Trend Spotter and strategist, Ozekhome highlights consumer apathy, lack of creativity, fresh thinking and innovation, financial liquidity, and short term planning as some of the biggest challenges encountered in the first half of 2022. The digital genius explained that most of the top spenders in marketing fail to empathise with the current realities faced by Nigerians such as high inflation and evolving needs.
He said: “Consumers are overwhelmed with the same series of electronic, online and mobile advertisements all seemingly communicating commoditized stories, themes and narratives. Meanwhile, the traditional business model for remuneration is adversely affecting small and upcoming agencies. Sometimes, major projects have to be refinanced by agencies through banks with a steep interest rate, and payments tend to exceed agreed timeframe.”
Lanre Basamta: Group Head, Mobile financial services, Interswitch
Challenges: Competition for talent, Global inflation
Competition for talent has become stringent
Competition for talent is now so stringent, that it has become more challenging to win the battle. In Nigeria the biggest challenge is that we are losing our talent to greener pasture pursuits or foreign climes such as Uk, Canada, US and more.
Global inflation
He said: “Global inflation is affecting our ability to support our systems from a forex perspective. Licenses we have to pay, wages and salaries of team members outside the country which are typically in dollars also have to be paid. Not forgetting the attendant consequences of a devalued Naira makes it all the more challenging.
Slower investment
Basamta revealed: “The last 3 months, global inflation caused by COVID and the Russia Ukraine crisis have sort of slowed investments. In Nigeria, the financial technology industry is heavily connected to their American counterparts and we get a lot of funding, equity, and capital investments from the American markets; so the slowdown in growth in America has largely impacted our market.”
Tobi Adekunle: Marketing Manager, Eskimi
Challenges: Foreign exchange, Naira devaluation, dearth of digital talents
Foreign exchange and Naira devaluation
Adekunle on his part has identified the continuous fluctuation in foreign exchange and the weakening Naira value as a major challenge. According to the marketing professional, this is having a negative impact on global businesses with local presence.
He shared: “You are doing volume in local currency but you are still not meeting your set targets.”
Dearth of digital talents
“The dearth of digital talent is becoming worrisome,” Adekunle pointed. “There is a need for brands to adapt to WFA or face the challenges of high talent attrition rate.”
Stanislaus Martins: Agency partner at Meta
Challenges:
Obsession with digital metrics to measure campaign success
For Martins, the challenge is the obsession of brands and agencies with using digital metrics to measure campaign success.
He pointed: “Metrics like likes, comments, views are all nice-to-haves but they really are the first layer of what you should be measuring. As a Marketing Director or Brand Manager, when I launch a new product or a new awareness campaign on digital, I want to measure reach, absolutely yes, but I want so much more. I also want to go a step deeper to measure lift in awareness for my brand, product, service as a result of running that campaign. This is one of the advantages you get with digital campaigns. You can finish your campaign today and see the level of lift recorded for that campaign almost immediately. This kind of feedback is great for the entire team as you know what worked and what didn’t. You can roll-out your next campaign using learnings you got from the first campaign. You can only do this if you adopt a measurement mindset to running digital campaigns.”
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