Brand and branding
Recently, marketers and businesses have come to realise that, all forms of business ventures rise and fall on the canvass of branding. Branding, to an extent is becoming a term that means all things to all people, such that somehow, nobody seems to now know the exact meaning of the term. Some confuse the term branding with brand. Anyway, fact is that, brand and branding is the in-thing now - whether in the world of business or social life and politics. Brand, as we will always remind ourselves is a point of differentiation and identity which generates an experience occasioned by an interaction between a consumer and a product or service. Some say it is a promise fulfilled. However, there are many more ways to describe the concept.
In the realm of business, different brand owners operating on diverse terrains are coming up with fresh concepts that would put them ahead of their rivals. The fight to control the Nigerian market has grown tougher with each passing year, and brand owners have deployed various marketing strategies in a bid to dominate the market. Presently, the regular use of promos by companies to lure customers to patronise their products with a promise to win whopping monetary rewards and an array of consolation prizes, has become very rampant. This overused marketing strategy, has propelled a few to look towards the direction of celebrities to invoke the magic needed to thrust them far ahead of the pack.
Amongst Nigerians, celebrities are seen as rare personalities with aura of greatness and capabilities to ignite supersonic excitement in their fans. This phenomenon is best described during live concerts performed by popular artists as crowds have been known to frenzy, with fans screaming and shouting and some even shedding tears.
Celebrities, by reason of their popularity, are believed to naturally possess the power to influence consumers to swap loyalty to the endorsed brands, and make such adverts linger continually in their memory data banks. Before 2007, the idea of navigating a brand on the threshold of a celebrity was virtually unknown to many organisations, and where it existed it attracted little attention by both the company and the consuming public. The reasons being that, - companies were naïve and to an extent ignorant of its usage and the public were unaware of its existence as a veritable marketing communication tool. At that time, most companies were not ready to allocate substantial budget to support celebrity branding.
It is a fact that a percentage of prospective customers, aware of the mouth watering take home pay tucked safely in the kitty of the celebrities, will not be moved by their involvement in any advert or endorsement of any product. Besides, regardless of the hype made about their presence in adverts, having them endorse any brand might not automatically bestow the ultimate magic on the sale of the products.
Scholars and brand experts think it is instructive that, the celebrity being used must ideally fit the brand that is being projected. Therefore, factors such as physical charm, charisma, credibility, acceptability, emotional connection between the celebrity and the target consumers are fundamental and cannot be waived aside - if brand owners must generate customers' interest in their products.
BrandIntelligence sampled the view of some consumers and brand analysts on what they think about the use of these celebrities for the purpose of leveraging the brands; either in terms of brand awareness, enhanced visibility or even expansion of voice in a cluttered market place. Again, are the brands properly aligned with the celebrities that are supposed to be projecting them and also if the use of these icons, so to say, actually influence the consumers to purchase these brands and products.
For instance, the use of Nkem Owoh to project Harpic, Jide Kosoko for Chivita, and Genevieve Nnaji for Lux amongst others.
According to Augusta Okon, a brand analyst, the use of Nkem Owoh in the Harpic advert was a great mismatch. In her words, “as a norm in Nigeria, men do not clean toilets at home. It is regarded as part of the domestic duties of a woman. The target audience in the promotion of any toilet cleaning products is women. The use of the celebrity, Owoh was probably hinged on popularity and outstanding success as a Nollywood star actor, hence the marketers may have considered his popularity as an effective and transferable value that will help promote the Harpic brand and consequently boost sales. I believe they realised their oversight and promptly dropped him and brought in Bukky Wright to continue the projection. Naturally, the women easily warmed up to her, and the stereotyped message which hitherto sounded like propaganda or media gimmick gained acceptance and suddenly transmuted into a perception of reality. Thereafter, Joke Silva took over the brand promotion reins in this monotonous advert. Imagine using a man for a diapers advert, or one aimed at promoting a range of baby or cosmetic products! No matter how good looking the man is, no matter how humorous the advert turns out to be, at best it would translate into a well-packaged split-second slide show on television, in fact, a waste."
Commenting on the alignment and impact of using Akin (Chinedu Ikedezie) and Pawpaw (Osita Iheme) in promoting OK Sweets, Bright Onome, a commentator on brand issues feels that it would not have been the same if an "adult-looking" celebrity had taken a shot at it. Children regard the duo as "children stars" to which they can relate with, though naïve about their real ages, so kids have gladly embraced the products prompting their parents to repeatedly purchase the treasured sweets.
Etisalat, made its debut into the highly competitive Nigerian Telecoms market in 2008. The company was faced with the reality of breaking into the telecom market, what with the existing three major players MTN, Zain and Glo - without under rating the existence of others who could give them a run for their money such as Starcomms, Multi Links, Visa Phone, Reltel and Intercellular. They had hitherto resorted to marketing aggressively, with various adverts spearheaded by unpopular faces promoting their brand via the electronic and print media. In the words of Augusta Okon, its “break was achieved when ‘Banky W', the sensational R&B artist with the hit track Ebutte- Metta which made waves in the music front was used to promote the brand. His smooth velvety voice and the closing lyrics '080,0809ja for life' did the trick. Nigerians took a great liking to the song and in different quarters, children and adults were heard reeling out the 0809ja for life song, thereby enhancing the Etisalat brand to higher heights.”
The use of Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, a Nollywood star to promote Onga food seasoning has also been hailed by many as falling into brand alignment, especially because she hails from the part of Nigeria that is noted with good delicacies and quality recipe. Jumbo Dike, an advertising practitioner believes “her choice should be applauded considering the background and origin of the artist as well as her homely disposition. Even her appearance for Lagos state will motivate response from womenfolk which should excite tax collectors as their jobs would be made easier”.
In his response on the Chivita use of Kosoko and Onga's use of Kate, Kunle Azeez, IT reporter with the Financial Standard said that, “in today's marketing, organisations try to build their products around popular celebrities and icons, who the organisation's target market like, love and have great disposition towards. This implies that, aligning products as a brand with celebrities, who themselves are 'personality brands,' are easily remembered by members of the public who incidentally are the target market, is the in-thing in today's competitive economy."
It is, therefore, not surprising that popular celebrities and Nollywood actresses such as Genevieve and Kate are today icons of Lux and Onga respectively. Similarly, anytime Jide Kosoko is seen, a picture of Chivita juice is conjured in people's mind. By weaving brands around celebs, who have excelled in their chosen careers, brand managers are able to align or, better still, associate their brands with the icons.
In the three cases above, the undisputed impact of the products' alignment with the celebrities (brand faces) is that of the ability to create memorability and ultimately build association with the brands. This gives the organisation a scenario where the popularity of the icon is subconsciously transferred on the products. However, whether this branding approach affects the bottomline or not (i.e. stimulate the admirers of the brand faces to buy the products woven around them and therefore increase the organisation's profit), is another issue entirely.
Suffice to say that, this approach to branding could be useful in building memorability of a product.
The use of celebrities to influence brand acceptance, create brand awareness and enhance patronage in Nigeria is gaining currency by the day. The challenge however, is that, sometimes the celebrity falls into bad waters and this ultimately affects the brand. This means that, while the marketers relish in the benefits of using these supposed icons to leverage their brands, they should also not forget to put in place a crisis template, per chance something goes wrong with the icon, so that the organisation will not be caught napping or the brand left with a slur. Again, there is also the need to deploy a lot of creativity in using these celebs, if the marketer must gain ROI as expected. But, so far, it seems all is well for the marketers and the brand celebs and hence the association should be encouraged.
