Kenny Badmus’ Orange Story

Beside its complete departure from the norm, the Orange Academy enjoys the kind of perception great brands pay huge sums and commit massive efforts and time to win; yet it’s just three years old. As a follow up to an interview with Kenny Badmus, the founder; Olaseeni Durojaiye bounces his boasts off industry stakeholders and presents their views in this story.

Three years ago when he set out to act on his dream, not a few people in the industry thought he was crazy and concluded that he was setting out on a failed mission. A few gave him benefits of the doubt, but he was undaunted. He was buoyed on by a vision lying deep inside of him. He was convinced that the industry was ripe for a practical approach to teaching the techniques and acquiring the tools of the business – an approach that is different from what obtained at the time. As one respondent puts it, ‘he was practicing the principle of differentiation espoused by Al Ries in Origin of Brands.’

In truth, that vision is in sync with respected marketing communications scholars, Al Ries and Jack Trout’s teachings in 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing where they write, “The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in. It’s the law of leadership: It is better to be first than it is to be better. It is much easier to get into the mind first than to try and convince someone that you have a better product than the one that did get there first.”

Today, Kenny Badmus is as popular as the Orange Academy which he started and thus earned the respect of both young and seasoned professionals in the industry for nurturing that visionary dream into fruition. With the academy, practitioners who spoke with M2 agree that he has been regenerating minds that will transform the landscape of brand advertising in the country.

Beyond being different from APCON and NIPR approach to teaching, the Orange Academy is breeding a crop of young and vibrant industry players that appear primed to take the marketing communications industry not just by storm but also ride the storm into the next level.

They brim with confidence founded on a certain how-to that they insist they learnt from the academy. They tell our correspondents that they are fired up with the knowledge they acquired at the academy.

Responding to a question on whether his learning at the academy met his expectations, Owoeye Babatunde, a graduate of Management and Accounting from the Obafemi Awolowo University , alumni of the Orange Academy and a brand consultant with Holster Solutions, a brand innovation and design company, replies thus: “Very well. I feel on top of my game. I felt like I now have all the information and that all I needed was to go out into the world of products and services and turn them into strong brands. That has paid off because my company has won several clients after this class, even during the course.”

Many of the students of the academy and the Faculty members exude the same enthusiasm as Owoeye. They speak with passion about the academy and what they have been able to learn there from brainstorming, like Nkechi Enechukwu who works at the Corporate Affairs department of Skye Bank and asserts that the academy has really opened her eyes to the practical intricacies of managing and building brands.

Enechukwu, a pioneer member of the Integrated Brand Experience class at the Orange Academy sums up her experience at the academy in these words “Puzzling, revealing, informative and educative!“

When pressed further she expatiates “I started out my classes with the mindset that the Orange Academy would be yet another theoretical class where I would have to bury myself in the library researching advertising textbooks and journals. However, it was revealing to note that I was going on a brand journey.

“It turned out to be a practical hands-on experience working on notable brands. A journey which would make me understand the essence of a brand and how to develop, build, sustain and reposition or repackage one if the need arises. It was a brand journey, entirely different from my anticipations when I first signed on for the programme. I must say that it was an experience that will remain with me for a very long time because it has enriched me so much and surpassed my imaginations,” she says.

For Owoeye, it was “Lovely, addictive, disruptive, upside down. It was like none other! That’s why most alumni still pop into Orange once in a while. The experience is unique to the school and you just want to experience it again once in a while. That’s what strong brands are about anyway… EXPERIENCE!”

Femi Odugbemi, a respected Independent Producer and notable faculty member and panelist at the Orange Academy sees beyond the excitement amongst the alumni and tells the future of the academy.

