Experts Proffer Strategies for Nigerian Brands to Achieve Global Success
By Azeez Disu
Experts have urged Nigerian brands to leverage local content to grow their brands to be able to compete favourably in the international market by riding on the global acceptance of the country’s music, film, and fashion industries.
The submission was made at the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) Annual Marketing Conference (AMC) held in Ibadan, Oyo State at the weekend with the theme “Empowering Nigerian Brands: Leveraging Local Content for Global Success”.
In his welcome address, Idorenyen Enang, President and Chairman of the Council, NIMN said building a brand is a partway to making a nation prosper and urged brands to keep innovating and leverage local content to take their market beyond the shore of the country.
Prof. Bankole Sodipo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Senior Partner at G.O while delivering the keynote address on the theme emphasized the importance of intellectual property for brands operating locally or thinking of going global.
He also called for prioritizing local content, “Brands are encapsulated in trademarks, and products and services ride on this. A lot of our local content can be used to promote our brands like our local stories, our fashion, and our music. There are so many wonderful places that people don’t know exist and we need to sell all these because our music and film today are selling in Nigeria and everybody is dancing to Nigerian music and watching Nigerian films. Our products and services can also ride on this.”
He added that for Nigerian brands to go global, “In going global, you need to have products that can meet international standards. t also means that the brands that communicate the story of our products must be registered internationally. This is because if you have a good brand name and a similar brand name has been registered by other people that means you cannot use it in that country. ”
He urged SMEs and big brands to look beyond the Nigerian market, “You should look beyond the Nigerian market, think internationally because one day something can happen and your product or services will be required internationally.”
Similarly, Prof. Uchenna Uzo, Faculty Director at Lagos Business School explained that for local brands to become global success they need to emphasize quality rather than quantity.
According to him, “For local bands to be global success they need to be very good at what they do. Quality is more important than quantity, the process of quality control is very important. Secondly, I think that the regulatory landscape of Nigeria has to support local production; we need quality so that our local products can move globally.
“Marketing is also important, who you know, the platform you share your products and services are important for taking a product from local scale to global scale,” he explained.
Speaking during the panel session, Tosin Adefeko, Chief Executive Officer, AT3 Resources said that 80% of Africans most loved brands are not African brands and tasked brand strategists to tell more powerful stories about their brands to change the narrative.
“Brand Strategists need to tell more powerful stories about the brands, we have untapped resources, especially in the creative space, our heritage, and natural resources”
Similarly, Femi Odugbemi, Founder and Executive Producer, Zuri24 Media urged brands to work with storytellers and content creators to tell their unique stories.
“As storytellers and content creators, we mustn’t just adopt or embrace global concept but figure out a way to project into the global space,” he said.
Revealing the challenges and opportunities in the sports sector, Nkechi Obi, Managing Director / CEO, Premium Sports Management Services Limited said “Nobody makes football in this country, all the football used everywhere in Nigeria is imported.
“How do we promote local brands if we are not producing anything in the sports industry? The starting point is to flip the switch from thinking of sport as only athletes going to the field to the other aspects which include producing products (e,g balls, and others), ” she stated.
On her part, Deola Balogun, Chief Operating Officer at Limlim Foods Production Ltd disclosed that brands still import some products into the country despite farmers losing over 50% of such products due to lack of post-harvest processing, fragmented supply chain, and seasonality of planting process.
“On the other hand, the paradox is the shocking discovery to see how much multinationals, food and beverage companies spend importing this same product as ingredients into the country, ” she said.