Ornico expands into West Africa
“Independence and an unbiased research approach is crucial to Ornico's credibility so it was important to find a player outside of the advertising industry when doing a deal that would enable us to enter Nigeria,” says Oresti Patricios, CEO of Ornico Group. “Over the past 25 years Ornico has build a reputation for offering reliable and non-partisan data and analysis to the South African marketing community. Because we are not affiliated with any advertising or media group we can be impartial. When entering Nigeria we needed to ensure this stayed intact.”
Patricios says the company's expansion into Africa is driven by customer demand and the difficulty that brands have in acquiring uniform advertising and reputation intelligence on the continent. “Although the research market is healthier, robust and more credible than it has ever been before, we hope to drive the standardisation of methodologies when it comes to brand and media intelligence, our area of expertise.”
Ornico aims to help marketers make sense of the brand, advertising and media information flooding the marketplace by monitoring, collecting and analysing editorial, advertising and brand data. By comparing competitive insights and identifying trends, Ornico helps marketers take key decisions on creative, media and reputational strategies.
“Africa presents a huge opportunity for South African brands, and there has been significant demand from our clients growing across the continent for data. Marketing research and brand analysis is important to investment in Africa because if standardised information isn't available this becomes a barrier to investment,” says Patricios.
“Nigeria is a huge market that is aggressively competitive and enjoys the participation of international and own brands. Despite the recession there's a vibrant media set and the country has seen huge growth in the use on online and social media. There has been consistent growth in advertising, so much so that many local agencies have representation or an affiliate in the country. This given it makes good sense for us to open up an office there,” says Patricios.
“The initial focus will be on seconding South African staff to Nigeria in order to train and hire locals. The long term goal is to establish an office that is run and managed by Nigerians who understand the market and how to deliver to it.”
“Ornico has a number of products and services we believe will thrive in that market. We've experienced huge growth in our advertising and media spend verification service, given that broadcasters make commercial flighting errors that are often not picked up by media agencies due to a lack of the availability of accurate information and huge time constraints. We expect this service to do well in Nigeria, along with our competitive brand intelligence services and reputation monitoring and analysis offerings. Ornico has seen significant growth in government work and I believe the market in Nigeria will be no different as service delivery and reputation becomes more important to political parties and national leaders,” says Patricios.
