Research and Statistics as Vital tools for Nigeria's Advertising industry

And it is difficult for a nation to succeed and develop without going into research, it is almost impossible."

These were the words of Professor Olusegun Oke, National Chairman, Implementation Committee on Cassava, as published in one of our dailies sometime last year. We are informed that the world is in the midst of its fifth technological revolution in the past three centuries, the latest being the information and telecommunications revolution, which has proved highly unsettling to, among several human endeavours, the global marketing communication industry.

According to Professor Ted Levitt, "the future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious." Sadly, our advertising industry is not responding fast enough to the pleasant disruptions that are enveloping the global landscape. For example, it is doubtful that we have a mobile marketing association, which should be poised to volunteer data on the text messages that are sent on a monthly basis by cell-phone users. The Statistics would prove crucial if we had interactive agencies that specialize in mobile advertising campaigns, especially those that are rooted in opt-in text messaging.

The new business paradigm in most forward-looking societies is what is known as the open-innovation model, where your value chain transcends your organisation. Ideas, people and products need to flow across organizational boundaries, to and from organisations, universities and even countries. It is interesting that in a new version of the old ‘Pepsi Challenge’, American scientists discovered that the Coca-cola brand stimulated activity in parts of the brain associated with cultural knowledge, memory and self-image. What this teaches us is that it is time we had a scientific basis for understanding the power of brands in Nigeria.

Our marketing consultants owe the advertising industry the duty of providing it with information such as the number of advertisements an average Nigerian sees on a typical day, how much is spent, for example, by teenagers on various goods and services, etc. We can actually have youth specialists, such as Hotdogz Inc. Initiative in South Africa and Teenage Research unlimited in the United States. Non-profit organisations that conduct research and analysis of national health care and related issues would certainly be of immense assistance to our advertising industry, just as the recent Kaiser Foundation report spurred Hillary Clinton to join three other senators in reintroducing legislation to encourage research into the impact of media on American children. Why we conveniently prefer to shroud useful data such as agency billing, income, etc in mystery continues to baffle me. Who, for example, was the biggest advertiser in Nigeria in 2004?

It is also time that our media independents began to set up specialist research outfits, e.g. Starcom’s sibling, General Motors Planworks, Detroit, has been GM’s dedicated media planner and researcher since 2000. Through international media network ZenithOptimedia, owned by Publicis Groupe, the world’s fourth largest advertising company, the globe is able to know that Europe currently spends about $94.4 billion annually (26 per cent of total world advertising), while Asia-Pacific generates $75.6 billion (20 per cent).

It is also interesting that Initiative Worldwide, the Interpublic-owned media planning and buying network has a research unit known as Initiative Futures Worldwide. Interpublic Group is world’s third largest advertising company. We are in dire need of media cost and inflation surveys in our industry. Initiative Futures’ 2004 report, for example, actually monitored 44 different markets around the world, measuring the ad costs-per-thousand individuals reached by tv, newspapers, cinema, the Internet and radio. It is not a surprise that Africa is conspicuously missing from AC Nielsen’s worldwide consumer confidence survey it conducted via online questionnaire. The global researcher asked more than 44,000 consumers across Asia, Europe and the United States about confidence and spending patterns. With advertising shops springing up almost on a daily basis in Nigeria, it is imperative that we have agency search and assessment specialists, who should be able to come up with findings such as clients’ ratings of ad agencies.

We should also have vital statistics such as, which marketing segment helped keep our print media healthy in 2004; examples are retailers, automakers (distributors?), telecommunicators. What was the total advertising spend in print for 2003 and what percentage increases did the various media experience? How much did Vmobile, for example, spend in measured media last year? According to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, General Motors Corp., world’s largest automaker, spent $2.8 billion in measured media in 2004, thereby making it America’s Second-largest advertiser for that year. Our ad industry should begin to conduct online surveys of specified consumers so as to know the percentage of Nigerians who plan to watch big sporting events in the country, e.g. a World Cup qualifier. We would like to know the percentage of those who are watching specifically for the commercials and the percentage of those who pay closer attention to advertisements during the game than those that they see every day.

An annual media week conference is needed in our industry where a number of major media companies are expected to present summaries of the preceding year’s performance as well as project into the New Year specifically in terms of advertising expectations. Can our media independents challenge themselves by creating a department of Forecasting within their organizations? That way, they should not have problems giving us such statistics as: which medium delivered more audience for advertiser’ money in Nigeria over the last four years; which economic sector will see the largest upsurge in total advertising outlay over the next quarter, etc.

Rather than engage in quarrels over endless media rates increases and query the validity of monitored reports, our electronic media should commission a couple of research organizations to carry out an advertiser-perception study on them. How, for example, do marketers and media-planning agencies rate TV’s and radio’s audience measurement, schedule integrity and accountability?

Can Nigeria’s Office of Statistics tell us by what percentage household has increased or decreased since 1970? Can the National Population Commission tell us what percentage of families own homes today, compared to 1973? Our market research firms should conduct an annual consumer expenditure survey for the purpose of knowing what Nigerian consumers are buying and why. To complement their efforts is the need for a Consumer Price Index data, which will be constantly available and easily accessible.

Can we conduct regular media research so as to determine what age groups watch which channels and then come up with media ratings? This should help TV stations set their advertisement rates in a scientific and justifiable manner. The research will also provide an interesting snapshot of current performance.

Concluding therefore, it is advisable that we orchestrate academic, government and sectorial research into a brand new and improved innovative machine that will reposition advertising practice in Nigeria and adequately prepare it for global challenges. It is obvious that the entire system, at present, for creating advertisements in Nigeria is based entirely on assumptions (regarded as the “blind criteria”). However, we are still optimistic of better days ahead.