Hackathon canvasses technological innovations to disrupt marketing landscape

EKO Innovation Centre (EIC), one of Nigeria’ most influential tech hubs, in partnership with GDM Group, a leading marketing and innovation firm, has canvassed technological advancements to disrupt marketing landscape.

The organisers made the call at the closing and gala night of the maiden media and marketing hackathon, tagged “MarkHack 1.0” and attended by over 500 individuals from 72 locations, five countries, including Nigeria, United States, Kenya, Pakistan and London, spread across three continents of Africa, Europe and North America.

They stated: “The participants were split into teams of five, required to work together for three weeks, brainstorm and come up with new concepts based on their areas of focus. They were also sub-grouped into eight focus areas, which include consumer experience, media consumption, consumer recruitment and interaction, trade and retail engagement, analytics and metrics, events marketing, media monetisation and content creation.”

Lagos State Commissioner for Science and Technology, Hakeem Popoola Fahm, while applauding the planners for the initiative, stated that the development was a testament to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s commitment to making Lagos a smart city by digitalising its operations and providing an enabling environment for technological evolutions. 

Noting that MarkHack 1.0 had shown marketers and media practitioners could ditigitalise processes, with the state government there all time, to support the ecosystem.

Similarly, Special Adviser, Innovation and Technology to the Governor, Tubosun Alake, said the government has been supporting various research works through the Lagos State Science Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC) across sectors, pledging that it would not rest on its oars in actualising the smart city agenda of the present administration.

President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Idorenyen Enang, in his keynote address, stressed that marketing “is not merely about integrated marketing communication, as innovators are required to follow laid-down principles of marketing.”

He urged marketers to innovate and know how best to use their channels for result. Speaking on the initiative, EIC founder and MarkHack 1.0 curator, Victor Afolabi, observed: “MarkHack 1.0 is a gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers and marketing professionals, to create solutions to real-life marketing challenges in an intense period of time, using creativity, technology as well as mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts and innovative usages of tech for marketing and media.
 
“Seeing how technology has disrupted global industries all over the world, we perceived that the marketing and media industry was ripe for disruption. However, they are two things – it is either we collaborate with stakeholders in the industry to create the disruption we anticipate – or we allow disruption to happen to us. And we choose to do the former.”

In the end, the best 10 teams with the most viable concepts went head-to-head at the finale for the $20,000 prize pool and an acceleration programme, with up to $50,000 equity investment to get their products ready for the market among other benefits, in what has proven to be game-changing and a first-of-its-kind in the Nigerian media and marketing space.

LiveBIc, which comprised Shadrach Akao and Ernest Ogbanefe, emerged overall winners, clinching
$10,000 star prize for developing a new platform for content creators to market and deliver their products.

Sprayme bagged the second spot, going home with $4,000 prize money for innovating a new way for social gifting and content monetization, while Reelbuzz came third with a $3,000 cash reward for creating an intuitive platform that helps brands connect and command higher loyalty.

Innovatoras took fourth position and $2,000 prize money for directing the leads for businesses and turning them to pay customers and Monify Cookies nicked fifth position and got rewarded with $1,000 for developing a browser tool that provides its users the ability to block unsolicited advertisements and earn money from allowed commercials.

In addition, the winners and runners-up would get working spaces at Eko Innovation Centre, while all 10 finalists would have access to the EIC accelerator programme and GITEX Global pitch event in Dubai.

In their remarks, CEO & Head of Growth, Identiture Africa, Franklin Ozekhome, CEO/Chairman, Loatsad Promomedia, Seyi Tinubu, and Head of Marketing, Wakanow, Muyiwa Aleshinloye, charged marketers to take advantage of technology to grow their brands, as Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence and others are being deployed to ease business operations.