Imperatives of experiential marketing in West Africa, by experts

EXPERTS of marketing communication have emphasized the need for the Nigerian advertising industry to embrace experiential marketing as strategy to create more mileage on brands.

  Experiential marketing is a cross-media promotional activity, which encourages two way interaction and direct physical immersion into a brand.  It is a form of advertising that focuses primarily on helping consumers experience a brand.

  While traditional advertising (radio, print, television) verbally and visually communicates the brand and product benefits, experiential marketing tries to immerse the consumers within the product by engaging as many other human senses as possible. 

  In this way, experiential marketing can encompass a variety of other marketing strategies from individual sampling to large-scale guerrilla marketing.

  World leading experts in the marketing communications industry, who gathered in Lagos, yesterday at the African Experiential Marketing Summit, held for the second time in Nigeria, believed that experiential marketing should be considered as part of any integrated marketing campaign.

  The summit, which has been held in Kenya and South Africa and will be held again on Friday in Nairobi, Kenya, was organized by Exp. Marketing Nigeria Limited, is a one day summit with the theme:  “Plug Your 2015 Marketing Mix into Experiential Marketing”, it gave marketers from the West African sub-region insight into how to improve on their campaign goals.

  The speakers, along with other notable marketing experts, showcased case studies, highlighting top trends, the latest best practices, video tours of events in action as well as demonstrating how using live experiences amplifies reach, converts customers and drives 

  Speaking with The Guardian on the sideline of the summit, the Group Chief Marketing Officer of Exp. Marketing Nigeria Limited,  David Boon, explained that experiential marketing has become very important in the West African marketing communication industry.

  He said that the summit is part of the company’s vision of making it easier for marketers from across the continent to personally experience the experiential marketing revolution that is heating up Africa and around the world. 

  According to him, the West Africa advertising industry is growing rapidly and can compete with its counterparts in more developed economies.

  He added that experiential marketing strategy is being greatly utilize in other parts of the globe, therefore the need for the West Africa continent to tap into its benefits.

  Boon Stated: “This is our second year in Lagos. We have been having this conference around the world and we had people from different parts of West Africa. We expect participant to utilize what they have learnt from the event and use it to promote their brands. Experiential marketing is engaging on one to one marketing of a particular brand.  We will be having this same summit in Nairobi, Kenya on Friday and we are still going to dwell on the importance of experiential marketing.

  “The West Africa advertising industry is similar to what we have in the other parts of the world.  West Africa has very creative minds and they are doing very well”.

  Managing Director of the company,  Wole Olagundoye, said that a lot of clients don’t really understand what experiential marketing does to their business. “Some guess on what it can do, but what we are doing is to bring some thoughts so that people can understand technically what experiential marketing can do to their business.”

  Olagundoy stated: “We are in the marketing profession and in the marketing profession, we work in the below the line, which is experiential marketing.   Not enough of it is known in the Nigerian advertising industry.  

  “What we are trying to do is to try to deepen the knowledge of experiential marketing in the country.   This is necessary so that marketing personnel will understand the benefits of experiential marketing and know that it can benefit their brands and therefore be pushed to utilize it.  What that means is that we keep experiential marketing going because of its benefits.  

  “Experiential marketing is the trend of marketing globally; the world is now turning towards the use of experiential marketing. We are trying to open people’s mind about the opportunities in experiential marketing and if it properly done, it will not only give you money, it will ensure that the brand get expected awareness.

  “The level of awareness of the benefits of experiential marketing is not too encouraging in Nigeria but we are growing gradually.   I believe we will get there very soon”.  

  He however, urged the Federal Government to tackle the issue of multiple taxes in the country, which he said, it not so business friendly.