TO make Nigerian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) globally competitive, entrepreneurs and small scale business owners in the country have been advised to adequately brand their products and services, especially in this period of global recession. 
This was the submission of facilitators and experts at the USP brand management seminar tagged ‘SME Branding; Strategy for Business Growth During recession’ in Lagos last week.
Speaking to BusinessWorld at the event, Mr. Muyiwa Kayode, chief executive officer, USP Brand management said, since SMEs are the engine of economic growth, employing more than 80 per cent of the working population in most economies, there is the need to brand these businesses to compete with other businesses in the globe. He stated that a lot of large companies and mega corporations nowadays, started as SMEs, saying, it was branding that made them develop from small businesses to large ones.
There is the need for SMEs to be fully equipped with the branding knowledge so that they can provide globally competitive products and services, he said.
Kayode stated that for Nigeria and Africa to successfully fight poverty, focus must turn to the creation of global brands, adding that, the greatest wealth creators in the modern world are brands. These brands, he said, create employment and limitless wealth for their countries of origin.
Stating that there cannot be development without millions of existing and potential SMEs across the continent, he disclosed that when these enterprises are able to create world class brands, the multiplier effect will have an unparalleled result in the fight against poverty.
Said he, ‘as SMEs, we must begin by having a global vision by thinking beyond our immediate environment. We must realize that some of the most popular brands in the world today, started small.’ 
He advised small and medium scale business owners at the seminar to make sure their products have global relevance so that whatever they create can live beyond them and can sell outside its environment.
Admonishing government, agencies as well as stakeholders in poverty alleviation to rise up to their task, he stated that they should all shift toward the development of SMEs as this is the only tools that can alleviate poverty and create jobs for the jobless Nigerians.
Mr. Lere Baale, Regional Director, Howes Consulting Group while addressing the participants said, the recession period is the best time SMEs can take charge by embracing aggressive marketing and branding of their firms.
At a time every organisation around the world is cutting down expenditures, reducing staff strength, boycott advertising and marketing, there is benefit for increasing market spending during a downturn like this, especially for SMEs, he emphasised. This, he said, would increase brand awareness and brand loyalty. He added that advertising during this critical period would also decrease customer fears while increasing the market share and revenue of such businesses outfit.
With less advert campaign on radio, television and newspapers at this time which has made advert rate dropped, he called on SMEs owners to use this opportunity to brand and market their products and services. He stated that this would allow such business firms poach customers from those companies that have suspended advertising and marketing campaign for now.
Also speaking, Mr. Friday Erhabor, Deputy Director, Research and Development, USP said, if a business does not own a brand, it is only a restless short term SME player. According to him, as an SME, you do not even need to have a lot of money to brand your products successfully; you just need to put the difference into everything you do.
He added that though branding is a highly capital intensive project, he stated that quality is all an SME needs to succeed. This, he said, has become inevitable for businesses in Nigeria to brand themselves.
There are 5 A’s of effective branding and these are Awareness, Availability of your products, Accessibility, Access and Affinity, Erhabor noted. He stated that a brand is the impression that the public shares about an organization, a product a person, among others.
“We must always search for a relationship between our product reality, i.e. the brand’s physical attributes and the image it present and the consumer’s reality, he said. Banding, according to him, is the pursuit of inequalities, adding that, a brand may be born equal to others, an unfortunate but common occurrence.
“It is the task of brand builders to make it more equal than others, he added.