‘I want businesses to join in giving raw talents hope’
There are many raw talents with huge potentials on the streets of Nigeria. But with no hope, these energies often find very negative expression. Therefore, Edafe Obodo, an entrepreneur known as Billionaire Raymond, through his business – Street Sound65 – is creating platforms for unsigned talents on the streets of Lagos and recapturing talents and dreams that have been crushed. In this interview with OLUYINKA ALAWODE, he speaks on what Street Sound65 plans to do.
Business
We are using a comedy reality TV show/club tour to promote the best of talents on the streets. Our target clients are upcoming comedians. However, since the main challenge is the money to get the show on TV, we have been asking businesses to advertise their brands and services on this TV show, which will be showing on Silverbird Television for as little as N40,000 per minute. With 10 businesses promoting their brands through this platform, that would be 10 minutes off the air-time per show, but they would be able to promote their brands and sell nationwide. The products and logos of sponsors will run side by side during promotion. We shall also do campus marketing/promotion for sponsors’ products. We shall also develop branding strategies for sponsors to boost sales and attract new market.
Value-added advertisement
Even though the show is an avenue to discover raw talents from the streets, it would enhance brand equity/loyalty for sponsors. It is also a unique and rewarding way for a company to display its corporate social responsibility. It is also a good platform to capture the youth market. It is an effective company public relations medium. So, by supporting the programme, the company would have succeeded in projecting its image as a good supporter of youth empowerment and development. This will assure the consumers that the company cares about the nation.
Business case
Through the Street Sound65 tour, a company can launch or pre-launch one of more of its youth friendly campaigns. The sponsors will have a stand at every venue visited. It is actually a method of raising a company’s profile and increasing its brand awareness and word-of-mouth advertising among 5000 or more university students in Nigeria. It can also be summed up as an investment in the development of the next generation in Nigeria.
Inspiration
It is to give hope to the unsigned talent by giving voice to these talents on the streets. All my life, I have lived on the street, I know how cold it is out there, I know what it is living day-to-day without hope for life, and I know what it is to give a young man or a woman hope or something to live for. But we really do need partners, the names of the sponsors will be identified on all our radio and TV advertisements.