Communications, R&D are Very Key Areas for Us - Ofodile [interview]

Mar 23, 2009 (Vanguard/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- PZCUF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- In this interview with Princewill Ekwujuru, Uche Ofodile, Marketing Director, Nutricima, a joint venture between PZ Cussons UK and Glanbia Ireland , speaks on the global financial crisis, challenges of the marketing job. Excerpt.

Do you see the global financial crisis having a serious toll on the Nigerian consumption attitude?

I think there is certainly an economic crisis around the world and the question is the severity in which it will affect Nigeria . So far, we cannot say that it is anyway along the line of what you are seeing in the United States and United Kingdom . Our assumption obviously is that people will begin to make better choices in terms of consumption. It is not just about going out and buying whatever you want. People have to be a bit more careful about the choices they make.

We feel like from Nutricima's point of view, because we offer very good products and brands that are still new in the market but are growing, we are in a good position to be among the brands that will be the first to gravitate towards because not only are we offering nutrition, we are in some areas also offering value.

If you look at our products for example like Olympic evaporated milk, which is a very good evaporated milk, it is also a value product. You will see people also trying to take a second look at that product. You have Nunu which is targeted at the children's market. Now mothers are going to be saying what is really right for my kid? Is it pop soda or is it sweet? Do I want them to really have nutritional products or where do I really focus my energy? They start looking at that.

We think that it will affect Nigeria and all that is going to happen is that in their consumption choices people are going to be more questioning and we think that Nutricima brands are in a good position to take that on.

Is the meltdown affecting marketing communication budget in your organisation?

I think that to be honest in Nutricima, our vision is to offer nutrition to all Nigerians. Communications and research and development are very key areas for us and unlike some other companies, where, because of the economic situation they may decide that they are going to cut back. We feel that this is the time to continue to invest because the situation will not just remain like this. At some point in time, there is going to be a turn around and you have to be ready to address the market at that time. We are still doing a lot of research and development. We are still looking to introduce new products into the market and we are still communicating based on what our plans are for this year.

Innovation is going to be the key driver for 2009, what innovations are you putting in place in 2009?

I have competitors that will be reading this interview, and so, I really cannot say. But what I will say is that across our brands, we have a lot of new products that are coming up and we are looking forward to introducing to the market.

As we talked about during the 400 gram tin launch of Nunu, you are going to see a lot of things happening on the background and the same for several other brands that we have also. I can't say what they are but the understanding is that they are going to be focusing on nutrition, which is all Nutricima is about. We won't move away from that and we are going to continue to offer products that are suitable for different segments of the Nigerian market.

Coast milk has been in the market for some time, It's not been noticed, campaign wise, what is the problem?

It is not so much a problem. I think it is more of a strategy for us right now. Every u so often, companies sort of look at ways of improving on some of their products and these are some of the things I meant when I said I do not really want to jump the gun and announce. We are looking at ways to make Coast milk better for our consumers. I am not saying that it is not good now. I think that in the next coming months, you will see a lot of communications out of Coast milk not just from the advertising point of view but also from a products point of view. It is just making sure that things are right before we represent it to the consumers.

Now, in trying to reposition Coast, will I be correct to say that it was mistimed at a point or the marketing strategy was not appropriate?

I want to clarify something. We are not repositioning Coast; the positioning of Coast will remain the same because it is a premium product. We are going to offer more to the consumer. When we launched Coast a couple of years ago, it was very well received by our consumers. It is a brand that is doing very well. We have bigger hopes and dreams for Coast and that is why we said lets us go back and see how we can give more to the consumer and reintroduce it to them.

When we do that, we are not moving away from the positioning, but our consumers will be even happier than they are today. We will probably get new users on and that is the important thing. So we have created a consumer base for Coast. What we want is more people to come on to this brand and we understand. We are talking about a product that was launched about three years ago.

Serious companies will always look at their products every couple of years to see what is new out there and what else can I do for my consumers. We do that and we do research every so often to just understand what the consumers need. We have to do the additions to the brand to reintroduce it to the market. We are very happy with the performance of Coast and we are expecting more from it in the next few months.

In a time like this, what bigger brands are supposed to do for their products is not to advertise, but do engagement marketing you are not doing this why?

It is not so much what the trends are. We are not a follower. Each of our brands has its own strategy. There are some brands that we have that the target audience or the segmentation shows that they do not watch television so much and listen to radio. They are very busy and doing a lot of driving around. The best way to reach them could be through the internet or outdoor or whatever. That is the approach that we take here.

