This year’s theme, “Experience Ignited: Fueling the Consumer Journey,” promises to explore the transformative power of technology in reshaping how brands connect with consumers.

MarkHack 4.0 is set to immerse startups in innovative solutions across immersive realities, digital storytelling, event innovation, gamification and phygital commerce, paving the way for the future of marketing and consumer engagement.

Victor Afolabi, CEO of GDM Group and Eko Innovation Centre, expressed the vision behind this event:

“MarkHack 4.0 calls on marketing professionals and innovators to embrace tech-driven evolution for impactful storytelling, elevating the consumer journey and engagement. Our platform unites brilliant minds every year to redefine how brands connect with audiences, setting new benchmarks for tech-driven marketing.”

From its early days as a growth-focused hackathon at MarkHack 1.0, this dynamic initiative has evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry.

Today, MarkHack is more than just a platform for pitching ideas—it’s a full-scale conference that brings together established startups with proven products, market traction, and revenue generation, all under one roof.

The conference is set to take place on  Friday, 23rd May 2025, at the Landmark Event Center, VI, Lagos, MarkHack 4.0 will also host exhibitions showcasing the latest innovations and networking opportunities that bring together thought leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs from across the industry.

MarkHack 4.0 redefines the way startups innovate and scale, offering a comprehensive platform that combines immersive education, strategic pitching, and the excitement of a hackathon—all designed to drive real-world impact in media, marketing and technology.

A stellar lineup of sponsors, jurors, and speakers, including visionary leaders in media, marketing and technology, renowned techpreneurs shaping the digital landscape, and key industry players offering expert insights into the future of marketing.

MarkHack is a conference where media, marketing & tech professionals, policymakers, investors, tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and creatives, converge to shape the future of media, marketing & technology. Registration is now open! Visit markhack.tech for more information.

Be inspired. Be innovative. Be part of MarkHack 4.0.

With an unwavering commitment to delivering cutting-edge solutions, GDM Group continues to push the envelope in marketing technology, big data management, and integrated marketing services, setting the benchmark for excellence across Nigeria and Africa.

To improve offerings and diversify its client base, GDM Group is now focusing on offering project consulting services in the areas of marketing, technology, and management.

A Legacy of Innovation and Market Disruption

Since its inception, GDM Group has been synonymous with reshaping the future of marketing, pioneering industry-defining practices that blend strategic creativity with flawless execution. The company’s journey from below-the-line field marketing to data-driven strategies exemplifies its ability to evolve and lead.

Through its bespoke service offerings, GDM has emerged as a catalyst for transformative brand experiences, delivering measurable results and setting a new standard in marketing and media innovation.

“GDM Group’s evolution into a comprehensive marketing, management, and technology firm represents a pivotal moment in our journey,” noted Victor Afolabi, founder and group CEO of Hazon Holdings, during the company’s fifteenth-anniversary celebrations. “We are empowering brands to connect, serve, and grow their audiences with unparalleled efficiency, ensuring measurable returns on investment.”

Elevating Brands Through Innovation and Strategy

GDM Group’s transformation reflects its profound understanding of modern client needs—strategic, innovative, and results-driven solutions.

By integrating digital, traditional, and field marketing strategies, GDM crafts campaigns that captivate audiences, drive authentic engagement, and deliver immersive brand experiences.

From harnessing big data insights to executing experiential marketing campaigns, GDM ensures brands maintain a strong, resonant presence in a competitive marketplace.

The company’s unique approach harmonizes creativity with analytical precision, leveraging data to optimize campaigns for maximum impact.

This data-driven methodology empowers brands to penetrate untapped markets and achieve sustained growth, even to the last mile.

Empowering Growth Through Advanced Marketing Technology

At the forefront of technological innovation, GDM Group is redefining marketing with state-of-the-art platforms and tools that enhance campaign management and tracking.

By utilizing advanced marketing technologies and consumer data analytics, the company delivers actionable insights that fuel strategic decision-making. Each technological solution is bespoke, tailored to meet the specific needs of clients, ensuring seamless integration and impactful results.

Expanding Offerings with Full-fledged Consulting Services

In its quest to provide holistic solutions, GDM Group is expanding its offerings to include project consulting services in marketing, technology, and management.

This strategic shift aims to empower businesses with expert guidance in navigating complex challenges, implementing cutting-edge technologies, and optimizing operational performance. With a deep understanding of industry dynamics, GDM’s consulting services are designed to drive sustainable growth and operational excellence for clients across various sectors.

Management Excellence

Driving Business Transformation GDM Group’s expertise extends beyond marketing into strategic management and operational excellence.

