A former Deputy Editor with BusinessDay, Funke Osae-Brown is a household name in the arts and lifestyle section of the media, having reported the beats for more than a decade. With a Masters Degree from the University of Lagos, she also attended the prestigious Lagos Business School (LBS), as well as other professional trainings in Ghana, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and others. A year ago, she resigned her appointment with the newspaper to pioneer online platform for Nigeria’s luxury sector. In this interview with Chuks Nwanne, she spoke on life as an entrepreneur, her transition from journalism to blogging and the dream of operating a full-fledged online media house.
What informed your decision to leave paid employment to be an entrepreneur?
I just want to follow my passion and to run with the vision I have to pioneer online platform to report on the emerging Nigerian Luxury industry.
As a young person, how challenging was it setting up?
The challenges are many, but the major one is how to get people to buy into your vision. To make them believe it is doable is a big challenge. Another would be that of visibility; online media has not been fully embraced in Nigeria yet. Getting advertisers to buy into the opportunities available with advertising online could be challenging. They still prefer to use traditional platforms like Print, radio and TV. They seems not to realise that getting their advert online means they can reach a million people or more at a time provided they use the right online platform. However we are getting there gradually and surely. We have been aggressive marketing our platform online. We currently have over four million hits on our website since we started more than a year ago, which is not a bad feat at all.
You started out as a journalist, how’s life as a blogger?
Life is interesting as a blogger; transiting from a mainstream journalist to blogger was easy. Both platforms have to do about writing; it’s the professionalism you bring to blogging that makes a great deal of difference in what you do. More importantly, you decide on the kind of story you want to feature and you go for it. In fact, we hold editorial meetings like we would do when I was in the newsroom to decide on what stories to feature and then go for it. That is why on our website, you see stories that are unique to us. We don’t aggregate stories from other news websites, as it is common with most bloggers.
What informed your decision to focus on luxury brands?
In the course of reporting lifestyle, arts and travel for more than a decade, we discovered that there is really no online platform that focuses on reporting exclusively on the local and global luxury market in Nigeria. So, we saw a need in this area and we decided to step in.
When exactly did you start The Luxury Reporter as an online platform?
The Luxury Reporter was conceived some years ago, but the idea was not really taken seriously at that time. Besides, we were trying to study the online trends to see if people were ready to consume what we had to offer. But eventually, the website, www.luxuryreporter.com.ng went live online in May 2014.
What’s your focus?
Our focus is simple, to report exclusively on Nigerian and global luxury market. We provide information on latest trends in the luxury industry for the discerning man and woman with taste for rare quality. We are now known as the Go-To website for information on trends shaping the luxury industry. We also promote local luxury brands on our platform.
In 2015 alone we had close to 3 million hits on the website and we are just a year old. We have our App on Playstore and Appzoom for android phones. Just search for The Luxury Reporter or TLR on Google Playstore to download the App. Blackberry and IOS for iPhone will be available soon. We are on BBM Channel C004B38D7 and we send out newsletters three times a week to a large data base of exclusive readers.
Having been in business for over a year now, what’s your take on the luxury market?
The Nigerian Luxury Market is growing; it’s a market where both foreign and local luxury brands are thriving. Though Nigerians are known to be consumers of European and American luxury, not many people will believe that we have local luxury brands but I tell you, we do. We have the likes of Deola Sagoe, Tiffany Amber, Nikky Khiran, Lanre Da Silva Ajayi. We also have local organic handmade skincare range like Aweni Organics including Tara Orekelewa Make Up Range, BMPro and others. The sector is growing, considering our population only a few are consumers of high-end luxury. But we have young entrepreneurs and young professionals, who are making good money and can afford to go on foreign trips. They shop for luxury brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel among others, even when these brands are on sale or a season or two behind. Regardless of when they purchase these brands, the fact still remains that they are consuming luxury goods.
What are the challenges in this line of journalism?
The challenges are many, but we are overcoming them one at a time by the grace of God. There are challenges of getting people to believe in what you are doing. It is a niche market and it is quite new; to pioneer this line of reporting online isn’t easy at all. Most advertisers of luxury brands still believe their clients are not online but they are wrong. There are many well-known names, who are consumers of luxury goods; you see them online tweeting about their experience.
This kind of mind set is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. Even manufactures of top luxury brands around the world were hesitant at first to come online. They have since realised that their market is online because consumers now like to consume news and information on their favourite brands on-the-go. Therefore, you see brands like Gucci, Rolex, Bugatti, Hennessey, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Versace, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, having strong online presence through their Facebook pages, Twitter handles and other social media networks.
Aside the blog, you also have the magazine, tell us about that?
In addition to the website, we started an e-Magazine called TLR, which is an acronym for The Luxury Reporter in December 2015. The e-Magazine was designed for people, who love to read quality content on-the-go, but are not able to carry the bulky hard copy of magazines around. The TLR e-magazine is mobile friendly; it can be downloaded from our website, www.luxuryreporter.com.ng. In our January Issue, we feature, the 2016 Rolls-Royce Dawn. There is also an interview we had with DJ Jimmy Jatt and we list top ten luxury items for 2016 among other interesting stories.
What’s your big plan for Luxury Reporter in years to come?
In years to come, we see ourselves operating a full-fledged online media house with staff reporting on different aspects of the luxury market. We may venture into printing few hardcopies of our magazine that will be delivered to exclusive subscribers who still love the touch and feel of the hardcopy. We hope to see The Luxury Reporter become a well-known brand for reporting on luxury market.
A lot of young people have the dream of starting something on their own, but there’s always this fear of the unknown. What’s your advise?
I will tell them to conquer their fear; it’s right to be afraid. One of the ways to conquer the fear is talk to yourself, weigh the pros and cons. Then step out in faith. Before I started, I went through this process and I can tell you there’s no regret. However, you need to think your plans through; don’t just move because people are moving.
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2016/02/funke-osae-brown-pioneering-online-platform-for-nigerias-luxury-sector/
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