The Impact of Advertising in the Development of the Mass Media in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This seminar work assesses the impact of advertising in the development of the mass media in Nigeria. With the social and economic development and frequent international cultural exchange, the traditional media such as radio, newspaper, magazines and television are going through an increasingly stable development in recent years. With the rapid development of high technology, internet is emerging as the fourth. This resulted in more frequent exchange of social information, and now advertisers have move convenient channels for their goods and services promotion. Social media has become a major promotional platform for advertising; both news and advertising are independent and mutually compete for the television broadcast time and newspaper pages published. Advertising development is bound to have an increasingly important influence on the development of mass media.

INTRODUCTION

The attitude of people towards promotion are differs, some people are of opinion that promotional activities particularly advertising paints a distorted picture of reality because it provides the customer with only the selected information about the product or service. In view of this, repetition of similar themes in advertising has brought changes in social value such as materialism among others.

Advertising brings about promotions which act as a medium of communication with individuals, groups or organization with the aim of facilitating exchange by informing and persuading the audience to accept the firms product or service. However, the relevance of advertising to the department cannot be over emphasized. Advertising is one of the essential elements used for promotion of activities in an organization with other components like personal selling, sales promotion. Public relations and publicity act to accomplish its goals.

It is also a truly exciting challenge to misunderstand advertising and its importance to business organizations. In other words, advertising is preoccupied with purpose of giving information about products. services and to show its importance and its quality.

Most Nigerians are exposed to different products through advertisement on radio, television, magazine, newspaper as well as the outdoor (billboard) etc this even then serves as a source of communication to consumers or customers which also helps in the selling of goods and services through persuasion and dissemination of information. In fact, advertising is regarded as one of the materials or mechanism used by the media to call the attention of the public to a particular product of services. That is, when an industry is located in a particular area, advertising serves as a tool of development for the organization.

In brief, what we shall be examining is how the media makes use of their style of advertising in achieving the organizational goals. According to study, advertising is seen as the numerous private and public enterprise and companies advertising their products, service and brand for public consumption.

STATEMENT OF SEMINAR PROBLEM

There is a cogent reason for researching into any subject. In most cases, the reason could be to discover problems and therefore suggest a pragmatic solution to it. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate into the impact of advertising on the development of media.        It is also to examine and know what would be the outcome of the media of peradventure advertisement were not placed on it. The question then is this, what are the impacts of advertising on the development of the media? This in a nutshell is the problem which this study seeks to investigate.

OBJECTIVE OF THE SEMINAR

The aim of this seminar work is to find out the impact of advertising on the development trends of mass media, there must be a very complicated relationship between advertising and news in the mass media, and as known, news provide real and quick information to people, but the function of advertising is totally different, which will make different impact on the mass media. This seminar is aimed to find out the elements which cause these differences and the result in the final.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Brief History of Advertising in Nigeria

Communication is as old as man. The historical development of advertising in Nigeria is as old as Nigeria as an entity. In Nigeria, the earliest recorded advertising activities include town criers, gong, signals and through many other traditional media that were used to alert the village dwellers about an impending event. This implies that traditional media were so instrumental in the process of advertising in the primitive days. The gong was the most effective means through which advertising was done then, because it was able to catch the attention of the people. Town criers were mainly used to disseminate information about important ceremonies and events such as intertribal wars, disasters, marriages, births and so on.

Advertising in Nigeria started as far back as the first few people (male and female) who began what is today known as Nigeria. Thus, advertising is said to be one of the earliest forms of mass communication in Nigeria. In 1846, the first printing press was established in Calabar and in 1859 “Iwe Iroyin Fun Awon Egba” was established in Abeokuta by Reverend Henry Townsend. It was used to advertise goods and services births, weddings, deaths church activities and vacancies for house boys and girls and other special events. This however marked the beginning of modern advertising in Nigeria. This implies that the first modern advertising was found in/we Iroyin and the adverts were giving information concerning the movement of ships and cargoes to Lagos.

The horizon of newspaper advertising in Nigeria was however breached when more newspaper were established. The Anglo African Newspaper came into existence in 1863. Lagos Times in 1880, Lagos Observer in 1890. Nigerian Pioneer in 1914 and African Messenger in 1926. These newspapers and others that were subsequently established engaged in serious competition in terms of who gets the advert from government. As the commercial activities in Nigeria were on the increase, the need for proper advertising became so pressing and this motivated the United Africa Company (UAC), which was then known as Royal Niger Company to set up the first agency in Nigeria; it was called West Africa Publicity Limited, but now known as Lintas. The agency was incorporated on August 28, 1928, in London. It is however worthy to note that a company known as Pearl and Dean, which was last situated in Obanikoro area of Lagos pioneered cinema advertising. As at then, film production was done in England. Advertising development could be traced to about 1928 with the birth of West African Publicity Limited. An offshoot of UAC, the company was set up to cater for the marketing activities of the colonial masters in both Nigeria and West Africa.

