“Good morning, Tony.”

It was a simple greeting, but within hours, the interaction between UBA Group Chairman, Tony Elumelu and a graduate trainee had become one of the internet’s latest debates about workplace culture, respect and the changing Nigerian workplace.

During the graduation ceremony of UBA’s Graduate Management Accelerated Programme, a young graduate trainee addressed Elumelu by his first name. He corrected her, asking that she call him “Mr Elumelu” or “TOE”, adding that he did not subscribe to that kind of “Oyinbo life.” The exchange quickly went viral, with Nigerians debating everything from workplace etiquette and generational differences to first-name culture in Nigerian organizations.

There are arguments to be made on both sides.

Some people see first-name culture as a sign of a modern, less hierarchical workplace. Others believe that age, position, setting and Nigerian cultural expectations still matter.

But strip away the etiquette debate, and what’s left is a genuinely useful lesson for anyone who builds brand experiences for a living: the same gesture, tone, or format can land completely differently depending on the room it’s dropped into. Context isn’t a detail you patch in after the fact. It’s the entire architecture of whether an idea works.

That is exactly the problem experiential marketing runs into every time a brand tries to import an activation format wholesale from one market into Nigeria.

Key takeaways From The Tony Elumelu Conversation

• The viral Tony Elumelu “Oyinbo life” video shows how the same social format (informality, first-name culture) reads as respectful in one context and disrespectful in another.
• Experiential marketing activations work the same way: what performs abroad doesn’t automatically translate to Nigerian audiences.
• Nigerian activation design should prioritize community experience, respect for hierarchy, and visible warmth over imported minimalism or Western-style informality.
• Localizing the surface of a campaign (language, faces, music) without rethinking the format itself is copy-paste marketing, not cultural relevance.

An activation is a cultural argument, not just a format

When experiential marketing works, it isn’t just a booth, a stage, or a pop-up. It’s an argument about who the audience is, what they value, and what would actually move them to engage rather than walk away, or worse, feel talked down to. That argument only holds up if it’s built on real knowledge of the room, not assumptions imported from somewhere else.

The Tony Elumelu “Oyinbo life” comment is really a comment about exactly this: an imported social format landing in a room with its own established rules about hierarchy, age, and respect. What reads as warm and modern in one context can read as careless in another. Experiential activations hit this wall constantly. A stunt built around irreverence and breaking the fourth wall might be exactly what a London or New York audience wants, since informality there often signals confidence. Drop that same format into a Lagos activation without adjusting for how Nigerian audiences relate to brand authority and public performance, and it risks landing as tone-deaf instead of bold.

This is where experiential marketing gets interesting

Experiential marketing is built around one fundamental idea, just like Tony Elumelu meant when he responded to the graduate trainee

People remember what they experience.

Unlike an advert that can be watched and forgotten, an activation asks consumers to participate.

They touch something.

They taste something.

They interact with someone.

They enter a space.

They take part in a challenge.

They attend an event.

They create content.

They become part of the story.

That makes experiential marketing incredibly powerful.

But it also makes it incredibly vulnerable to cultural misinterpretation.

Because when you are designing an experience, you aren’t just communicating a message.

You are designing an interaction between your brand and a human being.

And humans don’t behave the same way everywhere, and this is quite obvious in how Tony Elumelu responded to the graduate trainee.

Recent conversations around experiential marketing in Nigeria have increasingly emphasised the importance of cultural integration and human-centred experiences rather than treating activations as one-off visibility exercises.

The activation that worked abroad might flop in Lagos

Consider a hypothetical global activation.

The idea is simple: strangers are encouraged to walk up to one another, interact and complete a challenge together.

In one market, it works brilliantly because the audience is comfortable approaching strangers.

Now bring the exact same mechanic to Nigeria.

The first question might be:

“Who be this one?”

Not because Nigerians don’t like fun.

Not because Nigerians don’t want to interact.

But because the social context is different.

Maybe the audience needs a host to create the initial connection.

Maybe they respond better when the experience is anchored around music.

Maybe competition will drive participation more effectively than collaboration.

Maybe people are more likely to participate when they are with their friends.

