Fiyin Toyo is a creative and performance-driven marketing manager with communication, strategy and leadership skills. She is currently the West Africa Marketing Manager for the Oral Health Category at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer, where she executes marketing campaigns for brands. She previously worked at Guinness Nigeria Plc (a Diageo Company); and on brands such as Coca-Cola, the World Health Organization, MTN Nigeria Ltd, Phillips Consulting, Silverbird Group, amongst others while working in an agency. Mrs Toyo is also the founder of EmpowerU Career Consulting, an enterprise that trains and equips young graduates and professionals with employability skills for success in the job market.
In this quick chat with Pride Magazine Nigeria (PNG) she answers a wide range of questions.
PNG: How did you get into marketing? Is this a field you had in mind when growing up and deciding what to do as a career?
FT: The simple answer is no, this is not a field I had in mind when growing up. I never thought of marketing when growing up and to be honest, as a young child or a teenager, marketing is not one of the careers that is usually brought to the forefront. It’s not really something that you think about or is actively discussed as a career choice. You think more about STEM careers – being a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. Although, growing up I wanted to be everything from a policewoman and hairdresser to a pilot and doctor; and as I grew older, I narrowed it down to either a doctor or a psychologist. I went ahead to pursue a degree in psychology, and in my second year at Loughborough University, UK I got involved in the Afro-Caribbean Society and was elected the Social Secretary – basically I just had to do a lot of marketing, publicity and event planning. I liked it and a few of my older friends said I had a knack for marketing and public relations, why don’t I take it up as a career? So, after my undergraduate studies, I did a master’s degree in public relations (PR) and that’s basically how I ended up here.
PNG: What were the difficulties and challenges starting out in marketing, and how were you able to overcome them?
FT: One of the difficulties that I faced was the fact that I didn’t have any prior knowledge of marketing. I did a master’s in PR but that’s a tiny aspect of marketing. Marketing is a lot more all-encompassing, so I feel that the initial difficulties were down to a lack of theoretical knowledge, just basically learning on the job and then learning how to manage stakeholders is a big part as well. I started off at an agency – you have lots of clients, new businesses, and you need to understand how to manage stakeholders and a large portfolio.
I also feel that having a clear career map was a challenge because it wasn’t clear when I started what the opportunities were because I worked for an agency, and when you work for an agency, the team wants you to feel like marketing is all about agencies. But there’s much more to marketing – there’s the client side, the agency side, there’s content development, there’s so much within marketing.
But I was passionate about marketing and fell in love with it, I read, researched and asked questions, when talking to clients I wasn’t afraid – I asked them what they thought. Something that helped me was being able to then pinpoint what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I went on LinkedIn and looked for people that were already at my desired destination and examined their careers to see what they did, and I started to emulate that.
PNG: If you could go back and do something differently, would you do so and what would it be?
FT: I like to live by having no regrets but to be honest, everyone makes a lot of mistakes when growing up, so there are a few mistakes I’ve made that if I could go back, I would do things differently. I feel that in my younger years I was a big drama queen and I didn’t really know how to manage my emotions and stakeholders, so I feel like I made a lot of mistakes in terms of dealing with people and managing conflict and it’s something that I’ve learnt now that I’m older.
If there was a do-over, I would go back and take the knowledge that I have now. We all suffer at some point in our careers from impostor syndrome, and I think when I was younger, I suffered from it a lot and I wish I could go back and whisper to myself: be confident, you’re here for a reason, just keep going.
PNG: What advice would you give your younger self, or those starting out in marketing, especially young women?
FT: The advice I would give these three parties is basically the same. The first is marketing is a very massive body of work and knowledge. There’s a lot to marketing and there are different aspects, therefore start out by understanding the part that you want to play and understand where you want to play. Once you identify this you need to develop a road map – how you’re going to get there. I advise people to have this road map: have steps to get to your destination, and put this in a vision board that you can look at every single day because the mind is very powerful, and the mind bridges the gap between reality and dreams; so the more your mind sees this place you’re going to, the more your mind works towards closing that gap.
The road is not always easy. Sometimes you put one step to go somewhere but it takes many more steps, it’s just the nature of the world. Some things don’t go as planned and some go better than planned, just be ready to adapt and don’t give up. I’ll also say that once you know what your goal is, don’t compromise for anything else, some things will come that look like gold but they are gold plated, don’t go for gold plated if what you want is gold. Things that can distract you from where you want to go will present themselves but stay true to your core, stay true to the cause and be confident in what you want to do. Don’t compromise on your values, don’t be a victim of imposter syndrome. Free yourself from imposter syndrome – you can do this by often reminding yourself that you are worthy, and you are valued. As you develop yourself – getting the required training, upgrading and upscaling – you would build that confidence in yourself. Practice what you’ve learnt every day, ask for feedback, and use all these to help you get over any imposter syndrome that you might be facing.
PNG: What are the current trends in the Nigerian marketing landscape, and how do you see the field evolving over the next 5-10 years?
