Today, we can attest to the rise in connected consumers who are demanding almost immediate engagement with brands to satisfy their quests. Companies are now investing in ecommerce, moving into social mostly via mobile.

Considering all that is going on with digital technology and the impacts, it is mind-blowing. So, evolving consumer behaviour is an opportunity for businesses and practitioners in the IMC industry to rethink strategy.

Then, the question: How can the practitioners leverage all these tools to optimize their operations?

This inspired Vytautas (Vytas) Paukstys, Founder/CEO, Eskimi’s presentation at the Marketing Edge IMC Quarterly Virtual Summit under the theme: ‘Maximizing Marketing Efficiency in the Age of Changing Consumer Behaviour’.

For over 15 years, Vytautas has been a noteworthy leader in the digital advertising and technology space.

As the Founder and CEO of Eskimi DSP, one of the leading global programmatic advertising platforms, he understands the trends in the market across the globe.

Before leading this venture, he founded Eskimi Social, one of the pioneering mobile-first communities in Africa and Asia with more than 25M+ users, with the biggest markets in Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia and Vietnam.

He further led the growth of Eskimi DSP, bootstrapping it to become a globally competitive programmatic ad platform with more than 1.5B+ profiled users worldwide. Vytas is also the CEO of ActiveXT, a technology outsourcing company in Singapore that helps extend engineering teams of solid European IT companies and start-ups by hiring talents in its Asia offices.

His contribution to technology and business growth is un-vacillating especially in emerging markets, leveraging digital tools through programmatic advertising.

Giving insights on how to navigate the challenges, Vytautas, said that traditional creative is being used for digital channels; global apps and content are winning over local; creative is going digital for better engagement in a rapidly changing market, and originally, traditional brands are becoming digital-first

He said tt in some cases Africa is leading the revolution, specifically in mobile payments. Some of the digital trends are felt more in the West and European, Asia Pacific and some African countries.

“Nigeria, to be precise, Statista data shows there are about 85.49 million users online who spend up to 4 hours daily. With 169.2 million mobile phone connections, it represents 83% of Nigeria’s 203.6 population as at 2021”.

“Statistics also show that 27 million Nigerians are active social media users which represent 13% of the population. The country’s internet penetration was pegged at 51.44% in 2021 and projected to reach 59.92% by 2026”, he listed during the Summit.

Interestingly, the internet is one of the highest accessed media in Nigeria as the country recorded 30% growth in digital content consumption during the peak of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Then, the worry, with over 50% of Nigerians estimated to be online, how much of the marketing budget is online.

The Eskimi Founder said it is surprising that some brands are still digital laggards, yet to appreciate the fact consumers are moving to the digital space.

“Globally,” he said, “marketing trends show that digital spends have already surpassed the traditional. Global apps account for 70% of all online consumption hence global platforms are dominating time spend and ad inventory.

“Global and Channel changes in 2020-2021 indicates that e-Sports, online video, social media and e-commerce recorded growths while linear TV, broadcast radio, print, out-door advertising and cinemas are on decline on year-on-year activity and advertising spend.

He added that globally, consumers spend 8 hours on digital media per day compared to 5.5r time spent on traditional advertisement as 50% of global media spends are digital already.

He also urged the participants to pay close attention to the gaming industry as the audiences are growing at a rapid pace.

Sharing the impact of mobile gaming, he said that 50% of mobile usage outside of work is devoted to gaming; 33% of the audience plays games multiple times per day and 23 others are playing new games on their smartphones.

Thus, creative is going digital. “Digital-first rich media creative results in 456% better engagement with the consumers”.

Vytautas made reference to Nigeria where rich media ads are topnotch for visibility, engagement and better results. This also delivers the highest CTR.

Another trend that will define the marketing space in 2022 is that advertisers now use hybrid models including in-house media buying. In other words, Advertisers are moving media buying in-house as a 2021 trend indicated in IAB Europe 2021 study.

Vytautas said that IMC practitioners should understand the trends now as most marketers have begun to take more control of their media and digital technology relationships are changing and client needs continue to provide large scale agency realignment.

Amongst others, one of the major motivators of in-housing is that the move helps brands to cut agency creativity and business under one roof.

While digital leads, he said, the legacy channels can transform their platforms too as ‘all screens are going digital’.

He urged the practitioners to develop capacity on content because global content is winning the local.

The Eskimi CEO said the local platforms drive 10-15% of online consumption while global apps account for 70% of all online consumption by dominating time spent and ad inventory.

He recommended that industry players should focus on the right KPIs to drive market growth trajectory. “KPIs should correspond to your goal”, he advised.

Eskimi is a programmatic and data platform with more than 1.5B+ profiled users worldwide. The platform creates unique audience segments for specific industries like telecoms, FMCGs, mobile phone brands, banking and others.

The company builds geolocation and footfall platforms for retail brands. It also provides a combination of platform and managed creative services to achieve up to 15% engagement rates.