By Kenneth Ezaga


One evening this week, I got a call from someone who told me that the most successful football club in Nigeria's history, and current national champions, Enyimba FC, were looking for a sponsor. The call came on a day some of the midweek games of the English Premier League were to be played. That night I watched big Nigerian brands throw millions of naira to bring us these EPL games via TV to our homes. As I sat despondently in my home sorting out the thoughts, popular musician Asa’s melancholic voice acted as the background music in my head. “There is fire on the mountain top” she crooned, “and no one seems to be on run”. It is amazing that even with our economy crashing all around us, the biggest business minds in our country are still frittering away the little money left due to a jaundiced view of marketing communications. That Enyimba FC do not have sponsors falling all over them speaks to why we are a poor people. Nigerian football has problems, no one will argue that, but to abandon an industry that can create humungous value within at a time when our dear country is on the brink of economic collapse is at best irrational, and if our big business leaders do not rethink their position, it will only be a matter of time before they start folding up themselves.

I will like to use the song “Ten green bottles” as an analogy on the Nigerian situation. There was a time when oil boomed and money poured into the country and we could waste our money sponsoring foreign football leagues, while ours lay comatose, and no one would care. That time has long passed because we have lost too many bottles. Unfortunately, every time the Nigerian economy loses a green bottle, rather than replace it, Nigerian businesses increased their fight for what was left. Today it seems there are just a couple of green bottles left, yet big businesses do not seem to have learned a thing. From fighting over ten bottles, they are now dueling to kill over last two and they are still blowing their shrinking resources to create jobs and wealth overseas as a result of a warped strategy to reach their increasingly impoverished consumers at home.

Some of us have pushed for years that big organisations in Nigeria should step up and support domestic football because it would create jobs for thousands locally and help make the economy stronger and their organisations healthier. In making that argument we have been aware that football by itself will not save Nigeria, but in solving football’s problems we would further Nigerian enterprise in a way that can help lift industries like tourism, security, sports medicine, architecture, media, film, banking, insurance and more. We would also promote a mentality that vastly boosts local patronage and opens up, for instance, opportunities in industries like textile. Why do we have a population of 170m fashion-crazy people and not have a thriving textile industry creating thousands of jobs and wealth in Nigeria?
It is clear our economy is in shambles and now is when we must all work together and support each other to survive. Now is when we must live like bees rather than mosquitoes. We have lived like mosquitoes for too long; we hunt for blood alone and die alone. Bees work together; they support each other and prosper together. It is what the other races do so well that the black race is abjectly poor at. It is why, when you think about it, we cannot seem to get up from the pit of the world. While trade among Europeans stands at about 70% for instance, Africa does less than 10%. It means that despite talk about the African century, we are basically all working for people overseas.

I have friends in the local beverage industry today who tell me consumers are snubbing their premium brands in search of low cost alternatives. That tells a picture of dwindling disposable income and a poorer people settling for less. As sales plunge and organisations cut jobs, we need to quickly replace the falling green bottles, not fight for the few left. Time is not on our side and 2016 could be our most difficult year yet as a nation. Too many of us are waiting for government to wave a nonexistent magic wand and solve our problems, but that is not the way the world works. We produce virtually nothing at this point and it would take many painful years to reverse the mess unless oil unexpectedly bounces back. Now is when we must take control and take responsibility for the future we want. The argument that European football is entertaining cannot be faulted, but it cannot obscure the fact that we desperately need to adopt survival tactics at this time.
Enyimba FC are seven-time champions of this country, if they do not have sponsors then football is going nowhere. You could argue that our football is not world class and you would be right, but the question is, which makes your business richer: to throw your money at the European game and kill local industry or to support local football and build a wealthier country? Try telling the Scots, for instance, that their league is not world class. Anybody who has lived in Scotland would tell you that the Scottish Premier League is front and centre for Scots. It does not matter whether there are 100 Lionel Messis in Barcelona the man in Aberdeen only sees Aberdeen FC. It is the way of the earth’s most successful people. If you do not like your own, there is zero chance of developing it or getting others to like it. This explains the Nigerian problem. The people who should be the watchdogs of our domestic game are sponsoring the European game, and without them improvements have been slow and painful. Today the biggest clean up in FIFA is taking place because the biggest sponsors put their foot down.

