With an empowered consumer, marketers cannot afford to promote their brands the old way —Tony Agenmonmen, Convener NMA

Tony Agenmonmen is the Convener of the annual Nigerian Marketing Awards (NMA). The former President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), in this interview with Akin Adewakun, bares his mind on sundry marketing issues, the inspiration behind the annual award, and its gradual acceptance in the industry. Excerpts:

What should be the focus of the brand manager in this highly disruptive social media space?

The focus of brand managers now is to make sure they deliver to consumer expectation. Within the context of delivering to consumer expectation, there will be challenges. It is the responsibility of brand and marketing management to surmount those challenges and still deliver to the consumers, to keep the reputation of the brand and the company. Talking about the impact of social media, it is just another phase in the evolution of communication. But, unlike in those days that you had a handful of newspapers to deal with, if anything was to come out, you could track and easily respond. But these days, you have the empowered consumer. Nearly every consumer has a smartphone, and with that smartphone, they can do all sorts of things. Gone are the days, if you had defective product in the marketplace, the consumer would probably take the pack and make an effort to come to your company to complain. But these days, they are not likely to make that effort. They probably open their phones, take a picture of the defective product, and the next day, it is all over social media. That’s where you are coming from in terms of the challenge of brand management. But like I said the fundamental is that you have to do what you have to do to make sure that your brand represents what it is supposed to, to the consumers.

But now that the average consumer is becoming increasingly empowered, is that to the advantage or otherwise to the brand managers?

Quite honestly, I will not call it a disadvantage. I will call it a different kind of challenge. Traditionally, even before this era that we are in, consumer sometime would go round, checking before making a decision. But now you have testimonials. I go to this shop to buy a particular item, and either induced or voluntarily, I go on social media and rate the shop as ‘A’, ‘Very Good’, or ‘Just Good’, and the rest of it. And you find that so many consumers, before making their buying decision, they go and check what the rating is like by consumers who have used the products before. So what that means for  you as the brand manager is that you have to make sure that the consumer experience every time remains pleasant.

But how reliable are these testimonials on the online space?

I’m a consumer, you are also a consumer. I go through this decision route everyday. Should I go to this restaurant or the other? Should I take this airline or the other? I agree with you, there are paid endorsements of some products. But at the end of the day, as a consumer, the choice is yours. But it boils down to the fact that you have to check and do the things marketing people are supposed to do. It’s a challenge. That is why we tell marketing people to be always alert. If you stick to the way we did marketing  many years ago, you would become irrelevant as a marketer.

Few weeks to go for the annual Nigerian Marketing Award (NMA) event. What’s the level of preparedness?

The plans are on, by the grace of God, everything is going on well. Obviously, funding continues to be a challenge. But we are almost there. We are ready, by the 15th of November, we will have another good show, another awards night. I think the marketing community is gradually adjusting to our method and our style. It’s  vigorous, slightly different, and requires some work for you to submit entries. The marketing community are getting used to that , and it’s not as difficult as when we started.

But if you are to make a comparative analysis, how would you rate the number of entries this year?

This year we’ve had the highest number of entries. For the first time in a while we didn’t extend the deadline. A lot of people were pressing for extension, but we had to put our foot down, because the quality  of judging also depends on the amount of time you give the judges.

Any pressure from the participant or brands?

I won’t put it that way. I won’t call it pressure. But I’ve received several calls this year to say, ‘What do I do to win?’ I’ve received some calls from agencies that their clients have given them a mandate that they must win. Our answer is same and doesn’t change that you don’t need to pay. Last year, the brand that won most of the awards was Reckitt, but it never dropped one Naira.

Few years down the line, how would you assess the impact of the award on the marketing community?

The quality of who we have as judges, if they were to run a masterclass for you, you would pay a lot of money. I guess those who want to learn from it are learning from it. At the end of the day, a lot of people have something to learn from it. That’s why the competition is getting keener by the day. You know, initially, it was almost like a one-man show. But now it’s getting tighter. Besides packaging a presentation, they are also doing a great job outside. It’s helping to enhance the quality of marketing work we do.