Advertising Community Awaits Business Boom Ahead February Elections

.Twitter lifts ban on political ad to boost revenue

Raheem Akingbolu

Political campaigns and marketing will contribute at least 40 percent to total Advertising revenue between January and March, 2023, a Mass Communication Lecturer at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, Dr. Jide Johnson has stated.

Speaking to THISDAY on the factors that would shape advertising landscape in 2023, Johnson said marketing communications industry would start on a good note and strong foundation at the first quarter because of the influx of revenue that would be accrued to the sector from political campaign and advertising between January and March, 2023.

“The first quarter of 2023 looks good for advertising because while corporate organisations would naturally be sceptical  to invest in advertising because of the likely fallout from the election, political parties will fill in the gap to market their candidates and manifestoes. In all; Public Relations, Experiential, Advertising and even digital, I can confidently say that political campaigns will contribute nothing less than 40% to total Advertising spending in the first quarter of 2023,” Johnson said.

Also speaking, the President, Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN), Emmanuel Ajufo, admitted that every election year, comes with the opportunity of doing  good business, with the hope that 2023 would not be different.  “We hope that now, that the elections are getting closer, the politicians will do more marketing of their potentials and by so doing, all arms of marketing communications will be better patronised,” Ajufo said.

For the President of Experiential Marketing of Nigeria, Tunji Adeyinka also said stakeholders expected a higher spend on advertising from the candidates in January as Nigerians approach the elections in February and March. However, I am disappointed with what I have seen so far, not just around the lower spend but also in the strategic and creative output. We have not seen very strong, single-minded campaigns driven by consumer insight and a conviction birthed out of our situation. We have seen a lot of platitudes and big media exposures but not much by way of relevant and creative messaging. We still have a few weeks to go before the elections but if we go on at this pace this may turn out to be the ‘drabbest’ campaign season. Once more, let us hope we are proven wrong in the next few weeks,” Adeyinka said.

In a related development, Twitter said last week that it plans to lift the ban on political ads in the “coming weeks.” The company originally enforced the ban back in 2019. At that time, it said that “political message reach should be earned, not bought.” Twitter charted a different path from other social networks like Facebook and Instagram, which allowed political ads.

The social network’s announcement comes at a time when advertisers have been pulling back spending on the platform. In November, the company’s owner, Elon Musk, blamed “activist groups” for putting pressure on advertisers to suspend ads on Twitter. Musk also had a spat with Apple as the company briefly paused ads on the platform, and Musk accused the iPhone maker of hating “free speech in America.”