Strong brands come out better in times of adversity – Dan Oseman
By Felicia Nwosu
Dan Oseman, Chief Growth Officer, West East & Central Africa, Kantar, has asserted that in time of economic adversity, stronger and resilient brands have the capability to emerge stronger and bigger because of their ability to adapt quickly and effectively to the changing market conditions which is being driven by purpose and innovation.
He stated this during an in-person exclusive event held at Marriott hotel, Ikeja, themed: “Brands of Tomorrow Making Growth Real”. The marketing guru noted that the response of marketers needs to be focused on building the power of brands that serve as insulation and as a source of sustainable advantage over time, which is much more robust than simply pivoting to value.
“We’ve found to be true over time, over geographies and over categories, about what brands can do in order to build strength and resilience in the face of adversity. One of the key things that we’ve found is that value does matter during economic disruptions. A cheaper price is not necessarily the answer, but quite often is actually harmful to brands in the long term.
“We find that brands that go into challenges and focus on pricing and value come out weaker on the other side when conditions improve. We’ve evaluated the financial value of over 4,000 brands over time. And what we’ve found is that brands that are strong and powerful grow faster than those that aren’t, and they recover more effectively from difficulties,” he said.
The customer-centric marketer also described purpose as one of the foundations in building strong brand strength, in conjunction with innovation, alluding that innovation creates a strong predisposition towards sales. To achieve this, he urged marketers to operationalize and turn to strategy by utilizing their expertise in differentiating the brand to ensure some uniqueness.
“This is by practicing what you preach, especially with the rise of environmental and sustainability concerns in the minds of consumers. Now is the time to leverage your expertise to help consumers close that say-do gap between what they want to do and what they’re able to do, and make sure that you do so in an authentic way. And number three is that if you do this consistently, and if you play with purpose in an area that is right for your brand and your category, it can actually serve as a halo effect for the brand over time and drive stronger growth.”
Giving an expert analysis drawn from the useful insights and timely intelligence conducted by professionals from Kantar as well as some of the learnings covered globally by the iconic insights platform in line with nuances and the complexity of brand building and brand management within Nigeria, Oseman revealed that their findings indicated that strong and resilient brands establish themselves as leaders in their respective industries, especially during an intense economic period.
According to him, these are brands that are seen as highly meaningful and different which grow 253% of their value over the period in question, adding that brands that have a low level of meaningful differentiation only grow 50%. This, he noted, is one of the biggest distinguishing factors between fast-growing brands and small-growing brands, while enumerating some actionable lessons for adaptation and adoption.
“So, what are the implications of some of the practical lessons we can take? There are really four. Number one is that we need to shift the mindset to see that brand building is not a cost, it’s an investment. It’s the source of long-term advantage for your business, for your brands, and for the wider category. Because when we start to compete on price, we don’t really hurt ourselves, we hurt the category generally. Number two is that strong brands continue to innovate. Number three is that strong brands are strong communicators.
“Number four is that they deliver a meaningfully differentiated experience that is excellent and delivers on the brand promise consistently. And finally, they’re loved by consumers. If you can focus on these five pillars, your brands will grow and weather the storms. They will come out stronger on the other side. Brands that are associated with having a high level of improvement of purpose, which is around the idea of making people’s lives better, grow at 212% over the period we look at the data, compared to a rate of 77% for brands that lack purpose.”
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