Kejad Insights

The importance of marketing in any organisation is uncontested. As marketers we love to amplify our voices when it comes to the role that we play in turning the world around. In fact we always brag that we are the function that is responsible for bringing the customer to our companies and by extension we are the guys who control the revenue pipeline.

Any profession worth its salt should be heard, known orfelt outside the realm of its immediate mandate. It should influence the broader industry, economy and thetrajectory taken by the nation state. It is my humble view that those who are able to play a significant role in macro- environmental discourse tend to float above the clutter and the jungle of those professions seeking relevance. In this missive, I wish to narrow my discussion to issues of a policy nature and attempt to locate the place for marketers in shaping the national discourse.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is imperative that I define the word discourse. Discourse is defined as any written or spoken communication. Simply put, it is an expression of thought through language. The question that we therefore need to answer is “What contribution, if any do marketers make to the national discourse of their countries,, agenda and trajectory?”  If marketers are active participants and contributors in national discourse, will policy contestations that we witness in our nation be as complex and convoluted as wecontinue to witness?

There are critical debates, discourse and milestones that  countries witnessed since the turn of the millennium. We therefore have to appraise marketers of their involvement in the national discourse particularly in the province of policy formulation and dissemination.Are marketers active participants and contributors or are they bystanders? Space limitation puts strictures in deliberate and detailed prognosis of the cancer that I think is eating the marketing profession. I have a term for it; it is called “Marketo-Silenciosis” Cancer of silence by Marketers.  We are too silent when it comes to the national discourse, of whatever shape or form.

I am acutely alive to the fact that the assertions that I am making maybe viewed as mere conjecture, but the point is to generate debate and peradventure propel marketers to provide tangible proof points of their role in real national discourse, past or present. With an abundance of caution, I will pick three critical issues that I think have occupied the minds of many marketer. I will use Zimbabwe as a case study in the recent past. The three issues are the bond notes, national school pledge and the statutory instrument 64 of 2016.

It is not the intention of this paper to evaluate the criticality, the value, the wisdom or the quality of the three policies. I am not judging whether the policies are logical or not, excellent or otherwise. No. I wish to use these three as examples with which we will try to locate the role that marketers played in either influencing policy, communicating policy or in deed providing insights to the policy makers or the general public.

Judging by the citizenry’s reactions to the three issues it is clear that there was no general acceptance and the public has publicly frowned at all them. A few observations can be made from the three pieces of policy highlighted above. Firstly there was an obvious marketing insights gap as it was not clear whether any research or consultation was carried out prior to the formulation and promulgation of the three policies. Secondly there was a challenge of locating who the intended beneficiaries of the policies were supposed to be. This spells a target audience gap. One common thread that ran through all three issues is that what the policy makers were trying to convey is not what the populace was reading or understanding.There was therefore a marketing communication gap or a promotional gap. Fourthlythere was and still is no common understanding of the gist and justifications of the policiesand what the brand value and brand promises are supposed to be. This spells a branding and/or packaging gap. Lastly in all the three cases the policy protagonists were and still remain clear that they will steam ahead with the policy implementation thereby demonstrating the marketing orientation gap. This is a clear aggressive regression towards the production era which is contrary to the marketing concept.

Let us briefly look at each of the five points that we highlighted above. It is my humble submission that all the five areas perfectly sits within the purview of marketing and should be part of every marketer’s brief.

Market Research and Customer Insights

It should be noted that the three policies are in fact products. Once we talk of a product we are already in the field of marketing. So the question to ask is how these products werecreated? Was there any role played by the marketers? Any competent marketer knows that it is critical to have market and customer insights before designing any product. So was there any customer insights provided by marketers? It is tempting to conclude that tomarketers may not have been consulted, but do the policy makers recognise the value and role played by marketers in insights generation? Are institutions such as MAZ known by policy makers as centres of excellence when it comes to insights and research?  

