Udeme Ufot thinks clients will spend more on experiential marketing in 2018

The experiential marketing segment in Nigeria has been described in many quarters as one of the fast growing arms of the integrated marketing communications industry, but Udeme Ufot, CEO at SO&U Advertising has said it’s going to grow even more in 2018 as clients seek growth through direct engagement with consumers.

The veteran adman told MARKETING EDGE recently in Lagos that clients’ preference for Below-The-Line or BTL marketing is because of its real-time value and measurability. He also noted that clients will adopt this strategy because they desire more value even though budgets are leaning out.

“In 2018, clients will be keen to connect more with consumers, so activations will be a preferred strategy for many of the clients. There is no money to waste, so those areas of marketing that clients have more confidence in are the areas they are going to be driving more.

So in his opinion, this offers a window of opportunity for operators in the sector to properly position themselves for more share of clients’ marketing budget. “Those who are able to position themselves in areas where they can offers those services to clients will thrive,” he said.

In a 2016 interview with MARKETING EDGE, Rotimi Olaniyan, Former President of Experiential Marketing Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) valued the experiential marketing industry at N30billion, and added that the industry was growing at a fast rate.

Wole Olagundoye, Managing Director of Outori Limited, in an earlier interview told MARKETING EDGE that the industry was experiencing consistent growth. “I think we see a slide towards experiential marketing spend these days, what we have seen in the last five years is a situation where spend has moved gradually to experiential marketing sector from advertising. It’s the reason why you find some advertising organisations having a second line interest in experiential, simply because the spend is moving towards that experiential.

“Now some companies are actually diverting funds to support experiential marketing, they are now seeing the effectiveness and the impact on their brands. For instance, if you take the Tobacco industry, their only means to engage is strictly experiential. So therefore, their total 100 per cent marketing budget is directed to experiential marketing activities. The trend is now on, we can see the spend moving toward experiential.”