1
If your product is getting lost in a noisy, crowded market, a standard campaign may not save it.
Reading Time: mins
A major deodorant brand had introduced a smaller, affordable 25ml SKU.
The thinking behind the product was strong: make deodorant accessible to the average Nigerian, regardless of social position or income level.
Everyone should be able to afford basic freshness.
That was the promise.
But after the initial market-entry hype, the 25ml SKU began to lose momentum.
Offtake declined.
Retailers were not prioritizing it.
And in a tough economy where purchasing power was under pressure, the smaller SKU should have had a clear role to play. It was the kind of product that should return strongly because it met the market where people were.
But the market was not behaving that way.
So I led the team into the field.
We went into open market environments, including cosmetics clusters in Mushin Market, to hear what retailers were actually saying.
One retailer gave the whole diagnosis in one line:
“I no dey sell am. Na wetin dem dey ask me I dey sell.”
Meaning:
“I don’t sell it. I sell what people ask me for.”
That was the truth.
The product was affordable, but demand had not been created strongly enough.
Some stores even had branded visibility stands or hangers that could accommodate the SKU. But the retailer would not bother stocking what customers were not asking for.
That was the assignment.
Not just visibility.
Demand memory.
Not just activation.
Market disruption.
The obvious problem was low sales and weak distribution.
But that was not the real problem.
The real problem was invisibility inside a chaotic environment.
The open market is not a quiet place.
Everybody is selling. Everybody is shouting. Everybody is moving. Everybody is trying to get attention.
In that environment, average communication dies quickly.
A regular promoter in a branded T-shirt will not be enough.
A small stage with music will not be enough.
A few posters will not be enough.
Those things may look like marketing activity, but the market may forget them almost immediately.
The brand needed something bigger.
It needed presence.
It needed drama.
It needed a moment, and people would question in a good way.
The first job was not to explain the product.
The first job was to make people stop and ask:
“Who are these people, and what is going on?”
That question was the door.
Once the market stopped, then the brand could speak.
My guiding principle was simple.
You cannot build a serious open market strategy from behind a computer.
Reports are useful.
Slides are useful.
But the real language of the market lives in the mouths of traders, stockists, sellers, and everyday buyers.
So we had to go there.
We had to listen.
We had to test the beautiful strategy against the actual market reality before dressing it up as a pitch.
That field insight shaped the whole thinking.
The question became:
The principle was not disruption for decoration.
“It was disruption with commercial memory.”
If the activation does not help the retailer, the sales team, and the consumer remember the product afterwards, then it is just theatre.
And theatre without conversion is not the work.
The idea was to build a market spectacle that could not be ignored.
Not a regular activation.
Not another branded T-shirt and jeans campaign.
Not just music from a stage.
The concept needed to storm the market with enough presence to create curiosity first, then engagement, then demand.
The first layer was presence.
A campaign team would enter the market in a way that felt unusual, coordinated, and impossible to miss.
They would not look like everyday market promoters.
They would not dress like regular activation staff.
They would be costumed to disrupt.
Not alien.
Not ridiculous.
But unusual enough that the market would stop and ask questions.
That was intentional.
In open markets, curiosity is a powerful entry point.
If people are curious, they gather.
If they gather, you can engage.
If you engage properly, you can move them toward trial, purchase, and recall.
The creative idea was the “Dry Squad.”
A larger-than-life performance team dressed in clean, bold, memorable styling that could own attention inside the market.
The look mattered.
The movement mattered.
The coordinated arrival mattered.
The point was to create a presence that felt fresh, premium, and disruptive — but still connected enough to the everyday market environment.
The market should not feel confused in a bad way.
It should feel curious in a good way.
The Dry Squad became the attention engine.
The activation could not speak to everyone in the same way.
The market has different kinds of people.
There are load carriers, wheelbarrow pushers, and market hustlers moving under heat and pressure.
There are sellers seated for long hours.
There are shoppers moving quickly.
There are retailers who need to see demand before they care.
