Management problem, biggest challenge to rebranding Nigeria —Lanre Adisa

The President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), chairman of the Heads of Advertising Sectoral Group (HASG) and founder, Noah’s Ark Group, Lanre Adisa, in this chat on a TV show, monitored by Akin Adewakun, talks about Brand Nigeria, and challenges confronting its successful rebrand. Excerpts:

What is the biggest challenge in rebranding Nigeria amidst all these concerns about insecurity, US President Donald Trump’s redesignation of the country as being of particular concern and others?

I always say this: Nigeria does not have a brand problem. We actually have a strong brand, but what we have is a brand management problem. You spoke earlier about some of the slogans, Good People, Great Nation and so on. But the thing is that you cannot advertise yourself out of a problem. So, the problem can never be sorted with another government’s policy or slogan. For instance, Detty December tells you that despite these challenges in Nigeria, people are still coming. That tells you that there is something in that brand.

It is not being triggered by the government, but by the people; from Afrobeat, Nigerian films, Nollywood, comedy, and our fashion. They are being triggered by the people. So, what should government do? Government should not try to control it, nor get in the way. Rather, they should pave the way.

There is a lot going for us as a country, but the tendency is to look at the negative and forget the positive. That is why I say we’ve got a strong brand, but with a brand management problem.

If you were to sell Nigeria, rebrand it and compel US to redesignate Nigeria out of CPC, what would be your strategy?

It’s a very broad thing regarding this particular topic. It’s not going to happen overnight It doesn’t happen overnight. You need to have a long-term perspective on how to go about fixing the problem. There are some countries that have gone through this. Colombia, Rwanda did that. What did they do? They don’t question some things.  They don’t become antagonistic. In Rwanda’s case, they embraced their reality. They started looking at things around them: Keep the place clean, keep the policy right, fix institutions, and when they did all of that, they started advertising. You can’t advertise first. Let us look internally. Policy must match our intention, the promises that you want to give the entire world, our policy must match them. When you start doing things that don’t really align with your policy, then there comes a problem. That is why I said the brand is very strong, but there is no brand custodian. We need a national brand council of sort, not managed by a politician.

But we have the Ministry of Culture?

I’m coming there. We’ve to manage our brand to face the world. It’s not bound by political appointment. It must be independent, preferably by someone who is world-savvy. A Nigerian. It doesn’t matter who, but the individual must understand what the world listens to. His tenure could be five to seven years.

There are so many ministries doing different things, but somebody must help them align policy with promise. But the office must be non-political. Of course, the experts will come in the AAAN of this world, the NIPR of this world. 

But, there is Nigerian Reputation Group?

I’m aware of the Reputation Group, but it’s not necessarily going to fix it long term..

Why did you say that?

I said something earlier, they would have to work with this particular board we are talking about. Look at it this way, the brand equity of a country should be treated the way you treat your currency, your Central Bank. You don’t do politics with it. We had this cash scenario some years ago, it was a big national mess. This reputation management body must be sector-driven. Whoever is going to be on this council must come from this sector and other sectors, but must be led by somebody whose name can open doors. A neutral person, with lots of brand equity.

But how can we get Nigerians to believe in the Brand Nigeria?

There is a guy that wrote a book: “The Brand New World,” and what he says is this: A brand is not about what it says, it’s about what it does. It’s about brand behaviour. Nigerians love the Nigerian brand because they have a sense of identity.  But they are losing hope in the nation in terms of what it does for them. Again we go back to policy, we go back to government. There are so many things happening to us. For instance, the recent ambassadorial list, if you really think about our reputation, some optics will matter to you. So that is where Nigerians have a problem. If anything happens, and there is a misalignment in policy and expectations, Nigerians will complain. But it doesn’t mean they don’t believe in this country.

How long do you think it will take us to rebrand Nigeria?

I can’t be specific about time, but I can tell you one thing, we need to start getting things right. Let’s come to brand world, a particular brand had a problem some years back, a noodles brand, what happened to that brand then was enough to ruin it for a long time, but the reason it survived it was because they had invested in brand building over time. That’s where we need to start from. We need to deliberately start looking at this asset called Nigeria,and that would require some actions that would start sending signals to those people to start having hope that we are not there yet but we are getting things right.

READ ALSO: Labour Minister harps on importance of effective project management