Business/BRANDS & MARKETING
CHIOMA AFE
With her exploits as a thoroughbred
marketing communication professional, whose efforts have transformed the
fortune of many businesses in Nigeria, Chioma Afe, the Group Head,
Retail Marketing & Analytics at Access Bank, is redefining the place
of marketing and communication in branding, management and
sustainability. Afe has, at various times, worked with Coca Cola,
British American Tobacco Nigeria, Cadbury, Multichoice, Airtel, Diamond
Bank and others. In this encounter with Raheem Akingbolu, she opens up
on the emerging trend in the marketing communication industry, pointing
out the beauty and the ugly side of social media and the need for
brand
managers to always apply caution why pushing their brands
Today, she thinks mainly of how to
deepen the huge retail business of Access Bank. But beyond that narrow
space, Chioma Afe, a multidimensional marketing communications expert,
sleeps and wakes up reviewing how marketing communication and Nigerian
brands are evolving.
“I’m always passionate in whatever I
believe in and that has been my mantra in all the places I work. I have
joined hands in the past to build top brands in the Nigerian market and
those who worked with me on those projects can confirm how passionate I
could be when I believe in anything. Here at Access Bank, I’m keen about
bringing the best out of our retail business and the experience has
been exciting, despite the size and spread of the bank. But if I think
of any other thing, it’s marketing communication and its application in
the Nigerian market. In fairness to practitioners, the stake has been
raised within and outside agencies but there are still room for
improvement,”
Like many experts, Afe believes that
digital has impacted positively on the industry as substantial chunk of
marketing budget now goes to digital marketing at the expense of
traditional method, however, she maintains that traditional is still
relevant to brand building.
“Digital marketing has changed the media
landscape and a lot is being achieved through the social media but
brand managers must always apply caution when working on their brands
through social media so they don’t overshoot things,” she added.
Beyond the appealing aesthetics of the
Access Bank brand, Afe described it as a brand that is not only rich in
appearance but also deep in content. To this end, he spoke on how
innovation and unique products have helped the bank to maintain affinity
with the banking public.
“Access Bank maintains a standard that
is unrivalled in the market and this reflects in all its operations. Our
customers bank with ease and we have schemes like Diamond Extra and
Devise Finance that touch on the needs of customers and how to solve
them. In the last one year, we are happy that these schemes have not
only touched lives, they have been handy to customers at critical
periods and help them surmount challenges. For instance, through our
revolutionary credit schemes such as Device Finance, we have seen more
Nigerians get connected to do more in business online and enjoy social
lifestyle of their choice. Another thing that has helped the brand
growth is perhaps the priority given to digital. With this, except when
it is extremely necessary and important, our customers don’t go inside
the banking hall -they do their transaction at the comfort of their
homes,”
Touching on the specifics of her current
job, she spoke glowingly of how she is championing and driving the
development and deployment of marketing communication initiatives for
the Access Bank retail business spanning product activations and
promotions, content marketing, creative content production, online PR
and sponsorships.
“With my team, we undertake strategy
development and execution of retail product campaigns across all
relevant media channels as well as establishing market intelligence and
analytics model used to design and track high performance marketing
campaigns that are focused on measurable returns on marketing
investment. Besides, the team also manages retail marketing
communications across subsidiaries in key African markets – Ghana,
Gambia, Zambia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and DRC Congo.”
Engagement
Ask Chioma Afe 10 times what has kept
Access and Diamond Banks’ customers together even after last year’s
fusion of the two brands, and she won’t hesitate to mention engagement.
According to her, long before the formal announcement of the merger, the
promoters of the two banks had involved in engagement deeply, moving
from one city to another, listening to stakeholders and taking
suggestions.
“I have heard many people say they
haven’t seen the kind of seamless merger as witnessed in the case of
Access and Diamond Banks.
To those of us who were part of the
process, we were not surprised because the management of the two
organisations didn’t joke with engagement and communication. For three
months or thereabout, members of top management team of the two
organizations were moving from one city to the other, explaining issues
and taking advice where necessary. During such forum, customers opened
up and asked questions bothering them while the management responded
accordingly. In short, all the stakeholders were carried along and that
is the beauty of it all.”
Access Brand Going Global
After moving up the ladder and becomes
one of the biggest banks in Africa, what next for Access Bank? As soon
as this question was thrown at this marketing communication amazon, her
face lighted, beaming with a smile.
“We are going global…in fact we are
already there. I can tell you for free that Access Bank is no longer
bench marking with African brands but global financial institutions. On
the African continent, we have become a leader and our impact is being
felt globally. Efforts are being made by the promoters of the brand to
make it becomes a force to reckon with globally in the next few years.
Working for Competing Brands
Despite her passion to work and build
brands, Chioma Afe has a standing rule, which forbids her to leave a
particular brand and pitch tent with a competing brand. Her response
when this reporter asked her if she could dump Access for another bank
was in the negative.
“From the early days of my career, I
have vowed never to leave a brand for a rival brand. I was in Coca Cola
and I didn’t envisage a day I would move to Pepsi. When I was in Airtel,
I knew my next place of work would not be in the telecom sector. The
truth is that I’m always too emotionally attached to any brand I work on
that it would be difficult for me to start positioning a rival brand
few months after. As the Head of Corporate Communication Division of
Diamond Bank, I remember I told my then Managing Director, Uzoma Dozie
that I would leave because of my loyalty to the brand until this new
realignment took place.
Strength
Though Afe consistently emphasized the
fact that all her accomplishments were made possible because of the good
people she has been blessed to work with, it’s easy to conclude that
the fact that she has traversed every facet of marketing communications
industry has helped her career. After observing her one-year National
Youth Service Corps at the Quadrant Company, a leading PR agency, she
had moved to Tequila Nigeria Limited, an experiential marketing company.
And from there, she joined Andersen as an Analyst. At British American
Tobacco (BATN), she started as a Direct Marketing Executive, driving the
execution of one-to-one communication with consumers via events,
activations and database mining, thereby applying what she took away
from Tequila.
She left BATN as Brand Manager for
Value-for-Money Brands, before heading to Coca-Cola Nigeria in 2006 as
Brand Manager, Sprite. She was in Coca-Cola Nigeria for 5 years in
various roles, including a stint at the South African office before
moving to Airtel from where she moved to Cadbury as Marketing Manager,
Beverages, where she was able to lead the team to win back market share
for the flagship brand, Bournvita, in the East. She joined MultiChoice
Nigeria in 2013 and after three years she quit and joined Diamond Bank.
Marriage & Family
One wonders how this career woman has
been able to attend to her family while keeping her job going. But to
her, it has been an easy task because her husband of 18 years has been
more than a supporting pillar.
“I think God prepared me well for my
career by giving me a supporting and understanding husband. I met my
husband, a true son of Edo State at a get-together party organized for a
common friend and became friends. We didn’t get to see again until
after sometimes -this time we took ourselves seriously and the rest is
history. In the last few years, he has sacrificed his comfort and time
for me to make sure I succeed in my career. He’s indeed a God-sent,”
Representatives in the 8th National
Assembly revealed that some lottery operators were owing the government
as much as $16 billion in unpaid remittances. Over 60 million Nigerians
between 18 and 40 are involved in active sports betting whilst over 2
billion naira ($5.9 million) is spent on sports betting daily in
Nigeria, translating to over $2.2 billion per annum.–
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