Nigeria’s foremost media intelligence agency, P+ Measurement Services is set to host its quarterly edition of EvaluatePR as it welcomes all communications professionals around the globe to the 18th edition of this event.
EvaluatePR is an informative event that will be honoured by communications and media monitoring professionals, who will be sharing their experiences, advice, insights, and quotes on Media Measurement, Monitoring, and Evaluation during the interactive session.
This edition will feature public relations and measurement practitioners which includes: Francois Van Dyk, Head of Operations, Ornico Group, Johannesburg, South Africa and Samuel O. Adeyemi, Lead Strategist, Media DNA, Nigeria, who together will share from their wealth of knowledge, experiences and insights to the theme of the event.
The 18th Edition of EvaluatePR, is scheduled to take place on Friday, 24th September 2021, with the theme “Media Monitoring & Measurement: An Essential Tool in Public Relations” between the hours of 12pm and 1pm (West African Time) on the Google Meet platform.
As Nigerians continue to mourn the sudden demise of the late chairman of the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria, BJAN, Princewill Oziomachukwu Ekwujuru, members of the association have concluded plans to hold a candle light procession and Night of Tributes in his honour.
The event, which holds on Friday, September 24, 2021, is expected to attract friends, family and stakeholders in the integrated marketing communications industry, as his death has left people across different divides devastated.
According to a notice by the chairman, Funeral Committee for BJAN, Goddie Ofose, the event would hold at the Archbishop Vinning Ground Oba Akinjobi Ikeja GRA Ikeja opposite Police College, Lagos at 5pm.
Attendees to the event are urged to don all-white attire as all Covid-19 protocols would be duly observed.
However, many have testified to the late Vanguard’s Brands and Marketing reporter’s humility, simplicity and affinity with his roots.
Born Princewill Oziomachukwu Ekwujuru on June 24, 1965, the late Brand Journalist veteran was a Mass Communications graduate of the Abia State University.
Ekwujuru is survived by his wife and children.
It would be recalled that Ekwujuru suffered a fatal injuries as a result of bike accident on July 6th, which left him in coma for over two weeks but eventually, lost the battle on July 23rd at the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital, Ojo, Lagos.
The late BJAN chairman’s remains will be interred in his native home, Njaba, Imo State on September 30th, 2021.
…. Rewards Customers with 250MB data bundle, 20 SMS
As part of activities commemorating its 20th anniversary in Nigeria, leading telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has announced the commencement of Recharge and Blow promo, a new offer that empowers customers to earn cash reward of up to N100m when they increase their weekly recharge.
Airtel is also rewarding all its customers with a gift of 250mb of data and 20 SMS as part of the anniversary celebrations.
Airtel says the promo is in line with its commitment to reward, excite and delight customers across the country in commemoration of its 20 years of providing telecommunication services in Nigeria.
Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh, said the Recharge and Blow offer underscores the company’s pledge to creating exciting opportunities and platforms to reward and empower Nigerians as well as serve as a testimony to Airtel’s commitment of always putting customers first and ensuring their expectations are constantly exceeded.
“At Airtel, we always hold all our customers in high esteem and the Recharge and Blow promo as well as the data/SMS reward is an expression of our deepest appreciation to our customers across the country. We thank our customers for their loyalty and patronage even as we wish to assure them that we will not relent in providing them with the best and most relevant products, services and reward opportunities,” he said.
To participate in the promo, customers are required to dial 4444# to view details of the campaign including preset target, recharge progress and cash token wallet.
In line with the terms of the promo, customers weekly target is set every Sunday and customers are to achieve their preset target before Saturday.
As part of the promo, a draw is conducted weekly and preset target is based on customers’ previous recharge patterns. Upon meeting the preset target, customers stand the chance to win guaranteed cashback as well as win up to N100m in the weekly draw.
To redeem the 250mb data bundle and 20 SMS gift, customers are required to dial 4444#.
While customers will be able to redeem their reward when they dial the string, they can only utilize the reward on the Gift Redemption Day, which will be on September 26th and October 3rd, respectively. The gift is valid till mid-night on each of the aforementioned Gift Redemption Day.
The Recharge and Blow offer puts the customer in the driver’s seat as it offers freedom and opportunity to enjoy an amazing variety of mouth-watering rewards and win as many times as possible, as long as a preset target is achieved.
Nigeria’s leading restaurant group, Eat‘n’Go Limited has stepped in to cater to the academic needs and wellbeing of 1,200 out-of-school children in partnership with Slum2School Africa.
