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CHIMA OKENIMKPE is the regional executive creative director of Publicis West Africa, one of the fastest growing networks of communication agencies in Africa. In an interview with BusinessDay’s BUNMI BAILEY, he talks about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on the advertising industry and the ways companies can engage consumers for best outcomes.
In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the advertising industry?
The first change was in the actual content of the advertising message itself. Suddenly, advertisers found themselves in a dire situation that they had to respond to the change. Some brands did so brilliantly and some not so.
There were some brands that created compelling and engaging campaigns around the pandemic, and others that were not so compelling or well thought out, but most brands responded, in one way or another, attempting to take advantage of the pandemic to further endear themselves to their consumers.
The second change affected how to reach an audience that was more confined in space. This led to the increasing use of digital platforms i.e. e- business, social media, and the likes to promote advertising messages. Naturally, this affected budgets and revenue, for better or for worse, depending on how prepared you were as a client or an agency for this change.
One thing is clear, the budgets and revenues have shifted permanently. Yes, things will move a little in the former direction when this storm settles, but never back to how things were. And you know, when the money moves, everything else moves, so there has been both a shrinkage in traditional advertising and its suppliers and an expansion of the alternatives and their suppliers. This will also continue into the foreseeable future. COVID accelerated the drive to go digital, and it’s not going to slow down.
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How does this change the way you market to consumers?
The same way it’s changed wearing a mask or not, consumers had to suddenly change their lifestyle and brands had to change the way they reached and spoke to consumers. In the thick of the pandemic, there were several areas that you found a lot of brand messaging playing on. One was hope and reassurance.
Obviously, people were feeling a deep sense of despondency at the height of the pandemic and many brands crafted campaigns to reassure consumers of better days ahead.
The second area was entertainment. Consumers were on their devices looking for engaging and interesting content to inform, entertain and educate. You found a lot of brands providing entertaining content in ways that they had never done before, whether in partnership with influencers or not. This was a way to engage with their audiences in an otherwise heavy atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty.
Some of our best performing content during this period were games around the brands on social media or even, jumping on fun trends. The third area is convenience. There has and continues to be an explosion in online business and e-commerce today. For marketers, and especially for smaller players, e-marketing and advertising have become essential. Shortening the time from advertising to experiencing the product is essential, and more and more this is integrated into the messaging as a competitive advantage.
Do you think COVID will permanently change how the advertising industry crafts their marketing campaigns and the medium they use?
Absolutely! I have already addressed this with the previous questions. And the change is here to stay. Let me however add that the only medium, in my opinion, that will continue to go into decline for advertising is physical print.
Digital media has changed everything else, and they are all adapting to make themselves more interactive, conversational, and choice-driven. It has led to the democratization of content creation and accessibility. COVID has done more than any past event to bring digital to the fore, and not only in advertising.
In addition to all the rising new platforms, which will continue to grow, advertising will still be on TV and radio, but in more interactive, conversational, dramatic, and choice-driven ways.
What has been your personal experience trying to win consumer minds with creative works?
It’s all about insights and execution. If the consumer insight is relevant and the execution is right, you will get the consumer’s attention. The whole point of advertising is to pass a message that elicits a ‘buying’ response, whether it’s for a point of view, service or product.
The accuracy of the message, based on the relevance of the insight and the ingenuity of the delivery, all add up to form the creativity. The better you do this, the better you reach the consumer. I like to call it commercial creativity. A piece of art may fail to evoke the intended response by the artist in the receiver and still be considered a great work of creativity. A piece of true advertising does not have this luxury.
Do you see a pickup in marketing budgets this year?
Yes, I do. There was already a slight pickup towards the end of last year, after the initial reservations brought on by the pandemic. We have come to see, after all, that it’s not the end of the world.
Competition is constantly growing, so too must marketing and the budgets. It’s not a choice, if you want to stay in the game. Where the money will go however, is the real conversation here. You will continue to see a rise in influencer power and snackable content creation. And contrary to the beliefs of many clients, digital is no longer cheap.
What drives how you engage with the consumer?
Simply put the brief from the client. Otherwise, I’d be working on my graphic novel. The driver is to resolve a problem for the client/brand. What is this problem and how can the message help solve it? The client/brand resolves its problem by resolving the consumer’s problem.
So, it’s all about problems. Brand has a problem, maybe awareness, trial, or loyalty. We find a problem/need of the consumer that the product can address. Then we craft a message to address the consumer’s problem with the brand at the center of the solution, thereby also addressing the brand’s problem. Of course, there’s all the fine print about psychographics to help craft the accuracy of the message and demographics to help identify relevant occasions and media touch points, but it’s all about what problem you are solving and how.
Digital marketing looks like the way to engage now, is that your preferred mode of getting across to consumers and how does this impact how you engage?
Digital platforms are just another media touch point. Their unique advantage is their interactivity, conversationalist attribute, and quicker adaptability driven by quicker feedback and data collection.
However, I have noticed a negative trend where brands are losing the campaign discipline, just for a chance to indulge in the flavor of the week. The craft and discipline of traditional advertising must be married to the incredible speed and power of digital to fully reap the benefits. It’s all about enriching the story of the brand, making it more accessible and ultimately more profitable.
To answer your question directly, I do not have a preferred media mode. The media is determined by who the consumer is. Whether I am talking to 60-year-old pensioners or 18-year-old undergraduates, they are best reached depending on their peculiar media consumption habits.
Tell me how you get into the mind of a consumer? How do you know this is what will make them make the buy decision?
The truth is I don’t. Not at the beginning of a project anyway. However, as I said earlier, the right insights are absolutely critical. If the insight is accurate and the execution is creative, then you have a show. It’s all about if the consumer feels you have given him or her something they need or want.
Of course, there are ways to limit your messaging risk and improve the accuracy through consumer testing to see their reactions to the message. By the way, I am not a big fan of this practice for several reasons, which I will not bother to go into here. Thankfully, there are digital practices today for testing and sharpening the buying proposition. But with or without testing, it comes down to insight and execution.
