Bunmi Adeniba: A Trailblazer In Branding And Marketing Industry

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History never forgets women who break the societal barriers and become champions in male-dominated fields. It is not surprising when Oprah Winfrey said “You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.”

Women play key role in the world and when they take charge of leadership position it is usually phenomenon. Like the rest of the world, some Nigerian women are making remarkable strives in men dominated industry, changing the landscape, representing the country on a global scale and disrupting the industry where they operate with innovation.

Bunmi Adeniba is one of the leading amazons in Nigeria’s branding and marketing industry.  She is currently the Acting President of the Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) and the Regional Vice-President for Africa of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). She is also the Marketing Director & Division Lead – Homecare Ghana & Nigeria of Unilever Nigeria Plc.

Noteworthy that WFA is the only global organisation representing the common interests of marketers. Through its membership of 60 national advertiser associations and over 100 of the world’s top advertisers, it represent around 90% of global marketing communications spend. WFA champions responsible and effective marketing communications worldwide.

Meanwhile, Unilever Nigeria Plc manufactures and markets consumer products primarily in the home, personal care and foods categories. The company sells products such as Omo washing powder, Key soap, Royco bouillon, Lipton tea, Blue Band margarine; Pears baby care goods, Vaseline petroleum jelly, Lux soap, and Close Up toothpaste.

Bunmi is an experienced marketing professional and commercial operator with cross functional experience in brand building, new category development, innovation management and quality management. She also has a strong passion for people, coaching and building high performance teams.

Career Path

Commenting on her career path and how she ventured into branding and marketing industry, she explained, “I actually did not choose branding and marketing at the onset. I think my natural inkling to curiosity and deep thoughts steered me to it. Starting off at the Quality Control end of things, I was genuinely intrigued at the number of goodies I knew some of the brands I was then accountable for packed in their formulations. I used to wonder if the consumers really knew what we had ‘loaded’ into these products. These thoughts stayed with me a while and quickly morphed into ‘perhaps we are not giving them what they really want?’ ‘Are we gold-plating when all they want is this minimum viable offering?’ ‘Do we really understand the consumer expectation?’ Then I went into another season of questioning whether consumers really wanted basic products or if they wanted a fusion of social needs and shared values expressed by their brands.

“I finally decided to do something about all these thoughts and ponderings. I took a career break, went off to study and came back to the support of the organisation and visionary leaders at the time who supported my career switch and helped me thrive.”

Speaking on where she started off her career, “I started off at Cadbury as a management trainee and with glee I still describe my one year stint as a solid mini MBA, both in class and off class during the rotational stints. The intrigue for brand marketing as I described earlier started from here. I transitioned from Supply chain to marketing there and had the privilege to join the marketing team just at the time the flagship brand was being relaunched and repositioned.

“So, it was a fast-track hands-on accelerated on-the-job learning. Then, I got to work on a breakout innovation with a completely new category coming from a merger of two organisations. That again gave me a unique experience on building from scratch, level zero to go-to-market. I had a short stint at RB, then moved on to Unilever where I have worked across four different categories on some of the iconic brands with powerful purpose expressions that give expression to brands as a force for good with true lasting impact.”

Overcoming Challenges

Bunmi’s story gives insight on how to overcome challenges for both male and female including marketers. According to her, “An ongoing challenge will be to deeply understand the consumer and citizens we serve per season, per project, per time. Not just hearing but listening intently; not just telling them but acting with authenticity, transparency & using the power of the brands for good.

“It is such a critical base to everything else we layer our strategy and execution on and, is quite easy to assume at a particular phase that you have it figured but then really be disconnected to how things have evolved.

“So, as simple as that sounds, every marketer who has the consumer at the very heart of all they do should fret over this question often – Do I really know what I think I know my consumers want at this time and season?”

On how she is surmounting challenges, she hinted that “Continuity. We keep at it. That desire to seek and know keeps us relevant and connected.”

While many women feel intimated in male dominated disciplines, Bunmi pointed that she has never felt intimated. “No, I have not felt intimidated in any discipline quite frankly. I have had the privilege of working with organisations that are committed to fairness and equity regardless of gender and I have had the utmost cooperation of male colleagues who genuinely support my success.”

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Joggling And Maintaining Balance

Joggling and maintaining balance between career and the house front is often challenging for most women. Many women have had to drop their career to take care of their family. So, young career women are always eager to know how senior professionals are doing it.

On how Bunmi is creating the balance, she explained, “I will not say it has been easy however, it is much easier because I am decisive about my support systems. I ask for help when needed, I know what to delegate, what to outsource and I have my unapologetic and apologetic ‘Nos’ depending on the circumstances for things, events and obligations that I am not just up to at the point in time. A pre-determined priority list of how things rank between my immediate family, my faith, my career. My other relationships make that easy to navigate.”

Most respectable women embark on community engagements or some sort of social responsibilities in a way of giving back to the society. Bunmi on her own part is also making a difference. “This is one of the fantastic reasons for being a part of a purpose driven organisation. I consider myself privileged to have a day job that does not delineate this. I set off starting work every day knowing that the hours I put in genuinely translates to impact, giving back to the society and championing causes.

“In my personal time, I have a calling to widows and orphans and dedicate my time and resources to giving these groups of people a chance, a voice.”

Advice to Young Female Professionals

On ways to bridge the gap on dearth of female professionals in the IMC industry, she called for creation of more mentorship schemes.

“I believe there has been a lot of good work started by both professional bodies and several well-respected professionals holding their own mentoring schemes and/or sessions. Several organisations also link these sessions to internship opportunities. There is of course always room for more.”

Meanwhile, she advised young female professional to manage their career as they would manage brands. “Manage your career as you would manage a brand you oversee. What is your USP? What is your 5-year growth strategy plan? When do you re-invent, revitalise and refresh your cues? etc. The list could go on and on. I have been in one on one session and found it interesting that when I asked mentees if they had a brand plan, they could go on for several minutes in crystal clear articulation of how they want to transform a particular brand they work on and make it attain No 1 market position in a defined interval. Switch that question to tell me your ‘Bunmi brand plan’ and the pauses are often palpable.

“I would often say to these colleagues that they have an advantage over their counterparts in other functions. You know all the frameworks, the buzzwords, the templates, and gamut of all we do to project brands. Use a tad of that for your career and cut HR some slack. Be in your own driver’s seat.

“Seek mentors and coaches carefully, intently and intentionally. Don’t switch one for the other; they are two distinct resources in your journey.

“Most importantly, stay curious! Curiosity will propel you to read, will propel you to research, will propel you to seek personal self-improvement and that same curiosity will constantly give you some inner restlessness of seeking a better version of yourself every time. Ultimately, this curiosity will set you to seeking to hit bullseye in delighting the consumers you serve.”

1 Comment
  1. Olusola Osinoiki says

    Great article

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