Spotlight Turns to Internet And Digital Marketing

Correspondent

6 June 2011

Nairobi — Afri-Tech, the continent’s first internet and digital marketing conference, comes to Kenya next week from June 15 to 18.

The event, to be held in Nairobi at the KICC, is expected to bring together marketing experts from United Kingdom, the United States of America, Asia and Africa.

According to Mr Bernard Sanganza, chief executive officer of Afri-Tech, the company organising the summit, speakers will be experts in their fields at the meeting to be graced by senior Kenya government officials.

“Marketing gurus will be seeking to chart the way forward on digital marketing,” Mr Sanganza said, adding that leading corporate firms in Africa, the Government of Kenya as well as universities were supporting the conference.

Marketing experts argue that the conference will significantly shape the future of products and services sales globally as business leaders and owners share experiences from across the world.

“This will obviously impact positively on companies’ output,” Mr Ital Chando, the firm’s head of marketing said.

Just over a month ago, Afri-Tech hosted a curtain-raiser event at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre that was attended by industry captains across East Africa.

Ms Catherine Ngahu, the chairman of the Kenya ICT Board, speaking at the luncheon, said Africa can only come out of the perennial problems of poverty if it embraces modern technology.

“Indeed through such a platform, firms can reach millions of clients within the touch of a computer button. Kenya ICT Board is ready to host Afri-Tech, and provide all the support it will need,” Ms Ngahu said.

In the past two years, Kenya has been spotted by key foreign investors, who consider the country business-friendly. Today, the country hosts global firms’ Africa head offices in Nairobi such as Google, Samsung as well as Nokia.

“After the Nairobi conference, focus will be shifting to Southern Africa as well as West Africa where similar activities have been planned,” said Mr Sanganza.

The four-day exhibition and conference will have networking sessions. It is projected to feature more than 150 leading minds from the local market, most of whom are brand advertisers, traditional and interactive agencies, portals, on-line publishers and technology providers.

According to Mr Sanganza, marketing executives from brand organisations, agencies, publishers and solution providers “attend our events in order to stay on top of the most important content, network with industry leaders.”

“The conference will also provide understanding on how firms can work with the latest technology and media,” he said.

Afri-Tech (www.afri-tech.com) is Africa’s first internet and digital media institution. Marketing experts say the June summit is timely, especially at this time when the continent is fast embracing technology.

Key subjects of discussion include the future innovations in internet and digital.

This will focus on the latest innovations in digital, what the future holds for investors and what one should look out for in the ever changing communications landscape.

“More interesting will be the building of brands through a digital platform,” he said.

“Here, experts will take a look at the agency’s role as traditionally companies built brands in the offline world through television and print media.

“But today some of the most well known brands, Google, Facebook, Skype all originated online. How can agencies help organisations build a successful online brand and are they currently equipped well enough to do so?”

According to McKinsey Quarterly survey, companies that make the deep strategic and operational shifts required to become effective digital marketers can become more agile, more productive, and accelerate revenue growth.

“Since the dawn of the internet, marketers have regarded it as a vast laboratory, launching experiment after experiment to crack the code that generates sales and customer loyalty,” the study, published recently, says.

“Not surprisingly, most have failed. Consumers adopted digital technology as they themselves saw fit, in the process fundamentally altering the way they make purchasing decisions.”

AllAfrica – All the Time