Clinton Inene

17/09/2021

Method in Madness is a newsletter that confirms what you already know about madness in Lagos, being rampant but disguised.

Madness is coming to your email

16/09/2021

Madness is coming to your email

16/02/2021

I grew up surrounded by little streams with mirrors for water. In my town with no mirrors, you could stand above the streams and dress your reflection to look like royalty. The streams were a converging point for everyone– both young and old.

In the evenings, I and my gang of little-town rebels would gather at the edge of the stream to feed tiny fishes that weren’t afraid to come close to the edge of the stream and sometimes terrorise them.

I remember the cool evening breeze that carried the fresh smell of the stream mixed with a whiff of the greens around that blew on our faces as we laughed and dug our hands into the sand to make castles above our feet. But everything changed one morning when the tractors came and dredged our little streams into canals and connected them to the drains from the city.

Now, the canals are mosaic of plastic nylons and bottles and the putrid stench of death that no one can stand. Forcing us to abandon the town.

How did the mosaic come to be?

How did this happen?

Sachetisation is a strategy borne out of the desire of companies to make consumer goods more accessible and affordable to consumers.

25/01/2021

It's been a while since I wrote something on my blog and it's partly because of the lack of time to do so.
Writing is something I love to hate but can't. Anyway, I wrote something recently and you can find it on my blog. Click the link below to read.

You might be wondering why I chose to write about the inherent evil or the lack thereof in marketing. I’ll tell you, just click to read.

20/10/2020

Suffice to say that the protest is more than just agitations to put an end to a rogue police unit. It is a figurative awakening of the Hulk in Bruce Banner from long inertia.

The onus lies with brands not trying to be politically correct on issues, such as protest that consumers passionately care about.

25/09/2020

I reckon that no entrepreneur that is worth their salt ever starts a business with their mind set on failing. The dream of growing a business into a brand on the lips of many is always nursed. I can tell you for free, I had those lofty dreams too. The dream of walking into rooms and being granted an audience as a result of growing a successful business or being invited to speak at conferences and events to share my recipe for success – these and more were my hopes and dreams and I believe they apply to other entrepreneurs. Despite all that ambition, the reality is, a lot of businesses like mine, fail, and they mostly fail within five years. In Nigeria, the stat says, four in every five new start-ups that eventually start fails.

Failing in business is a function of many factors, one of which is setting marketing goals that do not support the long-term vision for your brand. In my case was focusing on generating sales instead of working on building a brand. Seems very basic, right? I am even sure you are wondering why I believe focusing on sales was detrimental to my business. Visit the link below to understand why.

https://clintoninene.com/2020/09/25/why-brands-fail-focusing-on-generating-sales-vs-building-a-brand/

Sales generation is a short-term objective, unfortunately, the sustainability of a brand is closely tied to setting long-term goals like building a brand.

23/09/2020

Let me start by establishing a truth, that is, consumers are bombarded with too many ads on a daily basis and Forbes can back me up on this. According to Forbes, consumers are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads daily. Hence why brands try to connect with customers and reach potential consumers with unconventional marketing tactics.

Unconventional marketing tactics like viral marketing and guerrilla marketing are alternative to traditional marketing that can come in handy to break the ad clutter. Also, when traditional strategies aren’t dealing the killer blow on the competition, they can help turn the tides.

Read more:

Unconventional marketing tactics like viral marketing and guerrilla marketing are alternative to traditional marketing that can come in handy to break the ad clutter

23/09/2020

Watch the video and let the genius sink in. Let the idea inspire your genius because this marketing idea is good. It takes knowing what to do with the information at your purview.
Wow, it is product placement at its best. And trust me, it would have cost the company less to carry out this campaign.

23/09/2020

Without counting, I am certain you have heard the saying, “content is king” as a marketer a hundred time. It is meant to spur you to invest more resources into your content creation. However, in this age where there is just too much good content, standing out amongst the content clutter is very challenging for marketers. In the midst of this conundrum Jonah Berger comes through with his book titled Contagious, Why Things Catch On.

Without counting, I am certain you have heard the saying, “content is king” as a marketer a hundred of time. It is meant to spur you to invest more resources into your content creation. However, in this age where there is just too much good content, standing out amongst the content clutter is ve...

14/09/2020

I hope you had a great weekend and Monday at the office? Welcome to a new week. I have been working on a small book lately with a tentative title, “Beyond the Numbers: Achieving Branding with A Human Face”, after much trepidation, I am glad that I am confident enough to share the introduction with you. Please read the excerpt below. I hope you do love it.

Konga, Efritin.com, Camplus, Showroom.ng, Nigerian Airways, Concord Airlines, Okada Air – the road to success is littered with the tales of several brands that couldn’t cut it. For every Jiji.ng there is an Olx, for every Taxify there is a GoMyWay and Easy taxi, for every Jumia there is a Dealday and for every Paystack and Flutterwave, there is OyaPay. For every business that eventually succeeded in its industry, other brands failed before they even got to see the morning light.

In all sense of actuality, no brand starts expecting to fail. Yet, that is what happens to several brands. The reason? Growing a brand isn’t easy. If it were, several brands wouldn’t be expending billions yearly to achieve success. The fact is, despite the huge budget spending, 96 per cent of brands still fail within 10 years. Studies by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s Investment and Technology Promotion Office in Nigeria show that only 40 per cent of brands get to start, but no more than 20 per cent survive. In today’s business climate, a brand’s capacity to grow and sustain growth is a combination of business functions aimed at achieving differentiation and staying relevant.


Did you like what you read? Click the link below to read more. Also, leave a comment of your thoughts, please.

https://clintoninene.com/2020/09/14/menas-letter-beyond-the-numbers-achieving-branding-with-a-human-face-the-introduction/

Going beyond the numbers is a base on which marketing ideas, strategies and activities should be built, developed and managed.

04/09/2020

Communicating with consumers has never been easy but as consumers become more sophisticated, communicating with them becomes grim. In the ’80s and ’90s, creative communication was based on a business’ talent to express selling ideas in a relevant way – simplicity and originality as central themes – to capture consumers’ attention. The reality of today’s generation of consumers knowing all the marketing communication tricks we have up our sleeves, and the fact that they regard consumption as a form of identity expression make it grimmer. From the get-go, they recognise what ends we are driving at with each message. How then do you communicate with someone who knows what you are driving at in a meaningful way? It’s by being creative with your marketing communication.

Communication with consumers has never been easy but as consumers become more sophisticated, communicating with them becomes grim.