‘Ensuring memorable consumer experience, right pricing, our brand cutting edge’

For brands that want to constantly remain relevant in the market place, in engaging the consumers and building brand loyalty, the focus must be about the quality of the product, the right pricing and the memorable experience the consumers get interacting with the brand.

The Managing Director of the FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc, Mr. Rahul Colaco said those were the marketing mix his organisation had been deploying in engaging with its customers and will continue to deploy them, especially now that they needed to build better brand loyalty due to the down turn in the economy.

“Our hope is to ensure that a customer that spends N50 to get the Wazobia pack gets the best experience he cannot get from other brands in the market. It is about the products, price and the experience that the consumer gets. We have always paraded ourselves as believing in quality, especially in Peak as our major brand. We can’t rely on our past achievement. We have to keep the moment, with regards to quality. One of the changes we have made on quality is that we are investing more resources to see that it serves the consumer right when necessary, he said.

He continued, “We believe we are 60 years young and there is still a room for better growth. We also believe that Nigerians should drink milk more often. We think we still have a long way to go and that is why we believe we still have to invest in innovation, new activation and new ways of engaging the consumers. We try to do this through our “Mama Oyoyo” campaign and other campaigns. In terms of whom we owe this, it is our customers who have helped the brand grow and our employees that have always worked so hard to ensure that the best dairy product in Nigeria is Peak. Many other business partners have also helped us to this level that we are today.”

According to Calaco, what is of priority to him and his team is how do to keep the existing consumers and gain new ones. “It is about making ourselves relevant. We launched the Peak Wazobia and even the N20 brand to address that.”

On managing its growth in the past 61 years, he noted that growth is a key part of his company business model, which is product of a combination of two to three things. “We do this by bringing the best of dairy products to Nigerians, reaching out through different channels. We also work with healthcare professionals in bringing a scientific framework into the process of nutrition, especially to schools. We also try to engage many to ensure that our products get to every part of the country. There are still some parts of the country that do not have access to our products. We want to invest directly, especially in the rural areas, with the low pack of N20 and N50. We have always focused on quality and Peak stands for being one of the best quality propositions, all over the country. Our Three Crown also serves the same value with Peak.”

Commenting on the challenges of running a business in Nigeria, Calaco said that one of the challenges was the lack of dairy product consumption by Nigerians, as it was not embedded in their culture, unlike in Europe, where the average consumption rate is at 150 litres yearly. In Nigeria, he said it is less than 10 litres annually.

“We believe that the challenge is more of consumption issue and we want to get through to get it institutionalised, so that dairy consumption becomes a lifestyle in Nigeria, becoming institutionalised in the process. That is the thrust of our campaign. It is about understanding the customers’ perspective. The other big challenge is the value of dairy raw materials.”

Manufacturers have identified power as a major challenge in doing business in Nigeria. As a company, what does poor energy supply cost his organisation? He said nobody could claim it is not being affected by the erratic power supply though as an organisation it has devised an alternative source of power supply.

“We work mainly on gas and it is also more efficient. We are fortunate to have a good relationship with gas producers and it helps us to be more efficient. We have an efficient model and that is alternate use of gas.”

What is the capacity utilisation within the company and in his estimation, what is the percentage of raw materials sourced locally in its production chain? He said, “In terms of capacity, that is difficult to answer but we have a high capacity utilisation and we are looking at expanding our capacity and capabilities and that is why we proposed investing N4 billion yearly. In terms of locally sourced materials, we source 30 per cent locally and we are working very hard to increase that percentage in the coming months, through the Dairy Development Programme (DDP).”