The Slum2School Programme, a corporate Social Responsibility initiative, was launched to identify out-of-school children at slums in remote communities with the aim to provide them quality education.
The 4th edition of the CSR initiative which held at Tarkwa Bay in Lagos was graced with the presence of EatNGo and Slum2School executives, teachers, parents, children who will be recipients of this year’s programme, and volunteers who engaged the kids in career mentorship and advised them on the importance of literacy.
Tear-eyed Shekoni Rihannat in an interview shared her hopes of becoming a banker.
“I stopped going to school in JSS1. My mummy doesn’t have any money.”
The 10 year old Tarkwa Bay resident expressed her gratitude to EatNGo as she brightened up while noting that now her mother’s hope will also be fulfilled.
Chief Executive Officer, Eat’n’Go Limited, Patrick McMicheal disclosed that for him, reaching the milestone of 1,200 kids was an exciting thing to see.
“We started off with about 40 children in 2016. In 2019 we had about 1000 children. 2020 we did 1100 children and this year we are going on with 1200 children. We have picked up a lot of children who weren’t getting enough education and they are in school now.”
Cheerful 8 year-old Grace Lekam-Obi shared her joy at the news that she could go back to school.
She explained that it had been difficult to approach her mother ever since the new academic session resumed.
“I watch others going to school. I can’t cry because I understand,” she noted.
While buttressing the importance of giving back to a country that has done so much, Mc Micheal pointed that as a company “It’s one thing to be successful in Nigeria, the other thing is to give back.”
In his words: “I think it’s really important to give back when you are successful across the country and so for us we looked at how can we give back. We do a lot of hiring and training of young people in Nigeria and these young people need to be educated to be successful, that’s why we partnered with slum2school to ensure these children get an education and hopefully one day they can work with us.”
Speaking on how much has being achieved and the impact of the partnership with EatNGo, Ogechi Ofurem, Head of Operations, Slum2School said: “EatNGo has played a huge role in our organization by ensuring that we continually support the children that we have in school. For instance today’s programme is a reality because EatNGo partnered with us.”
She continued: “They have also given us all the support we need to ensure that these children are well oriented on the importance of going to school as well as the importance of their ability to read and write; that’s the essence of our literacy day campaign. Currently in Nigeria, we have about 10million out-of-school children; at the moment we are fundraising to support 5000 children and EatNGo is supporting us with 1200 children and for us that is a really huge milestone.”
Together with Slum2School Africa, Eat N’Go will ensure that the 1,200 children from slums in Nigeria are placed in schools by the end of 2021. Eat‘n’Go Limited is the parent company of Domino’s Pizza, Cold Stone and Pinkberry.
SuperTV, an online streaming company that offers high quality Video-on-Demand (VOD) and affordable viewing experience through a disruptive ZERO DATA App to watch all-inclusive entertainment has been launched in Nigeria.
The APP, which is available for download from October 1, 2021, is the first of its kind with a turn of the mind imaginative profile unknown in the industry.
SuperTV’s power packed operational and hard-to-beat market entry strategy is based on a “ZERO DATA” proposition, coupled with her tectonic and turbocharged partnership with Nigeria’s largest telecom Network, MTN.
This double entry strategy is to ensure easy subscribers’ access, and affordability of SuperTV products and services everywhere they go – with MTN network coverage.
With SuperTV, subscribers do not incur internet data charges to stream after subscription.
The user gets to enjoy either Live TV, Video on Demand, or both, at absolutely no additional cost after subscribing successfully.
As SuperTV, Nigeria’s new streaming brand hits the airwaves on MTN network coverage, Nigerians have been assured to think less of their pockets and more about the limitless and exciting world of online steaming that awaits them – as the brand places its irresistible offerings to the table.
(L-R)SuperTV, Chief Technology Officer, Rahman Saliu, General Manager, Digital Services MTN, Aisha Mumuni, SuperTV, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ijeoma Onah, and the Chairman, Adedotun Sulaiman at the official Launching of SuperTV in partnership with MTN in Lagos
At the launch event to unveil the brand’s offerings, powered by the “ZERO DATA” proposition, Ijeoma Onah, Acting CEO, Super Network Limited, promoter of SuperTV, said “Nigeria currently has about 173 million mobile subscribers with a penetration rate of 123%. Smartphone penetration is 40 million – forecasted to grow to more than 140 million by 2025. In spite of these very impressive numbers, Nigeria is still performing very poorly in the streaming markets, hardly even showing up in global statistics.
