Culture is the store; realness is the new retail

It is 11 pm. You picked up your phone to check one thing. You do not remember what that thing was anymore. Because somewhere between your cousin’s wedding photos and a news headline you half-read, a young man appeared on your screen.

He is selling headphones. But he is not really selling headphones. He is showing you his world: cables arranged just so, a ring light casting the right glow, and talking to you like you are the only person watching.

He says, “Bros, this one changed my life. Let me show you why.”

He demonstrates. He jokes. He tells you he used to trek to work. He does not explain what that has to do with the headphones. But somehow, it has everything to do with why you are still watching. You buy the headphones.

That is shoppertainment. And it is not going anywhere.

What the Instagram seller understands, often intuitively, is something that brand strategists spend years and large budgets trying to manufacture: emotional proximity.

The best ones are not pushing products; they are sharing a life.

The woman is setting up her phone at 7 am to show you how she packs orders before her children wake up. The food vendor in Ibadan who takes you into her kitchen, lets you hear the pepper being blended, and makes you feel you are about to eat the best jollof rice of your life. We love an underdog.

In a country where most people know exactly what it costs to show up every day, that signal travels fast.

When it is done well, it does not feel like performance. It feels like the truth. And people do not just buy from truth; they defend it, share it, and bring their friends to it.

Formal brands have noticed. Some are partnering with these sellers directly: gifting products, co-creating content, funding the kind of raw storytelling their own accounts can never quite pull off.

Others are trying to build that energy from inside, showing their factories, their teams, their behind-the-scenes moments. Less gloss, more access. It is a smart read of what people want.

But the moment it starts to feel like a brand performing authenticity rather than actually being authentic, the audience clocks it instantly.

The sellers who built real followings did it over hundreds of videos, with mistakes left in and frustration occasionally visible. You cannot replicate that with a content calendar and a creator who has never used your product.

What is also interesting is that this energy is no longer contained to a screen. The candle-making evenings in Lekki, where you pour your own wax, pick your own scent, and leave with something your hands made.

The sneaker brand that takes over a space in Surulere for a weekend and turns it into a living room: music, food, conversation, no pressure.

None of these feel like marketing. That is precisely the point. The commerce happens at the end of an experience that already meant something. The transaction is the footnote, not the headline.

Nigeria’s consumers, particularly younger ones, are among the most culturally literate audiences anywhere. They detect a false note in seconds. But when something lands as genuinely real, they do not just buy. They become part of the story.

The question for any brand operating in this market is not whether to show up in culture. It is whether you have something honest to bring when you get there.

Here is what I would do if I were in your shoes as a brand custodian.

First: Watch your own content the way a stranger would. If you were to scroll past it, your audience already has. Stop producing content that ticks boxes and start creating things worth finishing.

Second: Give someone inside your brand permission to be human. A founder, a team member, a real customer. The best shoppertainment is never scripted. It comes from people with actual skin in the game.

Third: Design at least one experience this year where buying is not the point. Host something, Make something; bring people into a room. Let the relationship build first and trust that the commerce will follow.

Adim Isiakpona is the founder of The People Company, a creative agency group operating across African markets. This is his monthly column on people, brands, and culture.