Don’t Just Chase Attention, Earn Belief, Tolaram’s Onwudiwe Uche Charges Marketers At NIMN AGM
The Lead, Marketing Strategy & Innovation at Tolaram Group, Onwudiwe Uche, has challenged marketers to move beyond the race for attention and focus on building trust, insisting that credibility, not visibility, is now the currency that determines brand success.
Representing Tolaram Group at the just-concluded Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Uche delivered a compelling message that resonated across two major industry engagements, declaring: “Do not just chase attention. Earn belief.”
His call comes at a time when brands are grappling with increasingly sceptical consumers, shrinking attention spans and growing demands for authenticity.
Speaking during a student-focused session themed “From the Classroom to the Marketplace,” Uche urged aspiring marketers to prioritise usefulness over mere creativity. According to him, while ideas remain abundant, what differentiates exceptional marketers is their ability to translate those ideas into solutions that create real business and human value.
“The next generation of marketers is not short of ideas. What they need is context, courage, commercial understanding and the discipline to turn ideas into work that solves real human and business problems,” he said.
He reinforced the message the following day as a panellist at the RTM West Africa 2026 conference, where discussions centred on consumer trust, influence, communities and buying behaviour.
Drawing from both engagements, Uche argued that the marketing profession must shift its focus from creating noise to creating meaningful impact.
“The future of marketing will belong to the most trusted brands, and trust is not built by communication alone,” he noted.
According to him, trust is earned when a brand’s promise consistently aligns with its product quality, customer experience, pricing, distribution, innovation and service delivery.
He warned brands against treating communities merely as target audiences, urging organisations to instead respect, understand and serve them if they hope to build enduring relationships.
Uche stressed that while influence may generate awareness, only trust converts awareness into consumer choice.
“Communities may amplify conversations, but credibility sustains brands. Ideas may excite the room, but only impact earns a place in people’s lives,” he said.
For marketing professionals navigating today’s rapidly evolving landscape, Uche’s message was clear: the era of winning through loud campaigns alone is fading, giving way to one in which consistency, authenticity, and value creation define long-term brand success.
He concluded by reminding marketers that marketing, at its best, goes beyond selling products.
“It is the discipline of deeply understanding people, creating value, building trust and shaping possibilities that outlive the campaign.”
His presentation echoed Tolaram Group’s corporate philosophy of “Creating Possibilities for Generations,” while reinforcing the growing consensus across the industry that sustainable brand growth will increasingly depend on trust rather than attention.