“The major reason for this is that the average Nigerian cannot afford the data costs required to stream video. This is how and why SuperTV was conceived, to democratise streaming in Nigeria and Africa.”
Accordingly, this ‘democratisation of streaming’ entails that the subscriber does not incur internet data charges to stream after subscribing to SuperTV.
“The user gets to enjoy either Live TV, Video on Demand or both at absolutely no additional cost after subscribing successfully. We also leveraged on the sachet culture in Nigeria by providing daily plans across all our bouquets thereby making the service affordable and inclusive for everyone.
“Our entry level price of N200 for the Bronze Daily plan is about the cost of a bottle of soft drink for example. SuperTV therefore offers great entertainment and an affordable viewing experience,” Onah added.
(L-R) SuperTV, Chief Technology Officer, Rahman Saliu, General Manager, Digital Services MTN, Aisha Mumuni, SuperTV Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ijeoma Onah, Chief Marketing Officer MTN, Adia Sowho, SuperTV Chairman, Adedotun Sulaiman and the Marketing Director, Bolajoko Bayo-Ajayi at the official Launching of SuperTV in partnership with MTN in Lagos
To further assure Nigerians, the Acting CEO stressed that the brand has expectantly looked forward to the launch, as the brand believes there is a large market for affordable entertainment on demand anywhere and SuperTV will serve this large unmet need in Nigeria.
“ Based on our research, we discovered that, one of the major reasons hampering most Nigerians from online streaming is cost of data: data is expensive; so, we thought of, and conceived the idea, to have TV streaming without data constraint. This hasn’t been done before now – an IPTV streaming platform that works without internet/data. This is the story of imagination and innovative mindset that offers entertainment across socio-economic classes, across barriers, and without borders. This is putting customers squarely at the centre of our imagination.”
She added that the launch of SuperTV on the MTN network means that over 80 million Nigerians stand on the threshold of accessing the world through the SuperTV App.
She invites savvy Nigerian youth to explore this new experience of streaming without a subscription cost and the use of data.
“Most subscription packages in the market offer entertainment mostly on monthly subscription. SuperTV, in addition to monthly package, also offers entertainment packages that are hourly/daily and very flexible.
“In order to be relevant across borders and barriers, our products will be focused on making life easier for everyone. You can watch great entertainment through SuperTV at affordable cost.
SuperTV, she said, is opening up access to inclusiveness in entertainment without barriers.
Since the use of smart devices is evolving, the SuperTV brand will be uniquely opening the doors of access, communication and participation on the global stage.
The benefits of using SuperTV streaming media are enormous; affordability, no monthly rental fees for digital boxes as they can watch programmes when they want, on their schedules and demands.
With its quality brand offerings and market entry strategy, it can be projected that SuperTV will literally take over the TV viewing world by storm, to transform the Over-the-Top (OTT) viewing experience as millions of Nigerians cut the cord and switch over to online streaming services, to get access to their preferred pay TV channels via live streaming, because of its convenience and ubiquity.
In a bid to improve customer experience, leading brewing company, Guinness Nigeria has launched a new service offering, ‘Dial-A-Delivery’.
The initiative is where customers can have a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages delivered to them at their convenience.
Speaking about the new offering, Adenike Adebola, Marketing & Innovation Director, Guinness Nigeria, said: “Our goals with Dial-A-Delivery are quite simple: Make it easy for consumers to find the perfect drink for each occasion.”
He added: “Whether shaking, mixing, or drinking neat; whether relaxing alone or in the company of friends and family, every experience, each moment, should be memorable. Taking the stress out of getting drinks is for us a key task in keeping the memory in the moment.”
Dial-A-Delivery delivers a vast range of beverages, premium spirits, premium beers, fine liqueurs, malt beverages, etc. to the front door of customers.
The premium delivery service is open 8am to 5pm Mondays to Saturdays, and offers same day delivery for orders before 3pm.
As top practitioners in the marketing communications industry and other players in the global corporate environment prepare for the Africa Rising 4, an annual continental conference of the International Advertising Association (IAA), leading brands have identified with the global advertising body to host the event.
The 2-day conference which will be virtual will hold from 28th – 29th September, 2021.
According to a statement signed by the President of the IAA in Nigeria, Dr. Tunji Olugbodi, a list of local and global brands have entered into partnership with IAA to host the event.