In 1935, radio broadcasting was officially launched in Nigeria in 1959, television broadcasting was also launched in Ibadan. The establishment of radio and television broadcasting in Nigeria brought about radio and television advertising, between early 1960s and 1970, there was no spectacular development in the industry. But the promulgation of Nigeria Enterprise Decree of 1972 popularly known as indigenization policy ushered in a new phase in the industry. The policy transformed key positions in corporate organization to indigenes. Mr Sylvester Moemeka was by the dictates of the policy to emerge the first indigenous chairman.

The need to establish an institution to regulate advertising practice became apparent. This grave rise to the establishment of Advertising Parishioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) by Decree 55 of 1988, late renamed Act 55 of 1988 by the civilian administration in November 1989. The first meeting of the association held comewhere in Ebute-meta, Lagos. APCON started operation in 1990 with the employment of the pioneer registrar in the person of Dr. Charles Okigbo, It is the duty of APCON to regulate the practice of advertising in Nigeria. Today, we have different forms of advertising, which among others include transit advert, web advert, internet and outdoor advertising.

The growth in the industry in recent times can be attributed to the recapitalization exercise by banks, a directive of the apex bank. Central Bank of Nigeria and liberalization of the telecommunication industry, which broke NITEL’s monopoly, thereby attracting private investment in the industry. The two key economic development engendered tremendous marketing communication activities with agencies raking in millions of naira worth advert billings.  

The Role of Advertising in the Media

In the 21^st Century, medium of mass media such as television, radio print (Newspaper and Magazine) attracts the public by imparting knowledge and awareness of products and services of companies. Although costly, such avenues are the preferred mode of advertising. For instance, in 2010 General Motors, spent $4.2 billion on advertising, followed by ford, which spent $3.9 billion. Companies rely on the media plays a significant role in advertising. Some of this significance roles include;

Awareness: An advertisement could alert you about new products that came into the market. It contains information about what the product is, what it does and why you should buy it. It brings to your attraction where the product can be bought, how much it cost or who may use it, in terms of age and the lethal effects if used improperly.

Profits: Both print and broadcast media cover huge audience at the same time. The subsequent effect of advertising is that it raises the rate at which the products or service being publicized sell. A well-executed advertising prompts you to try out the goods by purchasing them. This, in turn, increases sales. Increase in sales translates into profits for the manufacturer.

Brand: Advertising popularized brands. The media popularized the brand by constant replay and in print media, through repetitive publication. Thus the target customers remember the brand and buy the product. For instance, the recognition of labels like coca-coca is attributed to successful advertising.

Demand: Whether the form of media is print or broadcast, the target audience is large. Where the advertisement persuades and convinces the public about the gods offered or services rendered, more people will be inclined to purchase or go for the said products and services. The products already in the market get exhausted and the services crowded. There arises a subsequent demand for more product services.

MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ADVERTISING

It might seem reasonable to judge the effectiveness of an advertising campaign by a subsequent increase in sales. But many factors other than advertising influence how well a product fares, including changes in the economy, product quality, breath of distribution, and competitors pricing and promotion strategies. AS a result, for most advertisers most of the time, the answer to the essential question, ;what are you getting for your advertising expenditure? Agency-clients, however, find this a less than comforting response. Advertisers, therefore, turn to research to provide greater certainty.

A number of techniques may be used before and after advertising campaign is released. Copy testing-measuring the effectiveness of advertising messages by showing them to consumers. It is used for all forms of advertising. It is sometimes conducted with focus groups, collections of people brought together to see the advertising and discuss it with agency and client personnel. Sometimes copy testing employs consumers juries. These people, considered to be representative of the target market, review a number of approaches or variations of a campaign or advertising. Forced exposure, used primarily for television advertising, requires advertisers to bring consumers to theatre or other facility (typically with the promise of a gift or other payment), where they see a television program, complete with the new commercials. People are asked their brand preferences before the show, and the after. In this way, the effectiveness of the commercials can be gauged.

Once the campaign or advertising is before the public a number of different tests can be employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising. In recognition tests, people who have see a given publication are asked, in person by or phone, whether they remember seeing specific advertisement. In recall testing, consumers are asked, again in person or by phone to identify which print broadcast advertisement they most easily remember. This recall can be unaided, that is, the researcher offers no hints (“have you seen any interesting commercials or advertisement lately?”) or aided, that is, the researcher identifies a specific class of products (“Have you seen any interesting pizza commercials lately?”). In recall testing, the advertisers assume that an easily recalled advertising is an effective advertising.

Awareness tests, make this same assumption, but they are not aimed at specific advertisement.  Their goals is to measure the cumulative effect of a campaign in terms of “consumer consciousness” of a product. A likely question in an awareness test, usually made by telephone, is “what brands of laundry detergent can you name?

What this research techniques lack is the ability to demonstrate the link that is of most interest to the client-did the advertising move the consumer to the product? Their value lies in helping advertisers understand how people react to specific advertisement and advertising strategies, aiding advertisers in avoiding costly mistakes, and assisting advertisers in planning and organizing immediate and late campaigns.

