We didn’t feel the impact of election billing on ad spend – Adelusi
By Abimbola Mohammed
Femi Adelusi, CEO, BrandEye and President of the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) has said the projected advertising spend expected to impact the media ecosystem during the 2023 electioneering season in Nigeria was cut short as the campaign briefs were not handled by professionals.
The media planning and buying professional made this known in an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE on TV crew recently, where he dissected opportunities, growth, projection and impact of the political landscape and 2023 general elections.
Mr. Adelusi wondered where the billions of naira said to have been spent on campaigns by some political parties would have gone. If those businesses were actually handled by advertising and media agencies for the political parties, there are lots of questions to be answered.
His words: “If you ask whether the political adspend has impacted on us as an agency, I will tell you we have not or did not feel the impact. I have also spoken to a few of my colleagues; it was not as it used to be – let’s say about four to eight years ago. We have also read some publications where some political parties quoted some interesting billions of naira in terms of spend, but I must tell you, sometimes we need to differentiate whether those businesses went to politicians and who handled the advertising and media placement. This leaves the questions around efficiency and effectiveness versus whether those advertising budgets actually went through the advertising and media agencies per say.”
Speaking on some of the mediums used by the political parties to reach the people, Mr. Adelusi said: “I think a lot of political parties also leveraged social media, word of mouth and a lot of on-ground activations. But when you see some political parties that did what we call field activation and engagements to drive their candidates’ campaigns, and some of those top-of-mind political campaigns in the 80’s, you will understand what it means to engage professionals.”
Stressing on the effect of not engaging professionals to handle political campaigns, Mr. Adelusi said: “When we think of the ‘Hope’ campaign Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO) ran, which focused on what the people wanted, you could see insight and appreciate an investment in media in terms of frequency and audience reach. If you compare those with the recent campaigns, the difference is clear.”
The media buying guru noted that some political parties were not even known weeks to elections because of lack of publicity and campaign, while stating that during previous elections campaign material were deployed months before election starts.
“Look at Lagos for example; it was difficult to see some political parties even though they were on the ballot. In terms of visibility, whether on the road or even in the media, you will agree with me that we didn’t see much. The advertising agencies, a lot of those we have spoken to within the industry didn’t feel a lot of that either,” he said.
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