Marketing collateral key to customer satisfaction — Gift Imagination boss

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. So inadvertently, we serve as a bridge between the market women who don’t have all that documentation as a corporate entity and those of us who would end up acquiring from them, or we purchase from them, and then we supply to the banks.

So, we bridge the gap between the market women who provide and the people who do the branding. They are unregulated, unbranded and undocumented. We coordinate the two ends of it, and we bridge that gap for the B2B client.

What challenges were you aiming to address when you started the business?

In the gift item sector, there’s a lot of informality and unprofessionalism, because people who migrated into promotional products are people who do billboards and paper printing in Nigeria. And the people who are in the printing business are localised in Mushin and Shomolu, a lot of semi-educated and uneducated people.

When we started Gift Imagination, we put up a strategy, we had a website, we had social media handles, we could send invoices, and we could receive email through a functional email address.

We try to ease the headache of professional organisations’ promotional items teams, who are fed up with the unprofessionalism of individuals who are involved in the process.

Also, there’s the fact that we could speak and write. We have a VAT number, and they could remit VAT and do the accounting procedure, just to make life easy for them.

So, we bridge the gap of communication and professionalism, putting presentations together based on their request and understanding of it, rather than just what we think they need.

How do Nigerian companies currently approach corporate gifting practices?

A typical conglomerate in Nigeria already has a budget for promotional items. They know the requirements and the needs of their company.

In some cases, they have an idea of what they need and what should be made to promote their brands based on the products and services that they offer. However, in some cases, for those who are open-minded, they then get below-the-line companies.

They share what they have, and they still hassle for the input. But in some cases where they have advanced marketing communications teams, they just share what they want; they share the quantity, we search for it locally and internationally, and we give them the pricing.

In some cases, we are allowed to give an input or additional items that can be used altogether. Then the approval comes, and we supply.

Have you ever personally received a corporate gift that failed to make the intended impact?

I’ve received gifts before that didn’t meet the mark in that they did not express what the brand stands for. It did not accentuate the product or service of the company that shared it.

I think that speaks to the level of experience and exposure of the executives who decided on the procurement of that particular one.

What is Gift Imagination’s process, and how does its consulting arm operate?

Once the client approves, we commence production. The process varies from client to client. Typically, clients send us a list of items or pictures of items. We search for it locally and internationally. We search for the production period, the shipping period, and whether it’s international shipping, either freight or cargo.

Then we share all the details of branding and the popularity. We come up with mock-ups, positioning, and all that. Then we share all that.

Once the client approves and gives it to our head, we begin to start the production. There are constant updates via email and WhatsApp communication. This has introduced a variation here.

“This kind of branding is possible; this is not possible.” Then we go through all that until production is done. If it’s local, we pack it together and deliver it to a specified warehouse or location.

If it’s international, we put it on freight or put it on sea cargo. It arrives, we clear, and then we deliver. After quality control has been done, we check if everything is intact, nothing is broken, and nothing is damaged.

In the simplest terms, how would you describe Gift Imagination?

What Gift Imagination does is provide the solution, take away the stress or the demand of sourcing for quality marketing collateral, suggesting to a client what is suitable for that product or service or for the purpose that is required, taking care of all the shipping requirements, the transportation and the logistics locally and internationally, and then delivering it, communicating with less formal operators who handle production in different production houses that we have to deal with.

We take all that stress off, and we deliver the required, specified promotional items.

What types of organisations do you typically work with, and what are their common needs?

We have worked with financial institutions, like banks and insurance companies. Oil and gas: upstream, downstream.

Professional institutions like the Chartered Institute of Bankers and the Chartered Institute of Procurement Management. Government bodies like the Oyo State Electoral Commission and the Lagos State Development and Property Corporation.

We’ve done all sorts of promotional items internationally, from all categories: from electronic gadgets to lifestyle to sports items, to gadgets, headsets, to water bottles of all sorts of types, to sports materials or sports items, to gadgets, lifestyle items like notepads and pens, customised smartwatches, smart rings and duffel bags.

Which project are you most proud of, and what results did it deliver?

A certain oil and gas company contacted Gift Imagination for the procurement of some of the promotional items.

We were able to meet the specifications and the requirements of the items.

We worked with the company for years, I mean, steadily over the years, but that was an iconic opportunity to be associated with the fact that it took eight years in business, through the different phases of their development and growth, and to be able to work with them.

We worked on a brief for a financial institution that clocked 80 years recently.

We have also worked with another company in the insurance sector. We worked on the brief for their 30th Annual General Meeting. It was a momentous and critical milestone. It was an honour and a pride for them that they attained that and to work on that brief with them.

Sometimes, we see products that are proliferated in the market, but we were able to meet the specific requirements, internal certification and all that. We were very proud of it. It also generated more demand for that product.

How do you manage the balance between sourcing locally in Nigeria and importing items for Nigerian clients?

There are different points to consider in making a decision to buy in Nigeria or to buy from outside the country. For instance, there are some items that you cannot buy in Nigeria. But because the global markets in the U.S., China and South Africa are open to us, you have the opportunity to see what’s available, and you can buy from there.

The other option is to buy what’s already in Nigeria. It is either made in Nigeria, or you have the opportunity of also making it from abroad. So, if you have to decide to make it from abroad, you have to see the quantity and the specifications. And then by the time you are shipping it, you have all the costs together.

Is it cheaper?

So, if you have some clients that are ordering a particular single item in thousands, some in tens of thousands, and if you go to a manufacturer in China or Venezuela, by the time you have the cost of shipping, it is cheaper. That means it makes more economic sense to order that kind of item or product from abroad. And those are the variations.

So, it’s always about scale, economies of scale, and quantity, and also, some items are made in Nigeria but do not meet the quality requirements or adherence to quality requirements of the client.

But your requirements when you make it from abroad, they have stricter regulations on quality and paying attention, and also the dexterity of the people who are manufacturing, the dexterity in terms of the skillmanship and also the dexterity and quality of machines and equipment, which sometimes we don’t have in this part of the world.

So, these are some of the decisions that make us decide to buy from abroad or buy local, and also to preserve the quality, to fulfil the promise we made to deliver quality. Sometimes, to deliver quality, you go the extra mile and buy from abroad.

Sometimes you get more margin; sometimes you don’t get enough margin. But you preserve that quality, and that makes your brand strong in the long term. A brand is simply a promise kept.

To what extent does quality influence your choice between sourcing locally and sourcing internationally?

Quality, economies of scale, adherence to requirements. These are the critical points for consideration.

It is all about quality. There are good products I’ve sourced locally and good products that I’ve sourced internationally.

Where do you see Gift Imagination in the next three to five years?

Our drive is to expand our market share. We want to help brands stand out.