Marketing experts have urged brands to move beyond price but build trust and deliver holistic value in today’s changing marketing landscape, saturated with choices and increasingly discerning consumers.
The call was made at the third edition of the MediaConsortium Conference and Awards, held recently, in Lagos.
Head of Digital Media at Globacom, Femi Opadere, in his keynote address tagged:
‘Defining ‘Value’ in the Modern Marketplace: Beyond Price, Quality, Experience and Ethics’, challenged brands to shift their focus from cost to benefit.
He emphasised that today’s consumers are digitally active, with numerous options, and can therefore make decisions based on more than just price.
Using Globacom’s introduction of per-second billing as a prime example, he illustrated how delivering genuine value can revolutionise an industry.
Opadere recalled that that seemingly simple, but value-driven strategy led to the telecom company, getting over one million subscribers, within a few months of coming into that space
One of the panelists, Samuel Akinrimisi, warned that brands often fail when they operate on flawed assumptions about their customers.
Akinrimisi, who is the New Product Development Lead at Eko Supreme Resources, stressed the need to take cognisance of the consumer needs into product perspective, at the level of product development.
He argued that true value is ‘needed satisfaction’ and requires brands to understand the cultural relevance of their products and messaging.
Strategy/Creative Director at Hephzibah Experiential Ltd, Ayodeji Ajayi reiterated the power of building an emotional connection and trust to foster unwavering loyalty.
‘You cannot take away emotions,’ Ajayi noted, while attributing a consumer’s preference for a brand to a deep bind shared with such brand.
Speaking on the choice of the theme, Adetunji Faleye, Co-Convener of the MediaConsortium Conference and Awards, described the theme as reflecting a pressing question for today’s brands, businesses, and leaders.
‘We believe the answer lies in a holistic approach, one that integrates all these elements, and goes further to capture the intangible: trust, relevance, purpose, and sustainability; the benchmarks of success in the modern marketplace,’ he added.