By offering management consulting services, the company enables businesses to align their marketing strategies with corporate goals, optimize performance, and navigate complex challenges. From robust project management to innovative operations management frameworks, GDM ensures scalability, efficiency, and measurable impact.

Customized consulting engagements form the cornerstone of GDM’s management offerings, unlocking long-term growth opportunities for clients while delivering strategic guidance and data-driven solutions. This multi-dimensional approach positions GDM as a trusted partner in driving organizational success.

A Pan-African Vision with Localized Precision

With operations spanning Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Kenya, GDM Group leverages a dynamic, localized business model to address the unique challenges and opportunities of each market.

This regional adaptability ensures the company delivers tailored value and unparalleled relevance, creating a significant competitive edge in diverse markets across Africa.

Redefining the Future of Marketing Over 15 years, GDM Group has established itself as a one-stop destination for marketing, management, and technology solutions. Its unwavering dedication to innovation and measurable results has solidified its reputation as a leader in retail, experiential, integrated, and digital marketing.

As GDM embarks on its next chapter, its vision remains crystal clear: to redefine the future of marketing in Africa.

By leveraging cutting-edge technology, strategic innovation, and visionary management practices, GDM Group is shaping a future where brands thrive, audiences connect, and value creation knows no bounds.

MarkHack 3.0 is tagged “BEYOND LIMITS – Unleashing Creativity with Emerging Tech”.

MarkHack 3.0 will bring together the brightest minds in deep tech, artificial intelligence, blockchain and e-commerce industries to develop innovative solutions to real-time marketing and media challenges.

Victor Afolabi, CEO and Founder of GDM Group and Eko Innovation Centre and Curator of MarkHack stated that Deep Technology is the next big thing in marketing and media due to the constant evolvement of the industries.

He said, “The marketing and media landscape is in a perpetual state of evolution, marked by the continuous emergence of novel technologies and strategies; As such, businesses and organizations face the imperative of staying at the forefront, comprehending the intricacies of effectively reaching and engaging their target audience with deep tech”.

The MarkHack curator further emphasized that recognizing this need for adaptability and innovation was the bane for debuting MarkHack, to bring together innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, marketing professionals, disruptors and corporate bodies to create solutions to real-life marketing challenges in an intense period of 3 months, using creativity, technology, mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts, and innovative usages of tech for marketing and media.

Markhack 3.0. will run for 3 months and feature a launch event, pitch sessions, workshops, masterclasses, and mentorship sessions to help participants develop their skills and provide them with the resources they need to turn their ideas into market-ready products.

Finalists will have a chance to join an accelerator program with up to $10,000 equity investment and a chance to be mentored by industry experts for 3 months.

Visit the website for more information, click here.

GDM Group is reputable as Nigeria’s leading marketing and media technology company, renowned for bespoke service offerings ranging from marketing tech solutions, big data management and 360 integrated marketing services,

GDM Group clinched Silver in the Best Merchandising Solution Modern Trade category; Bronze in the Best Event (B2C) Category; Bronze in the Best Shopper Activation Open Market category; Silver in the Best Use of Actionable Data and Insights category, and Gold in the Best Use of Digital in an Activation.

EXMAN is the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria, a sectoral trade body for forward-looking experiential marketing communications agencies, which exists to support, promote and defend the interests of over 45 member agencies, with total billing of over thirty billion naira through comprehensive core services and platforms.

Victor Afolabi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GDM Group and Hazon Holdings stated that the award reflects his company’s vision of integrating future thinking as an improved way of doing business and adding value to clients across different sectors in the marketing industry in Nigeria.

“We bring future thinking to the core of marketing with dynamic business models that address the peculiarities of each region we are present in, and drive value for our clients to guarantee maximum ROI” Mr. Afolabi said.

The GDM boss further commended the EXMAN body for serving as a cooperative of the best experiential marketing agencies in Nigeria with the mission to protect, promote and regulate the strategic interest of certified players within the experiential marketing ecosystem.

In his opening speech, Tunji Adeyinka, the outgoing President of EXMAN, said that the event was organized to appreciate and celebrate the contributions of the professionals in the association for the past 10 years of its existence.

The occasion celebrated the achievements of outstanding agencies and individuals whose footprints are indelible in the industry.

Distinguished industry leaders and stakeholders, including Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, Director-General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Steve Babaeko, President of AAAN and Chairman of IAA Nigeria; as well as Femi Adelusi, President of the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria-MIPAN graced the occasion.

Fifteen categories witnessed intense competition among experiential agencies, with GDM Group clinching five awards, for being among agencies that have contributed immensely towards the growth of the industry.

