The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), in an unprecedented marketing move that is reminiscent of private sector’s profit drive behaviour, has begun to engage stakeholders, including advertisers and media agencies on a new branding journey for the network.
With the appointment in February this year of Sola Omole, who has traversed public and private sectors, as director-general of NTA, the new management is embarking on an operational re-construct of the network, especially as competition in the broadcasting sector increases, which will get fiercer in digital era.
With respect to Lagos market, the commercial city of Nigeria, which controlled 42 percent of total N47 billion TV advertising spend in 2013, the management of NTA last week met in Lagos, where it engaged stakeholders and marketed its programmes, which it believes, will create mileage for sponsorships.
“The intention of the marketing forum in Lagos is to let the world know the breadth and depth of services that we have at NTA. It is not clear to me that Nigerian stakeholders and, especially advertisers, have good understanding of the breadth of what we are doing at NTA,” Omole said.
Omole, who noted he was building a new NTA, said: “We thought it is crucial to start in Lagos, because Lagos is the commercial capital of Nigeria where the big advertising agencies are and they drive the advertising traffic in the media. It is a platform for conversation with advertisers who are critical to our success going forward.”
As a business concern, the director-general is changing the mindset of NTA team on approach to business for profit, as he said they must run NTA as a business enterprise people because “time will come when money will stop flowing from the government. We need to prepare our mind for that time.
“Now, we are re-orientating ourselves, we are telling the business community that we will partner with them to help them achieve their objective while we achieve our own,” he said at the stakeholders’ forum.
The DG, who recognised existence of technical challenges, obsolete equipment, skills gap but with the believe that they are surmountable, said “we believe that through the process of deliberate re-engineering, we can upgrade our facilities. We have unique opportunity because we are at a juncture of transition from analogue to digital. That gives us the opportunity to have a step change in our technical underpinning.”
Restating the reach of NTA as a convincing marketing niche, the chairman of board of directors Patrick Ogbu told stakeholders that his aspiration for NTA was to be able to accomplish its role of being a world-class television network.
He assured advertisers that NTA was greatly in their continued support and urged them to reciprocate as more opportunities open in the station. “You will be acquainted with our new products and multi-channels network on StarTimes, a collaborative effort between NTA and StarTimes of China,” he said.
Adenike Olufade, executive director, marketing, explained that the forum was designed to acquaint NTA clients, agencies and advertisers with rich programmes so that they can buy into them and sponsor, because they have good viewership across the nation and internationally.
According to her, more viewership means more advertisement because advert depends on numbers.
The one-day exhibition of NTA programmes and projects witnessed advertisers and other stakeholders who were offered 20 percent discount for bookings made at the exhibition.
Daniel Obi
