Speech by The Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, FNSE, FRAES, FAENG, FNIEEE, at the 10th anniversary of Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria (BJAN)’s annual conference taking place at the oriental hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos on November 25, 2022. THEME: “MANAGING BRANDS IN THE ERA OF DIGITAL DISRUPTION”
PROTOCOLS
Introduction
It is a great pleasure to speak on the theme of this year’s conference, which is “Managing Brands in the era of Digital disruption”.
By way of background, I note that your association, Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria (BJAN) is the umbrella body of practicing journalists covering Brands, Public Relations,Marketing and Advertising beats in Nigeria. I also note that BJAN is interested in the impact of government policies, technological advancements and other economic variables on the branding and marketing activities of organizations.
Whilst I note your interest in interrogating the disruptive impact of digital platforms, I must also note that these platforms are indeed having a transformative effect on human activity across all sectors, and that “disruption” is not always a bad thing, especially where it leads to positive
impacts for citizens. Indeed, by “disruption” we mean, simply, the use of technological innovation to change an existing market or industry.
Against this background, and considering the fact that the theme of today’s event is wide indeed, I have chosen to first focus on the transformative impact of digital technologies before addressing the disruptive impacts it may have on brands.
As you rightly noted in your letter to me, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become a force, creating tremendous shifts in the global economy in which Nigeria also plays. The adoption of ICT at individual and corporate levels is growing phenomenally, and for brands to survive, they need to think and act differently in terms of innovating new products and services for their customers.
When we look around us, we see digital innovation taking place at breathtaking pace. Prominent digital platforms such as Uber (the world’s biggest “taxi company” – which does not own cars), Airbnb (the world’s biggest “hotel chain” which owns no buildings), Spotify (the world’s largest “music store” which only operates online), etc. are challenging the existence of dominant firms and causing systemic effects on global markets and industries. This radical digital innovation and its wider systemic effects is usually referred to as digital disruption.
According to Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, the advent and power of connection technologies – tools that connect people to vast amounts of information and to one another – will make the 21st century a century of surprises. Taking the media as an example, we see how technology is driving disruption and challenging traditional models.
Reporting is becoming a collaborative enterprise between traditional news organization and the growing number of citizen journalists. People are using their increasingly liberal access to communication media to form virtual communities that share information globally and empower citizens at the expense of traditional media and even governments. New intermediaries make it possible to develop and distribute content across boundaries, reducing costs and lowering barriers to entry. In this scheme, any person with access to the internet, regardless of living standard or nationality, is given a voice and the power to effect change. Digital technologies and the platform and services that they enable are
transforming all aspects of human endeavor, and the days of “business as usual” are over.
You only need to consider how our communications and social interactions were before the advent of popular media brands like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and so on. These media have fundamentally transformed communication and other social/economic interactions to a degree very few could have predicted two decades ago.
As a developing economy, Nigeria has a lot at stake. Government has taken the firm position that we must leverage digital technologies to grow our economy, hence the development of policies like the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, 2020-2030 which the NCC and other Agencies are assiduously implementing.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), is the national authority for the deployment and operation of infrastructure and services that drive the emerging technologies. In the pursuit of our mandate, we have been relentless in creating the conducive atmosphere for the roll out and adoption of new technologies. In this regard, we have deployed a number of pivotal initiatives which are already bearing fruit. Permit me to highlight a few:
Fixed Broadband: The NCC realizes that digital transformation is greatly linked to the availability of a resilient and interconnected fibre network which is evenly distributed all over the country. In this respect, the Commission issues and administers a number of licenses for fiber nfrastructure. Key amongst these are the Internet Service Providers (ISP); Private Network Links (which is subdivided into Local Exchange, Regional and National) – each of which allow our licensees to lay fiber within the specified geographical zone. These are complemented by Metropolitan, National Long Distance and Open Access Fiber Infrastructure licenses to create a national backbone. We are currently reviewing these licenses and framework to update them in line with current challenges and make them more effective.
Mobile Broadband: mobile broadband refers to high-speed, always-on internet access through mobile devices like smartphones and dongles. In fulfillment of the objectives of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan to achieve data download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second (MBPS) in
urban areas and up to 10MBPS in rural areas, the NCC has been aggressively driving universal access to mobile broadband. As you are aware, following our success in auctioning two bands of the 3.5GHz spectrum in December of 2021, and many Nigerians are already enjoying 5G services. Presently, arrangements are in top gear to auction the remaining two slots of 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G services.
These efforts will further facilitate access to high speed mobile broadband for all Nigerians.
BRANDS, TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Now, let us go global for a moment. According to Kantar.com, the ten most valuable global brands for 2022 are: Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Tencent, McDonalds, Visa, Facebook, Alibaba, and Louis Vuitton in that order1. It is interesting to note that the first five (5) most valuable brands are technology firms. It is also interesting to observe that apart from McDonalds and Louis Vuitton, 3 out
of the next 5 brands are also technology firms. Even so, the two non-technology brands have heavily invested in, and are utilizing technology to fuel their growth and brand equity.
