Nigeria’s N100 billion-worth advertising industry is optimistic of business expansion this year, as it expects positive impacts from politics, telecommunications, banking, retail market and power sectors.
Analysts who assessed the sector which is protected from foreign control, strongly believe that political campaigns in 2014 will greatly shape the industry.
“This year, the industry will look brighter, as politicians who are seeking for elective positions will engage advertisers and public relations practitioners”, Tunji Abioye of Fuel Communications told BusinessDay.
Believing that 2014 will be a “colourful year for operators in the marketing communication industry”, Abioye was also optimistic that the telecom sector “will continue to have its space as far as marketing is concerned, especially with a lot of migration to data and the industry’s attempt to broaden opportunity in the bandwidth space”.
Beyond telecom and politics, the marketer fingered agriculture as another sector that has prospects for a remarkable impact on the marketing communication industry.
Another sector which he believes will have positive impact on the marketing communication industry is the electricity sector. “I learnt a few players in that sector are already shopping for marketing agencies to partner with them”.
It is also expected that with emphasis on recurrent expenditure in the 2014 Federal Government budget, there will be a rise in purchasing power. Akonte Ekine, the CEO of Absolute PR said 2014 is the year before the election year, “it is also the year of the World Cup and CHAN, among other activities. With various sectors/organisations coming out to try and please consumers with offerings, we consider it a great year already, and mind you, the CBN cashless policy is really driving the financial institutions and digital firms, as well as consumers, towards a new lifestyle, such that consumer behaviour, consumer media consumption habits, the fight for market share is entering a new dimension, like never before”.
Ekine said there would be plenty of activities around sports/ politics/brands and loyalty initiatives to keep the market excited in 2014.
Looking back to 2013, he said it was not a fantastic year for the marketing communications industry, in view of the number of pitches and volume of accounts. “It is the first year of supposed recovery from the global recession, so businesses/ corporations were still holding back on spending, with a watchful eye on developments. Asides government activities in the area of privatisation, which ended up with the sale of the power plants, very little happened with the unstable political climate”.
In his assessment, Tony Udenze of Capital Media agency, agreed that politics would certainly play a dominant role, followed by telecommunication. “Also, the banking industry will play a key factor in shaping the industy as well. The industry will likely spend more than it did in 2013”.
This is because consumer appetite is expanding and the economy is looking up”. He also said competition would perhaps compel operators to spend more.
According to Udenze, 2014 will be a build up on the 2013 business performance. “In 2013 the economy stabilised”, he said.
Lanre Adisa of Noah’s Ark, also believes that a number of agencies will be busy in 2014 considering that it is an election year. He said that this year will be about engaging clients more than anything else. “What will happen going forward is about supremacy of ideas and good thinking and clients want good value for their spends and they will look for those agencies that can deliver on these values”.
In 2012, there was a total of N91.846 billion spent on Above the Line campaigns, out of which TV campaigns gulped the lion’s share of N49.399 billion. Outdoor advertising and radio gained N17.692 billion and N15.782 billion of the sum respectively. The print media (Press) coveted the remaining N8.974 billion of the total ads spend in ATL campaigns. It is expected that the media will gain more this year.
By: Daniel Obi
