Ekine: Consumers’ Website Will Enhance Realtime Product Validation

Managing Director, Consumers Value Broadcasting, Mr. Akonte Ekine, speaks about the importance of consumers’ website in showcasing the power of consumers and product validation in today’s digital era. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:

Consumers Value Broadcasting (CVB) recently launched a website for consumer award. What necessitated the launch?

We looked around the marketing ecosystem and the market in the country and noticed that consumers are only at the receiving end of the stick. Which simply means that consumers only exchange money for what is available and in some cases are left without choice. So our thinking is that an award mechanism of this nature will give the consumers some level of power to rate products based on value through interaction with the product(s). At the end of the day, it is an attempt to bring the power of the consumers to play in the market place where by voting the consumers score the product as a valuable one or not.

What will you say is the goal behind the launch and what category of consumers will the website support?

The goal is to attempt to contribute to the right narrative of the power of the consumers and the value of products. If consumers universally agreed through votes that a product is of value that will be nice and if it is otherwise, then the expectation is that the product owners will wake to the message from the market. For a start, we are looking almost every sector of the market from aviation through zoo like it is possible for us to see everywhere consumers are attempting to experience value. Therefore, the website supports all consumers with phones, laptops and mobile devices including desktops once you can access the internet, you are consumer that should be on the platform to express your power.

Can you explain more about the Consumers Value Awards website and how it operates? 

Thank you, the website is new and dedicated to empowering the consumers with the power to vote for a product or service of value. It is a website designed for the purpose of evaluating consumer behavioural pattern through casting of votes. When the consumer comes to the site, he/she will see the listed feature of industries and nominated product which we did through a study of the market at certain period. 

How will you describe Nigerian consumers in relation to adaptability to change, when compared with African consumers?

The first thing is that all humans are consumers however, our behaviour in the market differs due to our exposure and training as well as education. So, we can cluster consumers in accordance to income bracket and other variables to understand behavioural pattern. One thing is sure that the Nigerian consumers are most prosperous in Africa and we have style and character in our consumption even as we tend to display affluence in certain market. Within the market as we go either up north or down south, we will also see certain attributes that differentiate the consumers based on culture and religion which means that the average Nigerian consumer is a dynamic personality affected by multiple of socioenvironmental activities. So is the African consumer different, it is about relativity to his/her culture,environment and economic disposition, which will affect his/her behaviour in the market place.

How will the launch of the website benefit the categories of consumers that will take advantage of the website?

When consumers come together in the market place, what they do is validate a product through purchase, now when they come to the website to vote they also validate a product or otherwise. Our expectation is that when the result is out to the public at the end of the voting, products will be acknowledged as a value for money product or service which is coming from a group of consumers that have experienced a degree of functional or emotional value for spending money on the product.

The website becomes a platform of reference in the market place before certain buying decisions are made. Over a period of time once you see a sticker of Value for Money, you will know that the product got public endorsement of the consumers on the website through collective voting on the product quality.

Consumers’ needs are fast changing daily. How will the newly launched website address the growing needs of Nigerian consumers? 

Again, consumers are dynamic in nature and we do hope that we will be able to move at the speed of the consumers in terms of taste as what the website will always attempt to achieve is to bring conversation of the goodness of a product to the public space for better appreciation. And we are trying to classify activities with quarter with the hope that the infrastructural challenges will not impact on our work for the consumers benefit. 

Online fraud is increasing globally with emerging technologies. What are the measures put in place to protect consumers on your website?

Beautiful question. From the moment of conceptualising, we decided that security check must be in place to prevent multiple voting so it is only one system that can vote. The system can vote on different categories but it cannot vote twice even if he comes back, it will recognized that you have voted and thus will not be allowed to vote and we expect some level of sincerity at the end of the day. Why would a consumer want to vote twice or more for a product or service? 

How easy it is to navigate through the website, giving the various categories of consumers that will browse the website, which include tech savvy and non-tech savvy?

It is a case of if you can use your smart phone, you should be able to navigate the site. It is as simple as it can get with anyone who is interested in using his or power as a consumer. Daily, we hear negative stories about products and if you are convinced that a product should be addressed appropriately through the platform then you will take time to do the voting as you might just be giving a good protection to another consumer.

How robust is the website in terms of capacity to withstand sudden crash and who are your technical partners? 

The website is very robust to handle the size of the data to manage the objective of the initiate. The capacity is very flexible to expand as we grow to accommodate content and as you know we are in a cloud world now so this site well built for large storage of data. Our partner is HostvilleNigeria a local but international group of developers led by a great mind Bolaji Olawoye.

Nigerian government is keen about local content development. How will the new website enhance local innovation and creativity among Nigerians?

First, everything about the site is local. The concept is local and the designers are local, they are Nigerians, youngfantastic boys and girls came together to develop this site and I need to say that it is still a work in progress. It is innovative and and I think what you are see is creativity out of the mind of a crop of young members of the society which is some real value for us to appreciate and I think the average consumers should be proud that some Nigerians orfellow consumers are thinking in this line to help put some products in check. Just by coming to the platform to vote the consumer is validating a product which is one the goals of the website

What is the economic value of the website and how will it impact on the Nigerian economy?

The economic value of the website can be seen from different perspectives. First is the fact that the mental capital that goes into the development of the concept is huge, bring the team together to deliver this for the public good is huge. The other part is the contribution to the society through engaging of the workforce as well as the body of experts that played series of roles to deliver the product. The site has come to stay with the country’s circle of business as a qualitative and quantitative platform to evaluate and business products and services with the country’s ecosystem.  

What are your plans to sustain this novel initiative going forward?

I think it is simple enough for us. We want the consumers to adopt it as verifiable tool of engaging the market players and users through propagating the eight rights of the consumers. On that note of acceptance, we will annually call out products and services with excellent values as acknowledged by the consumers. We do hope this will also make manufacturers and service providers to improve on the quality of their products.