These firms are responsible for using technological innovations to create digital disruptions thereby creating systemic market shifts.
We can use McDonalds as a case study. According to the CEO of the company, Mr. Chris Kempczinski, the company’s success is due to its new growth strategy encompassing all aspects of McDonalds’ business. Tactically, they made significant investments and innovation in what they believed to be their key comparative advantages with their customers – they called them the 3 Ds: digital, drive-thru, and delivery.
Going into the pandemic, McDonalds found itself well positioned to build on its prior digital innovations to create a user experience well suited for the constraints posed by the What are the most valuable global brands in 2022?: https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/brands/what-are-themost-valuable-global-brands-in-2022 pandemic. McDonalds’ recent technology innovations which consist but is not limited to the development of the McDonalds mobile application, acquisition of personalization
technology provider Dynamic Yield, Mobile Order and Pay, and self-order kiosks. These innovations have transformed customer experiences in and around their restaurants, giving their customers more ways to securely pay and personalize their orders. Digital sales exceeded 20% of sales in 2020 across
the top six markets. For Q2 of 2022, digital sales is responsible for about 25% of McDonalds’ U.S sales according to the CEO of McDonalds. McDonalds, though originally a traditional company has realized that if they do not innovate, competition will innovate and take their place which will lead to their demise. Like they say, “Innovate or evaporate”.
Let us talk about content creation and consumption for a while. A sound content marketing strategy is one of the better ways a business can use to shape its brand identity, garner interest from prospects, and retain an engaged audience. It enables a business to establish authority in its space, project
legitimacy, and build trust between the business and her customers. The landscape of content marketing is constantly changing. It does not look the same now as it did ten years ago, and in ten years’ time, it will not look the same as it does now. In the past, content was only distributed through print
media, radio and television; however today, companies are distributing content through search/display ads, email marketing, website, social media, YouTube, etc. We are 2 See generally: McDonald’s digital sales top $6B across top 6 markets https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/mcdonalds-digital-sales-top-6b-across-top-6-markets/628094/#:~:text=Digital%20sales%2C%20which%20include%20mobile,of%20its%20top%20six%20division
s.
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persuaded that the following trends in content marketing will continue to grow and become more impactful:
a. Video content will become more impactful
b. Adjusting business plans for mobile platforms will be
essential and this will present new opportunities
c. Successful content will be more customer focused. The
content will be more empathetic, purposeful, and
customer first.
d.Historical optimization will become increasingly
important
e. Marketers will use more interactive content on their
websites
f. Zero-party data (information from customers that they
voluntarily and deliberately share with you) will become
the preferred option for collecting prospect and
customer data.
It is obvious that technology is driving disruptions in the way
brands are creating content and in the way customers are
consuming content.
At this juncture, it will be nice to take a perspective from the Nigerian entertainment industry. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) in its latest industry report titled “Perspectives from the Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2022-2026”, Nigeria’s consumer revenue in Entertainment and Media (E&M) is estimated to sustain its annual growth rate of 8.8% (one of the highest in the world) making it the fourth highest earner by 2026. The firm projects that this growth rate will be driven by strong growth in video games, music and cinema.
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Due to heavy leverage on digital platforms, the Nigerian entertainment industry has gone global. Nollywood is one of the biggest movie industries in the world. In fact more movies are produced by Nollywood yearly in comparison to Hollywood. Nigerian music stars are in hot demand worldwide because of their popularity and brand recognition on social media. We should add that many of these global
superstars emerging from Nigeria launched into stardom by leveraging Caller Tunes and other mobile content platforms to grow their brands and following.
In conclusion, Digital platforms are fostering different types of systemic change, creating new brands, eroding the value of some brands, whilst at the same time increasing the value of other brands. The innovation-transformation-disruption cycle have come to stay and will be exacerbated as technology
continues to evolve.
Let me assure you that the NCC will continue to aggressively drive the roll out and seamless operation of infrastructure to drive new digital technologies for the benefit of all sectors of our economy. It is our hope that Nigerian brands will continue to leverage on this infrastructure to grow their value
and ensure that our country derives maximum benefit from unfolding digital transformation efforts.
Thank you for listening.
Nigeria’s entertainment consumption revenue among world’s top four fastest growing
https://businessday.ng/life-arts/article/nigeria-to-make-top-four-fastest-growing-entertainment-consumerrevenue-globally/
PROF UMAR GARBA DANBATTA, FNSE, FRAES, FAEng, FNIEEE, EXECUTIVE VICE CHAIRMAN/CEO NIGERIAN COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
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Digital Disruption
Digital Disruption
Digital Disruption
