Brand management: Expert charges agencies to bring differentiable value
By Amechi Obiakpu
Renowned professor of Marketing and distinguished academic, Prof. Uchenna Uzor has frowned at the manner brand handlers cut back on marketing budget and yet expect brands to do well, even as he charges agencies to bring the differentiable value to the brands they manage.
Prof. Uzor who lectures at the Lagos Business School and also the Academic Director, Africa Retail Academy, said this at the 2025 National Advertising Conference held in Abuja, between November 12 and 14.
He spoke in a panel session on the sub theme: “Brand loyalty: Speaking to data”.
Other members of the panel were; Brenda Nwagwu, Vice President, Media Independent Proprietors Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) and Chief Executive officer, QVT Media and Tolulope Medebem, EXMAN President and Chief Executive, Aster Integrated Marketing.
According to Uzor, brands always look for value from every agency they engage, the absent of which results to broken trust.
“One of the reasons why brands fail is cutting back and reducing their marketing budget allocation. Because they are no linger convinced the agencies are offering differentiable value,” Prof. Uzor said, adding that, “unfortunately, that usually impacts the brands negatively”.
He noted that bringing something extra to the table may just be the differentiating factor for the agencies to be taken seriously.
“Again, it’s a call for us to completely reflect on how much value we are offering the brands that we serve in terms of being ahead of them and being more futuristics and understanding their target audience and the ongoing engagements that we have.
He believes that if agencies can improve on engagement with brands and improve on the differentiation and data insight, it will enable brands to deliver on that experience.
“Data represent voice of the consumers- their feelings and all but its also depend on the story you want to tell, not all data are useful. Its also about being careful and looking for surprises some thing useful that the client can use,” he posited.
On her part, Tolulope Medebem wondered what brands do with all the data that are curated for them.
“We talk about data and we know as experiential agency we curate a lot of data for clients but these data are not used for anything.”
She noted that data is measurable and if data is not used, what then is being measured? She queried.
“The data more often gives you direct feedback from the consumers, from the field. And some of these data are actually extracted and sent back to clients as documentation so that they can use it and that is our own way of measuring but more than 90% of the time this data are not used,” she said.
She however advised brand managers to be more intentional in the way they handle every data at their disposals as a lot of efforts go into gathering the data.
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