Tony Agenmonmen

 

The second edition of the Nigerian Marketing Awards (NMA), holds in a few weeks. In this interview, the Convener, and Immediate Past President, National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Mr. Tony Agenmonmen, speaks on a wide range of industry issues, especially the forthcoming NMA Awards, insisting that  the organisers remain committed to upholding the quality standards the event is known for, despite turbulent economic times. Excerpts:

 

Q- What should marketing practitioners be doing at this time when the nation’s economy is experiencing turmoil and turbulence; with the business space  becoming increasingly hostile?

 

If you are expecting a direct prescription, I may, unfortunately, have to disappoint you, because there is no direct prescription as to what they should be doing at this time. For me, what they should be doing now is, of course, what any  seasoned marketing person should do at any time, because from the start of time, we’ve always had turbulence. Though such turbulence can be minor, and it can be major. So, any seasoned marketing person knows that today, or tomorrow is always a new day. So the world is changing, every second.  Obviously, what any seasoned marketing practitioner needs at this time is to be adaptive. You have to adapt to the environment. But, coming to what you said about difficulties in the environment, yes of course things are difficult. Things are tight. There is no much money in the environment. The marketing person, therefore,  has to be creative. The day you will just launch a product, and expect the consumer to just pick it, is gone. You then now have to look at what you can do. You have  to empathise with the consumers. You have  to be in their shoes. What are their pain- points right now? You have to think of how your brand can be a solution to such pain- point. At the end of the day, yes brands must make profit, but within that context of making profit, how can you support your consumers at this time?  If you just say because your costs have gone up, and you add such to the end consumer price, that kind of relationship is not going to work. One thing we must know is that you must retain the quality, each brand must retain their brand essence, you must not devalue your brand, because of the current situation. What you need to do is to be a little bit creative. You can always do with the nice-to-dos, and keep to the must-do, in terms of maintaining the brand essence. So, for me, it’s a challenging environment, but the seasoned marketing people will navigate it. It’s the best one that will triumph.

 

 

Q- Some marketing practitioners are increasingly seeing the social media as a huge distraction, since the platforms are sometimes being used to mete out jungle justice on brands. How should marketing practitioners handle such social media noise?

 

One thing is this, reality is reality. It can’t be changed. You can pretend about it. The social media phenomenon remains social media phenomenon. it’s an ungoverned space, more or less. Many countries are talking about how to control it but it’s still work in progress, and I’m not sure if that will be possible.

So every marketing person must operate within that context. If you are operating in an ungoverned space, a lot of things are said there. Some correct, some false. I think at the end of the day, the fundamentals of the brand remains. The most important thing is that your brand should live up to its promise. If your brand is not living up to its promise, of course, you are going to be hammered.  Those days when your brand would disappoint, and the person would have to physically come to your office to complain, while you took your time to respond, are gone. This time  the person is not going to take such expensive route of coming  to your office to complain. The vehicle is right there, in his or her palm. In that context, it also means that you, as a marketing person, have to be structured to be able to monitor what is happening because the truth is that, no matter how hard you try, a few things can go wrong. And so you must have a structure in place in your organization that tracks and monitors it. Yes, the social media phenomenon is there, but we have to live with it. We have to manage it.

 

 

Q- Looking back today, will you say you were able to achieve some of those targets you set for yourself, as the President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN); especially the task of ridding the space of quacks?

 

For me, leadership is a journey, it’s not a destination. I think what is important is that you take your own giant step, and you leave  those that follow to toe that step.  The institute we met, then, was a completely different institute. We didn’t have  reputation, respect and so on. Many people  didn’t want to be identified with it. But, today, everybody  is proud to say I’m a fellow, I’m a member, which is exactly what we wanted.  So for me that is progress. But  are we there yet? No. there is still a lot of work to be done, as an institute and the whole of the marketing communication space, in terms of ensuring that all those who practise marketing, are actually under the control of the institute so that they can be properly monitored to ensure that they are keeping to  the tenets of the profession of marketing. But have we made progress? Yes, and I’m proud of the progress that have been made.

 

 

Q- What about the tribunal set up then?

 

I didn’t set up a tribunal, the Act that was signed by the national assembly provides for marketing tribunal to take care of any infractions by practitioners, all I did was to make sure that we gave vent to that aspect of the Act, set up the law.

 

Q- The Nigerian Marketing Awards event holds in few weeks. What’s the preparation like?

 

We are already there. We are talking of an event happening in November, this year. It’s tough, because the environment is tough, but we are doing the best that we can to ensure that we keep the quality standards we started with.  Some people were imagining the maiden edition was a flash in the pan, it is meant to prove such people wrong. We are going to probably improve on what they saw last year. What we are doing is look at our operations, once it’s concluded. We look at the highpoints, and also  look at the low points, and then try to improve on the low points.

 

 

Q- Learnt that there is a 37 percent increase in the number of the entries, this year. Can we have an idea of the categories witnessing the surge?

 

 

I don’t think the judges will allow me to divulge this. They are in the position to say that at the end of the day. All I know is that last year we had about 106 entries, and this year, about 145. I think that’s about 37 percent improvement on the total number of entries. But in terms of quality, we’ll still do the analysis and the  judges will present their report when they are done. But I’m fully impressed, because from the humble beginning last year, the brand is getting to have roots, and I think people are getting to understand it. It’s a new style, a new method. Many people are not used to sitting down to start crafting entries, but now they have to craft entries and even pay to enter. So it’s significant, a little bit revolutionary, the fact that we are going the way we are going, and the people are responding the way they are responding and I can tell you, it’s encouraging.

 

Q- You went the extra mile of getting accreditations, both local and global for the Award, last year. How much of that are you doing this year?

 

 

You are right. Talking about the foreign accreditation body, you know last year we were just starting, and they wanted to see how the first edition would go. Based on what we did,  we were confident that we had ticked all the boxes of quality that qualified us to move to the next stage, because they have three levels of accreditation. What we had last year was the bronze level, but this year we applied for the next level, and we scaled through it easily. The process is simple. When I say  simple, I mean straightforward, open and transparent. We promised we would run the Award in a certain way, they not only follow, they follow the media, they check the website, they check what you are doing to be sure that it aligns with the promise. For us to even revalidate the accreditation this year, or ask for a higher level of accreditation, they had to make an independent enquiry, apart from tracking through the media. They want to randomly talk to five judges on the panel, and five participants of the event, and where we were only involved was to help them to have a database of names and addresses. I’m happy to say that we have moved up to the next level of accreditation. We are still retaining the quality of judges, the only thing we have done is to boost the number  by injecting three more people.  And, of course, because of what happened, we now have a new chairperson of the committee. In terms of quality of the panel, it hasn’t changed. We actually expect them to build on the experience of last year, to deliver the highest quality of adjudication. In all, there a few things that will be different on that day.

 

Q- Many believe there is a proliferation of  awards in the marketing space, and they believe this has a way of rubbing off negatively on the credible ones. What’s your take on this?

 

I’m not too sure I would use the word ‘proliferation’ because personally I don’t think we have enough awards in Nigeria. Even if the numbers were large, the problem is not with the large number. I think what we should be worried about is the quality and credibility of the Awards. That should be the focus of all of us, because the truth is Awards are meant to reward hard-work, in that case they are meant to be competitive. So if you say I have won an award, it means for that period, that category, I have displayed more excellence. Look at the Grammy, look at the Oscar, and others. Yet nobody is talking about proliferation. For me, our concern should be about the credibility and quality of the Awards