Different tools are used to create brand awareness and enhance brand equity in marketing. Over the years, events, sponsorship, promotions, and place branding have become practical tools brands use to target the heart of existing or prospective customers. This explains why organisations fall over themselves to own sponsorship property for many years.
These tools have become much more valid, mainly now, when content is considered king. While other tools such as events marketing or destination branding have often contributed a lot to brand building, there is much that sponsorship has to offer. In recent times, sponsorship has become a great tool to educate, inform and reward consumers or customers alike.
From any angle one chooses to look at it, sponsorship has also been a vast driver not only for the brand visibility but also to promote other intended consequences. This is why brands like MTN and Coca-Cola have queued behind sponsorship to perform their corporate social responsibilities.
In light of this context, the UP Group, a payments and financial technology firm, and a digital payments innovator, with unified payments, Hope PSBank, Payattitude Global, and Payarena, has sponsored the TV show – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Series 2 – The Rebirth with a promise to make it more exciting.
UP, otherwise known as Unified Payment Services Limited, operates as a shared infrastructure for the banking community in Nigeria and payments service provider within and outside Nigeria. Payarena is also a digital-led platform that offers customers access to services that include airtime (Virtual Top Up, Prepaid PINs, etc.) for all telecom platforms in Nigeria. It also provides convenience for paying utility bills and is a platform for collection services in public and corporate organisations while also doubling as a money transfer service.
Payattitude is a payment scheme with innovative technologies for payments and financial transactions focusing on mobile and digital payments. Also, Hope PSBank is a digital-first bank that leverages digital technologies to deliver inclusive financial services.
These brands, together, have brought back the Wants To Be A Millionaire? show, which has hitherto enjoyed wide acclaim to the delight of the audience.
Recently, unveiling the sponsors and the host at an event held at Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos, it was clear that the show was about to change with many exciting moments awaiting the audience.
Delivering his address Agada Apochi, managing director, UP, explained that the group’s decision to throw its weight behind the WWTBAM Show was driven by the desire to educate, excite and entertain Nigerians by bringing to their viewing pleasure a show they admire.
Investment in the show remains the best way to promote the brands in its portfolio and give back to society by rewarding participants, Apochi said.
According to Apochi, an investment in education should be considered an investment into the country’s future. “We want to take people back to learning and knowledge.
That is one of the reasons we believe in putting our money behind this. In a few weeks, specifically in March, we would be able to see Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Game Show. We are ready to be part of the show because it aligns with our organisational goals.
In the UP Group, we are investing in this TV game show because we want to promote our brands and see a better Nigeria. We want to promote our brands to benefit society, which would happen through the exhibition, education, and empowerment. This show is a good means of entertainment because it would bring families together,” he said.
Also, Babatunde Okeniyi, managing director, Payattitude Global, stated that choosing to sponsor the show among the arrays of reality shows was based on the values it brings to the viewing public and the financial benefits.
The group is committed to empowering Nigerians by creating a new set of millionaires through the initiative, Okeniyi said, stressing that technology remains the key driver of innovation that would encapsulate series 2 of the show, as Nigerians can now participate from the comfort of their homes.
“We will make sure that technology to participle and win is easily accessible to people. What we have done is to enable participants to dial *569# to have access to it. You can also use the Hope PSBank Channel through *569# or the barcode.
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As an innovative company, we have tried to incorporate the USSD of all the banks. We felt the only way to bring this innovation to bear is to partner with WWTBAM”, he added.
Also speaking, Ayotunde Kuponiyi, managing director, Hope PSBank, stated that the decision to sponsor the show was informed by the need to contribute its quota to the growth of the Nigerian economy while helping to promote financial inclusion among Nigerians.
He is convinced that participation through its platform would offer the opportunity for new millionaires to emerge and help drive financial inclusivity among millions of Nigerians, particularly those who had hitherto been excluded due to difficulty to accessing physical banking structure in their locality or domain, Kuponiyi noted.
The show would help promote knowledge acquisition and allow Nigerians to realise their economic dreams by winning cash prizes every week for 52 weeks, he said.
In his remarks Hakeem Condotti, CEO of BLK Hut, who owns the franchise for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in Nigeria, said the new series was being produced under the licence of Sony Pictures, assuring that the company was ready to deliver creative, and quality content that meets set standard and the admiration of Nigerians.
Frank Edoho, the show host, who anchored it before, noted that he was excited to present the show once again, especially considering what he had seen on the part of the sponsors and the magnitude of work put up in preparing the studio.
However, it remains to be seen how the sponsorship of this game show would contribute to changing the value narratives in Nigeria as we watch it in the next 52 weeks.
Bakare, a public relations practitioner, writes from Lagos
