Comments on: Rebranding Nigeria in Global Brains

By: JAMIL MIKHAIL Y.

JAMIL MIKHAIL Y. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:30:47 +0000

Charity begins at home. Our incumbent leaders are the best people to be rebranded first before we the followers see and emulate. I do not see a success to the campaign if persons politically appointed become multimillion naira controllers while there are people who can not pay a N50 school PTA levy because they don’t have it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:14:43 +0000

What kind of credibility are you looking for in a nation where adults riot for obtaining western education? When Prof Akunyili is tired, which she has if she will admit it, then she’ll resign and find some job to do.

By: Pamela Rutledge

Pamela Rutledge — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:58:32 +0000

Thanks for your comment! I am in total agreement that listening to customers is important. It always has been, of course, but now customers have more power to communicate with the company and with each other when a company, country, or person is not responsive. The ability to isolate segments and niches of the market using new media means that marketers and brand managers need to put aside the “selling” hat and get more comfortable relating. I believe that it’s particularly important in brand management to understand the beliefs and needs of the market and address those, not just polish up the product and hope nobody looks at the man behind the curtain.

By: Steven Herring

Steven Herring — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:43:58 +0000

Good article that many traditional marketing professionals should read. Credibility is definitely an issue with any type of positive brand communication for either internal or external markets. While (Nigeria) may be an extreme case of a “branding challenge”, the lesson can apply to any organization that has used traditional media brand messaging that contradicts, or at least varies, from customer experience of the organization. In my experience, if organizations would spend just a little of that branding budget on actually communicating with their customers, they could achieve a far greater result than just a snazzy message and 500 million banner impressions. Marketing is evolving as well as the tools to serve customers. What is the same, however, is the need to take time to listen to customers and find out how to server them better.