Wednesday, March 28, 2012

MillwardBrown lists benefits of research in product development

MILLWARDBROWN, a global research agency, which specialises in advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research, has emphasised the need for advertising agencies and business organisations in the country to get expert advice on marketing communication in brand development.

According to the Managing Director, MillwardBrown, Ghana, Soumya Saklani, investing in research creative development process to test strategy and ideas could help save time, costs and ensure that there is return on investment.

Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday in Lagos to announce the company debut in Nigeria, Saklani stated that the company, with 82 offices in 52 countries, which work with 90 per cent of the top 100 global brands, was set to bring new innovation into marketing communication in Nigeria.

According to him, the company is determined to provide research-based consultancy to help marketers successfully manage their brands, optimise the return on their media and communications investments, and create value for their businesses, employees and shareholders.

He explained, “what differentiates us from other agencies is our passion for brands. As a leading global research agency specialising in advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research, we’ve been in the business of brands for more than 35 years.

“Our focus on all things “brand” is fuelled by our clients’ expectations for success and our own appetite for challenge, insight, solutions and innovation.

“We have helped our clients build strong brands and services through research-based consultancy and today, we continue to push the boundaries of marketing research and brand consulting wherever we go.”

Also, the Managing Director of the company in Nigeria, Ugo Geri-Robert, identified Nigeria as the ‘powerhouse’ of Africa, adding that tremendous growth in recent times, rising income levels and consumer aspirations has further increased marketers’ needs to understand real-time how their brands are evolving on their journey and their communications connecting with consumers and by extension their requirement for consumer research.

“Nigeria is at the centre of any growth prediction for Africa and West Africa, a potential BRIC country. If you mean business in Sub - Saharan you must be in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

“For our global clients, who work with us across the globe, they can expect the same set of our proprietary solutions, high quality of service & cutting-edge insights & advice that has made then choose Millward Brown as their global research partner.

“For marketers, who we haven’t as yet had an opportunity to work for, they can expect from us solid research based insights & recommendations that can help them obtain a stronger return on investment from their marketing communications & strengthen their brands,” he added.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Global Market Research Firm, Millward Brown Makes Entry into Nigeria

WPP-owned global marketing research company, Millward Brown has formally established an office in Nigeria, five years after operating in Ghana from where it served its Nigerian clients. In 2007, it planned to set up a full operational office in the country but was discouraged by complex and cumbersome registration process.

But Nigeria, big market to ignore and Africa’s ‘powerhouse,’ is enthralling to Millward Brown that has beat all odds to set up shop in Nigeria to provide service in marketing communication research to more clients and create value in Nigeria’s over N100 billion advertising industry. Established in the UK in 1974, the objective of the company in Nigeria is to assist organisations, which spend huge sums on advertising yearly, to develop strong advertisements that meet and connect with consumers.

The company’s coming will definitely jolt rethinking in advertising business as a lot of money goes into especially TV advertising. Clients will begin to re-examine the process and their advertisement to ensure they are gotten right with expected ROI achieved. “Our strategy therefore is to help them test the advertisement before they make the massive big budget commitment,” Soumya Saklani, managing director, Millward Brown West Africa, told BusinessDay last week in Lagos.

In some instances, advertisements are produced with good lyrics and visuals to the delight of viewers but do not connect with the consumers and ultimately fall short of creating the necessary impact. To Saklani, advert testing is about optimisation of adverts with the objective of ensuring that advertisers get value for their money.

Clarifying that such expertise insight is complementary to the work of creative agencies, he said the idea is to help organisations save money and focus advert copy and visuals directly in order to achieve return on investment. “Ineffective ad is a sheer waste of money and resources,” he noted.

“In the UK, we test a number of adverts, some of which have won awards. We are the best friends of advertisers. In advert testing, it is the creative agencies that win the glory,” he stated. Second leg of Millward Brown’s objective in Nigeria is brand health research. Under this role, it will help clients understand the strength of their brands in the minds of their consumers.

“We tell our clients what the consumers think about their brands and what they should do for their brands to stand out,” he said. According to him, my strong motivation in Nigeria is based on the fact that Nigeria is without doubt the ‘powerhouse’ of Africa and one of the continent’s leading and most dynamic growth economies, and a significant member of the ‘Next 11’ club of growth countries.

“Tremendous growth in recent times, rising income levels and consumer aspirations has even further increased marketers’ need to understand real-time how their brands are evolving on their journey and their communication connecting with consumers and by extension their requirement for consumer research,” he disclosed.

On how Millward Brown, which offers a full qualitative and quantitative research service in 51 countries working across a wide range of industries and categories, will compete in the local market, the managing director of Millward Brown Nigeria, Ugo Geri-Robert, said “we are not everything but have passion for brands specialising in advertising, marketing communication, media and brand equity research.”

Speaking on the level of research in Africa, she said Africa ratio is about 3 - 4 percent of the global research. In Nigeria, it is lower when compared with other African countries, because the research culture is still evolving.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Mobile now drives consumer spending

Kenyan consumers are increasingly turning to social media and mobile phone advertising to guide their spending. This development has seen corporates battle to come up with strategies to tap into the lucrative marketing.


A survey of Kenyans’ digital habits by research firm TNS RMS East Africa found that 73 per cent of Kenyans would be happy doing all their Internet surfing on their phones.

Further, 67 per cent use social media to research brands, and around half of them would like to be able to purchase products through social networks.

“Growth in Internet access offers big opportunities for brands and marketers that can be explored with the right strategies,” said the TNS associate director of technology, Mr Bob Bugoyne.

Other medium

And according to research data released last month by mobile advertising firm, InMobi, Kenyans are using mobile phones more than any other medium.

In the InMobi survey, 89 per cent of users said they were as comfortable with mobile advertising as with television or newspaper advertising.

Entrenchment of the mobile culture was so pervasive that even while consuming other media, Kenyans still used their mobile phones to connect to the Internet and confirm information, a phenomenon known as second screening.
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TNS found that 19 per cent of Kenyans use their mobile phones to find out more about products that they had just seen advertised on television, while 21 per cent use them to find out about product availability in stores.

Despite the wide engagement with brands online, consumers were quickly turned off if they felt that corporates were intruding into their private spheres. TNS discovered that users are more likely to trust complete strangers than firms promoting their products.

“Digital marketing can actively create brand-resistant consumers. Brands cannot control messaging. Even a stranger on the other side of the world is trusted more,” said Mr Bugoyne.

This leaves companies that hope to leverage on social media and mobile phones in a predicament. They cannot explicitly market their products, yet it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity.

The solution, according to Mr Bugoyne, lies in waiting for consumers to invite companies onto their networks. When consumers post comments online about services or products, this amounts to an invitation.

TNS says that 77 per cent of users use social media as a customer service channel. Fifty-two per cent of them expect responses from companies, and when they are ignored their perception of a company and a brand is negatively warped.

“The majority of those talking about brands have wide social networks with an average of 250 contacts. They do have the ability to make or harm a brand,” said Mr Bugoyne