This is a real quick post. I'm even typing it while sitting in a car on the road out from Abuja. I was just going through "the web designer mag" a UK web design publication. You can check out the mag at http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk. And I realised how much Nigerian brands only care about having a web presence and they don't bother on being on the cutting edge of the web.
So the first question I think we should answer here is; "do Nigerian websites (brand and product sites) really need to be on the cutting edge?", "Is it worth it for them?" I would give a big YES as answer to both questions. Here are my reasons.
11 million Nigerians online, so as a brand in Nigeria, the web is a marketing and even soon payment channel you dare not neglect.
"So would an ordinary web presence do?" Nope sorry it won't do my firend!
As a company, brand or product, apart from web presence (making people able to find you online even if its only a single HTML page), there are so many messages you can use your website to convey to the consumer. One of them is having the consumer understand you or your product more. You can use web videos for this. Another thing is Interactivity, or being able to listen to your users and give them feedback and being able to improve your product and brand based on info you gather from consumer input.
The newest Mountain Dew drink was all made by users on the web. Mountain Dew makers opened up and listened to consumers on what they would love the drink to taste like. I believe soon, majority (if not all) products would be designed and built with direct consumer involvement in the direction and decision on how the product will be.
So as a brand, you have to have an interactive site that lets your consumers say what they feel about your product and also have them collaborate on some disscussions that you would fall back to when making product decisions. The easiest way to do this is by integrating already social platforms like Facebook connect or Twitter's @anywhere or Twitter connect.
In other news.....
Coincidentally, I just made a quick stop at Mr Biggs, UAC foods (I am not sure what their name is these days). We are at kaduna bypass, It's around 1:30 pm and I haven't eaten any breakfast. I walked into the Mr Biggs and I just couldn't stop my mouth from watering. The Eureka moment came when I thought, how could Mr Biggs use the web to give a customer (a website visitor) a similar experience to what I am having right now? Of course it's not easy for them to make every website visitor's mouth water like mine, but they can still use the web to make you want their product by designing their websiteon the cutting edge with the latest of web technology that would be able to allow for such experience. I am sure a great flash script with some sense of design would get the job done.
I haven't visited Mr Biggs' website before, neither have I searched for it, but I will try and check them out as soon as I have a connection (that is if they do have a website).
So, I'm just saying!
Nigerian Brands can use cutting edge technology in web design to get more people (11 million users online) interested in their products, give their product fans a great experience and a place to hang out online and ultimately make their product better by involving passionate customers/users of their product.
That's not all Nigerian Brands can use the web for. I promised this post to be short, but I promise I will find time to do a detailed post about ways Nigerian brands can use the web.
P.S just used my Effd Up Internet connection to check mrbiggsonlin.com. The site is pretty cool I must say, but can still do better. But UAC foods main site is not as impressive to me.
P.P.S. Thanks http://nigerianbrands.blogspot.com for the image. Had to rip it off your site folks because its the best fit I can find for the post. Thanks guys.
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