Marketplace Innovation Africa Joins African Business Leaders to Advocate Tailored Retail Solutions
Marketplace Innovation Africa, a leading Business Improvement Practice, has joined other African bus...
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Marketplace Innovation Africa Calls for Authentic Conversations Between People and Brands at Social Media Week Lagos Masterclass
Business Consulting and Marketing Agency, Marketplace Innovation Africa, has called for Brands to adopt the Concept of Authentic Conversations with their Audiences. This call, it made at its just concluded Masterclass at the week-long 2020 Social Media Week Lagos event.
The Masterclass titled ‘Marketplace Alchemy: Driving Authentic Conversations Between People and Brands’, facilitated by Anurika Azubuike, Marketplace Innovation Africa’s Managing Partner, highlighted the framework of Marketplace Alchemy as the solution for businesses to build credibility, likability and authority with people as their most important asset.
Azubuike explains to participants during the session that businesses today come face-to-face with two major problems. The first is playing catch-up within their once understood industry, and the second is clamoring for the attention of consumers who are savvy, always-on and more empowered.
“We live in a ruthless attention economy and brands must be ready to court the right attention with their audiences in a manner that poses the perceptions and feelings that they want to elicit from their audiences,” she said.
She discussed three major points of depth, context and emotion that make up authentic conversations driving brands’ structured messaging and preparing them for their audience’s unstructured feedback.
This year’s 8th edition of Social Media Week Lagos themed ‘Human X’ led important conversations focused on what it means to take a human-first and experience-driven approach to innovation across industries and communities on the African continent. The annual event, considered as Africa’s largest tech and business conference, held between 24th and 28th February 2020. Its annual participation of over 20,000 people explores a wide range of topics including education, business, entertainment, technology, art, banking and politics.
Marketplace Innovation Africa Joins African Business Leaders to Advocate Tailored Retail Solutions
Marketplace Innovation Africa, a leading Business Improvement Practice, has joined other African business leaders to advocate for business retail solutions within the context of the African consumers at the just concluded maiden edition of the Global Africa Forum on Communications (GAFCOMM) Speak for Africa Conference held at the Kigali Convention Centre, Rwanda from August 21 – 23, 2019.
The Conference, organised by The Nerve Africa, featured over 1000 of Africa’s global community of Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Advertising, Media & Marketing professionals to redefine the future of Communications in Africa and champion ways to leverage the opportunities offered by innovation in communications to contribute to the economic growth of Africa, and the companies operating out of the continent.
Anurika Azubuike, Managing Partner, Marketplace Innovation Africa, while speaking on a panel hosted by Leo Burnett Lagos on Innovation in Retail, ‘Winning on the Ground: How to Reach and Delight Consumers and Shoppers in Retail,’ said “Africa’s population is the fastest growing and youngest in the world with a growing middle class with smaller families, who are better educated, earn higher and are digitally savvy, many of whom reside in urban high profile cities and mid-tier cities.”
She continues, “On the flip side, Africa is also home to some of the world’s poorest people with the average poverty rate standing at about 41 percent. For retail in Africa, marketers need to understand the people, their behavior, growth and spending power of the different segments and proffer radically innovative solutions to create continuous presence and purchases.”
The panelists which also featured Lekan Lawal, Chief Executive Officer and Emeka Obia, Lead Strategist, both of Leo Burnett Lagos, stressed the importance of providing tailored retail solutions essential to the unique attributes of the continent.
The Speak for Africa Conference, described as the ‘Davos’ of African communications, also had business leaders who attended the Conference from The Coca-cola Company, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, General Electric, Old Mutual, Rand Merchant Bank, among a host of others, and focused on the significance of strategic communications and the economic development of the continent as it remains a global focus as the latest frontier of growth.