Six challenges of marketing in Nigeria
As an undergraduate in Nigeria in the 1990s, if you were not studying accounting, engineering, law or medicine, you weren’t considered to be studying a professional course. And if you ran into a cynic, chances are that s/he would have told you that “you wouldn’t get a job because you weren’t studying a professional course.”
Today, the story is different. Many large corporations have created a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position and placed the function on the same level as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Marketing professionals are well respected, and the jobs, well sort after.
Despite these successes, the marketing profession is not without challenges. Here are a few.
Limited understanding of marketing
Although most organisations in Nigeria recognize the role of marketing in creating demand for products to drive profitability, a lot of those at the helm do not understand the true value of marketing and how it works, thus stifling the growth of the profession.
A case in point is the slow adoption of digital marketing techniques. Too many C-level executives think it is way too complicated. Some others argue, “The decision makers still read newspapers so I don’t believe in online advertising.” For others who have recently discovered digital media and have learnt of its benefits, they instantly want to cancel all spend on traditional marketing techniques. What they fail to realise is that for maximum impact, traditional and digital marketing techniques must complement each other — they are not mutually exclusive. More so, when you take into consideration poverty and literacy levels, and internet penetration in Africa, that is going be the case for a long time to come.
Similar sentiments are displayed towards marketing research. Except for the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, most organisations consider marketing research a waste of money and so, do not earmark budgets for it. Ironically, because marketing research helps an organisation understand the consumer and the market, it ultimately saves organisations money. Marketing research shows organisations where to concentrate their marketing resources, and organisations that invest in it are more effective and successful than those that do not.
Social factors
Cultural diversity was always a bottleneck to marketing communications. Campaigns developed in the south had to be adapted for the north taking into account religion and language barriers. For instance, models have to be properly clad for an advertisement which would be deployed in northern Nigeria.
However, the growing illiteracy and poverty levels are making marketing increasingly difficult. If people cannot read or have a limited understanding then buying into technologically-driven products is difficult. Furthermore, if they are poor, they cannot appreciate the true value of premium products.
Fragmented media vs shrinking budgets
As organisations continue to seek higher margins, marketing costs are shrinking. More and more organisations are asking marketing managers to look to digital media. As pointed out earlier, illiteracy and internet penetration are major bottlenecks to adoption of digital media. Here’s what I mean. I have encountered mobile phone users who have the Facebook app on their phones but don’t know how to log-in.
Media facts (2017) reports that radio remains the medium with the highest reach with Nigeria having over 150 radio stations — and that number continues to grow. This poses a big challenge for marketing managers. As a result, media buying is becoming more targeted than ever. Sadly, you still hear comments from decision makers like; “I am not hearing my ads.” What they forget is that the radio station running the ads are not necessarily the ones they tune to, that is if they do at all!
Organisational orientation
Orientation here, refers to the relationship which organisations have with their customers. This can be viewed from four perspectives namely; product orientation, production orientation, sales orientation and market orientation.
Whereas most western European companies now adopt the market orientation (characterised by long-term relationships with customers and developing products in line with customer wants), a great many organisations in Nigeria are stuck in the production or sales orientation moulds.
Product orientated organisations focus on creating the best product believing that its quality will lure the market, while those with a ‘production orientation’ strive to achieve lower costs and high production efficiency in order to create the cheapest product. Another approach, ‘sales orientation,’ places a great emphasis on short-term sales — the organisation is not interested in building relationships with customers. The thinking is to use marketing communication to persuade customers to buy what it makes, not necessarily what they want. In Africa, sales orientation is very evident in the financial services sector. In Nigerian banks for instance, it is all about targets!
Another challenge facing some sales-orientated organisations is their degradation of the marketing function to advertising. In those organisations, the communication mix is not fully exploited. The belief is that if you place a few great ads, they will automatically translate into sales. It is also expected that ten dollars spent on advertising will result in ten dollars equivalent sales. Where this does not happen, the advertising is deemed failed, whereas in reality, the product’s performance could have been affected by several other factors including; the product itself, its distribution, price, the organisation’s processes or people.
Lack of practitioners well-grounded in marketing
Marketing professionals themselves are another challenge to the development of marketing in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. The 7Ps of the extended Marketing Mix make a case for ‘people’ as an important element of the mix, and Drayton Bird in his book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing (2007) puts forth an argument which I buy into.
In the introductory chapter of the book in a section which Bird titles ‘The Amateur Approach,’ he recounts his experience with an art director who says he hasn’t read any advertising books because he doesn’t believe in theory and doesn’t like to restrict his imagination, but would rather pick-up things from working at a good agency and watching what happens. Bird in turn asks, “would you expect to pick up brain surgery by standing around the casualty department in a University College Hospital?”
Regrettably, a lot of marketing professionals in Nigeria — whether agency or client — are not grounded in theory. They have simply picked-up things along the way. Furthermore, although a lot of local agencies are affiliated to global networks with great case studies and models which they can refer to, we see a lot of below par work. This leads to the next issue — specialisation.
Specialisation
It is normal for an agency to belong to an IMC Group, however, a situation whereby a single agency pitches for an advertising job with one client and event marketing with another, is a challenge. Agencies must streamline to build expertise and provide best-in-class services.
Whether it is to create demand for a new product, expand into a new market or promote an event or idea, most organisations — large, medium or small — now engage in some form of marketing. In the end, the responsibility falls on us, marketing professionals, to educate ourselves and stakeholders to overcome the aforementioned challenges. Only then can marketing thrive both in Nigeria and in Africa at large.
