Founder of Gift Imagination, Goke Iyiola, speaks with ARINZE NWAFOR on the importance of marketing collateral, industry best practices, and how leading companies are using digital and print materials to communicate their brand message and promote products and services why is gifting considered an important expression of brand identity and business value rather than simply another item on a checklist?
On marketing collateral, there’s something called above-the-line marketing and below-the-line marketing. Marketing collateral falls under the below-the-line. And it has its place in the marketing mix. Marketing collateral enables you to experience the brand beyond billboards, radio jingles, TV commercials, newspaper ads and digital activations.
Marketing collateral is an extension of the brand, beyond that initial contact with them, through the dispensation of a service or the purchase of a product. And that is where we come in. It cannot be commonised. It has to be given its proper prestige in the marketing mix.
And that’s what we stand for. I am talking about marketing communication. It is a 360-degree paradigm. There are different angles, different aspects of it, from public relations to marketing strategy, mass market, and below-the-line. A malady has crept into the professional space, where in-depth understanding of subject matter is supposed to be prevalent, where honing your skill and knowledge and experience, combined with exposure as a professional, is supposed to be the deal.
But a lot of people have lost and got into positions that they’re not supposed to get into. What specific challenge or gap were you seeking to address when you founded Gift Imagination? Gift Imagination started in 2017. Before that, I was into learning and capacity development.
After the 2008 economic crunch which affected the learning and capacity development sector, the training market became fragmented. I was struggling to make ends meet because I had recently gotten married and I had responsibilities. I connected with Access Bank to produce bubble stickers.
After successfully delivering the stickers, I got the opportunity to present my proposal to Polaris, Unity Fidelity and Zenith Bank. We delivered successfully. When they noticed the quality of our deliverables, they gave us the opportunity to produce more marketing collateral and other souvenirs.
I discovered that there was a huge market in the promotional item business and a need for professionalism. This led me to establish Gift Imagination. The goal is to make sure that we provide quality, top-of-the-range accepted marketing collaterals. So, if you look at that, it was our antecedents with the banks that led us to other sectors like insurance, oil and gas, and real estate, et cetera.
How would you describe the state of Nigeria’s promotional items industry? The promotional items sector in Nigeria is influenced by market women who import materials in places like Lagos Island market and elsewhere and professional brands that interface with businesses.
When you are a brand that has put up a website, you have an email, and you speak English, the banks or the business-to-business clients find it easy to deal with. If you have an invoice, you have a tax clearance; they’re able to deal with you, and it makes it easier.