2019 General Elections: Experts decry low patronage by politicians
Barely a week to the 2019 general elections; indications have emerged that most practitioners in the Integrated Marketing Communications industry may have had their hopes dashed as the quantum of revenue expected from political advertisement did not materialize.
Recall that most advertising heavyweights were hopeful that when the political campaigns eventually kick-off, it would galvanize growth in the sector as well as create an increase in ad spend.
The Managing Director, DKK Nigeria, Mrs. Temitope Jemerigbe, had envisaged that the political contest was going to define a lot of things in the advertising sector, adding that there would be a lot of spend for advertising during the electioneering periods.
According to her, It is our hope that a lot of our businesses would also be able to leverage and be part of the electioneering process.
Lamenting over the low spend from political advertising, the Managing Partner of Cognitio Limited, Mr. Sam Osunsoko, stated that majority of the marketing communications professionals had expected that the 2019 elections would be almost exactly like the 2015 elections in terms of the volume of cash that will be in circulation.
Osunsoko, who pointed out that about N100 billion was spent on political marketing communication in 2015 doubted that he would be surprised if up to 50% of that amount will be spent in 2019 general elections.
In his words: “As of 2015, the total amount of money spent on political marketing communication was about N100 billion through the marketing communications channels as well as unorganized channels”
“Organized being the agencies that we all know like PR, Advertising, Outdoor agencies and so on while unorganized means one that carries a briefcase who will probably get a N1billion business from Kogi State politician, Kaduna or Oyo state politician and he goes to run it. But for us, it was about N100 billion. I will be very surprise if up to 50% of that will be spent in 2019. I doubt it.”
He, however, lamented that the shortfall experienced in the industry is because of the stringent measures which President Muhammadu Buhari administration had put in place to prevent politicians from spending humongous amount of money during electioneering period.
According to him, “I am actually not aware of a major political aspirant that is working with a well structured agency today; there might be but maybe I am not aware unlike four years ago when you knew who Akinwunmi Ambode worked with, who Muhammadu Buhari worked with, who Goodluck Jonathan worked with”
“This year is not like that and I will not be surprised that a week to the election, things might not actually change significantly. The reason is that the government has closed the tap. The tap that was rushing before, it is trickling now; so even the politicians that contested in 2015 and spent N5 billion on marketing and advertising is being careful today to spend N500 million because if you spend N500 million, there is a regulatory agency that will come and meet you to say, where did you get the N500 million from?”
“Even if it is your own personal money, they will start asking all sorts of questions and you know the regulations, so to a very large extent everybody is being careful. If you ask me, I think the situation of the industry was a bit over rated and that is why quite a lot of practitioners are feeling disappointed right now.”
Speaking in the same vein, the Managing Director, Peacock Media, Mrs. Ada Adheke, stressed that there was a lot of projections ahead of the 2019 general elections, stressing that only few media and creative agencies got the jobs due to lack of money coupled with the dwindling economic situation in the country.
Adheke noted that currently, politicians are applying the bottom line strategy which is spending wise and spending right in a bid to maximize their campaign expenses.
In her words: “There were a lot of projections but few media agencies and creative agencies got the job and the job is not like what it was in 2015. In 2015, I think they had so much money, the government in power did not have control, everybody was just throwing bags of money out there but now I think people are now becoming cost efficient because they don’t have all these money to throw around and that is just it.”
“And if you look at the experience that people have gone through from the recession of 2016 till date, it affected everything in a way so; even if the money is there, it is in the hands of a few people but again you have to be very careful because if you are not certain of winning, you have to reduce your spend so that at the end of the day you don’t over spend.”
Speaking on the overall expectations in 2019, the former President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Mr. Kayode Oluwasona, pointed out that there will very little hope for growth in the advertising industry.
Oluwasona noted that the industry may still suffer from the sluggishness of the outgone year, adding that so far nothing has changed on the macroeconomic level to inspire any optimism for the advertising industry in Nigeria.
“I personally do not see any serious growth happening, that is on the macro level for the creative agency, because if for anything there is nothing new that is happening now, if for example there was a new industry that is opening up like it happened in the case of the banks and telecommunications, we would have expected more”
Oluwasona’s optimism has been further dampened by the weak political advertising revenue. He added that the streams of revenue expected from the 2019 elections have fallen far below projections from operators.
Economic analysts had predicted that starting from the fourth quarter of 2018; the economy was going to experience a boost as a result of increase in politics related spending. But so far that has not been the case and this is forcing analyst to review their growth forecast.
Oluwasona added: “It was actually politics everybody was looking at before 2019 being a year of politics but with what has been happening from last quarter of 2018 till now, there has been curtailment of spending, people will tell you there is no money and that is real, so you find people rationalizing expenditure, value purchase and expenditure is what is on now, people want to get much for little or no cost at all and then those days of politics bringing so much money are gone; so I do not see politics impacting the wealth pot of advertising in 2019”
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