Recent developments in the life of our endowed country remind me of the biblical parable of a plentiful harvest with few workers. Lately the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) played host to engineering directors of the nation’s broadcast organizations as they deliberated on modalities for switching from analogue television to digital in future years.



In the same vein the nation’s president recently appended his signature to the power sector reform bill which consequently put an end to the trauma to which the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) had subjected the entire nation for decades on end. The importance of deregulating the power sector lies in the fact that Nigeria will become the toast of foreign investors, while corporate organizations are expected to be the happiest beneficiaries of this remarkable development.

That Nigeria is the fastest-moving economy and one of the most advanced information and communication technology (ICT) market sectors in Africa should interest our marketing communication practitioners. Today we are witnesses to a major leap taken by the Internet from being the novel to a daily strategic business tool in Nigeria. As we get introduced to digital transmission there is no doubt that it would open up new possibilities for our marketing communication industry. Interactive television will allow us to send signals back to the service provider, while interactivity on a mass market scale will be facilitated through the technological developments of satellite, cable, optical fibres and digital transmissions (David Pickton 2001).

That Nigerians are getting increasing tech savvy is supported by statistics, e.g. there are 1,842 cyber cafes operating in the country and they are patronized by 1.61 million people. Meanwhile the most common Internet activity executed by Nigerians in 2003 was browsing (55%). It was followed by e-mail (45%) and chat (5%). In addition to cyber cafes primary places of Internet access in Nigeria are in the workplace and at home (e-shekels 2004).

Advertising in its present form has a tendency to become routinised because of its exploitation of unidirectional, one-to-many and one-size-fits-all media to communicate messages to faceless, powerless consumers (Don Tapscott et al 2000). On the other hand, however, “Interactive" connotes two-way communication where the user exercises some degree of control over the work.

Interactive advertising describes all forms of online, wireless and interactive television advertising including banners, sponsorships, e-mail, keyword searches, etc. The online, Internet or web environment is the primary interactive media for advertising. Many Nigerian companies believe that a presence on the Net is a waste of time and money. Ironically, however, word of mouth which is the most powerful means by which a product or organization builds a reputation is the platform on which the Internet is built!

For instance when in late 1994 U.S. telecommunications company AT&T became the first firm to promote its services to UK’s insignificant community of Internet users, no one gave Internet advertising a chance.

But last year Internet advertising surpassed radio for the first time in the United Kingdom. Online advertising expenditure grew by 60% due to a remarkable improvement in broadband and subscriptions. According to recent figures from PriceWatershouseCoopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online promotions are now the fastest-growing segment of UK advertising industry with revenue projected to reach ?500 million by the end of last year (Myles Neligan 2004).

Similarly the online advertising sector in South Africa recorded impressive growth statistics of 136.7% for last year thereby making it one of the fastest-growing marketing media in that country (OPA & Nielsen Media Research/AIS AdEx 2005).

Internet access is transforming the Web into a more powerful medium for advertising and marketing; the advertising opportunities are simply incredible. Speed and bandwidth should enable marketers to favourably consider streaming media as part of their broadcast plans.

Streaming is a technique for transferring data such that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream. Traditional processed goods TV advertisers such as Coca-Cola, P&G, and Kraft are now moving to streaming thereby joining the automotive, entertainment and financial advertisers who pioneered this space (David Riemer 2003). Streaming delivers the brand-action environment that advertisers have always desired because it is about sight, sound and motion. It promotes interaction in ways that are beyond what TV advertisements offer.

Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing GSM markets in the world with five million mobile lines. This is our share of over 500 million cell phones that are sold worldwide every year. We should therefore brace up for a new world, a world where consumers are alerted to store offers by a text message on their mobile phones. With the death of NEPA (hopefully) and optimal service delivery by the much awaited independent power plant operators (IPPs), we should be able to view new product launches and in-store demonstrations on digital plasma screens; it is happening in South Africa already.

We would be able to buy products direct from an interactive kiosk or check if a product is available through wall mounted touch screens. Our cable companies are expected to be more ambitious by moving away from just being another form of TV to assuming the identity of an integrative utility whose irresistible offers will include high-speed Internet access and video-on-demand (VOD) services. VOD is an interactive facility that would provide customers with immediate access to any movie of choice, including the advertising that would accompany it. Cable for instance invested $ 95 billion in building broadband networks in America (Claire Atkinson).

Our advertising agencies should begin to plan ahead, e.g. WPP, world’s second largest advertising company, owns mOne Worldwide, a digital and direct media network. It also owns mSearch which provides search services to its clients. It is noteworthy too that Ogilvy Interactive also recently created Digital Innovation Group (DIG) which manages technological advertising such as broadband, wireless, interactive TV, branded entertainment, digital out-of-home advertising and gaming.

Interactive media will open multiple channels of communication between advertiser and consumer and bring both closer together than ever before (GSD&M Group 1996). The Internet has reach and immediacy that most other marketing forms lack hence its measurable capability. It is therefore inevitable that forward-looking advertisers in Nigeria venture into sophisticated multi-media campaigns based on press and TV ads which drive consumers to complimentary online ads.

With blogging likely to be widely accepted, it should be clear that advertising will no longer enjoy the luxury of being a one-way monologue because consumers will possess the ability to not only digest advertiser messages, but also to influence other consumers as regards the message content and the product itself (Rance Crain 2004). What else can our advertising professionals wish for? “Workers" should be sent into the harvest field and the marketing communication landscape in Nigeria will never be the same again!