Marketing Ace, Chris Wulff-Caesar, has called on Nigerian marketers to rise and steer their businesses out of the current storm triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He made the call during a Chief Marketing Officers tiered webinar, organised by Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) with the theme: “Marketing in a VUCA Environment”.
According to Wulff-Caesar, Nigeria and the world at large are now in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment, adding that business leaders have a responsibility to evolve with the tides and re-evaluate the ways of marketing to consumers whose lifestyles and habits are evolving rapidly.
Chris Wulff-Caesar, who is also the Marketing Director at FrieslandCampina WAMCO, highlighted the rapid changes attributed to people’s buying behavior in locally made products as well as shopping within proximity and an almost absolute inclination to digital-first penchants.
He added that the pandemic has caused an enormous shift in the consumer lifestyle and the subsequent demand for the use of technology.
“When we continuously focus on the consumer in our businesses, we learn a lot more about what has changed, their new preferences This makes us more agile in our decision making to meet their demands,” ” Wulff-Caesar pointed.
For marketers to be able to steer their businesses out of the storm, Wulff-Caesar enjoined them to be like lighthouses, adding: “Marketing/marketers must be like lighthouses that will guide consumers to the ports of our businesses; this in turn navigates businesses out of the storms caused by this pandemic.”
He further offered the following tips to marketers to steer consumers to our businesses during extreme times, which are: “Navigate our own issues; Face the reality and not back away; Be guided by your business purpose; Make your business to be commercially agile and operationally shrewd; Use the 6Es – Empathize; Educate; Encourage; Entertain; Everyone; and Evolve.”
Wulff-Caesar, however, concluded: “The public is becoming increasingly sophisticated because of the kind of information they can access and this has resulted in the tilting of the marketing landscape; from a sender-driven to audience-driven communication. By all means, be more human in your marketing approach”.