FT: The first one is the obsession with measurement. Growing up in Nigeria one of the common forms of media dissemination was through traditional media – TV, radio, newspapers, and sometimes billboards. But with the advent of digital media where you get results on how many people you actually reach, how many times they saw the ad, at what point they stopped, you see that people are becoming much more measurement obsessed. For instance, ad owners or content owners are using the software called Optim-eyes that allows them to see how many people watch their ads, the age, gender, etc. So, people are becoming more measurement obsessed.
The second trend is the evolution of data protection. In the past we used to do a lot of these competitions in the Nigerian marketing landscape and then you post handles of winners, but now with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, laws are becoming much more stringent and there is now an appreciation for PII- Personally Identifiable Information. These are things a lot of brands are now taking into consideration, being able to get that two-way interaction between brand and consumer, whilst obeying these laws.
In the past, only multinationals, the likes of Coca-Cola, could really go and spend money in digital and traditional media, but now you see SMEs also competing in that space for media. SMEs are doing a lot of online ads and even billboards. The media space is absolutely cluttered, and dare I say SMEs are winning because what I find is that they are much more money-conscious so they’re seeing a return on their investments – their ads are being converted into sales. I think that multinationals have a lot to learn from SMEs on how to profit from ads.
Influencer and celebrity partnerships is something that became very popular in the last 7-10 years in Nigeria, and over the next couple of years we’ll see how this evolves especially as companies are looking to comply with data protection and transparency laws. In the past, influencers did not have to explicitly disclose that they were being paid, but they are now obligated. As a result, we’ll see this piece change and evolve.
Then there is e-commerce, which seems to be on the rise, and we will see a lot of e-commerce driven marketing going on in the next couple of years, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic where people are having to order online and get their items delivered. We will see that e-comm, logistics and supply chain will play big roles in the marketing landscape.
PNG: Your business EmpowerU equips young graduates and professionals with employability skills. What do you think are the top skills necessary to compete in the current job market?
FT: I would like to differentiate between two skills, there are soft skills, and there are hard skills aka technical skills. For soft skills, I think that graduates can do with confidence, presentation skills, communication skills, knowing how to manage stakeholders, how to construct a proper email, how to present yourself on the phone or in a meeting. Visibility is key even as a young graduate and that is something we don’t teach in school, especially in the Nigerian context where we’re better seen and not heard, but these are things that as professionals and graduates we need to embody. We need to be visible – have our voices heard within organisations.
In terms of technical skills, it really depends on the nature of your job so while you have the soft skills which will take you far, you need to be technically sound in whatever it is that you’re doing. But of course, there are general skills we must all have such as how to create a PowerPoint that is engaging, how to use Excel and Word, basic math skills and return on investment (ROI) analysis.
PNG: In what ways do you think the job market would change in the next 5-10 years, and what skills should young people possess?
FT: A couple of changes that we’re already seeing about the future of work is that a lot of jobs are going to become obsolete, especially jobs that have to do with manual labour. We know that 10-15 years ago there were typewriters, people used to type for others, but with the advent of technology typewriting became obsolete. A lot of these changes will happen again, things will become much more automated. I feel that there will be a lot more work from home and remote working. I also feel that companies will start to outsource more of their labour to much cheaper markets or “employer-labour friendly” markets, so there’ll be job losses. I just think that young people need to equip themselves with digital skills. That’s where the future is going, the future is now so you need to understand how to operate in a digital world.
PNG: Do you have a philosophy that guides your actions and life in general?
FT: Yes, one of the things I believe in is, whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve. I’m very big on my mindset and making sure that my mind is filled with positivity because your mind dictates a lot that happens. I also believe that life is not just about the physical, there’s also the spiritual aspect of it, you need to be able to engage the spiritual. For me that means serving, speaking and just working with God on every aspect of my life – my relationships, friendships, business, and career.
Another thing that guides me is “work hard, play harder”. There must be a balance in life. Lastly, “what you sow is what you reap”, so I believe in helping and supporting people because I know that it’s the right thing to do. The more you support people, the more you will be supported. What you put out into the universe is most likely what you’ll get back.
PNG: How do you balance work and life outside your career?
FT: This is very important to me, balance is so key. I love watching my favourite TV shows. After work, I just relax by watching some TV shows at home, just having a good time. I also love to travel; 29 countries and counting. Once or twice a year I ensure I go on holiday and this is not a work holiday. I don’t take any work with me, I just have fun and do things I don’t ordinarily do in Nigeria. So, I don’t go on holiday just to shop and sleep in a hotel, I ensure that I do things that really blow my mind, whether it’s zip lining, swimming with dolphins or stingrays, going to a waterpark, jet skiing, shooting, rock climbing, those are the sort of things I love to do. It really brings me some excitement and inspiration. Of course, there’s spending time with my family. I don’t joke with things like that – I don’t joke with my fun, vacations, and my family.
To connect with Fiyin Toyo:
Instagram: empoweru_ng
Email: hello@empoweru.ng
Website: www.empoweru.ng
1 Comment
This is so interesting and insightful to read. Thanks for sharing your experience, Fiyin.