Marketing Africa through its Media

Public opinion strongly drives brand acceptability and dominance. In a fiercely competitive global market, the foreign media and a few local mediums have been criticized for creating a poor image of the continent to stifle competition from its less sophisticated nations. Consequently, the African media has been challenged to rise from the peripheral to begin shaping global perceptions on the continent. Buki Oyedemi examines how this dream can be actualized, using the Nigerian media as case study.

Christian Purefoy is a CNN correspondent in Nigeria. Last year, he ran a documentary on the effects of malaria in the country. Asides the fact that he featured mainly the less privileged as representative of the Nigerian populace, the 10 minute documentary was on air everyday for a whole month! Similarly, District 9, a South African based sci-fi movie was banned in Nigeria because it portrayed the country in bad light.
These are minute examples of the myriad of ways through which the foreign media negatively projects Nigeria and Africa generally, raising questions over the role of the continent’s media in challenging such mischief. As a popular local catchphrase notes: “No foreigner can do it for you.”

Efforts So Far
In 2009, a Nigerian newspaper, Next, came into the market with ambitions to compete in the global space. The paper’s then Director of Marketing & Strategy, Toni Kan Onwordi, told M2 that it would soon hit news stands in London and New York “as part of our efforts to tell the Nigerian story.”
Nigeria had also depended on MultiChoice South Africa, the first pay TV in the country, to relay its home movies to the world. This monopoly was however broken with the emergence of indigenous competitors such as HiTV and DaarSat. The fact that these satellite networks have channels dedicated strictly to Nigerian programming and the inclusion of local terrestrial stations on their bouquets, have helped to relay the true Nigerian story to the world.
Chairman -Editorial Board of Guardian Newspapers, Reuben Abati, also points out that, “With the increasing rate of the use of the internet, the Nigerian media has become part of a global community such that the various publications you find in Nigeria are also on the internet. I totally agree that the new media has helped promote Nigerian media.”
Despite the efforts of the Nigerian media to market itself by telling a truer Nigerian story, several forces continue to ensure that this goal, at best, remains a half-fulfilled dream.

Challenges
First and foremost is content in the local media. Bemoaning the quality of work on the airwaves, veteran media practitioner, Tunde Olojede says media production is still a far cry from what obtains outside the country. “The truth is we cannot market what we don’t have. What is it you want to show them (global audience)? Have you ever heard of a girl trying to teach her mother how to have children? Take a look at some of our TV programmes; putting aside the quality of the content, you realize that the picture quality is totally substandard. We do not have up-to-date equipment and that is a grave minus.”
Abati adds that, “TV in Nigeria is 50 years old and though it has grown tremendously over the years, it has not been able to achieve its full potentials.”
He also believes the literacy level is a challenge. Pointing out that the Nigerian media has to first market itself to Nigerians before it can succeed in doing same for the global market, Abati explains, “The fact that the literacy level in Nigeria is just about 49-59% means that the education sector is facing serious crises. Not many people are reading the publications we have because the reading culture here is virtually dead. This poses a lot of problems to the media because our own people have to understand and believe in what we do before we expect the outer world to accept our work.”

Experts Proffer Solutions
Olojede stresses that broadcasting is not just about putting equipment together, but the presentation of proper and quality production. He recommends, “collapsing some of the stations into about three stations so that the best hands can work in them and they can be run professionally. Though I give credit to one or two stations that are not biting more than they can chew by carving a niche for themselves, I will also implore that professionals who have the same passion should come together to work in the media houses so that they can churn out quality content.”
Abati also emphasizes the need to revive the reading culture in Nigeria alleging that, “Since the 80’s when the structural adjustment programme was established, Nigerians have been impoverished, resulting in the loss of purchasing power. The federal government has told us that over 70% of the working population in Nigeria lives on less than one dollar per day. It means the market for the media, no matter how you segment it, has significantly reduced.”
He continues that “there was a time in this country when men like school teachers, principals and even market women could afford to buy about four to five newspapers in a day. It was affordable, unlike now when people have to be cautious in their spending.” This means that government, corporate institutions and the reading public have to take viable steps to create policies and structures that will encourage reading. This may include vigorously pursuing public education, subsidizing literature, encouraging local publishers, and building libraries and internet centres.
The Association of Movie Producers (AMP), led by Paul Obazele, wants government to invest in the film industry to help it tell the Nigerian story more fittingly. Calling for the injection of film funds to help the industry work, Obazele notes that, “Every nation, from America to UK and Germany, provides film funds for movie makers. James Bond is a British government film.” He contends, “We can tell the world how we reinstated Ahmed Tijan Khabar, former Sierra Leonean President. We can talk about Dogonyaro, the gallant Nigerian soldier who fought and handed the land (Sierra Leone) to a democratically elected president. We have all the details to tell our own stories but we cannot do so without government support. We need to turn out good work that will be marketable to the world.”
The African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF) also say the way forward include: creating access to venture capital for media entrepreneurs, exploring opportunities for sustainable sources of revenue, positioning the African Media Initiative (AMI) as a broad based partnership for improving the African media sector, and seeking for means to link the mass media to overall governance agenda in Africa.