How vacating media platforms during elections can hurt businesses

…Avoid brand visibility loss, marketers told

Nigerian advertising community has been cautioned not to repeat the mistake of 2023 in 2027 by abandoning the media space for political campaigns.

It will be recalled that in 2023 general elections that produced the present administration, advertisers deliberately left the media space, including billboards, newspapers and airwaves for political messages on the excuse that those political messages will overshadow product messages.

But Yinka Adebayo, Executive Director of MediaReach OMD who understands media advertising dynamics said such mistake will be injurious to brands. He believes that brands that stay off will lose visibility during such critical time.

Taking lessons from 2023, Yinka who does not expect much of political spend on traditional media in 2027, compared to previous spending, warned that brands should be careful not to leave the stage for politicians believing that political messages will dominate the media space.

“For me, political period is a not period for brands to stay off. If anything, the eyeballs the brands are looking for are more than readily available during that time, because during the election, many people will stay at home, reading newspapers and watching TV, even the politicians, the voters will see the adverts back to back as movements will be restricted on voting days.”

Adebayo advised that all the FMCG operators, banks and other advertisers should not keep quiet during political campaigns. “They should equally keep their activities on.”

Adebayo said that brands while keeping their brands alive can come up with political social responsibility messages to educate voters and encourage voters to perform their civic responsibility by going out to vote.

With such messages, “you are not supporting any party, but encouraging the citizenry who are your customers to live up to their civic responsibility”. Through such activity, he said brands can equally maintain visibility while supporting the government and the electoral body in encouraging Nigerians to come out to vote.