The Immediate Past President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Tony Agenmonmen, in this chat with Akin Adewakun, believes marketing should not be seen as only the rosy economic times, insisting the deplorable state of the nation’s economy, today, makes marketers more relevant to prevent many brands from going under. Excerpts:
What do you think marketers should be doing to have access to the dwindling Nigerian consumer pockets?
It’s not about dwindling pockets, the pockets are actually empty. We celebrated minimum wage of N70,000 few months back. Since then, till now, what has happened? Prices of fuel have gone up again, same with electricity prices. Now we are going to have telecoms tariffs go up. So, all these have brought down their purchasing power, especially people with fixed incomes. So, even if you put hands in their pockets, what are you going to get? So the disposable income of consumers is depressed. They now have to really rationalize what they buy, and what they consume. It’s that simple. So unless things improve significantly, it’s going to be a tough time.
Are you now saying marketers should throw in the towel due to the trying economic times?
No, I never said that. Of course, the truth is that the marketing person always has a job to do either in good or bad times. It is about getting the maximum share of any pocket of consumers. The new minimum wage of N70,000 is going to be spent on something, no matter how small. Therefore, it is the job of a marketing person to make sure that if the consumer must still take milk, it must be his milk and not any other person’s milk. So he must do everything possible to make sure his products are attractive to such consumer, to the level of making it the preferred choice to those of the competitors.
You need to make your proposition even stronger and more compelling for the consumer. So, everyday, is a day for the marketing person, and there has never been any time that there is no challenge. After all, some are still making profits in this situation. For instance, Guinness was reported to have made N20b in the first six months of it being taken over by Tollarams. So, the job of the marketing person is cut out, whether in boom time, and in situations like this.
But is the Guinness example not an exception to the rule? How many companies are making such profits in Nigeria, today without resorting to corner-cutting? For instance, some brands are being accused of engaging in ‘shrinkflation’, a situation where a brand pretends not to increase the prices of their products, when in actual fact the sizes of such products have been shrunk?
I think I disagree with you there. No serious organisation can thrive on deception. If they do it for short term, and they are able to go scot free, that’s a failure of regulation because we have National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), we have the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). I’ll not expect Unilever’s detergent, which is supposed to be 100 grams, to be 95 grams. If they were to do that, they can’t get away with it for a long time. What I know is that some people do sachetrisation. Because money is tight, and people can not afford a huge outlay, someone that used to buy 1Kg, but no longer has the money to buy that much can now go for the smaller sachets of 50 grams and 200 grams. So if the 1kg will cost me N20,000, and I can’t afford it, I now have options of smaller sachets that will cost as little as N1,000.
To what extent can Consumer Credit Scheme mitigate the challenges presently facing the nation’s consuming public?
If you look at the developed economies, consumer credit is part of the game. If you were to go Europe or America, you hardly see people save and save before buying or building a house. People take mortgage to buy their house and pay the mortgage back. The advantage they have is that they take a mortgage, and are paying the mortgage monthly. After a number of years, they own the house. Here, we pay rents forever. The day your landlord is tired of you, he will tell you to pack out. So I think it is a positive development that people can walk into a bank, and then get credit for whatever they want to buy. It removes the pressure from people. It eases a lot of money to spend on discretionary things.
Marketing is not immune to the Japa Syndrome. What are you, and other critical stakeholders in the nation’s ecosystem, doing to ensure the practice is not adversely affected?
The incident of Japa is a phenomenon, though it can be debated whether it’s good or bad for Nigeria. But there is nothing I, as a person, or you, as a person, can do to stop anybody who wants to move. Our constitution provides for freedom of movement. So, to that extent, if people want to move because there are better opportunities elsewhere they move. At the government level, it is for them to ask why are people moving? Is it because we don’t have enough of job opportunities, or because of hardship in the land? But, you are talking of the impact of the exodus of experienced marketing people. If they would move they would move. The only responsibility for those who are here, and those who are experienced, is to continue to grow and develop a new crop of marketing people that would take over the mantle of leadership from those who have gone. It’s about accelerating the training development of the marketing community. This is not a responsibility for NIMN alone. It is the responsibility of those of us, who are veterans of the industry. I’m doing that in my little sphere of influence. The awards, which we organise annually, are meant to encourage creativity, and the report is almost ready. The judges have made specific comments, passing on to the organisation what they could have done better. Beyond that, I don’t see what I’m supposed to contribute. But if you know what I was supposed to contribute that I can, then I will.
What’s this report about?
It will be sent to all those who entered for the awards. It’s for people to know what happened. Why did you win, and why did the other person not win? What could they have done better?
READ ALSO: Marketers should be creative, adaptive to survive economic turbulence —Agenmonmen, former president, NIMN
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