Some of the partners include; CNN, Brand Finance, LinkedIn, Google, Tiktok, Facebook, Coca Cola, Interswitch, First Bank Nigeria and Access Bank.
The conference is the region’s most anticipated event that brings together the very best in marketing communications over a 2-day period to deliberate on topics propelling the industry and find new ways to uplift the industry on the continent.
This edition with the theme “Africa to the World” will have in attendance thought leaders, key entrepreneurs, advertising/marketing communications practitioners and the academia working in or doing businesses across Africa and the globe to discuss the successes of brands in Africa as the engine of economic revival in the wake of covid-19 pandemic.
Some of the speakers and panellists include: Joel Netttey, IAA’s first African Chairman/World President; Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General (AfCFTA); Abdulsamad Rabiu, Chairman, BUA Group; Andisa Ntsubane, Head, Marketing Strategy/Planning & Africa Marketing, Old Mutual Limited; Juliet Ehimuan, Director, West Africa (Google); Jeff Greenbaum, Chairman, Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (GALA); Tyrona Heath, Director, Market Engagement, The B2B Institute (LinkedIn); Declan Arhen, Director, Africa – Brand Finance; Mitchell Elegbe, Founder & Group MD/CEO, Interswitch; Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, First Bank Nigeria; amongst others.
Discourse will revolve around issues in marketing communications from the African perspective ranging from Leadership in a challenging area to Economic prospects against the backdrop of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to technology, research and data, digital branding & digital evolution, creativity and nation building.
While CNN would be the official global media partner, its presenter Robin Curnow (anchor and correspondent) will kick off the first debate of the conference around the theme Why Brands Matter in Africa.
Highlights of the conference include the launch of Brand Finance Report for Africa (which recognises 150 top outstanding brands in Africa), Women in Marketing, Networking session, Panel Discussion and many more.
World’s leading advertising agencies including McCann, Publicis, and Dentsu have joined forces with the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD) to abide by new standards aimed at stopping children from seeing alcoholic advertising by influencers.
The joint pledge recognises the importance of transparency and gives clear guidance on how to market alcohol responsibly.
The global initiative launched by IARD, will help ensure alcohol marketing by social influencers is clearly recognized, responsibly advertised, and aimed at an audience over the legal purchase age.
Albert Baladi, President and CEO of Beam Suntory and Chair of IARD CEO Group, said: “This partnership reflects the significant work that IARD members have already undertaken and the shared determination with the world’s leading advertising, public relations, and influencer agencies to do even more to prevent minors from seeing alcohol advertising online.
“These standards directly address some of the biggest concerns facing the marketing community right now. By offering more transparency and giving those at the heart of content creation the correct tools to safeguard their content, we are able to expand on the significant progress and marketing codes of practice already in place to ensure that these posts do not reach minors or encourage any kind of irresponsible consumption.”
IARD is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to reducing harmful drinking and promoting understanding of responsible drinking supported by the leading global beer, wine, and spirits producers including AB InBev, Diageo, Heineken, Molson Coors, Kirin, Carlsberg Group, Brown Forman, Asahi, Bacardi Limited, William Grant & Sons, Beam Suntory, and Pernod Richard.
The online-retailers include Jumia, Drizzly, Endeavour Group, Glovo, Grab, Hip Bar, JD.com, Mercado Libre, Minibar Delivery, Reserve Bar, Uber Eats, and Retail Of Alcohol Standards Group.
Henry Ashworth, IARD President and CEO, said: “This is a world-first initiative in raising collective standards of responsibility across multiple digital channels, and we call on our partners in the alcohol, advertising, and influencer industries to join us in our ongoing work to ensure that alcohol marketing across all forms of media is responsible.
“This is a major step in preventing minors from seeing any alcohol marketing and IARD is proud to have united the world’s leading agencies to help raise global standards.”
The global internet advertising market size which was valued at $319 billion in 2019 is projected to reach $1,089 billion by 2027.
It is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 17.2% from 2020 to 2027.
Internet advertising involves using the internet to communicate promotional and marketing messages to a target audience.
The steady growth of internet users globally has become an important factor fueling the growth of the online internet advertising market.
With marketers leveraging internet advertising to achieve their marketing goals, the rise of social media bloggers, growing trend of influencer marketing, growing demand for e-commerce and social commerce accelerated by the pandemic, and the continuous increase in penetration of internet across the globe has presented a great opportunity for internet advertising.
