Nigeria’s Marketing Industry In Unsteady Feat
…May experience setback on PWC $2.8bn projection
Feelers emanating from the Nigerian marketing and advertising industry have revealed that not much have been recorded in the marketing, advertising and PR forte since the beginning of the year 2019.
Factors responsible for this slow growth are – general lull in the micro and macro levels since the last quarter of last year and first quarter of 2019, beehive of activities in the political arena with the electioneering campaigns towards 2019 general elections, end of brands financial year and low purchasing power that has resulted in huge unsold inventories etc.
It will recalled that since the nation exited recession early last year, there has been instability in the prices of crude oil. Although the value of the naira has been relatively stable, there have been regular fluctuations in the international prices of crude oil thereby making it somehow cumbersome for government to achieve 100% budgetary implementation in the outgone year.
Added to this fact was the delay witnessed in the final passage of year 2018 budget which conspired to hamper govt policy execution. The uncertainty in the political environment as the nation fully entered into serious political season did not help matters as brand owners decided to play it cool in the political season. There was a drastic cut in advertising and marketing spend in 2018 because of the pre-eminence of political advertising which has created cacophony of voices in the media space, both traditional and on social media.
Besides the bold and ambitious telco brands like MTN, Airtel, Glo and 9mobile who have been relentless in their aggressive marketing, other multinationals have since cut down on spending as they are scared stiff of being dwarfed by the volume of share of media voice by political gladiators.
Sadly, most of the politicians who deployed some quantum of amount to political advertising, the media and advertising tasks have ignored registered practitioners while politicians have resorted to hiring quacks and media practitioners as consultants.
However, this epileptic growth is coming against the backdrop of the earlier projection for the Nigerian media, entertainment industry by PWC report of 2017 – 2021. In the report, Nigeria’s entertainment and media (E$M) industry was predicted to gross over $2.8billion in the next four years on growing consumer experience and increasing advertisement spend. This according to PWC’s report “Entertainment and media outlook 2017 – 2021”: An African Perspective released last year.
The outlook, a comprehensive source of analyses and five year forecasts of consumer and advertising spending across five countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania and 14 segments: internet, data consumption, TV Cinema, video games e-sports, virtual reality, newspaper publishing, book publishing, business-to-business publishing, music, out-of-home and radio all indicates that the Nigeria E & M market would add $2.8billion between 2016 – 2018.
PWC’s report, according to online news agency sources recognises Nigeria as one of the fastest growing countries in the outlook but warned that the earnings figures should be treated with caution as a huge proportion of that growth would come in form of internet access revenue alone.
“In terms of total E&M, revenue, Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing countries in our outlook but this figure must be treated with caution as a huge proportion of that growth comes from the internet access revenue.
“Of the US$2.8billion that the Nigerian market will add between 2016 – 2021 all but US $452million will come from internet access revenue. The combined elements of TV and video will add nearly US$200million in revenue growth to 2021”, the report observed.
Judging from the current dormancy in almost all sectors, it is quite doubtful if these projections would still pan out as predicted. Not only are the brands maintaining “a wait and see” approach to marketing, some of them are yet to end their financial year, even though with reduced budget in the outgone year. However, some that have began their new financial year are still being cautious and strategic as they are yet to unveil any new campaign.
The received wisdom in this situation is that if brands should plug into any new campaign at this moment they may not gain much traction in view of the cacophony of voices by political advertising. While the politicians are not spending so much as it used to be in previous election times, yet the election season has created so much hysteria and tension both in the media and amongst the citizens. At the end of the day, the seeming shoddy preparations by the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the latest postponement and review of the 2019 general election dates would further impact on projection and early return to full economic activities and subsequent growth.
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