By Princewill Ekwujuru

Chief  Executive Officer of EXP Nigeria and organiser of the Africa Experiential Marketing Summit (AEMS), Wole Olagundoye has charged agencies in experiential marketing business and others to continually challenge conservative clients to embrace new thinking in the profession rather than  being scared of doing anything beyond traditional realms.

Olagundoye, who spoke  recently at an Africa Experiential Marketing Summit in Lagos, also promised to consolidate on the successes recorded at the maiden edition of the summit in Nigeria.

He said “Whereas we cannot do all these things, the clients on the brand side need to begin to develop the courage to be able to do these things because they are always scared of doing anything that is beyond traditional realms. We have to start to challenge these frontiers and push these boxes as well.”

Highlighting the successes of the programme, the CEO of EXP Nigeria said “On a more serious note, as you can see for yourself I think we’ve had a full house. Why the summit  started slowly was because it rained in the morning but gradually it filled up, and we have diverse audience raging from people from fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), banking, telecoms, manufacturing as well as agencies. So I think, for a very first event, we’ve done very well and what we are looking at  doing is that we are looking at building on the success of this first one and taking that to subsequent years.”

Olagundoye said the goal of the company is to differentiate itself in the marketplace. “For us, this is how to differentiate ourselves in the market. “Things are evolving, he said but we need to get into the mix, and as you can see from the case studies that are being shown, the world is moving on a fast pace and we cannot be left behind.

Speaking on whether Nigerian market would be able to accommodate some of the experiential marketing case studies shown at the event, the frontline experiential marketer said that Nigerian market is sophisticated enough to begin to demonstrate some of those cases highlighted at the programme. “Yes of course, and to put things in proper perspective, some of the things that the facilitator showcased in some way or form have happened here and has been done here already but we haven’t chronicled them properly, so we don’t have the documentation of them such that we can show them. People don’t have faith that it’s going to happen like this or just haven’t really followed the process properly, but some of these things have happened here and to tell you the truth, a lot of those things can be done here too,” he said.

On technology, he said “we have the technology and we can do them but what we need is collaboration with clients, and brand managers to take the bull by the horn and do things that have not been done before.  Everybody fears for their career and they fear that if anything goes wrong their careers will be on the line so because of that they stay with things that are normal and usual to be on a safer side.”