2014: Nigerian media, agencies target slice from World Cup Ad budgets

Various media houses and creative agencies are intensifying their moves to ensure they are part of companies’ advert campaigns for the World Cup holding in Brazil in June 2014. An industry source told BusinessDay that some creative media agencies were bidding to handle the advertisement art works that will run in various channels such as billboard, TV and newspapers.

The move is given impetus by Nigeria’s qualification for the competition as sports loving Nigerians would likely follow every match, following the interest the World Cup has generated so far.

Already, most Nigerian TV stations have already entered into negotiations with SportFive, a sports marketer, for the broadcast of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Yasmine Arkoub, director of TV and media right at SportFive, told BusinessDay recently while responding to e-mail question on the broadcast of the World Cup next June that the marketers, a subsidiary of Lagardère Sports and European and African leader in the management of marketing and audiovisual rights for sports, were “already in contact with most of TV channels in Nigeria.”

Though the French company said it would not deal through any agency but it was not yet clear the nature of the deal the local broadcasters would enter into with the company in the broadcast of the matches.

According to a broadcaster, the marketers may buy airtime on local TV stations or the local TV stations may pay certain amount of money for some or all of the matches and then look for sponsors in the local market.

A creative director in one of leading agencies recently told BusinessDay that the creative industry was expecting World Cup creative briefs from clients who want to leverage the tournament for exposure. “No brief has come yet, but we are expecting a surge of work on the tournament,” the director, who prefers anonymity, said.

Meanwhile, the June World Cup in Brazil is likely to be a hit in terms of the competition and brands that will leverage the tournament for the eyeballs. A pointer is the interest and large number of spectators that turn up at different stadia during the final rounds of the qualifying series for the tournament.

To the source, as the world biggest competition draws near, especially with Nigeria’s qualification, marketing directors are also preparing their proposals to their boards for the World Cup sponsorship and advertisements in different media.“We need to start our preparations early for advert placements and other sponsorships in order to leverage the eyeballs of the World Cup,” a marketing executive told BusinessDay last week.

Akonte Ekine, the CEO of Absolute PR, said “the World Cup is an ultimate selling point for brands,” saying serious brands would key into the sponsorship as eyeball was a key factor in brand development. It is expected that the tournament will result in advertisement revenue for different media, especially the TV, newspapers and billboards.

Tola Bademosi of BD Consult agreed that brands would like to leverage the world competition as a platform for brand exposure.

By: Daniel Obi