Skip to main content

ST LOUIS SUGAR: COMPLACENCY OF MARKETING

St Louis have stuck to their brand since they broke into the Nigerian sugar market. Competing brands did nothing to upset the St Louis dominance, and complacency along. Then all competition phased out.
As Nigeria kept transitioning into a 21st Century Commerce-homely society, re-branding became 'law', with companies running willy-nilly in every marketing direction. But St Louis sneered at the riot, calmly concentrating on sales.
Industry shifts would have demanded a rethink on this moribund Marketing policy, but it appeared there was no Marketing department at St Louis.
No ads (or have you seen any? you must be working at their factory if yes); no CSR; no press releases; no media facility tours; no public relations; nothing but sales trucks raising dust on bumpy Nigerian roads.
But something is praiseworthy. St Louis branding has been as consistent as their trademark product quality.Still they would be wrong to depend on quality of product to drive sales endlessly. For it cannot keep their brand unchallenged. Because Nigerians would become acquainted with innovative marketing, changelessness gets called into question. People will wonder why the heck you're not changing your appearance. Maybe theirs was (or is?) the Technology Model of marketing - the product should sell itself. But for how long?
There is an implication I feel St Louis should be bothered about. When you fail to rebrand, a developing environment will influence the expectations of your customers. If not immediately, eventually; but certainly. And they will start imagining that what is in the pack is as moribund as the packaging. They will think you are not manufacturing anymore and are selling old stock.
St Louis held sway over a boring industry; in monopoly due to negligence of would-be competition, till others began to notice their unquestioned dominance.
But now, Dangote is here, and with less expensive alternatives. Amel Susan icing sugar is pushing hard into the market, and hopefully may join the table sugar sector.
If St Louis have a marketing department, this assertion would not be new to their research unit. It remains to be seen if they have a suited brand plan for what's coming. Let's hope they do, or they will learn the hard truth the hard way - they are not rooted in concrete.

Uduak Umo
PR professional, Marketing Communications Strategist

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Website Designer Buys Tech Company For $6.8M

Today, we read the story of a Website design company that pulled out $6.8M to buy a tech company and we were blown away with a huge 'WOW'! WordSphere, a website development firm out in California forked out the mad sum of nearly 7M to buy DrupalWare, a tech company known for its software solutions. According to  Stewart Johanson, from WordSphere's  Public Relations department, t he package paid for includes the DrupalWare website, a portfolio of 164 active clients, 6 super specialists, an excellent reputation of delivering top-quality services to clients, along with the entire DrupalWare brand. The 6 specialists acquired immediately transfer into WordSphere's senior DevOps team. Note that DrupalWare's clients include such billion-dollar brands as Pfizer, Tesla Motors, the City of New York and other Fortune 500 companies. Users of its services include names like - wait for it - Nokia, ebay, MacDonald's, The Australian Government, and Havard University, with other...

Communications Under the Buhari Administration; A Perspective of Chat GPT AI Model

I asked Chat GPT what it thought was wrong with communications under the Muhammadu Buhari administration in relations with its various partners and stakeholders. As is typical of responsible AI, the thorough training of the model influenced the modest tone of its return. But it still highlighted issues that indict that administration. Since the knowledge cutoff of the AI model was September 2021, I had to correct the tenses of the article.  Well, here is what came out.  Enjoy the AI perspective: Title: Wrong Communications Practices in the Government of Muhammadu Buhari Introduction: Wrong communication practices in government can undermine trust and hinder effective governance. Here's how these practices relate to the government of Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria. Lack of Transparency: The Nigerian government under President Buhari faced criticism for a lack of transparency. This includes concerns about handling information on security, corruption, and government expenditures. En...

HOW TO USE GOOGLE ACCURATELY: PART B

In a previous article, we listed tips to help you use Google search accurately. Please click here to view the article. Below is a continuation of that article on how to use Google search accurately.   FINDING SPECIFIC FILE FORMATS A lot of files have been uploaded online in order to aid in-depth research work. You can find files like PDF on particular topics through Google. How to do this; type the word you are researching on and add filetype:pdf. This will bring out various pdfs on that topic. For example Food & Nutrition filetype:pdf. This does not only apply to PDFs, but other file types too like DOC, MP3, MP4 etc.       TO FIND SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES When trying to find a particular organization, product, or individual’s page handle on social media through Google, type the name and add the ‘@’ symbol. For example; Jabborro@twitter will bring out this organization’s twitter page, same goes for Coca-cola@instagram and many more. It is simple and q...