We tend not to say that this is the most famous thing in marketing now, we are going to start doing it. We look at marketing from a 360_degree point of view and we determine what next is right for our consumers. Nunu for example, you will see that we do some advertising primarily to mothers in some magazines. You will never most likely see Nunu being advertised in newspapers because children do not read newspaper and while some mothers do read newspaper they tend to always read magazines. In terms of children's advertising, we do not just throw advertising at ATMs, we look at programmes that are very strong with children and we tend to do that sort of advertising.

Again we try to be very strategic and focused in our approach to reach our consumer.

Every brand has it's brand ambassador, who is your brand ambassador?

We achieved our objective with Dbanj, he helped to make a lot of noise about our brands. In any organisation, on a yearly basis, you have a lot of brand plan and brand strategy and you look at what you want to achieve the following year. I won't lie to you and say that selling Power Fist to the consumers has not been a success. Again we are talking about a brand that was very innovative. Then, offering an energy drink through powder.. This is a market that every one knows energy drink as the drink. There is that sort of leap that we had to make in terms of really getting a mass number of consumers really understanding that this is another way you can have an energy drink and that is a very long process.

Whenever you introduce something that is in a different format than people are used to is never a process that happens immediately, it takes time and I think we have now understood that and we realised that this is going to take a few years to really get critical mass around the product..

How where you able to manage the maleidine in milk story in china affect your marketing plan and product acceptance in that period?

I mean it is unfortunate because we are definitely an organisation that is looking to increase the consumption of milk in Nigeria . Everyone knows the benefit of drinking milk. Whenever you have that sort of situation happen, it is a sort of setback to the industry.

We are very confident because our partners Glambia, which is based in Ireland , source their milk in Ireland . There was no issue with that at all. It was also important we worked closely with NAFDAC to show then this is where we sourced our milk from and we are not in any danger. We thought that NAFDAC did a good job of making sure that they were able to weed out any organisation that were sourcing milk powder from China and very quickly managed the situation. From that point of view, we were able to focus on what are duties are, which is to offer brands to the consumers.

What is your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) record like?

We have done a number of things, but there have not been one thing on a massive scale. So what we do is to go to schools and sponsor different activities in these schools. That is on grassroots level. We think that is the way that Nunu has to be brought up. You do not start from the top; you start from the bottom up.

Going forward and into next year, we are looking at doing mega initiative, which I do not want to speak about because of competitors. This initiative is really again focusing not just only on children's nutrition. I have to keep focusing on that because Nunu is bigger than that and that is one thing we have chosen and it is about children's development and there are a lot of ways you can support children's development outside of nutrition. Nutrition is a key factor and we will always do that and we will always make sure we are in the leading area of that. There are other things we are looking to address also so that people will understand that Nunu is a well rounded brand and when people hear the word Nunu, the will equate it with being good for their child.

How is your distribution network like?

PZ Cussons has 26 depots around the country and this is probably one of the most vast distribution in this country. From those depots, we move the products out to the retail. One of the things we do here is try to see how available our product is from the consumer point of view. When we see where we need to make improvement we do that. If we get feedback for instance that you cannot find Nunu in Ogba, we will address that immediately because everything is being driven from the consumer point of view. There is no point in me doing advertising and sponsorships if no one can find the product to buy and we take that very seriously..

We have a strong distribution network and we continue to make improvement on to make sure we are getting mass distribution.

What is the strength of your brands?

All the brands are very important to us for different reasons. Olympic, for example is a fantastic brand. This is one brand which has really taken off because it was introduced a year ago. This is our value for money brand and it is resonating in a lot of people. Then you have the Nunu which is loved by kids. We have Yo, which we loved a few months ago. I love all our products because they play a different role. If I were partial to one of them I will say Nunu because it focuses on children.

Kindly speak on the pressure of the marketing job?

If you are a sales marketer you see yourself as one of the main drivers of the business. So from that point of view, there is a lot of pressure. You are ensuring that you are introducing the product you sell; these products are being sold at good profits to the business. It is not just about advertising, it is making sure that from the financial point of view you are responsible.

For me it has been a joy because I have had with the team a lot of freedom to look at how we can really make a big impact on the Nigerian market and the business is looking to do that. So far the results have been good and we hope to have more good results coming in.

I think if you want to remain in marketing and remain successful it is important that you show the business that marketing is not a cost sector, you are not just always spending but you are adding value to the business and that you care about the profitability of the business. I think once your managing director and chief executive officer understands that marketing is being driven from that point of view they will see you as equal partners in the business.

What are the challenges inherent in managing brand portfolios?

As a marketing department, you do not always get what you want sometimes you are not too happy about that. Again the overall understanding of the objective of the business is a challenge, sometimes you win some and you lose some.

I cannot say that there has been any major challenge here. I think that in any organisation or in any position, there are good days and bad days. I believe there should be more good days than bad days.

More News:   Market Updates | Stock Alerts | All Trading News | Stock Index