How Market Players Can Survive Austerity In 2016, By

NO one welcomes tough times. But it is part of every life cycle. Globally, experts have predicted a tough marketing year in 2016. As the year unfolds, many brand owners, especially in the FMCGs will need to be more aggressive in their marketing activities to reduce the consignments in their warehouses caused by low purchasing power of the consumers. They will need to work smart, save time, cut costs, and promote their brands with more creativity.

From all indicators, brands and marketers that want to thrive, grow and prosper in 2016 must utilise “value-added” techniques to take the edge above competition. Although most brand owners will come out with tight marketing budgets, experts predict that there would be an increase in promotional efforts.

For marketing communications players, the wisest response to these postulations is delivering quality, impactful ideas on a reduced budget. Obviously, clients would be on the lookout for solution providers and game changers, not just service providers. To excellently achieve this, it’s advisable for agencies to consolidate rather than just expand their capability and deliverables.

The digital transformation was not revolutionary in 2015. Many analysts expect the digital platform to take the centre stage in 2016, as more brands would seek to utilise this cost effective platform to differentiate themselves and their brands from competition

Commenting on the above issue, marketing strategist and founder of TINK Africa, Franklin Ozekhome noted: “In 2015, we saw an incremental growth on agency taxonomies across various offerings. These taxonomies include: business model innovation, pop culture influence, branding and culture, creativity and effectiveness, and services differentiation. Only a couple of agencies created disruptive work that truly helped build distinctive positioning for the brands they worked on, not to talk of even growing the industry-sectors of those brands. Interestingly, as the world moves towards a real-time digital based, consumer-centric world, most agencies in Nigeria are moving toward commoditisation of services.”

This year, Ozhekome and some other experts predict an increase in consumer engagement, as brands will continuously seek to create remarkable experience for their consumers. This, they believe, could be a big year for the experiential marketing agencies.

Looking at how the present economic challenges and austere measures will affect the IMC industry in 2016, the Managing Director of Absolute PR, Akonte Ekine said IMC does not exist in isolation but is part of a full-fledge industry and the economy, noting that it will naturally experience some economic dislocations just like other sectors.

He said: “Now there will be no single one part of the economy as the place to be but the truth is that the government is trying to get us to look away from oil money. So, the government will be trying to rev up other sectors.