Daily Times Survey: How 2023 general elections shaped Integrated Marketing Communications in Nigeria
By Godwin Anyebe
All over the world, the media plays a strategic role in facilitating and developing new techniques of political communication such as political advertising. This is because advertising is the most effective ways in building and creating an image.
Additionally, the contribution of the media to politics, and to political communication in general, is a constitutive feature of politics: democracy is founded on discussion and the communicative actions of politicians, and all citizens define and assign value to themselves, others and the community.
Furthermore, media can play many roles in an ideal democratic society, such as providing information, educating the citizens, acting as a platform for public political discourse, offering publicity to government as watchdog of the society and serving as a channel for the advocacy of political viewpoints.
In Nigeria, every election year is critical to practitioners in the integrated marketing communications industry reason being that, they are the professionals through which politicians engages their various audiences. For 2023, the elections have come and gone but the impact the elections had on the industry is critical to its growth and development.
ARCON Intervention
In the build-up to 2023 general elections with increased electioneering activities, the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON urged advertising agencies to adhere to the advertising code of practice in order to maintain peace and decorum in the polity.
In fact, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, Director General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria ARCON at a time disclosed that; “elections are not a do-or-die affair. There are provisions of the law that need to be strictly adhered to. We have the remit of advertising, advertisement, and marketing communications which means that whether you are doing your campaign below the line, between the lines, or above the line, it must comply with the provisions of the advertising code.”
The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON disclosed that it vetted 298 advertisements of 16 political parties for the 2023 general elections. These adverts comprise five (5) TVCs (Titled 3 Mandates by PDP), two radio adverts (Tonye Cole and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed) and two TVCs by APC. It added that two TVCs were revised.
A breakdown of the adverts approved and the political parties shows that APC -120, PDP-94, LP-35, NNPP-8, APGA-4, Action Alliance-2, YPP-10, SDP-9, ADP-1, NRM-1, PRP-3, APP-2, ADC-5, Boot-1, APM-1, and Accord-2.
Unlike in time past, the advertising regulatory agency said it recorded a very good compliance with the advertising law and stipulated guidelines for political marketing and communication this year noting that there were few that failed to comply with the advertising law which the regulatory agency addressed.
Conflict of Interest
In Lagos, it was reported that, the two leading political parties and their candidates fought over campaign billboards. The PDP candidate, Mr Abdulaziz Olajide Adediran popularly known as Jandor, had raised an alarm, alleging that the state government was blocking his campaign billboards.
According to “Jandor, the moment that of Afromedia happened in Falomo, I placed a call through to the Lagos police commissioner myself and I said to him, ‘CP, this just happened. It was removed.’ We didn’t even know, we thought it was the hoodlums who removed it. It was after investigation that we realised that it was the state government, through LASAA that removed it. The company in question did say to us, ‘They have asked us not to take anything from you. We will refund your money.” Just like JCDecaux did refund our money.”
But the APC spokesman, Mr Seye Oladejo, described the PDP’s allegations as the “usual cheap propaganda from the stable of the opposition party.”He also said it was “very untrue” that the government stopped outdoor advertisements belonging to the opposition party candidate.
Also, the Managing Director of LASAA, Prince Ademola Docemo, said the candidate’s allegation did not show an understanding of the rules guiding outdoor advertisement practice in Lagos, explaining that LASAA regulates billboard structures and not advertisement campaigns.
Experts View
Speaking on this issue, a Marketing Communications Expert and head of GDM Group, Victor Afolabi said, “from what people said, I think the people that, expected election spend for this year to be the way it used to be also missed it. This is because they have failed to realised that, the industry has shifted. In the group we had the privilege to manage some election campaigns. I can tell you that, it was one of the profitable project we have managed in the last twenty four months. but, guess what? They were not on traditional media.
According to him, “people are complaining because the expected plenty of television commercials. But, when you look at it critically, you will begin to ask: why I do need to spend 50 million naira on television commercials when people are not watching television? Why am I going to spend so much on radio jingles when people are not listening to radio like before but watching skits? Why do I need to run full page advert in the newspapers when the sorosoke generation don’t read newspapers?”
“But, was the election keenly contested? Yes, it was. But, it was at the level of influencers. What do you do with influencer marketing? What do you with opinion shaping? Do you have the tools for sentiment analysis? Have you invested in those tools that could help you? Because we were doing surveys, researches and all manner of permutations. Do you have such competence? If you do not have such competence, there’s no way you can benefit from the election spend.”
Continuing, he disclosed that, “we were running surveys every two two weeks and we were telling our clients where there were vulnerabilities, not only from the ward level, but, from the local government and state level. And we were getting those sentiment analysis, they were using them for action. The question is; was money spent during the 2023 general elections? Yes, did it go to the traditional direction? No, and that’s why the industry feel that, the election did not have so much spend. So, the challenge again for the Industry is, how and when people spend their has changed”, he added.
Also, a Marketing Communications Expert, Gani Olowu said; “the fragmentation and de-segmentation of the industry really played out when one considers the impact of 2023 elections on the Integrated Marketing Communication. You will discover that social media specifically WhatsApp and twitter played major roles in the orchestration of political messages by various political parties. Those two media were well stretched in selling their candidates and their manifestos.”
According to him, “the whole idea of political communication being single minded and integrated has being eroded. So many campaign themes and varied messages were developed by candidates and political parties to sell themselves. The only missing word in all these campaign themes was ‘integrated’. I discovered that fewer and fewer Agencies got political communication briefs as politicians are now engaging Hot Shops and one-man ‘Brief Case’ advertising firms thereby eroding creativity, real and effective synergy of thoughts in campaign planning.”
He pointed out that, “this is a dangerous trend and need to be discouraged. We didn’t witness the robust and creative depths in campaign deployment by political parties in this year’s elections. I recall the nostalgic advertising appeal and messaging of SDP versus NRC in the MKO Abiola Hope 93 campaign. That was a gone era. Call to action, melodious line, single-minded messaging are conspicuously missing in this year’s elections.”
“Although APC tried to create some level of impact with its “Renewed Hope” campaign. But there are more cacophony during the electioneering period than clear messages.
A simple test will suffice: What can you remember about any of the candidates or political parties and their campaigns? None, I guess.”
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On his part, a Public Relations Expert, Akonte Ekine said; “the first thing we should all note is that the IMC is not in isolation and therefore the industry was also challenged in a mixed manner. One is that there were many marketing communications activities from the political class that didn’t go through as expected while also on the other hand the activities of the political class completely dominated the space such that very few brands were able to play. The fight for share of voice was predominantly between the political parties.”
“While the gains in the industry could be seen from the media billing, there is also some measure of growth for the production companies in the industry. On the side of creativity, I would rather say it was low when we benchmark the quality of creativity, we have enjoyed in the past to what we saw in this last election, from my humble observation it was low. So, the mixed bag is good for the industry and we should look at the good side.”
Also speaking, a brand and marketing analyst, Dan Obi stressed that, “the impact of the 2023 elections on the integrated marketing communications is a mixed one in the sense that some aspect of the marketing communication industry benefited from the process while others do not benefit as much as expected. Before now, there was this expectation that campaigns of political parties will be a lifting lever for the marketing communication industry but, the result was not as expected.”
“PR did not benefit much, creative did not benefit much, Outdoor was selective, media independent did not benefit much, social media benefited much, the press did not benefit, radio did not benefit much, and the benefit for television was less than 40 per cent. The reason for the mixed was because of the fact that political parties’ handlers handled the campaigns by themselves and they do that through rookies who are none registered practitioners. Also, they relied more on below the line; they also believed that they could do it by themselves”, he said.
