KAMPALA– Marketing Expert Lenny Nganga has revealed that the marketing industry is in a midlife crisis hence the need for Ugandan marketers to be dynamic.
Nganga who is the CEO of Omnicom Media Group East Africa made the revelation while addressing industry stakeholders at the innuagral marketing therapy organised by Saladin Media on Wednesday October 12, at Kabira Country Club in Kampala.
According to Nganga, the marketing industry has been fixated by short term fixations over long term fixations.
“We need to stop looking at short term and start balancing with long term. As things change, have we the marketers changed? People in marketing have to manage several relationships that are also changing all the time. We need to keep in touch with the consumers threw research.” he advised.
“People are no-longer willing to wait for an episode of a program. People still listen to radio, but when and how they listen has changed. Young people listen to radio on their phones when they are doing something else” he added.
He further revealed that changes are happening more in African markets than anywhere else.
Nganga urged marketers to get feedback from all their marketing efforts to know how the consumers are perceiving it.
“Technology that enables consumers. Capabilities that evolve; capabilities of yesterday don’t fit tomorrow. Processes that simplify things, getting insights from data Measure everything you do,” said Nganga.
While speaking about the concept of attention, Saladin Digital Media Lead Mr Ryan Majiwa advised marketers to pay attention to the reactions to their adverts.
“If attention is given to a brand advert, it will likely grow than decline. You have to plan attention, create attention. It is the role of a creative to understand the role of the channel, with this; they can build content that will create attention,” he said.
He added that both passive and active attention to an advert is important.
“Value is no longer reach and low cost. It is the attention. We now have to optimise attention rather than just viewability,” said Majiwa.
Mr Joe Mbugwa, Saladin Media Head of Tools & Tech, EA hinted at the need to select influencers using tools that track their posting history and the topics they engage in
“Social media platforms are now able to direct content creators on the type of content that can earn them better engagement rates. With the tools, you don’t need to stalk the influencers’ accounts, you just feed in the hash tag, and it will generate who has posted what and when and the impact,” he noted.
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