Changing the marketing landscape

Last Saturday, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) held its 26th annual performance awards ceremony on the theme: “The Future of Marketing: Evolve or Die”.

The Daily Graphic wishes to extend its warmest congratulations to all the award winners.

All over the world, technology has brought  spectacular changes to the way things are done.

The concept of globalisation, which a few years ago was seen as an abstract feature, has taken a firm grip of the real world.

It took some time for a good number of people within the developing world to grasp the rapid change that was engulfing the world.

But with some level of determination, Ghana and others within her league have come to some appreciable level of understanding of the nuances of the technological change and what needs to be done to keep in touch.

Marketing is one area of national endeavour that has a direct bearing on our lives.

A good number of Ghanaians, hitherto, purchased or failed to purchase what they needed based on hearsay. That hearsay was based on those who purchased an item and attested to its efficiency or otherwise.

But, today, through technological advancement, evident in the explosion of social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest and many others, consumers can access direct feedback on products.

Instead of looking at companies, as they did in the past, consumers are looking at fellow consumers to inform their purchasing decisions.

This has given rise to a new field in advertising called influencer marketing. The influencer marketing model basically talks about the influence that the testimony of a prior user of a product has on would-be users.

Social media are replete with reviews of people’s accounts of their experiences with the use of products, even to the extent that e-mail or phone numbers are provided for others to contact them for detailed information.

To stay competitively in business, our marketers must stay on top of technological advancement and also anticipate the next move, so that they are not taken by surprise.

The Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) won two awards, and like many others who also won awards, it achieved that because it studied the technological trend of marketing.

The opportunities that abound in information, communications technology (ICT) marketing, especially, remain boundless, but the ability of our marketing executives to plug into those opportunities is what will make the difference.

We cannot continue doing things the usual way and expect the same results. We need to take practical steps in re-orienting ourselves to new trends in marketing; beyond that our corporate institutions should be willing to allocate budgets for such training.

Instead of placing undue pressure and stress on marketers to deliver when they lack current knowledge in marketing trends, they should invest in knowledge acquisition for their operatives to become effective in order to produce the needed results.

A popular adage says: “When the rhythm changes, so should your dancing style”.

The Daily Graphic believes that we can achieve more as marketing professionals if we tune ourselves to technological changes.