EasyAds is cost effective -WildFusion CEO

Abasiama, Wildfusion CEO

Mr. Abasiama Idiaresit, Wildfusion CEO is a very passionate person when it comes to technology about Africa and particularly Nigeria. He is very keen about seeing technology help brands and advertisers to achieve their objectives. In this interview with the editor, DigitalSENSE Business News, REMMY NWEKE, he explains the concept behind mobile marketing in Nigeria with special focus on EasyAds

Excerpts:

Can you tell us about WildFusion?

Wildfusion is a full Digital house. Our services include; Online media sales, digital marketing services, mobile marketing and digital strategy development. We do have operations in Lagos and Accra and we are keen to see digital become mainstream in advertising, we are keen to see digital give value for brands and advertisers most especially allowing them get returns on their investment for whatever they spend online

What is the relationship between Etisalat and WildFusion?

Wildfusion is taking the EasyAdz which is a mobile advertising service from Etisalat to advertisers and brands. We are the ‘go to’ people that brands or advertisers come to if they are looking to advertise.

What is the concept of Mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is a very interesting space and I’m glad you asked that question. I will start by describing what it is. It is any form of marketing activity on a network that has to do with mobile or connected users and this includes SMS marketing, MMS marketing, mobile web marketing, QR codes, USSD and the likes.

How will you assess the digital marketing landscape in Nigeria?

To be honest, I think it is a very exciting time for advertisers and media professionals because what we have in Nigeria is Africa’s largest market, talking about a hundred and one million people on mobile devices which makes Nigeria the tenth largest population of users in the world, larger than even the United Kingdom in terms of mobile users. This presents a fantastic opportunity in terms of reach when promoting products and services; it is a fantastic platform to deliver on advertising/campaign objectives.

The most interesting thing about it is that it is targeted. Targeting is very important because; one, you can serve your ads to a specific age bracket or specified demographic on the EasyAdz platform so it reduces advertising wastage. Also if you are targeting based on location say, Lagos, Rivers or Abuja, it is possible. So if your product is not for the whole country, you will not have to spend your money reaching the entire country. You can zero in on location, you can zero in on gender or age and the most interesting thing about this service is that you can go back to target people who have responded positively to your campaign.

How engaging would you say that mobile advertising is?

Mobile advertising/marketing is very engaging. The reason is that you are with your phone all the time. I could bet that there is no one in this room without a phone. So, because it is personalized to you, it is a great platform for engagement.     The EasyAdz service is an engaging platform because as an advertiser you have the opportunity to have an interactive messaging experience with your consumer. So in terms of engagement, it is a highly recommended product.

Talking about mobile advertising, what about people in the rural areas who do not have internet access how do you engage these people?

This is where mobile marketing comes in. Most of the people in the rural areas, have access to mobile devices. You have phone going for as low as N5000 to even N3000 and you have people in the rural areas who use these devices. If the people who are being targeted do not have access to the internet, then we can go full blast SMS, targeting these people. If your audience is say, in a rural area in Oyo state, then you can zero in based on location and serve your ads to your target audience in that location.

So mobile is an extension of digital and it’s very important that when advertisers and brands are looking at their consumer engagement strategies, they begin to think mobile. How can digital marketing complement and amplify what is being done on radio, television, outdoor and on print.

Etisalat recently launched the EasyAdz service in partnership with Wildfusion. How would you rate the success of this platform?

I’ll tell you something, it is a round peg in a round hole for advertisers. It has been very successful, we have had over 20 brands and when I say brands I’m talking about some of the top brands in this country that have used this platform. We had even Star from Nigerian Breweries endorsing the platform saying they have used the platform to promote one of their campaigns and they are even planning to use it for another upcoming campaign. So when you have a situation where brands and advertisers coming back to use a platform, over and over again, it speaks strongly about how efficient the technology or product is in helping them to achieve their objective.

If you also look at it from a cost perspective, the cost it takes you to engage one user, if you look at it on other platforms, the cost is more cost effective for advertisers so I think it has been very successful because we’ve seen a lot of interest in the market, we’ve seen a lot of people asking questions about the product, we’ve seen advertisers coming back to use the platform so I’m very positive about its efficiency.

Can you give us a breakdown of how the information based mobile advertising works especially on the Etisalat platform?

