MARKETING COMMUNICATION DIGEST

For years now I have been spouting off about the wrong-headedness of online ‘precision targeting’ versus mass media. Big brands need big reach, not the diminishing returns of finer and finer targeting. Facebook needs to forget about ‘precision targeting’. It's just not working. Rather, they need to sell reach. One of the great benefits of the mass media is that it lacks precision targeting. It reaches all the users in your category, including the users of your competitor's brand. Have you ever wondered how McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Nike, Toyota and Apple, and all the other enormous worldwide brands became successful?  For one thing, these brands were sloppy; they had to be. They didn't have big data or ‘precision targeting’. They couldn't punch a key and immediately identify ‘left-handed Anglican drycleaners who rode tokunbo cars’. So they had to use the mass media and talk to ‘everyone’. Not only did they not suffer for it, they prosper...

The most recent in world memory and arguably the most talked about of speech gaffs in recent times was that of Melania, wife to the erudite US Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, whose speech mirrored a 2008 copy of Michelle Obama’s. Fast forward two months later and half the world away in our own dear native land is our own dear President Muhammadu Buhari, entangled in a similar web of stolen speech. Stealing is not corruption, we were told by Nigeria’s immediate past president. PMB and his aides had spent some of last year and all of this year trying to convince Nigerians and the world that stealing is indeed corruption; and I agree absolutely. But of course, speeches, when stolen, must also be categorised accordingly, especially when it is by the man who heads a regime with anti-corruption crusade as the cornerstone of its rejuvenation policy. So how did this come about? Apparently the change didn’t begin with the President and the Presidency at...

By now, Nigerians should have heard quite enough about the Chibok Girls series; from demonstrations and counter-demonstrations; to their innocence and their defilement; and to the rescue and the next cue. And now, the Lai Mohammed cameo. After quite a while of being incommunicado on sundry national issues, Alhaji Mohammed has come out to try explaining away the ‘strategy’ of government towards rescuing the famed Chibok girls from the clutches of their abductors, deep in the Sambisa forest, or wherever else they might eventually be reported or discovered to have been kept. I think it is quite unfair that the Information Minister will come out and dish Intelligence of how the Federal Government had attempted, and now intends to rescue the girls, including the misdirected, and perhaps the disjointed moves at negotiating their freedom. With no prejudice to the gains of this government on the war against insurgency, I think the particular episode of the Chibok Girls’ re...

Imagine you were running a business and you received an email from someone you didn’t know that looked like this: “Hi, I do a lot of great stuff. Can you give me N5million, or introduce me to any of your friends who might be able to?” How would you feel? What would you think? Could you imagine a high profile artist such as Tu Face, Tiwa Savage, Whiz Kid or Olamide sending something out like this? Yet variations of this kind of message are being sent by music artists every day.  You can change out the amount or even trade the sponsorship money for some kind of service like booking a tour — but the tone ends up being the same each time. In other words, it sucks. This kind of pitch does not work. Let’s try that again… Put yourself back in the seat of a business owner or a Marketing Director. Now, imagine you received a message from a trusted colleague or friend of yours who writes: “Hey! I just came across this amazing artist who’s doing some great work and would be...

It is 2016, exactly 100 years since the BMW dream came about. In 1916, the Bavarian Motor Works was born in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, giving the world one of the most remarkable automobile experiences in history a century later. The world already knows that BMW are manufacturers of luxury vehicles, sports cars, motorbikes, bicycles and powerful engines; also producers of Rolls Royce and Mini cars. What the world did not imagine was the grip with which the brand would hold the auto world by the jugular right from the outset. In the world today, among aspiring youths and the bourgeoisie , there is exceptional love for, and confidence in the ultimate driving machine. Indeed, BMW is one of the reasons delivering for Germany the reputation for building machines of exceeding quality, excellence and performance. I do not know too many people who would want to drive another brand of automobile after experiencing the BMW. It is the automobile brand of choice and of reference. I...

Publicity and Public Relations are often wrongfully considered one and the same. But in fact, Publicity is just one aspect of Public Relations. Publicity   concerns a company, organization or individual’s presence in the media. And forms of Publicity include news stories, articles and event information. Publicity creates public awareness and attention around a brand, and publicists gain publicity for their clients by   promoting them. Unlike Public Relations, Publicity is used solely to attract attention. It differs from Public Relations in the sense that PR focuses on more than just public attention. The intent in Public Relations is to accomplish an organization’s stated goals by sending strategic messages to the appropriate audiences in the hope of impacting their knowledge, behaviours or attitudes. In short, PR manages the overall reputation of the client while simultaneously building relationships among all of those who are affected by it. As a manageme...

Beyond selfies And so, Mark Zuckerberg came visiting Nigeria, privately, but even had to come back at the behest of the Federal Government, which was possibly hoping to reap from the opportunities offered by the huge Publicity to be generated by the visit of the $56b man who came calling with no airs or fanfare. Back-slapping, klieg lights, dinner, photo ops and all, soon followed. But the question remains: how have we, as Nigerians, benefitted from this visit? Were there any Zuckerberg endorsements for the technological efforts of our government and people? Besides hyping our jollof rice, was there any consequential upping of the info-tech game and a concrete augmentation of the terrain? Mark our jollof Myriad questions might be essential, but they are not the essence of this piece. The contention is whether Nigeria and its managers have been successful at exploiting social media platforms in the mobilisation and positive orientation of its teeming, restive youth ...