The 360-degree strategy behind Nollywood’s billion-naira hits

Nollywood executives Victoria Ogar and Tofunmi Akinseye have outlined a structured 360-degree marketing approach as the key driver of recent box-office successes, urging producers to treat films as commercial products that require full-spectrum promotion from development through post-release.

Speaking at the Film Marketing and Audience Development forum organized by the School of Media and Communications, Pan Atlantic University, both women stressed that marketing is not optional and must cover every stage of a film’s lifecycle to convert awareness into ticket sales and sustained revenue.

Ogar, Head of Distribution FilmOne Entertainment, began by establishing the foundational importance of marketing. “Marketing is very key to everything when it comes to product selling, product strategy, and positioning, and even just brand awareness,” she said. “You cannot have a product, and you do not market it. How many more films do you have?”

She described a film as an idea that must be conceptualised, visualised, and then deliberately presented to audiences so they can connect with its world and characters. Without marketing, she argued, even a well-made film remains unseen. Different viewers approach films differently; some focus on technical aspects such as cinematography, sound design, or the director’s name, while others seek simple entertainment, but marketing determines whether any of these audiences will discover the work.
“You cannot shy away from marketing regardless of what it is,” Ogar stated. “Whether you are selling by yourself, there is somebody else who is making it for you.”

Akinseye of Savvy Media Africa built on this foundation by presenting concrete evidence from recent releases. In 2020, Omo Ghetto: The Saga generated more than N600 million in ticket sales, filling over 300,000 seats at an average of N2,000 per ticket. Everybody Loves Jennifer reached N1 billion in 19 days. Gingerrr, produced by four prominent women who leveraged their combined fan bases, crossed N500 million.

She noted that these results did not materialise from opening-weekend efforts alone. “They’ve been marketing their movies right before the movie came out,” Akinshiye explained. “Different content strategies, different marketing ideas.”

Both speakers identified the classic four Ps of marketing – product, price, place, and promotion – as the framework that explains these outcomes. For Akinshiye, Funke Akindele’s consistent success demonstrates a deliberate balance across all four. The product itself must deliver a strong story, solid production quality, and star power that builds franchise loyalty.

Pricing decisions, distribution partnerships (such as Akindele’s collaboration with FilmOne), and promotional tactics must align. “She has been able to like beautifully balance all of this marketing mix,” Akinshiye said, adding that the 360-degree approach is the mechanism that makes this balance operational.

When asked to elaborate on the 360-degree strategy, Akinseye broke it into clear phases. The process begins well before release with pre-content activity: trailer drops, cast reveals, and early promotional material. This leads into the premiere phase, which she described as a deliberate marketing tool rather than a social event.

“You begin to see beautiful invite boxes being sent to influencers and to influential voices. You begin to see lovely curated boxes, merchandise, and all of that, still leading to the premiere. After the premiere, the critical sustenance phase takes over,” Akinseye said.

She revealed that many films lose momentum at this point, but successful campaigns maintain visibility through ongoing content pillars, audience reactions, blog amplification, partnerships with niche media platforms, and collaborations with both macro and micro influencers. “It’s in stages, and it’s just you making use of the full spectrum of your digital strategy from your blog post to your movies being amplified on major blog platforms to partnerships with niche media platforms to also being able to partner with micro and macro influencers,” Akinseye said.

Ogar reinforced that the 360-degree model is budget-dependent and must be planned in partnership with distributors. Once production is complete, the filmmaker hands the film to a distributor who first watches it to understand the producer’s intent.

The distributor then decides whether the film belongs in cinemas, selects the optimal release date, and assesses competing titles. “You need to have like a dating strategy,” Ogar explained. “What’s releasing around this period? Can this film succeed in this period?” Only after positioning is locked does the announcement phase begin. Depending on available funding, the campaign can expand to include traditional media, digital media, public relations, trailers, promotional assets, and direct involvement from the cast. “You can decide to make the 360 approach where you’re getting all pillars of communication,” she said.

Ogar also highlighted practical realities that producers must accept. Premieres provide useful feedback because cinema representatives attend and give honest assessments of a film’s commercial prospects. “The cinemas are not going to lie to you.

They’ll tell you because they are here to make money,” she noted. Distributors must sometimes deliver difficult messages to producers: a film may be good but not sufficiently commercial, or its appeal may be regionally limited. She gave the example of a Yoruba-language film, which should concentrate promotional spend in the Southwest rather than spread resources evenly across markets where returns are unlikely. “I have a Yoruba film, and I don’t expect that thing to do well in the East. It’s great, like automatically I have to focus on the Southwest.”

Both executives agreed that marketing must begin early and continue after release. Ogar emphasised that the distributor’s role includes comparative analysis: every cinema-bound film needs a “comp title” – a previous release with similar elements whose box-office performance can be used as a benchmark. Producer track record, cast social-media strength, and regional audience data all factor into the plan. Skits, posters, and trailers are not afterthoughts; they form part of the coordinated push to make the film appear “bigger than life.”

Akinseye pointed out that newer producers are already adopting these blueprints. The involvement of multiple high-profile women in Gingerrr showed recognition that collective fan bases translate directly into ticket sales. She described this as a shift in industry thinking: films are now viewed as products that require sustained, multi-channel promotion rather than one-off launches.

The forum discussion underscored a single consistent message. Marketing is the bridge between a finished film and its audience. Without it, even the strongest story, cast, or technical execution remains invisible. Ogar summarised the stakes plainly: “A film is supposed to be an idea. Conceptualized and then brought forward into a picture. So you want people to see that vision, you want people to connect with it, and you want people to even be aware that this thing is ready for consumption.” Akinseye added that the evidence from recent blockbusters proves the strategy works when executed across all four Ps and all phases of the 360-degree cycle.