12 minute read
NOT LETTING ANYONE DOWN
PATRICIA ITHAU, CEO, WPP-SCANGROUP PLC: THE FUTURE IS NOT TOMORROW, IT IS HERE. AS A BUSINESS WPP-SCANGROUP IS PUTTING IN PLACE THE BUILDING BLOCKS THAT WILL ALLOW IT TO BE FUTURE READY, TODAY.
BY DIANA MICHIEKA
hen WPP-Scangroup, Sub Sahara Africa's leading marketing and communication
Wgroup, was looking for a successor to founder and long-serving CEO Bharat Thakrar, no other candidate suited the job as perfectly as Patricia Ithau. A seasoned business and marketing executive, Patricia boasted of over 30 years of experience in senior leadership roles overseeing the expansion of leading consumer brands in Eastern Africa, at companies including Unilever, Diageo/East African Breweries Ltd, and L'Oréal, and then supporting scaling of small and medium enterprises across Africa at Stanford Seed. An additional icing to what is already an impressive CV was the fact that she previously served on the board of WPP-Scangroup as a non-executive director from 2017 to 2020. As such, WPP-Scangroup was not a company new to her, as somebody who had an opportunity in her non-executive role to get a grasp of the inner workings of the Nairobi, Kenya-based firm. In all senses of the word, she was the right (wo)man for the job.
The role of CEO has a lot of figuring out to do. "I've started to really reshape what I do because the official title is CEO. What is a Chief Executive Officer? What is that? What is the game changing role of this officer? What is a chief? So, in unpacking what it means, one of the things that I am starting to like the sound of, is that I'm actually a catalyst or conductor. If you have ever watched an orchestra, you see incredibly disparate instruments being played by very talented musicians. So you wonder why is there a need for a conductor? Yet without a great conductor, the beauty of the coming together of the music played by each of those instruments, each of those musicians will never come out. ” Says Patricia, who has been CEO since March 2022.
Although new to the role, Patricia is enjoying every bit of it. "Here I am doing what I really enjoy, and that is understanding consumer insights and communication, driving great visionary ideas in terms of how we drive a message, how to support messaging to consumers and customers, how we package our services in a more compelling fashion, and doing all that in a commercial organization
WE CALL IT AUDIENCE ORIGINS, WHICH ACTUALLY ALLOWS US TO UNDERSTAND WHERE THE CONSUMERS ARE AND WHAT THEY'RE DOING.
with an accountability to external stakeholders. “
NEVER LETTING ANYONE DOWN
WPP-Scangroup maintains its leadership position in the market by offering clients a full range of marketing and media and communication services with outstanding creativity, deep insights, and creative technology. Its various subsidiaries, including Ogilvy Africa, Scanad & Squad, GroupM and H+K Strategies, offer clients tailored solutions to ensure their needs, be it brand stewardship, media and communications, customer engagement and PR and influence are met to their utmost satisfaction.
These capabilities make Patricia proud of the company that she now leads. "Being a leading creative, marketing, media, communication, digital, PR and Influence company, WPP Scangroup is the only business that is able to offer any individual person, or company or a full suite of all those service across sub-Sahara Africa," she claims.
With her in charge of the business, clients can rest assured that WPP will stick to its mission of building better futures for them. She reveals to CEO Business Africa Magazine that the worst thing anybody can say to her is ‘you let me down’ or ‘you are unreliable’. “I must make sure I keep my word. I must make sure that I'm somebody people trust.”
If challenges arise, which they often do, Patricia’s only strategy is to figure out how to get round them or indeed make them an opportunity. “Whatever challenges I face, I say: I can get over this. I try think around the corner to see if there is something there than can be to my advantage. In particular, tenacity becomes very important especially today, because business is tough right now. We are in living in a very tough environment with headwinds we have to face head on."
HELPING BRANDS SUCCEED IN A DIGITALCENTRIC REALITY
world of marketing and communication is transitioning to the digital space. A recent Research done by one of the Media agencies of WPP revealed big trends namely the Female Takeover, the best time to tell African Stories is now, there is a gaming explosion, and Ad Blockers are everywhere. “For example, data is telling us that Podcasting is on the rise with 71% of urban women listening to podcasts especially in the 18- to 25 year age group. Imagine the power of a podcast and the influence and the thought leadership you could drive with that particular space?”
Influencers are also the other biggest thing in the marketing world today, according to Patricia. "They are big because what people are increasingly looking for is content to keep them entertained, for information or even to simply pass time.” YouTube is today a huge platform and source of content. As a result it has become an attractive place to reach potential customers. The ads can at times be annoying and most of us just wait for
the 4 seconds to be done so that we can hit the skip button.” To succeed on YouTube as an advertiser, “you have to create content with which you deliver your key message in those 4 seconds – a complete shift in the way creative work is done as opposed to the past where you had the luxury of 20 or 30 seconds at least. What is more you must keep changing that content as it very quickly becomes boring or wallpaper”
Against this backdrop in understanding, reaching, and speaking to consumers Patricia reveals to us that the group has a new headline mission to be the agency where technology meets creativity for that true transformation to happen.
With this in mind, the business is taking big bets in investing in tools and platforms which are more data and technology driven to support the agenda of delivering maximum return on investment for its client’s base. Investments in products such as Optimus, a marketing automation tool that drives customer acquisition and supports growth in customer lifetime value at scale, being one of the exciting products that WPP has developed in recent times. This platform uses data to contextually target online advertising to drive high volume and quality leads. TRADITIONAL MEDIA IS STILL A DOMINANT FORCE
Digital is increasingly becoming a dominant force in media and communication. Low internet penetration rates, however, limit its reach, particularly in rural Africa. "Urban areas have no problem with the internet," says Patricia. “But the bulk of the population is still in less than urban areas. They are still consumers, and we need to speak to them because they'll always be clients and customers who want to speak to potential users who are not living in an urban area.”
