Managing Director, Wildfusion, Abasiama Idiaresit, spoke with Emma Okonji on how Etisalat would drive mobile advertising, using the mobile phone. Excerpts:
What is the concept of mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing is a very interesting space, which has to do with any form of marketing activity on a network, using mobile phones or connected devices. It interconnects several users through Short Message Service (SMS) marketing, Multimedia Service (MMS) marketing, mobile web marketing, QR codes, USSD, among others. The concept is all about using the mobile phone as a platform to carryout online advertising of products and services that are of interests to the consumers. With the mobile phones, advertisers could push their products and services to millions of people on the Etisalat network, through EasyAdz.
Do you see a future prospect with digital marketing Nigeria?
To be honest, I think it is a very exciting time for advertisers and media professionals because what we have in Nigeria is Africa's largest market. Talking about a 105 million people on mobile devices which makes Nigeria the 10th largest population of users in the world, larger than even the United Kingdom in terms of mobile users. This presents a fantastic opportunity in terms of reach when promoting products and services. I see huge prospect in digital marketing, and I also see huge opportunity, using the Etisalat EasyAdz platform in achieving so much. The most interesting thing about it is that it is targeted. Targeting is very important because you can serve your adverts to a specific age bracket or specified demographic on the EasyAdz platform. So it reduces advertising wastage. Also, if you are targeting based on location say, Lagos, Rivers or Abuja, it is possible. So if your product is not for the whole country, you will not have to spend your money reaching the entire country. You can zero in on location, you can zero in on gender or age and the most interesting thing about this service is that you can go back to target people who have responded positively to your campaign.
How engaging is mobile advertising platform?
Mobile advertising/marketing is very engaging. The reason is that people are with their phones all the time, which means they could receive adverts on their phones while on the move. With the number of subscribes we have in the country, it becomes a great platform for better engagement.
The EasyAdz service is an engaging platform because as an advertiser you have the opportunity to create an interactive messaging experience with your consumers. So in terms of engagement, it is a highly recommended.
How would those in rural communities who have no access to internet, benefit from mobile advertising?
This is where mobile marketing comes in. Most of the people in rural areas have access to mobile devices. You have phone going for as low as N3,000 and you have people in the rural areas who use these devices. If the people who are being targeted do not have access to the internet, then we can go full blast SMS, targeting these people. If your audience is in a rural area in Oyo state for example, then you can zero in based on location and serve your advertisement to your target audience in that location.
So mobile is an extension of digital and it is very important that when advertisers and brands are looking at their consumer engagement strategies, they begin to think mobile. Digital marketing can complement and amplify what is being done on radio, television, outdoor and on print.
Etisalat recently launched the EasyAdz service in partnership with Wildfusion. How would you rate the success of this platform?
The EasyAdz campaign has been very successful since its launch. We have had over 20 brands and when I say brands, I mean some of the top brands in this country that have used this platform. We had even Star from Nigerian Breweries endorsing the platform saying they have used the platform to promote one of their campaigns and they are even planning to use it for another upcoming campaign. So when you have a situation where brands and advertisers coming back to use a platform over and over again, it speaks volume about how efficient the technology or product is in helping them to achieve their objective.
The pricing, for instance, is more cost effective, giving advertisers more coverage areas and audience at a relatively reduces cost.
What is the role of Wildfusion in Etisalat's mobile campaign, known as EasyAdz?
Wildfusion is a full digital firm, offering digital services such as online media sales, digital marketing services, mobile marketing and digital strategy development. We have operations in Lagos and Accra, Ghana and we are passionate about driving mobile advertising with digital technology.
Wildfusion is taking the EasyAdz, which is a mobile advertising service from Etisalat to advertisers and brands. We are the middle player between Etisalat and the customer that needs digital mobile advertising to drive business.
How does the information-based mobile advertising work, especially on the Etisalat platform?
The way it works is this. First of all, users receive an SMS prompting them to opt into EasyAdz. Now when they opt in, they will be asked a set of simple questions which bothers on their interests, gender, age and other information that helps the network to profile the users. From an advertisers' perspective, because an advertiser does not want to waste money, he is looking to reach the right people. If you have a product and you are looking to reach 18-24 years, if you get your targeting wrong you might end up targeting grandparents who are not going to buy that product. So it is helps for good budgeting.
So far the responses from users have been fantastic, the rate of people opting into the database has been growing and we are very happy that this proposition is welcomed in the market.
What is the unique selling proposition of Etisalat EasyAdz over competition?
In the first place, The Etisalat EasyAdz is permission based.Secondly, there is a new functionality we just launched a few weeks ago called Re-Targeting, which helps advertisers to trace the people that responded to their product advertisement. They can always go back and re-market goods to that particular set of users. So from a cost perspective, the returns from advertising spend increases. So these are some of the unique benefits the EasyAdz has over other digital marketing platforms. Also, the targeting, the location targeting, demographic targeting, all these make the platform very unique.
From the standpoints of acceptability and patronage, how successful has it been, using the EasyAdz platform to drive digital marketing campaigns?
Using the platform has been very successful. Recently, we got data from Facebook which said that 95 per cent of all access to Facebook from Nigeria comes from mobile devices. That further reinforces the need for advertisers to begin to think mobile. We just finished a campaign with an Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company and the results have been mind blowing because in terms of reach, the campaign reach has been great. One of the things they wanted to do was to encourage users to download the brand's song and they have had campaigns in the past on that. But the number of people that have downloaded the song over a short period of time has never been achieved before and EasyAdz was instrumental in achieving the campaign objectives.
How is EasyAdz different from bulk SMS marketing services?
I want to correct a notion first.This service is distinctly different from bulk SMS. Firstly, for EasyAdz, we have users who have opted in and they have given permission to advertise to them. So what that means is that they are expecting, they are willing, they have been profiled, the network can tell you where these users are, how old they are and what their interests are. Now with bulk SMS you cannot have this. When you are running your campaign you can stop the campaign mid-way, change your creative message and then continue running your campaign. You can target based on cities, you can target based on the income bracket of the user, and these are some of the opportunities that differentiate EasyAdz from regular bulk SMS.
Considering your operations in Nigeria and Ghana, could you give us an insight into what the trend is with regards to digital marketing in West Africa?
It is been very interesting and the business environment in Ghana is quite similar to that of Nigeria and in most West African countries.
The cultures are similar and the trend is the same. You have many people connecting through their mobile devices to the internet. You have a country where the major means of interconnection is via mobile devices, so there are lots of similarities. We also see a strong interest with advertisers and brands requesting for better ways to engage their audiences, reduce costs and measure results. The yearnings for online mobile marketing across the West African region are the same, an indication that the right time to be on digital marketing is now.
Bio Data of Abasiama Idaresit
Abasiama Idaresit is an online media expert and founder of Wild Fusion, one of Nigeria's digital marketing agencies. With operations in Ghana and Nigeria, Wild fusion is Google first Adwords Certified Partner in West Africa and winner of Sowambe Awards for Best Nigerian Digital Agency 2011.
He has work experience in Telecoms, Banking and Brands, and he is a pioneer member of Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) West Africa. He is passionate about driving marketing technology adoption and penetration in the West African region.
THISDAY Nigeria