This trend has urged brands to invest in innovative and interactive social media advertisements.
Internet advertising has also become one of the most adopted strategies by marketers and advertisers to communicate with consumers, pull website traffic, promote brand exposure, attract their target audience, find new customers, expand their reach, diversify their revenue streams, and as well influence the purchase decisions of their audience.
Marketers use internet advertising such as banners, pay-per-call ads, pay-per-click ads, and pop-ups through e-newsletters and personalized email marketing, search engines, suitable websites, online magazines, and newspapers to reach the right customer, at the right time.
Advertisers are also using the platform to reach their targeted customers as it is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional advertising methods like TV advertisements; and also helps in reaching out to a wide range of customers.
SMEs and online start-ups are now making a shift from traditional advertising to self-serve platforms that allow small businesses to advertise with ease.
These online platforms minimize the expenses by allowing the companies to take control of their marketing schemes and selling products directly to the consumers. According to Statista, small businesses spend, on average, up to $10,000 per month on online advertising.
So far, North America has been reported as the largest revenue contributor to the online advertising market with a market share of 36% in 2018, due to the major presence of companies in the region such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and others.
The global internet advertising market share is also expected to maintain its dominance even in the coming years driven by factors such as extensive adoption of smartphones, emergence of high-speed internet, proliferation of social media, rise in advertising spends on digital media across various industries, and increase in popularity of streaming platforms.
The use of smartphones has grown rapidly and the way consumers interact with various brands or sellers has transformed, owing to the accessibility of high-speed internet on smartphones.
This factor is expected to fuel the internet advertising market growth as it has become crucial for brands to understand consumers’ interests with the help of smartphone advertisements and to stimulate their decision to purchase.
According to Industry ARC estimates, around 70-80% of social networking companies generate revenue through mobile advertising.
In 2019, around 3.48 billion monthly active users visit social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and others which increased by 9% from 2018. Increasing usage of social media platforms by advertising companies to reach targeted customers and high usage of smartphones rather than desktops for social media platforms is set to drive the mobile advertising market growth.
Low internet penetration, bad road network and infrastructure deficit were among the hindrances identified to forestall e-commerce success in its early days in Nigeria. This was largely due to the fact that the majority of the country’s population lived in rural areas.
This was – and still – the situation in major African markets. The only exceptions are North African countries, because they have over 70% urban population.
While internet penetration is fastly growing and driving online activities among the people in Nigeria, the road infrastructure needed to get items delivered at sub-hub locations are not growing at commensurate proportion.
Though ecommerce brands like the market leader, Jumia deploy initiatives like Jforce, remote pickup stations and delivery hubs to take the services closer to the people, there are still mitigating factors such as extremely bad roads that make it impossible for delivery agents to access certain locations.
Irene Emede runs Fitfeett Collections Logistics in Benin. She is excited that residents, despite availability of local markets, are making use of online services for groceries and other daily needs.
“The interesting thing that really amazes me is despite the local markets we have around here, we still have customers ordering groceries like Rice, Groundnut oil and Spaghetti. And you still see them going there to order for their clothes,” she stated.
Irene however lamented the negative impact the state of roads in the area is having on delivery of items to customers.
“One of the major challenges we have is our bad road. For instance, the road that leads to Ugbiyoko to Ekenwa down to Barrack road is very bad and is not really helping us. Our delivery associates are not able to take their vehicles down there and for that reason, they go there for delivery by foot which is very stressful.
“So most of the items we deliver there are the little items that are easy to carry because they can’t carry large items on their heads simply because they want to make delivery and the bus drivers make things worse by charging them.”
Another negative side to this is the danger it poses to delivery agents, and safety of goods, considering the current state of insecurity across the country.
Irene explained that the company takes precaution by ensuring that items going to such locations are small and not high earned.
“Most of the items taken to that axis for delivery are not high-value items and they are very small. This is for them to be able to overcome the insecurity over there in case of any that may come up.”
Interestingly, the deplorable state of roads has also created a market for electric car jack in the area, selling among female car owners.
“We have this electric carjack that most of the females use simply because they don’t really have the strength to jack their car whenever their car breaks down on their way out,” she explained.
As e-commerce brands put in efforts to drive market penetration in Nigeria, a lot more will be achieved if relevant authorities can help with road infrastructure. E-commerce and logistics are inseparable and both occupy crucial space in the growth of the digital economy, which is one of the major economic goals of Nigeria.
