Optimising the Marketing Charter in Africa in the 21st Century: An Institutional and Process Approach

Abstract

The African continent is an increasingly complex and dynamic society that is want-driven. The marketing Charter commands practitioners to incrementally deliver value in new ways and meet needs satisfactorily at a profit creatively. It also involves creating excitement at product use to secure customer loyalty imparting the economy for growth and development. In creating this roadmap, the evolutionary trends of marketing from its basic exchange processes were discussed. The study adopted theoretical and logical methods in assessing the situation in Africa. To deliver on the marketing charter, the study x-rayed the action agenda needful of optimization in two dimensions: the Institutional and Process roadmaps. The first requires the need for increased customer rights protection/advocacy, better ethical/quality conformance and improved marketing associations' supervisory roles, among others. The Process perspective recommends optimization in better value yielding product/services, adoption of global/emerging best practices, driving marketing programmes and events through ICT and R&D capacities of enterprises along with customer relationship management (CRM) techniques, etc. The study contends that should Nigeria and African countries neglect these roadmaps, the mandate of marketing practitioners and scholars will be scarcely achieved. It was recommended that effective ICT adoption, embrace of evolving best marketing practices and engaging effective marketing audits are remedial strategies in optimizing the marketing charter in Africa.