Puma urges sustainable regulation of marketing

Puma urges sustainable regulation of marketing
By Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone
Mon 08 Nov. 2010, 04:00 CAT

REGULATION mechanisms need to be put in place for marketing to be sustainable, commerce deputy minister Lwipa Puma has observed.

During the award presentation gala dinner for Zambia Institute of Marketing (ZIM) at the Zambezi Sun Hotel on Saturday, Dr Puma said ZIM had continued for many years to encourage rigor, passion and excellence in what he termed “a noble profession of marketing through awarding excellence”.

“Marketing being a highly dynamic and fragile profession in terms of ethics, passion and professionalism, highly contemporary and inspirational, regulation mechanism needs to be in put place for the profession to be sustainable, and one such mechanism is awarding excellence,” he said.

Dr Lwipa said one of the best ways of ensuring sovereignty and integrity in the marketing profession was by awards as this brought sanctity and admiration by others within the domains of the profession.

He added that Zambia was poised for greater economic future following the bold and strong economic policies pursued by the MMD government over the past years.

“With inflation hitting the lowest of just over seven per cent in the month of October, the lowest ever for the country, it simply means that the country is having a turn around and repositioning itself in the sub-Sahara African region as both an investment and tourism destination worth for consideration by global prospects,” said Dr Lwipa.

The best marketing sponsorship excellence award of the year went to National Milling while the best customer service organisation of the year was scooped by Zain Zambia, beating Post Newspapers into second place with MultiChioce getting the third slot.

The best marketing student of the year went to CBU’s Ngambo Lizebete as Hellen Ng’andu of Muvi TV beat Maria Banda of NECOR Zambia for the emerging marketer of the year while Mwabashike Nkulukusa walked away with the award of the marketing personality of the year. Others are Agatha Sibalwa and Mofu Mukuka who shared the best marketing students award of the year.

The best brand marketing campaign of the year was ‘No matter who you are, we listen’ by Zanaco. Mazhyandu Family Bus Services scooped the best SME organisation of the year, beating Muvi TV, while the best public service delivery organisation award went to Zesco as Standard Chartered Bank walked away with the best product launch award in priority banking.