The Managing Director of Nielsen West Africa, Lampe Omoyele has urged Sales and Marketing personnel to be creative to be able to have consumers continue to purchase their goods and services in a fast changing difficult economic environment.
Mr. Omoyele believes depending on traditional advertising platforms like billboards, sign post, handbills and hawking of products among others is not convincing enough to attract the consumer who has limited resources to spend.
Speaking to Citi Business News at the sidelines of Citi Fm’s collaboration with the Chartered Instituted of Marketing Ghana as part of the Citi Business Festival on the topic “Winning with the Consumer and the Shopper”, Mr. Omoyele called on Sales and Marketing Personnel to be creative using the most important ways to reach the consumer.
“They must ensure that they give value for money, be trust worthy and also, affordability is important. Understand the consumer needs and desire, and constantly engage them through available media platforms and also ensure that their products are available in the relevant stores, plus being visible at the right places so their products can be purchased”.
The Marketing Analyst further argues that Ghana’s consumer purchasing power is one of the lowest in Sub Saharan Africa as consumers are redefining their value using switch, swap and squeezing.
According to him, the prevailing economic challenges such as increase in commodity prices, supply and infrastructure constraints without an appreciable rise in wages, have contributed to weakening consumers’ purchasing power.
Though Lampe Omoyele admits that the Ghanaian economy is on the road to recovery, brands that will survive or stay in competition are those that will be able to provide the needs of the consumer.
Backing his arguments with statistics, Lampe Omoyele said available statistics from the Nielsen indicates that it costs more for Ghanaians to purchase a market basket of goods as compared to her peers in the sub-region.
Per the statistics, Uganda has the most affordable basket at 10.99 dollars, Lesotho follows with 14.70 dollars, Swaziland is next at 14.99 dollars and Kenya and South Africa are at 15.06 and 15.33 dollars respectively.
For the list of countries with the least affordable basket where Ghana falls in, South Sudan is the highest at 38.60 dollars, Angola is at number two with 33.57 dollars, DRC comes in at number three with 28.80 dollars, and Ghana is at number four at 27.50 dollars followed by Cote D’Ivore with 24.55 dollars.
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By: Norvan Acquah – Hayford/citibusinesnews.com/Ghana