Why can’t big Nigerian brands give an Enyimba FC N100m a year to boost their playing squad, develop and improve their facilities, as well as ease the club’s ability to compete, but will pay over N600m to Manchester United just to be associated with the brand? Having worked extensively in marketing communications in this country, I will tell you straight away that two main reasons drive this flawed marketing tack. One is that these sponsors want to be prematurely seen as global brands, and two, is that they want to reach more people based on the audiences that European football attracts at home. The first point is silly, even laughable, because what makes you a global brand is beyond marketing communications. It is why when we hear the highfaluting pronouncements in most of our adverts on cable TV they ring embarrassingly hollow. The second point is that most of the problems these brands have are not related to awareness issues. Many need to connect with consumers through experiential programmes. Why pay hundreds of millions to create jobs overseas and try to connect experientially at home with consumers who have no jobs or disposable income?
There are many ways sponsoring Enyimba FC can make a Nigerian brand have more impact of local consumers than the sponsorship foreign football and foreign clubs. Marketing managers and their ad agencies just need a bit more imagination. For one a brand can whip up patriotic sentiments by sponsoring Enyimba FC and positioning itself as that brave Nigerian entity betting on its own. There is a sitting market of Nigerians disgusted by this mania for all things European football. A forward looking brand can also jump in now and claim the high ground in a socio-cultural debate that is only going to grow. A superbly made outdoor campaign pushing unabashed support for a true Nigerian great like Enyimba FC would drown most of the unimaginative me-too campaigns littering our outdoor media today. These days you could take out the logos of most adverts and replace them with competition’s and no one would tell the difference.

Enyimba FC is also one of the clubs that pulls the highest number of spectators weekly during the Nigerian Professional Football League season. They pull spectators in their thousands and they will widen their support base in 2016 pan Nigeria – and to a global Nigerian audience – as they flying the Nigerian flag in Africa - in the Champions League. Sponsors can also devise interactive programmes built around the Aba giants and build high entertainment content around them incorporating successes in our music and movies. You can also think up compassionate community development programmes around the club and players that grows your brand’s affinity with the public.
If you are a captain of industry reading this, get your marketing people to work for the wages. Task them to find innovative ways of making bottomline improvements from sponsoring an NPFL club like Enyimba or Kano Pillars. If they are not too paralysed by stereotypes or too unimaginative, they should be able to give you ideas that would set your brand up as a trailblazer. Were I managing a big brand in Nigeria today, I would bet on a brand like Enyimba that has a following of some of the most industrious Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora.

I would also bet on claiming the high ground in a debate – nearing the tipping point - that forces Nigerians to see pride and their prosperity in supporting one another. Yes, I would pay Enyimba FC N100m for that and create superb activation around them. I would also bet that my competitors will jump in after me, and we could all save the game and create immense value within.
Business leaders in Nigeria have a choice at this time; put in your little support and ensure the game stays alive and even thrives, or you can continue to pour money into the European game.
In the case of the latter, it will not be long before domestic football dies and the few jobs go away. It would also not all be long before your business realizes that its growth is dependent on jobs and wealth created in Nigeria, not in Europe. We have a choice – to live like bees or mosquitoes… it is up to us.


http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/bees-or-mosquitoes-why-do-record-nigerian-champions-enyimba-fc-have-to-sweat-for-sponsorship-/230457/

Cause Nigerians refused to come out and watch the game

taiocol:
Cause Nigerians refused to come out and watch the game

Seriously? You didn't read where he said Enyimba pulls massive crowd whenever they play

Ajibel:


Seriously? You didn't read where he said Enyimba pulls massive crowd whenever they play

Enyimba has not even averaged more than 5000 fans for more than match day

taiocol:

Enyimba has not even averaged more than 5000 fans for more than match day

Did you see the Enyimba / Wolves game on Matchday 37?

Remember Enyimba's stadium is about 25,000 capacity and its mostly 70% full.

This is not Wolves we are talking about

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taiocol:

Enyimba has not even averaged more than 5000 fans for more than match day

why you of all people? How can you say enyimba never accrued up to 5000 fans? OK just Las season let me tell you. In enugu Rangers vs enyimba do you remember the no? Away to 3sc,what about sunshine in akure, kano nko, in Owerri vs Heartland? The list are endless.

Empredboy:
why you of all people? How can you say enyimba never accrued up to 5000 fans? OK just Las season let me tell you. In enugu Rangers vs enyimba do you remember the no? Away to 3sc,what about sunshine in akure, kano nko, in Owerri vs Heartland? The list are endless.

Don't mind the Wolves fan. Their fans hardly watch their games so he is jealous of us.

Lalasticlala this should be on the FP.

Now, those of us who work in marketing communications in Nigeria know the dirty secret of the industry - brand managers of all the major brands suffer from a LACK OF VISION. Whether it is Diageo or Nigerian Breweries or Coca Cola or Pepsico or WAMCO or UAC or any of the other big firms, their constituent brand managers are all a group of clueless middle aged people who got to that position by playing the office politics game and running over other people in the rat race.

