Report: Nigerian marketers get a wake-up call as consumers’ loyalty is slipping out of their hands

Today, unlike in some years, a consumer considers various factors, including price, experience, variety, attention of brands to feedback on issues and after-sales service, before making a purchase decision. This behaviour is multiplied across many Nigerian households who make calculations daily as loyalty is no longer sacrosanct.

This consumer behaviour shift, playing out at open markets and supermarkets, sits at the heart of a new report jointly produced by Pan-Atlantic University’s Lagos Business School and the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) — a report designed to jolt an entire industry out of old habits.

The report unveiled in Lagos recently is about “how to stay relevant as Nigeria’s economy is shifting and consumers’ pockets are getting more squeezed,” explained Uchenna Uzo, Professor of Marketing and Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic, at Pan-Atlantic University. The report is all about “how marketers can stay more relevant in the minds of target customers as their wallets shrink.” It’s extremely important to remain relevant because loyalty is shifting, he said.

The warning at the centre of the report is blunt: brand loyalty in Nigeria is eroding, and the pace of that erosion is expected to accelerate over the next four to five years. And any business that fails to rethink how it manages that loyalty, Uzo cautioned, risks going out of business entirely.

Conventional wisdom says Nigerian shoppers chase the cheapest option. The report’s data tells a different story. According to Uzo, the single biggest driver of customer disloyalty isn’t price — it’s poor experience.

Too many manufacturers and service providers, he said, neglect what happens after the sale: complaints that go unanswered, feedback that disappears into a void, and service times that drag on too long. Price still matters, but it ranks second. Third on the list is a failure to keep pace with how differently customers behave from one region of the country to another — a growing appetite for variety and options that many brands haven’t caught up with.

“The report is a reawakening,” Uzo emphasised. “Pointing them to the fact that loyalty is shifting. And because loyalty is shifting, it is very important now to think differently about how to engage customers.”

Uzo advised marketers to consider who shoppers listen to before making decisions. According to him, some consult someone first. Influencers and community leaders sit precisely at that intersection, shaping decisions long before a customer ever reaches his or her wallet.

The findings in the report didn’t come from a boardroom guess. Uzo said the researchers spoke with more than 300 brands, companies, and customers spanning all six of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones, combining surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews to produce the report itself.

Also speaking with BusinessDay, Bolajoko Bayo-Ajayi, President and Chairman of the Council of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), said the project grew out of planning for a recent marketing conference built around the theme “Community, Culture and Connection: Reimagining the New Market.”

According to the president, who began an idea into a full research effort, instead of letting the conference theme fade once the event ended, the two institutions decided to turn it into a lasting resource — one, the NIMN President said, that gives practitioners “a framework that is documented, that they can actually leverage in their day-to-day practice.”

She emphasised that the marketing landscape is changing and continues to change, and it is important that marketers understand this.

She said this kind of report is not what a typical marketing executive in an FMCG will go and undertake. “And that’s the role of NIMN in terms of providing thought leadership within the marketing industry, because what you don’t understand, you can’t lead. And so from our own point of view, we need to understand and be able to provide that leadership.”