Keep advertising in spite of hardships – CIMG boss

Dr Shola Safu-Duodu, President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana, (CIMG) has urged corporate entities to keep advertising their products, despite the economic challenges facing the country.

She said: “It has been noted that conditions in the market are very challenging, and when we have general economic challenges, what happens is that advertising is the first line that needs to be cut.

“This happens because companies want to look at other areas that they deem to be more important than others”.

Dr Safu-Duodu, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency, in Accra, on Tuesday, said research had proven that companies which advertised more during economic hardships performed tremendously when the economic conditions became good.

She explained that companies, which stopped advertising during economic hardships ended up losing their customer base to those which advertised, and even had to spend more money in rebuilding their customer base to its previous level when the conditions became favourable.

The CIMG President stated that companies that advertised during difficult times were more likely to survive than those which did not.

Dr Safu-Duodu said: “Even though times are hard we will advise corporate Ghana to keep advertising in order to keep their customer base.

“Advertising contributes to boost public confidence in the company even during economic hardship,” she stated.

Dr Safu-Duodu said it was important that at the individual, organisational and national levels, success was celebrated, explained that: “Celebrating success engenders further success, motivates people to achieve more, and brings out the creativity in them that they can achieve more than they have ever done.”

On the institute’s awards programme, she said over the years the Institute, with the cooperation of its stakeholders, the public and the media, had worked towards maintaining a reputable CIMG Awards Scheme.

She said a new category of CIMG Awards would be introduced for youth in the small and medium scale enterprises next year, to motivate more young people to go into entrepreneurship.

Dr Safu-Duodu said CIMG sought to drive professionalism in the country with a vision to ensure that marketing advocacy was brought to a higher level than in the past.

“We will dramatically improve upon our consultancy and advocacy to cooperate Ghana and the small and medium enterprises," she stated.

The CIMG Awards for 2013, which is the Silver Jubilee Awards, would be held on October 18, to honour 31 corporate entities and individuals who have distinguished themselves in their operations.

The awards would cover six major areas such as personalities, CIMG Hall of Fame, Media Organisation/MARCOMMS, Not-for-Profit organizations and Business Organisations and Products.