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The National President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG), Dr. Mrs. Shola Safo-Duodu at the 26th CIMG annual marketing performance awards has advised marketing companies to adopt the use technology in doing business.

According to her, no company can survive without defining a better, acceptable and modern way of practicing marketing as it is very tempting for most corporate organizations and marketing practitioners to throw their arms up in despair and give up because they are faced with enormous untold economic and professional challenges.

Commenting on the theme “The Future of Marketing: Evolve or Die” at the state Banquet Hall, Dr. Mrs. Shola Safo-Duodu has urged professional marketers to see opportunities for innovative marketing solutions to satisfy their customers in the midst of daunting economic and professional challenges.

“The current downturn in our economy can also replicate similar effects in Ghana, if indeed it is not already happening…we can remember the Pwalugu and Wench Tomato Factories, Aboso Glass Factory, Nsawam Cannery, Astek Fruit Juice, Black Star Line, Ghana Airways; and the list can go on and on,” she stated.

She reminded marketers that due to technology, customers have become well-informed and is no longer waiting for sales representatives to do product or service education; stressing that customers armed with the latest technology and gadgets to access a lot of information to able to make their own research and come out with reasonable deductions on choices available among competing brands.

“We are in the period that could be described as ‘seller beware instead of buyer beware’ because of the large volume of information available to the customer….organizations must tap into current trends of marketing in order to effectively relate with the customer who has embraced the new media and has become well-informed and expectant”, she advised.

Dr. Mrs Safo-Duodu insisted on professional marketers to do soul searching and ask themselves whether they are aware of the new digital world in which they are and what their new product and service propositions look like in that digital world and how they deliver those propositions.

Touching on how technology has changed the role of marketing in the past years, the National President of CIMG said technology has changed the way global citizens receive, interpret and react to information.

She added with proliferation of the internet at the turn of the 21st Century, and the rapid evolution of devices that allow quick and easy access to its millions of portals, consumers are finding new ways to interact with companies and with products.

It is with these new forms of buyer-seller interactions that Dr. Mrs Safo-Duodu has said many professionals and individuals alike now believe that the information age, facilitated by evolving technologies, has redefined the role of marketing.

She further stated that internet users are not just using content, but rather they are creating and sharing it with others, allowing unprecedented transfers of information and knowledge; reiterating that the explosion of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more has made possible for consumers to access direct feedback about products-both good and bad- from their connections.