The way customers use a brand can expose the limits of the strategy behind it. When a fuel stop becomes a place for groceries, dinner and everyday convenience, marketing leaders need to reconsider what drives preference.
Pride Mnene Hlungwani, Senior Marketing Manager at bp Southern Africa, joins us at the Nedbank IMC Conference to discuss the thinking required to respond.
Her examples connect customer understanding with decisions about the offering. A shopper’s routine can inform when a loyalty message arrives. Regional food preferences can shape what a store sells. Feedback from a cashier or franchisee can help explain behaviour that data alone leaves open to interpretation.
Watch the conversation:
The same openness applies to culture. Pride discusses bp’s involvement in Red Bull Shay’ iMoto, connecting bp Ultimate with South African spinning culture. Supporting the initiative meant making room for a local expression of the brand within a global organisation.
Five noteworthy insights:
- Let changing customer habits inform the brand’s role.
- Turn loyalty data into more relevant communication.
- Use AI to help interpret customer and business feedback.
- Give local knowledge a voice in brand decisions.
- Stay open to cultural opportunities beyond familiar brand activity.
Pride’s perspective encourages marketers to examine how their own decisions enable adaptation. Listening has greater value when it changes what the business offers, how it communicates and the experience customers receive.
Watch the full conversation on The Lead Creative.
Recorded at the Nedbank IMC Conference during The Lead Creative’s second year of conversations with marketing leaders at the conference.
Sponsored by award-winning digital agency Rogerwilco.
This episode was created in collaboration with our production partners, Soweto Media.
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