Industry Positioning and Blue Ocean Strategies

With the recent commitment to issues related to marketing communications industry by policy makers within and outside government, RaheemAkingbolu, reasons that the time to rewrite the country’s story by her creative eggheads may be now.

The much talked about poor recognition for the marketing communication industry appears to be fizzling away as more people in government are becoming more passionate about applying marketing solutions to address critical issues. In the last few years, governments in Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo and a few others have seen the need to engage Advertising and Public Relations agencies to boost the profile of the states.

Lagos Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu led the campaign few days ago and tasked policy makers to partner the players in the marketing communications industry to market Nigeria. The Governor, who spoke at the 2021 Marketing Edge Brands and Advertising Awards of Excellence was of the opinion that the image crisis bedeviling the country can only be managed positively when practitioners in the creative industry assume the position of chief marketing officers for Nigeria, her government and her exploits in various sectors.

In particular, Sanwo-Olu urged the practitioners to help tell the Lagos story and by extension the Nigeria story for the world to see the beauty of Africa’s giant and her commercial nerve centre. He pointed out that the winning campaigns at the annual Cannes Festival are not the ones who tell the stories of the commercial brands, rather the ones that tell stories of people, places, and the triumph of the human will and spirit above adversity.

The governor, who also urged players in the marketing communications industry to look inward by embracing local content, assured practitioners of the government’s commitment to strengthening the industry. “Let me remind you that every year, at the annual Cannes Festival, the winning campaigns are not the ones who tell the stories of the commercial brands. Rather the winners are the ones who tell stories of people, places, and the triumph of the human will and spirit above adversity.”

He said, “I am not unaware that there was a time many of you needed to fly to Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg before you could shoot a good TV commercial for your clients. Today, the story has changed. Let me assure you, it can only get better from here. The infrastructures we are creating are gradually giving you the scenic settings you require for great television commercials that can earn more prestigious laurels from across the world.”

Sanwo-Olu who was named the “Outstanding Political Brand Icon of the Year” at the event, described himself as the Chief Marketing Officer of Lagos State while giving a resounding keynote address, expressed special gratitude to the veterans of the marketing profession whom he acknowledged have toiled to build and give relevance to reputable trade.

“Today is for celebrating ourselves, our craft and achievements as marketing communications professionals. Over the last 5 decades, the marketing communications profession has evolved remarkably to become a window for the world to see the creativity that resides within us.

“Our readiness to support marketing-related initiatives is not limited to the Advertising sub-sector of the industry. It is open to various specialist areas that make up marketing. At the centre of what we do as marketing professionals is creativity. And that is what our government is committed to promoting and encouraging,” the governor added.

Earlier, a former Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Seni Adetu, who chaired the event, has charged the practitioners in the country to concentrate on fewer tasks in the marketing mix, to enable them achieve bigger results.

Adetu, now the Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer, First Primus, stated that the temptation of dipping a finger in every marketing pie remains very high for practitioners in the nation’s marketing space.

He however argued that such practice would not allow for a maximum impact, since the distractions inherent in such actions are always huge.

“I think my advice for practitioners is that we should focus on less for a bigger impact. The tendency to want to do everything is very high, but it is better to concentrate on fewer things to achieve maximum results,” he stated.

Adetu commended the organisers of the Award, for staying steadfast to the course of brand journalism in the country. He however harped on the need for the organization to have a very robust successor plan to enable it sustain the legacy that would outlive it.

The Blue Ocean Strategy

Beyond the award, a major take home from the event was the lecture segment where brand owners were given tips on how best to survive the market turbulence. Today, there is no gainsaying the fact that the times are quiet trying for individuals, corporate organisations and brands around the globe. At the MarketingEdge summit, it was expressly stated that survival, inevitably, depends on the ability to think smart, innovate 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 norm for 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’ options.

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 a 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 ‘away 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.