By Janet Udogu
GDM Group is a marketing solutions company providing commercial supply chain and retail solutions for businesses to ensure overall Sustainable and Profitable growth. The company has since evolved from a typical Below the Line, BTL, agency to a full-fledged marketing operations firm connecting brands with people through redefined outsourcing business services in terms of marketing operations and marketing communication.
Speaking of digital, GDM some years back made a grand departure from the traditional ways of brand activation and embraced the digital in order to give to their clients clear cut Return on Investment, ROI, thereby living out their essence as a group which is connecting people to brands.
An attestation to the above is the fact that the agency added another feather to its cap by clinching medals (gold, silver and bronze) at the Experiential Marketing Association of Nigeria, EXMAN, Inaugural Award, which took place recently at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
GDM won a gold medal for its work on ‘Smirnoff/Guinness/DJ Spinall Launch’ in the Best use of Digital in Experiential Marketing (BDM) category, a Silver medal from its work on the Guinness/Orijin SamplingExperience Campaign in the Best Customer Activation (BCS) category and a bronze medal in the Best Event (B2C) category for its work on ‘Nescafe/Get Started Tour’.
In an exclusive interview with Brand Communicator Magazine, Victor Olugbenga Afolabi, Chief Executive Officer, GDM Group, said that the awards was “well organised, executed and very transparent.” Afolabi commended the organisers of the awards for excellence in organisation, the judging process and quality of members of the jury.
“I would say that the award is the most organised and professionally executed award that I have ever seen in the sector. And as a result there were no agitations, complaints nor contentions from any corner. Members of the jury are men of calibre. We had people from the academia, the agency, and client all well represented.
The panel contained judges whose antecedents speak for them and whose judgement were not and could not be questioned.
“There were categories whose entries were reported unqualified based on the judging criteria. The criteria were stringent, it brought integrity into the whole thing. I think the industry is beginning to come of age,” he explained.
Afolabi hopes that subsequent editions of the award would record more entries, get more competitive and also urges the presence of clients and members of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria, ADVAN, to witness the final output of their concepts and efforts. He therefore, called on the organisers of the award to do more especially in the area of creating awareness for the next edition.
The CEO said that the awards are significant to GDM. According to him, the awards to a large extentrevealed the recognition and confirmation to the excellent work they have been doing in the last eight years.
“We’ve been around for the past eight years. In the last three years we’ve been one of the large agencies to be reckoned with in this industry and it is not just about saying it. The gold, silver and bronze medals confirmed it. We have been delivering fantastic works and we’ve been consistent in doing so.
“The award was quite significant because for the 3 awards we won, we already have before now letters of commendation from our clients on the works that fetched us the medals. So, it is a thing of honour that we have done something good. It was equally very motivating for the team that their work was recognised. It was another feather to our cap. We have clinched about eight awards in the last three years, so, winning three awards at a go was an icing for us.”
The CEO humbly admitted that when GDM is placed on a global scale, she is yet to start. Notwithstanding our achievements, GDM is still a work in progress. We are analysing our strategies on a global scale to see how we can match up in the global market.
The GDM boss narrated the measurable impact of their work on the brands that won the awards and also the strategies employed to ensure a huge ROI for the brands. In his words: “I will start with the Smirnoff brand that got us the Gold; the Smirnoff House Party. We started and pioneered the concept of the Smirnoff House Party. Our aim was to achieve two things: to make the Smirnoff House party a concept that resonates with the target audience, which is key, and to connect the target audience to the brands. The House Party concept was very successful in achieving this.
“The House Party equally helped the brand owners achieve a huge and verifiable ROI. And needless to say that it cost us less to organise the same party subsequently and with more mileage with the use of technology. With technology, we now have life streaming of all those parties, improving mileage and reach. We use the digital media for pre, during and post events and the reach is massive, which is a key success factor.
“From giving out drinks for free, we were able to create strong pull in the content, when people now come to the House Parties, they excitedly pay for their drinks and enjoy the experience and connectivity that Smirnoff Party brings to them. And that for us is important, it’s unique. It’s not just about the service but how we drive value, and ROI for the brands that we manage. And that’s what we are about. It’s not so much about billing, it is a win-win for everyone. It’s about the consumer having that connect and seeing the value that Smirnoff brings to them. For Smirnoff, we think that a good work has been done in terms of penetration, offtake, awareness and liquid-on-lips experience”
“We are quite proud of the fact that the Smirnoff House Party will help Diageo in launching other variants of the brand; Smirnoff X1 and the Chocolate, because they have probably seen what the mother brand was able to do with the Smirnoff House Party in terms of recruitment which we think are part of the things that the consumers are yearning for. We are sure that in this category, Smirnoff will continue to dominate and lead the kind of innovation that engages the customer.
For the Silver medal gotten from her work on the Guinness/Orijin Sampling Experience campaign in the Best Customer Activation (BCS) category, he said: “For the Orijin Consumer Sampling and Experience, we worked with Guinness to launch an innovation brand. You know that innovation brands are very tricky to launch. We helped to launch an innovation brand that needed a sustenance experience and we were in charge of driving a consumer engagement after the launch. We won the consumer engagement award in the works created out of the sampling encountered.
“Our job was to create a unique experience that drives liquid-on-lips experience, having in mind that our clients were beginning to play in the Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) category afresh. We were able to use spectacular platforms to create very extensive reach at very low cost per contact, not to mention the mileage and visibility that we gave the brands. And I think those were the business cases that got us the awards.
Finally in the Best Event (B2C) category where GDM won a bronze for its work on ‘Nescafe/Get Started Tour’, Afolabi told the story of the Experience Truck. “Nescafe got us the bronze. There is a traditional saying that Nigeria is not a coffee consuming nation but we thought that the reason was that the essence of the brand, Nescafe, has not been felt by the target audience which are Nigerian youths, So, we worked with client on the experience truck, a platform to create the needed connect between Nescafe and the consumer target, that’s what the Experience Truck was all about.
“It was indeed a consumer touch point. We were on campuses, NYSC camps, creating an opportunity for people to fulfil their dreams. Yes, the Experience Truck is beyond consumers drinking Nescafe, having a nice time and or experiencing the brand essence, it was also a platform created for consumers to talk about their dreams,” Afolabi said.