How Nigerians will watch, talk, tweet and cheer the Super Eagles

Tomorrow, when Nigeria’s Super Eagles play Iran’s Team Melli at Arena da Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil, most Nigerians will follow the match on TV and Twitter. The World Cup, hosted by Brazil from June 12 to July 13 will be the most social sporting event ever.

Sixty-four years ago, when Brazil hosted the World Cup majority of the 66 million Nigerians on Facebook and the 1.8 million with a Twitter account had not been born (93 percent of Nigerians are between 0 to 45 years old). Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006.

Before the kick-off at Arena de Sao Paulo last Thursday there had been more tweets about the 20th World Cup than the total number of tweets during the 2010 event in South Africa. On Twitter, Nigerians are the third-most active talking about the World Cup. Nigerians, too, spend the most time on their smartphones in a survey by Millward Brown, a media research company.

Nigerian companies recognise this and are engaging football-mad Nigerians with World Cup-themed media campaigns. Nigerian Breweries, brewers of Star beer, launched #ShineOnNigeria and #GoSuperEagles is the hashtag of Globacom, Nigeria’s sole indigenous telecommunications company.

Internationally, there is an online turf war between Adidas and Nike. These two sports global brands have respectively launched advertisements starring Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo, the most famous sportsman on Twitter. Ronaldo and Messi also feature in Samsung’s Galaxy 11 (G11) team, alongside Victor Moses, Wayne Rooney, El Shaarawy, Oscar, Mario Gotze, Ike Casillas etc.

Changing channels

Advertisers are responding to the habits of consumers. Smartphones are the largest single screen medium in the world, according to Millward Brown in its AdReaction survey for 2014. As consumer’s switch to mobile devices, combining it with watching TV, brands are following suit. The research company notes that brands have to adapt a multiscreen strategy to reach consumers.

Globally, users daily spend 147 minutes on their mobile devices, 35 percent of the total 417 minutes spent on the TV, laptop, smartphone and tablet. Nigerians spend 193 minutes (443 minutes spent daily) checking their smartphones. In Brazil users spend 31 percent of their 474 screen time on their smartphones.

Though, in general, the smartphone is used during the day while TV takes centre stage at night, “smartphones are more likely to be used both simultaneously with TV and standalone”. A TV ad could spur viewers to go online with their smartphones to continue the conversation. Star’s #ShineOnNigeria campaign, for instance, includes a BBM channel.

Globally, Nigerians and Kenyans are noted as multiscreen consumers, “they are the most positive to ads generally”, according to Millward Brown. The global reception of ads featured on multiple screens is 43 percent, in Nigeria and Kenya its 68 percent and 66 percent respectively.

So, even though the media focus of Star and Globacom have a social media twist they can’t afford to ignore other media. It’s doubtful they will park all the advertising money they into one medium and hope for the best. It’s more likely they have a multiple screen strategy.

Take the radio. Radios are the most ubiquitous media devices in Nigeria, 89 percent of rural and urban households have access to one, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The second-most ubiquitous device in Nigeria is the mobile phone, followed by the television.

But not all urban dwellers have a smartphone: 92 percent of urban households say they have a mobile phone but one-quarter of Nigeria’s 127 million active mobile subscribers have smartphones.

Beyond channels and consumers the form the adverts take determines its reception and recognition. That is, well sequenced adverts that are “consistent, connected, considered and concise” are more likely to go viral.

Solving this problem is like football which is a problem-solving game. In other words, the smarter team (brand) wins.

The art of short-form

The most popular and familiar form of advertising that is interactive and spurs conversations are micro-videos posted on social media platforms like YouTube. Mary Meeker, a venture capitalist who is noted for her analysis of internet trends, says “consumers love videos – long-form and more and more short-form”. Stories squeezed into a short video that is mobile-friendly, shareable and entertain have wowed many.

Nike’s World Cup video, The Last Game, featuring Ronaldo, is a 4 minute clip that has been viewed over 78 million times. Samsung’s G11 campaign is a combination of short films and a video game. For its World Cup campaign Star enlisted Kanu Nwankwo and Jayjay Okocha and is posting a series of videos called the Brazil Diary. Globacom has assembled a galaxy of Nigerian artistes to collaborate on several songs for the Super Eagles e.g. “Power to Win” by MI and Flavour.

May the best team win, as Nigerians watch the Super Eagles at the World Cup, tweet about them and cheer them to victory.

Tayo Fagbule