How does WPP-Scangroup help clients reach these consumers? By leveraging the power and reach of traditional media such as radio, billboards, and Tv. "The beauty of radio is its omnipresence. Everywhere you go people are listening to Radio in the background and that again is because many stations do use social media or other similar platforms to broadcast." She, however, notes that as other digital channels such as YouTube with its diverse content become mainstream, the impact of radio in the format we know it, will become less and less. “You have to become even more targeted, even more precise with what you do with radio with some of these areas being harnessing the influence of leading presenters to support the driving of messages as opposed to traditional spot radio ads.”
The power of TV also demonstrated itself during the just concluded election period in Kenya. "You saw during the election period, before 7pm and 9pm news, all those ads. I was like, oh my goodness, we're still doing this? So, there's still space for that." Almost every billboard in the country was also donned with campaign material, once again demonstrating the power of billboards to reach the masses.
Just like in Radio, targeting becomes very important.
"If it's a billboard, it becomes a lot more specific in terms of where you target." This necessitates the use of data and strategy, capabilities whose supply is in plenty at WPPScangroup.
BAGGING THE GOODS THAT AFCFTA HAS TO OFFER
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) whose implementation started in January 2021 promises to break trade barriers between counties and give companies operating in the continent access to a single market for goods and services of almost 1.3 billion people and a combined gross domestic product of around US$3.4 trillion. The World Bank estimates that by 2035, real income gains from the full implementation of the agreement could be 7%, or nearly US$450 billion.
In the free trade area, companies will have immense opportunities to grow. They will, however, need a reliable marketing partner to introduce their brands in areas where they have never been before. That is where WPPScangroup comes in. With an established presence in 23 countries across the continent, the company’s reach is unparalleled. “When we have big regional players, or business people trying to create a regional footprint, we have a structure that understands this is the way Africa is set up and we have resources to make sure that we can harness and take advantage of that.”
Although momentum has picked up albeit at a slow pace, Patricia can't wait to have the free trade agreement fully implemented. "It's very interesting because I sit in a number of organizations where people talk about the African free trade agreement. In all the conversations, the one thing that stays at the back of my mind is, it is a huge opportunity for us as Africans to harness the power of being one, yet when and how can we accelerate the opportunities it portends? Just think of Open skies alone and opportunity to create bigger regional carriers? “
BRINGING EVERYTHING UNDER ONE ROOF
A few months into the job, Patricia has a pet project of bringing all the group's subsidiaries under one roof. The CEO reveals to us that the WPP-Scangroup has about 560 members of staff scattered across the different agencies on the continent. Kenya, with over 300, has by far the largest number of employees in the group. Patricia sees an opportunity in all these brilliant people operating from one campus. "The benefit of one campus is to drive the economies of scale on things like technology but more importantly creating a vibrant work environment that stimulates creativity and brings out the best in everyone.” The pandemic made working from home -a never before thought possibility- a reality and Patricia is keen to see that employees are supported to continue working in some form of hybrid settings. “We are working with what we have right now. My vision is to create a space where people are a lot more comfortable, a lot more at home. Indeed, an ergonomic office space that is more fun and conducive to both physical and virtual working.”
MARKETING SUSTAINABLY
In a world where climate change is no longer an abstract subject but a reality faced each day, consumers are starting to demand businesses do more to address the problem. It goes further than just demands. Some consumers are choosing to only buy from businesses that operate sustainably. Having sustainability goals and communicating them clearly to the public has therefore become a key market survival strategy.
Existing solely to build dynamic, new, and lasting relationships between clients and their audiences, WPPScangroup is building capabilities to help clients better pass across their sustainability messages. “When you look at our PR and influence businesses, one of the things I'm looking at is how to enhance resourcing around that agenda which is no longer a nice to have but a must have in all businesses with a strong governance framework.”
GETTING READY FOR THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISING
and in the process, revolutionizing the way products and services are marketed. Patricia wants her company to be ready for the next disruption that might influence their work in the future. “I will be looking at how we are prepped and ready to have the right resources to create the technology for advertising the future." To be futureready, the company has worked on FEED 2.0 a real-time social commerce engine that enables marketers to put data at the heart of digital. This engine helps marketers
harness data and machine learning to develop a data aided customer journey, create data informed content, and customize content at scale using atomization.
The Groups media arm GroupM is also now deploying Audience Origin, a unique combination of panel based data, digital data, and client data for deep audience understanding and activation. “This supports more effective media buying and placement for our clients.”
PR and influence are other aspects of marketing that Patricia predicts are going to be “a very big thing in the near future.” Looking at where other future opportunities lie, Ms. Patricia notes sustainability with the importance of ESG being placed at the heart of organizations presents lots of prospects for support for the business.
In terms of markets, Ghana seems to present an irresistible opportunity for Patricia because of its performance despite the economy experiencing a downturn. "I would like to spend a bit more time there actually because it is one of the areas in West Africa with much better ease of doing business."
Tanzania is also a market that looks promising to Patricia. It is a new world with a new dispensation, according to the WPP-Scangroup CEO. “If there is a market I'm very convinced we have to figure out how we get a stronger foothold in, it is Tanzania,” she says. "It is a lot more welcoming and open to business from external markets. Uganda is also another one following on that, and finally, Zambia, which is slower for us at the moment but we will figure out how we will engage to drive a bigger presence.”