The way it works is; first of all users receive an SMS prompting them to opt into EasyAdz. Now when they opt in, they will be asked a set of simple questions which borders on their interests, gender, age and other information that helps the network to profile these users. Now from an advertisers perspective, because an advertiser does not want to waste money, he is looking to reach the right people. If you have a product and you’re looking to reach 18-24 years, if you get your targeting wrong you might end up targeting my grandfather who is not going to buy that product. So it’s very important that the little budget you have is used effectively.

So far the responses from users have been fantastic, the rate of people opting into the database has been growing and we are very happy that this proposition is welcome in the market.

Talking about the unique selling proposition because as you know there are other telecoms operators who are offering mobile advertising services. What is the unique selling proposition that Etisalat EasyAdz has that gives it an edge over competition?

First of all, it is permission based, secondly there is a new functionality we just launched a few weeks ago called Re-Targeting, so for an advertiser, the people that responded to your product, you can always go back and re-market goods to that particular set of users. So from a cost perspective, the returns from your advertising spend increases. So these are some of the unique benefits. Also the targeting, the location targeting, demographic targeting, all these make it very unique.

Talking about acceptability and patronage, can you give us case studies on how effective you’ve succeeded in using the EasyAdz platform in driving digital marketing campaigns?

I’ll tell you something, last week, we got data from Facebook which says that 95% of all access to Facebook from Nigeria comes from mobile devices. That further reinforces the need for advertisers to begin to think mobile. We just finished a campaign with an FMCG company and the results have been mind blowing because in terms of reach, the campaign reach has been great. One of the things they wanted to do was to encourage users to download the brand’s song and they’ve had campaigns in the past, the amount of people that have downloaded the song over a short period of time has never been achieved before. EasyAdz has been very instrumental in achieving the campaign objectives.

 You talked about new features being added to the EasyAdz, after EasyAdz, are we expecting any new product from your end in conjunction with Etisalat?

Definitely there will be new products; definitely there will be new functionality. A few weeks ago, we decided to launch what is called state-targeting, that means you can target specific at certain cities or states. So if your product is only for Lagos users then you can serve your ads only to Lagos users on the platform. Even the campaign that Nigerian Breweries ran was done using state-targeting where they targeted certain states so it was a combination of age, gender and location targeting.

Another interesting part of the proposition is the ability to target based on Average Revenue per User (ARPU) so, if you have a product which is a high-end product and I want to reach people of certain income brackets that spend a certain amount of airtime on the network, this targeting is possible, so you can serve your ads to that particular target segment.

Two weeks ago, we ran a campaign for a car promoter, they had a car that they were looking to sell and we pushed this out using the EasyAdz platform, targeting people using ARPU. Because of the amount of money they spend on the network, we knew that these people had the capability to buy a brand new car and these were the right people for the deal. Previously, if these advertisers wanted to reach anyone, they just sent out their messages to everyone, including people that are not in their target audience, people who cannot afford this car. So this is targeted, this is very cost-effective and this hits the bull’s eye for them. So they serve these ads based on ARPU targeting and location targeting. The deal was for people resident in Lagos and in Abuja that spend a certain amount of money on the Etisalat network. So this is a brilliant example of how you can use this functionality to achieve your objective.

How is EasyAdz different from bulk SMS marketing services?

First of all, I want to correct a notion, this service is distinctly different from bulk SMS. Firstly, for EasyAdz, we have users who have opted in and they have given you permission to advertise to them. So what that means is that they are expecting, they are willing, they have been profiled, the network can tell you where these users are, how old they are and what their interests are. Now with bulk SMS you cannot have this. When you’re running your campaign you can stop the campaign mid-way, change your creative (message) and then continue running your campaign. You can target based on cities, you can target based on the income bracket of the user, these are some of the opportunities that differentiate EasyAdz from regular bulk SMS.

Another interesting aspect of this service is the ability to re-market to consumers who were previously not interested in a particular service. So you can come with another message, you tweak your copy a little bit or come with another offer altogether trying to sell to them. So these are some of the interesting differences between EasyAdz and bulk SMS.

Most importantly is the ability to measure. We can tell you how many messages were delivered, we can go as far as telling you how many people read your messages, that clicked your website, that actually responded to your call to action as well as their gender, location, age and other demographic information and you get this information real-time. So whatever you are doing on this platform, you can track you can measure, you can identify what is not working for you and modify the campaign to suit your objectives

Considering your operations in Nigeria as well as in Accra, Ghana, could you give us an insight into what the trend is with regards to digital marketing in West Africa?

