Stakeholders express optimism over media adspend in Nigeria
By Abimbola Mohammed
Stakeholders in the sub-sector of Nigeria’s media buying and planning industry have expressed optimism over media adspend in the country, while stating that there is improvement in adspend since the ease of lockdown and gradual acceptance of the COVID-19 pandemic vaccine.
This was made known in an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE, as practitioners shared their views on how advertisers are beginning to see reason to invest more as the number of vaccination continues to increase, business returning to its normal and also ease of lockdown globally.
Expressing his view on adspend in Nigeria, Femi Adelusi, President, Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN), said there is significant increment in 2021 compared to 2019/2020 when the pandemic started.
His words: “From the data we are seeing and from the feedback that we are getting from our sister agencies from the stop line and button line, the number has begun to grow and improve. I think we are quickly circling out the pandemic, the advertisers are becoming much more willing and open because if you take out-of-home, for example, that suffered the most during the lockdown now the vacancy level in agencies has significantly reduced and are developing and growing on a continuous basis.”
He assured that investment in that channel is rapidly growing and there is a lot of improvement recorded so far.
On his part Mr. Jude Odia, Managing Director of Starcom Media Perspectives said there is a spike in adspend in 2021 compared to 2019/2020 respectively.
“The media adspend marginally dropped during the lockdown, understandably because the pandemic affected human and business activities globally and locally for the best of last year. What should also be mentioned is that there has been a split – so we saw spend on digital increasing significantly compared to the other media. We also saw that outdoor suffered greatly for obvious reasons when people stayed and worked from home, opportunity to see for outdoor dropped and spend followed suit.
“Spend dropped in the best of 2020; however, there is a spike in 2021, as we are beginning to see a near rebound in terms of spend globally and locally. But again the shift to digital has been sustained and we are going to see more of that in the next future. There are projections that by 2022 digital obviously in Sub-Saharan Africa will most likely be the top 1 or top 2 spend in terms of split.”
Eki Aduzeh, Secretary of MIPAN is of the view that just like every other sector, clients hold back on their spend, while explaining that things are gradually going back to normal and will record more growth in 2022.
“The media adspend now called media investment went down during the pandemic in the traditional media, but obviously it went up in the digital media. Like every other sector, the client had to hold back to see what was happening, how the industry was going and all. But since after the pandemic things have started picking up in term of media investment.”
Continuing, Mr. Eki said the industry recorded 30% growth before the pandemic and now there is an increase of about 10% since the ease of lock down.
“Two years before the COVID-19, things were going well, growth was like 30%. During the pandemic things slowed down but are now picking up. I think that in 2021 there has been a 10% increase in what we had before thepandemic and we are moving on from there.”
However, Austin Efienamokwu, CEO Ubiquity Media Holding, is of the view that investment dropped more in radio, but did well in other mediums like TV and digital platforms.
“The adspend dropped significantly; investment has reduced to some extent on radio in terms of overall opportunity because recovery in the industry is much more in a better place now. Growth in the industry appears to have come from platforms like TV, reality TV shows and the likes of social media and digital platforms.”
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