Marketing Professionals Task Tinubu on Rebranding of Nigeria

James Emejo in Abuja

Marketing Experts and stakeholders have called on President Bola Tinubu to develop a holistic rebranding campaign for the country.
The stakeholders also urged the president to engage professionals to craft an effective strategy that would redeem the country’s negative image using the media as a vehicle to drive the change, noting that Nigeria remained a brand that must be redeemed using an effective communication strategy that only brand professionals could offer.

Speaking during a paper presentation at the 2023 National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) Annual General Meeting and National Conference, with the theme: “The Roles of Marketing Communication and Ethics in Nation –Building,” the Group Chief Executive, Prima Garnet Africa, Mr. Lolu Akinwunmi, said such campaigns should target the root causes of the negatives of the Nigerian brand.

He said while he was not against the appointment of journalists as media and communications advisers to the president, professionals are more qualified to deliver the desired results of redeeming the brand.

Akinwunmi said, “I am therefore using the opportunity that hosting this conference in Abuja presents, and especially so close to the inauguration of the new government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to strongly urge and implore him to take a new look at developing a holistic rebranding campaign for Nigeria.
“We need one. And I am not talking of another media campaign that is superficial, but one that goes to the root of the causes of the negatives of the Nigerian brand, and then design, or more like implement a serious long-term attitude-changing campaign.”

He said, “While media use will play a major role at various stages, the focus essentially is strong attitudes change campaign from our primary schools to the high schools and colleges and higher educational institutions. The reorientation will also focus on our professions and government organs.

“Happily, the proposal and blueprint that the government approved still exists, and can very easily be updated for professional execution. May I at this point strongly urge and implore the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to work with Nigerian professionals, marketing and marketing communication practitioners, and experts, some of who are represented here. It’s our humble commitment as a professional group towards rebuilding the Nigerian brand.”
Akinwunmi, who is the past Chairman, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), now Advertising Regulators Council of Nigeria, (ARCON), said Tinubu should do things a bit differently, pointing out that the practice to date was for the government to routinely appoint journalists to manage public communication for presidents, vice-presidents, governors among others.

However, he said while this was good, the brand professionals must also be given a chance.
He said, “We have nothing against this practice. But we also recognise that the role and functions of communication management principally involve brand building. Nigeria is a brand; President Tinubu is a brand; ditto the VP, Governors, and other principal officers of state.
“It is my belief and professional conviction that government should begin to include in its communication management team branding professionals, many of who are here and are represented in Advertising agencies.

“Their role is to take on the task of directly producing the brand and branding strategies that our professional colleagues the media experts can then work and run with. In my opinion, gone are the days when the role of government spokespersons should be restricted to just journalists.”
Also, on the issue, President, National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Dr. Idorenyen Enang, told THISDAY at the conference, that, “It’s not just a media thing, you need professionals to sit down and craft a strategy to be able to work in the entire system and then implement it using the vehicle of the media to drive it.

“It’s not more about the populist campaign but more about understanding who Nigerians are, what we represent and where Nigeria needs to be as a nation.”
He said, “So, as marketers, we just hope this would be a great opportunity for us to let the world know that we can do it. The time has come when Mr. President and governors will not be carrying journalists as spokesmen, they need professional brand communicators and specialists because people are brands – not just selling the country, selling the brand but understanding the ethos of it.
“Not the journalistic things but that’s not to say journalists don’t do a good job but the time is now to bring more thinking and more veracity to what we are doing.”

Enang, however, pointed out that the theme of the conference was aptly chosen to provide great support to nation-building.
In his remarks, Director General, ARCON, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, said the meeting came at a time the federal government is re-jigging and strengthening the economic variables for a stronger economy, adding that to strengthen the country’s marketing economy, an enforceable standard of practice needed to be established.

This, he said, would provide an acceptable industry-wide rule of engagement which would cut across the interests of several sectors in the industry, especially where it is understood that a flop in one sector of the marketing ecosystem as a potential catastrophe for the other.
He said, “Our people cannot continue to relegate our value in pursuit of pecuniary gains in a careless and self-deprecating manner. Unethical marketing practices cannot be permitted to influence or determine the direction of professional objectives.
“If the marketing industry fails to understand and abide by expected rules, it will allow the dynamics of disreputable objectives to determine her professional values.

“Legality and decency in marketing are vital elements that the industry cannot manage to compromise. The Nigerian marketing industry is encouraged to support a series of reforms aimed at ensuring responsible marketing practices.”