It’s been very interesting; the business environment in Ghana is quite similar, the culture is very alike and the trend is the same, you have many people connecting through their mobile devices to the internet. You have a country where the number one means of connecting is via mobile devices so there’s a lot of similarity. We also see a strong interest with advertisers and brands requesting for better ways to engage their audiences, reduce costs and measure results. This is the same yearning across this region therefore this is the right time to be in digital marketing.

What is your advice to those advertisers and brands that are yet to adopt the platform of digital marketing?

My advice to people who are yet to key into digital marketing or mobile marketing is this; your competition is already doing it and if you do not move in now, you will be left behind. The media consumption landscape has changed considerably so if you’re still making up your mind at this time, you are losing out. Just to add to that, recent statistics that we have seen have shown that a huge portion of people who access the Google search engine in Sub-Saharan Africa do so through their mobile devices. So we do not execute any campaign without having any mobile element to it. If you run a campaign without the element of mobile/digital marketing, it greatly reduces the potential of the campaign to succeed. You need to understand your audience, their interests, how many people are on this media and how they consume media. With this, you will be able to align your message to fit and gain returns on investment.

Could you tell us about some of the challenges you have in this market?

I think one of the biggest challenges we face is the lack of information. So what we do is try to educate the market that is why we are sitting here, that is why we are having this interview. People will not use what they do not understand. So it’s very important that we continue to educate them, train them, to partner with advertisers and agencies to promote these platforms because we know it works. Those that have used them have seen it work for them. So this is the major challenge we have.

David Oglivy said that 50% of advertising expenditure is a waste, are you saying that mobile advertising is an all powerful platform that can eliminate the waste in advertising spend?

What I’m saying is this platform will eliminate waste for advertisers. When you have done your strategy and targeting right and you find that your users are on this platform, if you use this platform then you will achieve your desired results. However, if your strategy is wrong from the start, then potentially you could have wastage. What I can tell you is that this platform will help advertisers achieve their objectives and reduce wastage because of targeting, cost per reach and cost of engagement.

What we try to tell people to encourage them is that if you do not test this, you will never know. So the best way to go about it is to test it, even with a small budget, see what works for you and then you can fine tune your strategy to achieve your goals.

Could you share some insights on landscape of mobile media in Nigeria?

What you have here is Africa’s biggest mobile market, what that means is we have; according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) over 100 million active phone subscribers making it the tenth largest in the world even bigger than the United Kingdom. This presents immense opportunities for advertisers to engage, gain reach for their products and services. It is very interesting that this morning, Facebook announced that they have reached the one billion user mark globally and like I mentioned earlier, 95% of the access to Facebook from Nigeria is via mobile devices, so it is an interesting time for advertisers and digital marketers to key into the market. Never before have people been so connected by a platform or technology so it is a very good time to key into this technology.

Beyond the SMS format, is there any other format that is available on the platform?

The platform is continuously being improved to offer more interesting formats, however there is a feature which is available which is; interactive SMS. For example a brand could ask a consumer via SMS, “are you interested in technology? Reply 1 for yes and 2 for no” and he/she is not charged for the message and if the consumer replies 1, a follow up SMS could be sent asking, “do you know you can get a mobile phone from us for as low as N3,000?” Now that is engagement because at that time, the advertiser is interacting with one user.

Even if the consumer says no, a message can be sent to them notifying them to inform any interested friends about the offer. Potentially it has the ability to spread virally. The advertiser could say, 6 months down the line, go back to Wildfusion to bring up the list of users who said no, and market a different product or service to them. So what you see is a response rate that continues to increase and a wastage spend that continues to reduce. No other platform I’m yet to see, can deliver such value and I think this is the right time for us to have a product like this.

We have talked about technology and there is this accusation that people who play within the ICT sector don’t have time for themselves. Do you have time for yourself and what do you do with that time?

Well I do have time for myself, I love to read and I love to travel, I do a lot of both as well as a lot of dancing.

What is your last word for customers, advertisers?

Well, it would be that mobile is not the future, the future is here now. Mobile is here and this is the right time to use this platform. Technology can help us as a country to develop, technology can help us to solve social problems, save money and achieve objectives, not just in marketing but across other sectors.

I would like to say; if you don’t try it you’ll never know. Start small; see what works for you, and then you can begin to allocate more resources to it. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @abasiama

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