For individuals, corporate organisations and brands around the globe, the times are quiet trying. Survival, inevitably, depends on the ability to think smart, innovate, re-strategise and even re-create new markets.
Interestingly, Nigeria is not immune to those vagaries of the time, as evidenced in its socio-economic development, in the past few years. For instance, despite an ‘impressive’ 5% growth in its Gross Domestic Product in the second quarter of the year, not a few Nigerians remain unimpressed. For them, it is not yet uhuru since this has not really had the necessary positive trickle-down effects on individuals and brands eking out a living on the nation’s business space.
One of the ways out of the quagmire, experts have argued, is for brands to begin to think of re-creating new markets from the already saturated ones, so as to elicit new demands. They believe the copy-cat syndrome, which has become the lot of most Nigerian brands today, has continued to be a major disincentive to the growth of such brands in today’s market.
The Publisher/Chief Executive Officer of Marketing Edge, Mr. John Ajayi, whose marketing publication organises the annual Marketing Edge Summit and Awards, will not agree less.
According to him, the new reality in the world of businesses, due to the Covid 19 health crisis had left individuals and businesses with mere survivalists’ option.
This year’s summit of the marketing journal, tagged ‘Rethinking The Blue Ocean Strategy in Uncertain Times’, he argued, is designed to help businesses find their bearing in today’s topsy-turvy market.
“Ever since the dawn of this new reality most fashionably tagged ‘new normal’, we, at Marketing Edge, have decided to explore further frontiers of knowledge to see how we can help businesses find their bearing while navigating today’s storms in the market,” he stated.
Speaking to the topic, the Guest Speaker, Mr. Vikas Mehta, charged the nation’s brands on the need to be ready to disrupt, before thinking of recreating a new market.
Giving the Netflix example, the Chief Executive Officer, Ogilvy Africa stated that the streaming service brand was able to discover an unoccupied marketing space, in that market segment, and latched on to it.
“Netflix didn’t introduce streaming. Their intent wasn’t to disrupt the market. What it simply did was to recreate the industry, and that led to disruption. It challenged an industry that was over-priced, and that also under-delivered,” he added.
Mehta argued that since every business and brand is vulnerable, what should be of utmost concern to such brand is to see disruption as a path to finding its blue ocean.
He however believes the nation’s marketing communications industry is left with two options, either to think like a disruptor, or think like someone at the risk of it.
While also admitting the imperatives of rethinking the blue ocean strategy, another practitioner, Simisola Hughes-Obisesan believes one of the ways brands can achieve that is by coming up with fresh and new narratives in their campaigns.
Giving the Long Throat Campaign, deployed by the Pepsi Cola, brand to advertise a bigger and more voluminous content, the Creative Director, Publicis Groupe, stated that the phrase ‘long throat’, which ordinarily could be negative, was used in a way that is positive and aspirational.
“So blue ocean thinking is finding new frontiers. It is about creativity, which has to do with you constantly thinking,” she added.
Creative Director, Ogilvy Africa, Jolomi Awala sees Blue Ocean thinking as ‘a way of making competition irrelevant, since you’ve taken an uncharted territory’.
Awala identified three different routes, for brands, to success: the path not travelled, the path less travelled, and the path most travelled.
He however recommended the path not travelled for brands that want to make the most success.
“In the path not travelled, you’ll have relevance, impact and profit. But one thing is that even within the context of where you find yourself, you can still innovate and recreate,” he added.
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