CREATING AND MANAGING YOUR BRAND IN NIGERIA (LAGOS)

This starts with understanding what 'brand' really means and it all begins with the leaders of the company who define their brands and control its management. It also reaches all the way down the company and especially to the people who interface with customers or who create the products which customers use.

Brand management performed to its full extent means starting and ending the management of the whole company through the brand. It is simply far too important to leave to the marketing department. The CEO should be (and, in fact, always is) the brand leader of the company.

A good brand is one which is memorable and desirable. It cannot be effective if nobody remembers it, and is no good either if nobody wants it!

A good brand evokes feelings, and because feelings drive actions, brands like Sprite which offers to “quench your thirst”, makes you desire it, when you’re thirsty.

A good brand must be unique and stand out. Within an industry, a brand can be very close, but if you want any hope of success, you must stake out the unique strength of your brand over its players or competitors in its category.

The right brand is not just something you make up on a Friday afternoon. It comes through a deep understanding of your marketplace and your customers. It also comes from a deep understanding of the capabilities and motivations of the people in your company.

Once you have created your brand, the next step is to somehow inject it into the minds of your customers, your staff and everyone who comes in contact with your brand.

This is where marketers, agents and the advertising company come in. Although it is still not their sole preserve, a large part of marketing, which includes advertising and PR, is about positioning the company and its products in the minds of customers and against your competitors.

This brings us to the next step. Creating and making the right brand is one thing, but then you have to keep it. If you do not, you brand will still exist, but now the uniqueness will be of sloppy products and conflicting delivery. Thus advertising can take your product very far in the minds of the people, but if the product does not deliver its promise, the product will have popularity with low patronage.

Keeping promises means managing capability. It means consistent processes that are capable of delivering what is required. It means technology and systems which are reliable and usable. It means motivated people who are willing and able to deliver the goods.

TYPES OF BILLBOARDS IN NIGERIA

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QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK BEFORE APPROVING A BILLBOARD LOCATION IN NIGERIA

- How is the traffic in the location? Do you have a lot of people seeing your billboard or just few? If your billboard is in a secluded area and there are very few people passing the location, then your billboard might attract less audience.

- Do you have the right set of people seeing your billboard? Surely you don’t want the wrong crowd seeing your billboard. For example; if your brand is a premium brand and your targeted audience are the rich and classy, positioning your billboard in the ghetto will be a folly.

- Is the location violating Government Policy? The location of your billboard should not be too close to the road. Although this depends so much on the type of billboard you are choosing. For example, the positioning of a 48sheet billboard and a unipole billboard will be different because of their size difference. Thus while a 48sheet billboard should not be too far from the road, it should not also be on a highway on which cars are running at a 120km per hour. So a unipole billboard will do fine there. On the other hand the unipole billboard should not be too close to the high way, because if it is too close to the road, your billboard might be violating a government policy and can therefore be demolished and this does not speak well of your brand.
(Size and distance are relative. All these principle differs depending on the size of billboard, you will need the service of an expert to help in selecting a good location and to do proper investigation to be sure your billboard is not violating government policy)

- How neat is the Billboard? As much as this might look like an insignificant question to ask, you should also know that, you are selling a brand, and everything on that billboard represent your brand. Most outdoor companies in Nigeria do not maintain their billboards. A good billboard should be neat, not twisted and well painted.

- How accessible is this billboard? Do cars and people see this billboard regularly is another question you should ask? Some outdoor companies are more interested in just displaying the billboard rather than considering how accessible the billboard site is.

- What am I advertising? The brand or the campaign you are trying to promote also matters a lot on the kind of billboard you are choosing. For example, if you are promoting a toilet soap that is meant for the middle class and lower class, you can afford to advertise on a 40sheet billboard or a 48sheet billboard; but if your brand has been positioned as a premium brand, the class with the kind of billboard you are advertising on has to reflect that class. Furthermore, if most of your targeted audience will be people that are in the car or in the office for most of the day. Then you might have to consider either a super structure 48sheet billboard or a unipole billboard to reflect the class of your brand.

- What is the Population of the place? The population of where the billboard is located determines how many billboards will be positioned in that location. A local government area that has a population of about 2million people can not share one billboard if you expect everybody to see it. You might consider more billboards in that local government, that will cover the main entrances into the local government and major areas of the local government like, the market area, community centers, central churches, mosques etc.