So the idea was to segment the engagement.
One zone could carry higher-energy interaction for people constantly moving through the market.
Another zone could create comfort, relief, and product experience for sellers and shoppers.
The engagement needed to feel practical, not abstract.
A deodorant brand is not only selling fragrance.
It is selling confidence, freshness, dryness, and comfort in the middle of everyday pressure.
The activation had to make that physical.
The retailer could not be treated as background.
They were the gatekeepers.
If customers asked for the product and the retailer did not stock it, the campaign would leak value.
So the blueprint included leaving behind communication materials and turning selected stalls into branded recall points.
The idea was to make key retailers feel chosen and visible.
Not just “please stock this.”
More like:
“This stall is now part of the freshness story.”
That is what the “Dry Zone” thinking was about.
The retailer becomes part of the campaign memory.
And after the activation team leaves, the visual material still helps the product stay present.
The activation was never meant to be a one-day noise-making exercise.
It had to create a demand spike the sales and follow-up teams could track.
If people started asking for the SKU after the market storm, the stockists and retailers would have a reason to pay attention again.
That was the commercial logic.
Create memory.
Create demand.
Support stocking.
Then measure performance afterwards.
The strategy landed because it was not built from guesswork.
It came from the market.
We went into the field.
We listened to retailers.
We found the real blocker.
Then we built a concept that answered the market’s own words.
The retailer said:
“I sell what people ask me for.”
So the strategy answered:
“Then let us make people ask for it.”
That was the real shift.
The work reframed the problem from a simple sales issue into a demand-memory issue.
The product did not just need more visibility.
It needed a market moment strong enough to make people notice, remember, and request it.
The client recognized the thinking as original, insight-led, and commercially aligned with the problem.
The idea moved beyond a casual creative suggestion into serious consideration, with budget conversations requested around how to bring the concept to life.
That mattered.
Because the real achievement was not just presenting a bold activation idea.
It was creating a believable return-to-market strategy for a SKU that had become too easy to ignore.
The concept gave the brand a sharper way to re-enter market attention without relying on ordinary activation noise.
It also proved a deeper point:
That is what disruption should do.
How a North American EdTech firm reframed its sales conversation to connect with professionals across EMEA and the Americas more clearly, humanly, and commercially.
How a silent brand found its voice again by turning buried trust, field proof, and real customer language into a stronger market position.
How a fragmented growth system was rebuilt around clearer priorities, sharper ownership, and the few moves that actually changed momentum.
My work ethic wasn't shaped in a boardroom. It was demanded by necessity.
While studying Theatre Arts- a world of all-night rehearsals and ruthless execution- I ran a unisex salon out of my dorm just to survive. That was my first lesson in extreme ownership. It wasn't about passion; it was about survival. If I didn't perform, I didn't eat.
Performance meant one thing and one thing only: getting What Must Be D.O.N.E.
That's it. That's the principle that taught me how to deliver under pressure when failure is not an option.
Ambition demanded more. After years as a successful artist and entrepreneur, I was good, but not great. I saw bigger brands winning, and I needed to know why. I deliberately stepped away from my own business and went to work on the front lines of global retail conglomerates. I learned how products move, how brands win, and why most well-funded strategies still fail at the point of purchase.
This is why I can help you.
My transformation into a strategist was cemented when I was hired as a Senior Growth Lead for a North American Ed-Tech company. 95% of my job was jumping on high-stakes consultation calls with C-suite executives, bank leaders, and PhDs; all brilliant people who were stuck.
My role was to diagnose their career bottlenecks and architect the path to their next six-figure trajectory. On those calls, I learned to cut through the noise and deliver clarity. Fast.
Final Word...
Most leaders don't lack vision. They lack execution. They know what they want, but they don't have the structure or the 'how'. My entire journey, from the stage to the salon to the retail floor to the COO's office, has been a relentless education in one thing: execution.
I'm standing by. Are you still unsure?
Michael Adewale (MA)