Once they get there, they delegate all their work to agencies and the agencies regularly pitch the NPFL to them but guess what?! They don't want to hear about NPFL because it requires thinking, original strategy that you cannot read from a marketing textbook, real market research, authentic vision, real insight (and not Twitter analytics), and above all, IT IS A LOT OF WORK. These guys do not want to work for their N500,000 monthly paychecks!

So instead they will present proposals to the Board to pay the Barclays Premier League N300,000,000 to appear for 3 seconds on the electronic pitchside billboard during Crystal Palace vs Swansea. Then they will take a picture of the pathetic, bland, useless little advertisement as it appears on matchday and post it on Twitter and pay small boys 5k each to start trending it like an achievement. Then they will go and use Keyhole and tell themselves that their "online campaign" had "79 million impressions" and they will pat themselves on the back, well done! We have worked! We deserve a big bonus!

Just another insight into how ridiculous everything about this country is.

GEJPosterity:
Lalasticlala this should be on the FP.

Now, those of us who work in marketing communications in Nigeria know the dirty secret of the industry - brand managers of all the major brands suffer from a LACK OF VISION. Whether it is Diageo or Nigerian Breweries or Coca Cola or Pepsico or WAMCO or UAC or any of the other big firms, their constituent brand managers are all a group of clueless middle aged people who got to that position by playing the office politics game and running over other people in the rat race.

Once they get there, they delegate all their work to agencies and the agencies regularly pitch the NPFL to them but guess what?! They don't want to hear about NPFL because it requires thinking, original strategy that you cannot read from a marketing textbook, real market research, authentic vision, real insight (and not Twitter analytics), and above all, IT IS A LOT OF WORK. These guys do not want to work for their N500,000 monthly paychecks!

So instead they will present proposals to the Board to pay the Barclays Premier League N300,000,000 to appear for 3 seconds on the electronic pitchside billboard during Crystal Palace vs Swansea. Then they will take a picture of the pathetic, bland, useless little advertisement as it appears on matchday and post it on Twitter and pay small boys 5k each to start trending it like an achievement. Then they will go and use Keyhole and tell themselves that their "online campaign" had "79 million impressions" and they will pat themselves on the back, well done! We have worked! We deserve a big bonus!

Just another insight into how ridiculous everything about this country is.

Just take a look at Harp, last year. I don't know who in der that adviced them that sponsoring the whole of Oriental teams and Dolphins was going to run for sometime good.
But it doesn't change the fact that Nigerian clubs have poor administrators who got the post through politics e.g Jay Jay Okocha(delta State FA chairman).

And Nigerians Business don't like giving back to the hans that feed them. Still imagining how many people from Manchester takes Chiviter Juice

Mukina2, obinoscopy, mynd44

taiocol:

And Nigerian businesses don't like giving back to the hands that feed them. Still imagining how many people from Manchester take Chivita Juice

I stopped buying Chivita when they did that nonsense. I make my money in Nigeria and the club I support is in Nigeria. Why should I financially support Manchester United by buying Chivita when my club owes players up to half of their wages since the league ended? I don't care if the formula of Chivita is the seed of everlasting youth, I am never buying a pack of Chivita ever again. Foolish people.

Enyimba

This is wisdom

GEJPosterity:
Lalasticlala this should be on the FP.

Now, those of us who work in marketing communications in Nigeria know the dirty secret of the industry - brand managers of all the major brands suffer from a LACK OF VISION. Whether it is Diageo or Nigerian Breweries or Coca Cola or Pepsico or WAMCO or UAC or any of the other big firms, their constituent brand managers are all a group of clueless middle aged people who got to that position by playing the office politics game and running over other people in the rat race.

Once they get there, they delegate all their work to agencies and the agencies regularly pitch the NPFL to them but guess what?! They don't want to hear about NPFL because it requires thinking, original strategy that you cannot read from a marketing textbook, real market research, authentic vision, real insight (and not Twitter analytics), and above all, IT IS A LOT OF WORK. These guys do not want to work for their N500,000 monthly paychecks!

So instead they will present proposals to the Board to pay the Barclays Premier League N300,000,000 to appear for 3 seconds on the electronic pitchside billboard during Crystal Palace vs Swansea. Then they will take a picture of the pathetic, bland, useless little advertisement as it appears on matchday and post it on Twitter and pay small boys 5k each to start trending it like an achievement. Then they will go and use Keyhole and tell themselves that their "online campaign" had "79 million impressions" and they will pat themselves on the back, well done! We have worked! We deserve a big bonus!

Just another insight into how ridiculous everything about this country is.

who will sponsor a league which away teams cannot win a single match throughout the season...

Abi oo

uthlaw:
who will sponsor a league which away teams cannot win a single match throughout the season...

Take a look at what happened yesterday during Kano Pillars and Enugu Rangers