Chief Femmy Carrena is an Economics graduate but made his name as a seasoned brand marketer in Nigeria. The CEO of Arabella 21st Century shares with Tunde Ogunesan, his success story of brand marketing in Nigeria and how the political class has benefitted from the innovation.

THERE is one thing you cannot take away from an average Lagosian. From dressing, oratory and mastery of their chosen field, no one except you are from the lagoon area can beat them to it. Chief Femmy Carrena, president and Chief Executive Officer of Arabella Group of Companies is a typical example of one. His looks clearly reveal his professional background.

Carrena had his primary and secondary  education  in Nigeria before he proceeded to the United States of America for his Bachelor  and Masters degrees at Jackson State University and Kenson University of Technology respectively. He returned to Nigeria to work briefly before establishing his own company; a brand promotion company, where he cut his tooth as one of the country's foremost indigenous brand marketing outfit operators.

With education and experience from a developed nation, coming to Nigeria to establish a brand marketing outfit was something very challenging according to him.

“When I returned to Nigeria, brand promotion or marketing was not popular then. This is something that has a lot to do with research and survey, and you want people to know how consumers feel about a particular product or how it's faring in the market. To our people, it  is   not worth spending money on  because people can't just really understand that the service you're about to render is worth paying so much for.

“But in advanced countries, they appreciate the need to have you as a brand marketer compared to developing countries where they think the moment their product matures, there is no need to do anything about the brand again. For example, a company like Coca-Cola, till tomorrow will continue to spend billions on marketing their brand, despite the fact that it is popular all over the world. Still they know and appreciate the importance of putting their product in the minds of their customers. But a lot of Nigerians  believe once their product is doing well, they don't need brand marketing again.”

And to make impact, Carrena first made himself a brand to attract would be customers. The OFC-Otunba Femmy Carrena abbreviation serves as a brand image for the marketer cum politician. And to him, “as a professional, whatever you profess in your career should not be what will take time for people to notice in you. In brand marketing, you're the first product that will either sell or do otherwise.”

However, things changed for the  better with the incursion of multinationals into Nigeria, especially the telecommunications and oil companies. He said Nigerians now appreciate brand promotion than never before, a situation which he said had also brought out the best in the practitioners.

In his words “brand marketing has gone scientific in Nigeria, especially with the incursion of telecommunications companies like MTN, Glo and oil companies into the country. The way they present their services and products to the Nigerian audience, in fact, the humour in their style of branding has changed things. What we need is time, we will definitely get there.

“The musical videos in Nigeria have gone beyond what we had ten years ago. The musicians are now branding themselves through their videos and people now rate them as they do foreign musicals which was  not like that before,” he said.

On why the so called multinationals prefer to either engage foreign firms or do some shootings outside the country, especially South Africa, Carrena however disagreed with the notion that no firm could  come up with such work in Nigeria.

He said “I disagree that we don't have the facilities or that some jobs cannot be done in Nigeria. Those people that conceptualise the idea may have their reasons for doing it somewhere else. It's about a scene they want to create. They might want a scene that had already been created in South Africa or else where which if they try to do in Nigeria might cost more. You can take anybody to Obudu Cattle Ranch, Cross Rivers State, Abuja, Jos and have whatever you want.

Chief Femmy Carrena is an Economics graduate but made his name as a seasoned brand marketer in Nigeria. The CEO of Arabella 21st Century shares with Tunde Ogunesan, his success story of brand marketing in Nigeria and how the political class has benefitted from the innovation.

“And again, a consultant in charge may think that if he takes them to South Africa he may probably add more to the charges. I tell you, there must be other reasons and not that they can't be done in Nigeria.

“For example there was a Glo commercial with this slogan 'it's coming' where the Glo ray of light travelled across the globe, such an advert cannot be done in a single country, it all depends on the concept of the consultant,” he enthused.

Carrena said the political class, was also not left out in the branding fever. Though, he claimed that politicians now brand themselves, the political class needs more than physical branding, because, no politician in this era has shown enough leadership qualities as we had in the first and second republics. His academic sojourn in the US has exposed him to the American political system.

“Let me put it this way. There is something we call environmental determinism. Your environment directly or indirectly affects the way you think and reason, to a very large extent. There is a difference between a Nigerian politician and his American counterpart. An average American politician goes under the tutelage and rudiment of politicking and oration which prepares them for occasions when they meet people and relate well with them. A good leader is someone that wines and dines with the kings and queens, and at the same time relates with the poor. But what you see in Nigeria are opportunists who feel the best way to make money is politics, and this has become a bandwagon effect. We really don't have natural leaders in Nigeria. An American politician on an impromptu situation can mount the podium and talk without reading a speech because he's gone through the tutelage, so  it comes natural,” Carrena argued.

Sharing his experience at Arabella 21st century, he said the firm had shown politicians could be branded when it handled the 2007 gubernatorial campaign of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate (Senator Musiliu Obanikoro) in Lagos State. He said most Nigerian politicians forget their original brand, which is their person, and chase shadows. He said “brand marketing is all about the psyche of people. There is what we call neuro marketing, which also has something to do with brand marketing. Neuro marketing has something to do with the brain and that is what is mostly used in politics branding.

“People really rated the campaign of Obanikoro during 2007 election high because we made a statement with it. I was the director of publicity and strategy and we showed professionalism because we dealt with the brand 'Koro'.

“The initial problem was that Obanikoro has a bad package coming from an opposition party, a master of propaganda to PDP and they were doing all kinds of propaganda against him. So, we created a different image of Obanikoro, and he became a beautiful bride before the electorate.

“From that point, the campaign was never the same again. People that had been saying dirty things about him had to go back to the drawing board. That's how you build your brand and people will appreciate it. At that point, we clearly demonstrated that branding in politics is very important and we did that with a class.”

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