Business operators across Nigeria’s Integrated Marketing Communications industry have been advised not to place too much emphasis on working for foreign multinationals, but to rather look inwards and focus more on working for local companies.
According to the Chief Operating Officer and Lead Consultant, Aster Integrated Marketing Limited, Tolulope Medebem, operators in the Nigerian IMC sector were showing too much emphasis on getting signed on to businesses owned by the multinational companies and shifting away their focus from the indigenous companies.
She explained that the trend was responsible for most of the recent negative fallouts in business relationships between multinational clients and marketing companies working for them such as among other things, the continued reduction of budget rates and the controversial 120 days credit policy newly introduced by multinationals.
She blamed the trends of budget reduction and payment challenges in the industry on lack of trust, integrity and transparency between agencies and their clients while calling on the industry regulators to urgently fashion out a collective solution to the challenges.
Making an assessment of unfolding trends in the Nigerian consumer market, especially in the face of recent economic policies of the federal government, the frontline experiential marketing expert observed that although the Nigerian market had great potentials for growth, the potential could only be realised when IMC practitioners begin to work actively for the local industry.
”There are a whole lot of industries out there. But how many of those industries have we really been able to focus on. Those are the things that we need to do, everyone, targeting other industries aside the multinationals.
“What that means is that instead of all of us trying to go for the multinationals, yes, they are good and we would all love to have them, but there are also other companies out there that need our services and we don’t even know they need our service that we are not even chasing,” she said.
She highlighted some of the challenges of growth of Nigeria’s consumer market to include among other things, poor state of infrastructure and inadequate power supply, adding that despite the shortcomings all hands must be on deck to make things work.
“If we all realise that we are all our own local governments, we provide our security, we provide our light, we find it’s a situation where we have to joggle and we keep on joggling at least until we all become major joggle masters. We are all within this space and we all know what is going on and all of that. The truth is that we are here and we have to make it work,” she said.
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