Target Market and Target audience

Did the policy makers have clarity of their target market and target audience when they were releasing their policies into the public domain. Targeting a particular audience is not as simple as policy makers may want to believe. It is not a chance activity but rather a systematic, scientific activity situated in marketing discipline. Targeting is just one component of the STP Model (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning). In fact a well-defined target is the pivot of actuating a robust marketing strategy. It will be folly to think that the strategy will be excellent when the target market and target audience are loosely defined. For example was the SI 64 targeted at vendors, manufacturers, SMES or the general public? The intention may be noble but the disturbances at the Beitbridge boarder post are testimony to the fact that the policy target audience may have been hazy. The same applies to the bond note issue. Who was the target audience? I think marketers could have played a significant role in defining the target audience. The fact that marketers did notparticipate in any meaningful and coordinated role means that probably there is a dearth of marketing talent and marketing strategy among the various institutions responsible for the policy process. Maybe the marketers are absent from the national discourse for whatever reason. All products, in this case, policy pronouncements are being made in a crevasse that is impervious to the marketers

Branding and Packaging

Notwithstanding the economics, politics or efficacy of the three policies, if they had been branded differently perhaps, the consternation that we are witnessing could have been less melodramatic. Just imagine if the bond note was not presented as such and maybe brandedas export coupons or incentive coupons i.e. avoiding the words “bond” and “note” which actually can be construed to mean an alternate currency. If the notes are meant as export incentives surely the primary target audience would have been exporters and maybe they could have easily understood. The incentive coupons were however branded as notes which effectively took the debate from a special area of exports to the general public. The same applies to the national pledge. How will this have been absorbed by the public if the minister had branded it as a national poem, daily school citation or something else? What did marketers say? Did they challenge the pledge from a purely branding or packaging angle?We saw lawyers, economists, educationists, bankers, clerics among others add their views in the various discourse. 

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

This is the area of marketing that is quite visible and obvious to the general public yet it is one element that seems to be clearly absent from the national discourse. At the very basic Integrated marketing communications(IMC) involves personal selling, sales promotions, advertising, publicity and public relations. Assuming that the policy makers had overlooked all the three elementsof research, branding and targeting surely they could not have missed the IMC if marketers and marketing strategy had been infused into the national discourse. One does not need to go into serious enquiry to realise that there are gaps in public relations and publicity strategy when it comes to SI 64, bond notes and national pledge. Advertising, sales promotions and personal selling may be operating at very low voltagesbut the full implementation of the IMC is difficult to fathom.  

Way Forward

As I conclude let me be clear. I don’t blame policy makers, not at all; some are politicians, probably students of public administration, economics, or any other profession while others maybe products of a plebiscite or appointed bureaucrats. It is most probable that Marketing is not their calling or area of chosen vocation. The challenge is to marketers who are absent from the national discourse. It is not the obvious role of the policy makers to seek marketers, but rather it is the role of the marketers to be active participants in the national discourse.

Probably marketers sit outside the C-Suite in the various institutions of policy framing. If the role of the marketer is not represented at right level in the various government departments and institutions it becomes difficult for key tenets of marketing to be infused into policy making processes. In some instances the marketer only gets involved when it comes to the production of glossy newspaper inserts and brochures. This is a dangerous modus operandi which marketers, through representative bodies like Marketers Associations across various countries should seek to address through lobbying and constructive engagement.Marketers can influence the national discourse,whatever the topic, by being strategic in their approach. One of the ways that can be used is for marketers through their representative bodies and associations to be active in the production of policy- relevant research and thought leadership papers for use by policy makers. Secondly, marketers should begin to  produce analysis pieces for any major policy pronouncement for example when monetary or fiscal policies are announced, just like economists , bankers, lawyers, politicians and clerics do. During policy agenda setting, marketers should be able to give their input to the respective institutions. When they host their various indabas/ Pitso and conferences marketers should seek to have key institutional stakeholders as key note speakers, discussants and guests of honour. This will bring marketers close to some of the policy making institutions. I have seen in other countries annual conferences that are centred on the marketing – public policy nexus. The same can be done across Africa so that our marketers understand the issues of public policy while policy makers begin to understand marketing beyond the posters, brochures and glossy newspaper inserts.

The marketing profession should be organised to the extent that no policy gets to the implementation stagewithout the involvement of marketers. In fact marketers should take a leading role in agenda setting, legitimation, implementation and even monitoring and evaluation of any policy. Where there are customers (in this case citizens) there is an automatic invitation for marketers to draft a plausible marketing strategy.