Maybe the physical environment creates completely different behaviors.

The strategic objective can remain exactly the same.

The experience may need to change.

That is the difference between copying a campaign and translating an idea.

Good localisation isn’t translation. It’s interpretation.

There is a tendency to think of localisation as changing the language.

Global campaign:

“Have fun.”

Nigerian version:

“Omo, let’s have fun!”

But localisation is not about replacing words.

It is about understanding meaning.

The real question should be:

What was this campaign trying to make people feel, and what would create that feeling in this market?

That could mean changing the creative.

It could mean changing the talent.

It could mean changing the activation mechanic.

It could mean changing the venue.

It could mean changing the consumer journey.

It could even mean abandoning part of the original idea.

Because the objective should not be to make a global campaign look Nigerian.

The objective should be to make the audience feel that the campaign belongs here.

Culture has layers

For marketers, it can help to think about culture in three layers.

1. The aesthetic layer

This is what culture looks like.

Fashion.

Music.

Food.

Language.

Art.

Visual symbols.

This is usually the easiest layer for brands to identify.

2. The behavioural layer

This is how people behave.

How they greet.

How they celebrate.

How they socialize.

How they negotiate.

How they interact with strangers.

How they respond to authority.

How they participate in events.

This is where experiential marketing starts to become more interesting.

3. The meaning layer

This is the deepest layer.

Why do people behave this way?

Why does respect matter?

Why does community matter?

Why do certain experiences feel aspiration?

Why does a particular joke land?

Why does a particular cultural reference trigger emotion?

Why does one activation feel authentic while another feels like a brand trying too hard?

Most marketing stops at the first layer.

The strongest cultural marketing gets to the third.

You can read more on the influence on national culture on consumer behavior here

The best experiential campaigns don’t just attract people. They understand them.

This is perhaps the biggest shift marketers need to make.

Before asking:

What can we activate?

Ask:

What is happening in the lives of the people we want to reach?

Before asking:

What will get people talking?

Ask:

What already matters enough to them to make them want to talk?

Before asking:

How can we make this campaign feel local?

Ask:

What would make this audience feel seen?

Those questions lead to better work.

Because the goal of experiential marketing isn’t simply to create something people will photograph.

It is to create something people will feel.

Nigerian audiences don’t experience brand activations the way Western audiences do

A few things make experiential marketing in Nigeria its own discipline, not a localization checkbox:

Community over individual spectacle. Western experiential design is often built around the solo, Instagrammable moment, the perfect photo op, the single-person interactive booth. Nigerian audiences tend to show up in groups, families, work squads, church groups, and respond strongest to activations that are communal by design: shared food, group participation, collective energy. An activation built for the lone influencer moment can feel isolating on Nigerian ground.

Hierarchy shapes engagement, even at a “fun” event. The Elumelu moment is a reminder that respect for status doesn’t vanish just because an event is framed as casual. Activations that assume total flattening of hierarchy can misjudge a market where older attendees, community leaders, or senior guests expect to be acknowledged differently, not shut out of the fun, but not treated identically to a 20-year-old either.

Trust is built through visible presence, not polish. A slick, minimalist activation that signals premium quality in a European market can read as cold in Nigeria, where warmth, color, noise, and visible effort often signal that a brand cares enough to show up properly. Understated can be mistaken for under invested.

None of this means Nigerian audiences want less sophistication. It means sophistication looks different, rooted in reading the room correctly rather than mimicking whichever format won an award somewhere else.

You can’t copy-paste culture.

You can only understand it well enough to create something that feels like it belongs.

And perhaps that is the real lesson behind the “Good morning, Tony” conversation:

Context matters. Culture matters. And in marketing, the difference between an experience people remember and one they completely ignore might simply be whether you understood the room.

At Exposé, we believe great marketing starts with understanding people. Culture isn’t something to borrow for a campaign or add to an activation at the last minute; it is part of the context in which the experience exists. From strategy and storytelling to experiential execution, we look beyond what people see to understand what makes them connect, participate and remember.

Planning your next brand activation or experiential campaign? Let’s create an experience that doesn’t just show up, but actually resonates. Talk to Exposé