ADVERTISING MEDIA: THE BASIC STRATEGY

The term advertising media is the advertising vehicles such as billboards, magazines, newspapers, radio, television etc by which promotional messages are communicated to the public using words, speech, and pictures. There are many media available for delivering advertising messages. These include television, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, outdoor signs, transit, direct mail and specialties. In some of these categories, there are hundreds and thousands of individual media from which to select. This calls for a plan, and that is where the media strategy comes into importance. The basic media strategy itself refers to the overall plan for implementing the market strategy of a company by means of advertising.

Ø  Newspaper Advertisement: The newspaper is the major advertising medium for most advertisers especially the retailers. The medium offers a number of advantages which include;

(1)     It provides the opportunity or massive same-day exposure of advertising message to a large cross-section of any market and penetrates every segment of the society.

(2)    Newspaper is read selectively as readers search for what is personally interested and useful to them. It combines broad reach with highly selective attention from the active prospects.

(3)    It provides great creative flexibility to the advertisers. The size and shape can be chosen and varied to given a degree of dominance.

(4)    Newspaper is comprehensive in scope covering variety of topics and interest.

(5)    It is timely since it is primary concerned about news and it readership is concentrated in time.

(6)    It represents a permanent record that people use actively, advertisement and article can be saved for permanent reference.

Ø  Magazine Advertisement: Magazine is another form of printed media advertising. It is categorized according to geographical distributions, content, type etc like consumer magazine, farm and Business magazines etc. It offers consumers a number of advantages such as market selectively, Quality reproduction and durability of advertising inherent prestige.

Ø  Television Advertisement: For many advertisers, the television seems to be the ideal medium. It rocks high as the fastest grading in advertising industry. It offers three principal types of advertising responsibilities: Network and spot or local. It is mostly advantageous for the impact of motion, sound and picture, mass coverage, Demonstrative ability, flexibility of style of presentations and prestige.

Ø  Radio Advertisement: Radio offers the combination of excellent reach and excellent frequency. The ability to quickly expose the people as a sufficient number of times to motivate them to buy a product makes radio very attractive to local advertisers. Radio advertisements can be aimed at listeners of specific sex, age group, ethnic or religious background, education level, special interest etc. Radio advertisements come as either live or taped. It is low cost.

Ø  Outdoor Advertising (Signs and Billboards):  Outdoor advertisements is the modern form of a sign identifying the place and type of business. It exist in three principal forms namely: posters, painted Bulletins and Speculators. Outdoor advertising offers virtues such as simplicity of message for comprehension, colour/art and short copy, attraction, repetition and retention potentials etc.

THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISING IN NIGERIA

Advertising is the chief corner stone when it comes to media funding, media development, media growth and media popularity. Both the conventional media of television newspaper, magazine and the other media such as the new media and the outdoor media (billboard, flyers, tradeshows etc) depends tremendously on advertising for it funding. Advertising provides personal and social benefits by funding or part funding media services, meaning people can enjoy them for free or at a reduced rate.

Outdoor advertising also provides additional civic benefits in the form of an improved urban environment while search engines help people to reduce both the time and financial cost of seeking new information. Without advertising, funding for all sorts of media would be reduced. This could lead to more expensive television subscription, reduced newspaper and magazines plurality and independence, and radio stations would lack entertainment throughout the day. In addition, professional sports and cultural events would need to seek financial support from another source.

On the internet, advertising largely funds free services that people across Nigeria use at little or no cost for instance, around 60% of Nigeria citizens regularly use email services, while social media are accessed by all segments of the population.

Through advertising brand relevance has been established and the contributions of those brand even to the performance of the owners of the companies that turned them out are awesome, I think it’s beyond any doubt that advertising has played its role as far as the fundamentals of the Nigerian economy are concerned.

           

Advertising matters for employment, innovation, culture and entertainment, and supports media plurality which is fundamental to democratic freedoms. The benefits are pervasive and run through the fabric of society and the media at large.

CONCLUSION

Advertising is a powerful tool to the development of Nigeria mass media and the world at large. Advertising is termed by communication experts as the collateral or supporting media to the conventional media of mass communication such as radio, newspaper, television, magazine and today the new media also stand a better chance to the benefits of advertising. Advertising contribute more than 50% revenue generation to the various media of communication. This massive contribution and benefits sustains the smooth running of media in the country. Virtually every business in the country rely on advertising effort in terms of awareness creation, promotion and other forms of marketing strategies and all these element of awareness creation pass through the channels of mass media by advertisement of the various businesses thereby generating additional income of mass media.

The popularity of the media is also as a result of advertising. Many Nigerian now see media business and investment as a lucrative business in the country. Nigeria political class and business tycoon now want to venture in media business because of the perceived income generated from the mass media through advertising which in turn create job opportunity to journalists. Advertising is impactful in the development of mass media of communication in Nigeria.   

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