Chris Ogbechie, a Senior Faculty Officer, Lagos Business School (LBS) has assessed marketing practice in contemporary world and said that story-telling was the best way of connecting with consumers emotionally in the 21st century.
Speaking at marketing and advertising magazine, MARKETING EDGE annual National Marketing Stakeholders Summit recently in Lagos, Ogbechie noted that in today’s marketing world, most brands were competing in the same space to win the hearts of the consumers, stressing that it was only those whose stories resonate emotionally that would win consumer loyalty.
“Marketing itself is a fight for the consumer’s mind. The more you get into the mind of the consumer, the greater your chances of being successful with that consumer,” Ogbechie said.
According to him, “In today’s marketing world, the key issue is to create emotional brand attachment with the consumers. Brands need to create relationship and that would further create that emotional attachment between the brand and the consumers.”
Speakers at other forums have also emphasised the importance of story telling as a tool of connecting with the audience. Recently APCON and African market research association held events around the place/importance of story-telling and the African style of story-telling as tools of developing the African brand story, developing a content marketing story; social media content creation’, among others.
Also speaking at the Marketiging Edge summit, Chairman of the occasion and CEO of Marketing Space told participants at the summit that storytelling has the capacity to help brand owners achieve their growth projections if deployed in a consumer-centric manner. The veteran marketer warned that in deploying storytelling, brand owners must be careful to make consumers the hero in the story. “Stories should make the consumer the hero. He should see himself in the story. The philosophy of the story should not overshadow the brand,” he said.
The forum was organised by the magazine to reward outstanding brands and professionals in the integrated marketing communications industry in Nigeria.
The two-in-one event, attracted over 1000 high-profile guests and dignitaries from various segments of the IMC industry, including top brands and government institutions who took advantage of the convergence to drive consumer engagement and deepen brand loyalty.
In his speech, John Ajayi, Managing Director/CEO of MARKETING EDGE said that the theme of this year’s summit “Story Telling as a New Paradigm Shift in Contemporary Brand Building: Convergence of Creativity and Technology” was a reflection of the current mood in the marketplace.
His words: This year’s summit is a reflection of the current mood in the market place which necessitates the need to create a nexus and a positive engagement between the brand and its target audience. With the seller’s market era gone for good, today’s marketer company cannot continue to lord it over the modern consumers. In the words of Seth Gordin, an American author and former dot.com business executive, ‘’marketing is no longer about the stuff that you market, but about the stories you tell’’. His view was further corroborated by William Robert Baker, also an American and a retired hockey veteran who said ‘’Story telling is the mother of all ‘’pull’’ marketing strategies. It encourages dialogue, engagement and interaction among equals- interaction is an exchange of meaning between people. Yet many companies and brands are still relentlessly pushing messages out, hoping that with enough repetition, something will stick’’.
The highpoint of the day was the award proper where brands, personalities and institutions were recognized for outstanding performances and enduring legacies. Some of the brands that were recognized included Indomie-FMCG Brand of the Year, Airtel, Telecom Brand of the Year, GTBank- Financial Brand of the Year, iProspect- Innovative Digital Agency of the Year and Tom Tom, Candy Brand of the Decade. Some personalities were also honoured and top of that list if the Keynote Speaker, Prof. Sir Chris Ogbechie- Lifetime Marketing Achievement Award, Lifetime Marketing Achievement award- Tony Agenmonmen and OOH Leadership Personality of the Year Dozie Mbanefo, Chris Wulff-Caesar Marketing Personality of the Year, Lanre Adisa- Advertising Leadership Award and Steve Babaeko, Advertising leadership award.
Other high profile winners include Noah’s ark for Outstanding Creative Agency of the Year, Carat- Outstanding Media Agency of the Year, Ideas House Outstanding Experiential Marketing Agency of the Year, Indigo- Outstanding PR Agency of the Year, while New Crystal won the Outstanding OOH Agency of the Year.
Daniel Obi