“The dearth of well-trained professionals in brand building and awareness has been a well-worn lament in the industry for many years. That is the area that Orange Academy has chosen to make a difference. I believe that the impact of Orange Academy so far though gradual has been steady. As our graduates are deployed across the advertising and marketing landscape, their superior awareness of winning strategies in branding communication and consumer understanding will make products of the academy preferred players at every level of the industry. I believe that by their fruits you will know them, and gradually, they are beginning to make a difference in such a way that in another five years, Orange Academy will be noted for the best foundational education in branding and marketing communications,” he predicts.

Truly so, many industry insiders predict that The Orange Academy will grow to become a strong admirable brand before long and they give reasons for their prediction.

While Chuka Moqwe, a frontline creative who used to work with a Lagos based IMC outfit, harps on the way the alumni have been spreading the values of the school; another industry expert, Peace Chieke, Head of Unite Strategy and New Business at FCB Redline, a firm of public relations and promotions practitioners, points at the fact that the academy came at the time it did to fill a void thus declaring its coming as a “Welcome development.”

Continuing Chieke says of the academy, “ Orange Academy , besides being Africa ‘s first school of brand advertising came into the picture with a practical curriculum that seeks to train, mentor and develop local hands that can build global brands for generations to come. The academy delivers an integrated brand experience that reflects the new consciousness on the African continent. Today, a good number of our campaigns are of global standards while still having that desired indigenous appeal.

“The academy has provided a platform and foundation that grooms and churns out enviable Account and Brand managers; managers who are not limited in their thinking, managers who, armed with sufficient and relevant consumer & brand insight, think out of the box in an attempt to sell their brands

“One of the good things about the academy is that the programs are facilitated by major marketing communications agencygurus. It also partners with the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria ,” he discloses.

Meanwhile, M2 findings reveal that with the academy, Badmus has been able to achieve one of the cardinal principles of marketing: Owning a word in the prospect’s mind, as the alumni, who see themselves as members of an elite community, play the role of the school’s ambassadors and have not stopped mouthing the knowledge that they acquired at the academy to the ears of all that care to listen, particularly among colleagues and friends desirous to build their careers in the marketing communications industry.

Many of the students that spoke with M2 say their first encounter with the Orange Academy was via word of mouth and ex-students of the college. Some new entrants into the marketing communications industry say they look forward to attending the school but that the fees are rather high.

Moqwe says, the “The Orange Academy is good. I hear their modules are very practical. I have also visited the website and it is very creative and I’m very impressed with what I saw. But I hear their fees are on the high side.”

However, Owoeye and Enechukwu disagree.

Owoeye says, “It is worth more than what I paid because, sincerely, before I left the academy, my company had started making more money based on what I was being taught.” Enechukwu agrees, “Most definitely.”

If anybody should be proud of the academy and what it has come to achieve, that person is Odugbemi who has been involved with the academy from conception and having spent about two decades in the industry, his opinions naturally are invaluable.

So what does he feel about the Orange Academy Wall of Fame project? We ask.

First, Odugbemi notes that, “I have been connected with the Orange Academy from its conception and given my more than 2 decades in the industry, I have yearned for the kind of intervention that Orange Academy represents in bringing professional understanding to the highly technical and creativity-driven business of building brands. Kenny Badmus and I worked together many years ago at STB-McCann on top brands such Coca-Cola, Nestle, Gillette and many more. We share a passion for building minds that have a passion for superior performance in creative endeavours. So the Academy provides me and other faculty members of Orange an opportunity to impact our industry in a positive way and to provide needed leadership in the building of a winning creative industry capable of competing globally.”

He then adds, in a manner that certainly captures the passion which members of the Orange community attach to the Orange Academy Wall of Fame project, “I think the Orange Wall of Fame creates a platform of appreciation for those in our industry who represent the highest levels of excellence in brand innovation and management to which we want our students to aspire. Because they are few and sometimes anonymous, the Wall of Fame will put a deserved spotlight on their worthy contributions and celebrate their legacy. It is a time-honoured practice all over the

world to try and replicate models of creativity, superior performance and sustainable leadership that we need to develop our industry to world-class status.”