Entertainment, Media Projected To Drive Nigeria ad growth by 12.1%

 

Global report on the advertising industry has projected that Media and Entertainment (M&E) will drive growth of advertising (ad) in Nigeria by 12.1 per cent.

The report released by Group M, a WPP media investment group, a British advertising and public relations company, made this projection while updating its 2018 and 2019 ad investment forecasts.

According to the report, Global M&E outlook 2017-2021, Nigeria with a 12.1per cent Compound Annual Growth Rate, CAGR, albeit strongly influenced by surging spending on mobile Internet access, will be the world’s fastest-growing M&E market over the coming five years while the slowest-growing will be Japan, growing at a 1.7 percent CAGR.

The report also said the growth to be witnessed in Nigeria will be influenced by surging spending on mobile internet access via social media platforms.

It stated that the 2019 global growth projections will also decline to 3.6 per cent from 3.9 per cent earlier predicted, with total new investment anticipated to drop to $19 billion from $23 billion. It noted that recent US dollar appreciation versus just about every other currency helped suppress this growth.

On the new forecast, GroupM’s Chief Executive Officer, Kelly Clark said: “Worldwide advertising investment will grow slowly, but marketing will not move faster. Automation will proliferate; cycles accelerate and mobile will grow. The gap between the cost of failure and the value of success will grow wider. For advertisers, this underscores the importance of a world view and trusted partners who can help their brands perform where the growth can be found.”

The growth for Africa lays in digital, mobile, social, and emerging technologies, such as virtual reality and voice, which are leading the shift in consumer behavior, particularly those under 35 years. However, the four important trends that will enable M&E companies to revolutionize the way content (ad) is consumed are smart phones, Facebook, online streaming and big phone screens. Consumers between 13 and 25 years prefer binge television, while others over 35 prefer to watch one episode weekly.

According to Abel Udemba of Adventure Marketing, a marketing research company in Owerri, Imo State: “Research has shown that smart phones are driving overall traffic growth for M&E companies, as a whole, the industry saw minimal growth in Smart phone visits last year. A possible contributor to mobile’s success is Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages, AMP.

“I believe that the growth in smart phone traffic to M&E sites has a lot to do with consumers’ need for on-demand content. People want to consume content while on the go, on their own terms. We are getting to the point where it’s no longer about having a mobile-first mentality. Today, you need to be mobile-dominant.

“It is important to note that majority of consumption happens on M&E sites and not within apps. In fact, only about six to seven per cent of consumers leverage Apps as their primary entertainment news sources.”

Corroborating, Mustapha Alimi, a marketing expert said: “As smart phones become the media consumption vehicle of choice, tablets, and desktop devices are affected. Overall, M&E brands have seen a 20.1 per cent year-over-year, yoy dip in tablet traffic and 14.1 per cent dip in desktop traffic, however, this do not really translate to increase in African ad growth trajectory.

“If there is a decline in tablet and desktop traffic, it doesn’t mean M&E companies should shy away from those channels, instead, a shift in strategy is in order. What we are seeing is that we are no longer looking at mobile, tablet and desktop when thinking about the web strategy.

“The tablet should not be its own strategy because when it comes to media consumption, we’re looking at small screens vs. big screens, and the latter is declining.”

Also commenting, Patrick Uwandu of Base Marketing, Lagos, said: “Overall, Facebook accounts for close to 17 per cent of referred traffic, while Google accounts for 61per cent on a smartphone. Within that 17per cent, M&E (45 per cent) and national news sites (41per cent) have the highest rates of Facebook referrals when compared to other industries.

“We’re finding that social navigation is a large and increasing way of how people discover, engage with and consume news and entertainment content on their phones,” Uwandu stated.

“People are talking about content on Facebook, they’re experiencing news on Facebook, discussing it, and that’s why media and entertainment companies need to have a strategy when it comes to broadcasting their content on Facebook, both from a paid and an organic standpoint.”

Israel Obodo, a marketing expert with Jall Impreso Marketing, noted: “Consumers are increasingly looking to online streaming and other types of entertainment. In fact, traditional TV has seen poor growth since 2014. These days, two-thirds of consumers under the age of 35 years reported regularly using online-streaming subscriptions to watch television.

“Binge-watching is another trend, brought on by on-demand services, such as Netflix and Hulu, and driven by the younger generation of consumers.

“Over 50 per cent of consumers between the ages of 13 and 22 years said they prefer to binge watch TV series, while a little more than one-third of consumers over the age of 35 years prefer to watch one episode per week.

“While M&E websites are seeing growth in web traffic from smaller screens, over one-third of consumers said screen size is the biggest differentiator between a movie and a TV show. What’s more, over 75 per cent prefer a 35-inch TV or larger screen to view shows or movies while at home. The average TV screen size has shifted from 43 to 45 inches from 2016 to 2017 (4.5 per cent),” said Obodo.