GDM Group, a subsidiary of Hazon Holdings, is poised to be the leading African-focused Marketing services provider connecting brands and services with their target market on the continent.

It evaluates, revamps, reworks, restructures, recreates and re-birth processes, products and business models to consistently help brands connect, serve and grow their target group by offering marketing operations-led service focused on effective, efficient and measurable ROI.

GDM Group has developed award-winning campaigns and strategies in addition to winning pitches, which has led to our being nominated in three categories at the first Nigerian Marketing Award to acknowledge and applaud our ongoing creativity and innovation.

The categories are; Best Use of Social Media (FanPrime Consumer Launch), Best Public Sector Marketing of the Year (LAG ID Card Re-Launch), and Experiential Agency of the Year (Closeup Complete Fresh Protection Mobile Dental Clinic).

In the heavily contested category, GDM Group out of the three (3) nominations, won the Public Sector Marketing Award for its excellent work on the LAG ID Card Relaunch for the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA). This is a fantastic accomplishment that confirms GDM’s strategic planning and dedication to carrying out top-notch campaigns.

The LAG ID registration was positioned as an all-access card to the myriad amenities Lagos had to offer, and the campaign was carried out by promoting the advantages of registration through a relaunch event that made use of technology.

It was an advocacy effort that used local and grassroots influencers, technology-driven awareness campaigns, and initiatives to increase registration rates.

The event had over three thousand (3000) people spread out among five (5) IBILE locations, and GDM Group boosted the rate of LASRRA Registration by 50% at the conclusion of the execution, earning us the Best Public Sector Marketing of the Year Award by the Nigerian Marketing Awards (NMA).

The event had in attendance over three thousand (3000) attendees across five (5) IBILE Locations and at the end of the execution, GDM Group increased the rate of LASRRA Registration by 50% which earned us the Best Public Sector Marketing of the Year Award by the Nigerian Marketing Awards (NMA).

The outcome of the execution is significant to LASRAA since it is one of many ways to show that the Lagos State Government has a lot to offer its inhabitants and that having a LAG ID card is the simplest way for them to access all of it.

The award was presented to GDM Group at the inaugural Nigerian Marketing Awards (NMA) event which took place at the Eko Hotel Convention Center in Victoria Island, Lagos, on November 11, 2022. The one-day event had marketing experts from across Nigeria in attendance.

The Public Sector Marketing Award is an accolade that recognizes excellence in public-sector marketing campaigns, encourages and stimulates hard work, innovation, and overall high quality in marketing planning and execution in Nigeria.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of GDM Group, Victor Afolabi in appreciation for the opportunity the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA) gave GDM Group to execute the LAG ID Card Relaunch, presented the Public Sector Marketing Award to Ibilola Kasunmu, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, who is the Past General Manager of LASRRA.

To achieve their goal of creating lasting and innovative solutions to real-life media and marketing challenges, the two organizations in April launched the maiden edition of its Media and Marketing Hackathon tagged MarkHack 1.0 with the aim of precipitating solutions that disrupt and tackle some of the critical challenges we face, in today’s marketing and media.

Following the launch event held on 8th April 2022, with over 500 participants registered from 72 locations, 5 countries (which includes Nigeria, California, Kenya, Pakistan, and London), across 4 continents, forming over 100 teams.

A 3-week workathon had been initiated for the teams to collaborate and develop new ideas and concepts that can redefine the future of marketing and media.

At the end of the 3-week hackathon, a total of 26 teams proceeded to pitch their ideas, concepts, and prototypes to a panel of over 31 selection jurors, who after rigorous and critical review shortlisted the best teams who would go on to pitch for the grand prize at the closing ceremony.

The 10 shortlisted teams (Innovadoras, Realbuzz, bilbord, team 14, LiveBic, Hardweb, WheelAds, Monify cookies, and Proximate Media) have been paired with over 22 mentors from different areas of expertise in Media and Marketing to help them fine-tune their ideas and concepts to achieve product-market fit.

The MarkHack 1.0 Hackathon will be wrapped up on Wednesday 18th of May 2022 at D’Podium Ikeja, with top marketing executives, policymakers, tech ecosystem players, and executives in attendance and the President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) Mr. Idorenyen Enang giving The Keynote speech.

At the closing ceremony, the shortlisted Teams will be pitching their ideas to the 7 Final Jurors for a chance to win a $20,000 prize pool and an acceleration program with up to $50K equity investment to get their products ready for the market among other benefits. 

The MarkHack 1.0 hackathon is targeted at the marketing and media industry with the goal of creating revolutionary, innovative marketing and media products, channels, platforms, and solutions that will redefine marketing and media in Nigeria.