The rise of connected devices, convergence in digital technologies amongst others, is a major factor responsible for the continued disruption of industries globally. From taxi apps to online grocery delivery, we have seen radical changes in the way consumers engage with services as much as we have experienced businesses innovate around new product models. The end is certainly not in sight, as this year, the number of mobile connected devices will exceed the world’s population. This means more industries will have to respond to these changes if they must continue to create value for stakeholders.
One of such largely impacted verticals is the Creative Industry in Nigeria. A sector that has been widely touted by proponents of economic diversification as a viable alternative to an over-reliance on crude oil. The industry no doubt in recent years has shown an interesting growth trend Nollywood for instance, in 2011 was the fourth largest economic sector in Nigeria with an annual industry valuation of USD500M, providing up to one million job opportunities indirectly. Add these to the potential growth opportunities in music, publishing, photography, performing arts, etc, and then you get a sense of the golden opportunity we’ve had in our hands.
Unfortunately the industry has struggled to reach its full potential. Lack of proper distribution channels, ineffective copyright and intellectual property protection frameworks, piracy, etc are some of the factors that have slowed progress down. As police raids, tiring lawsuits, advertising campaigns and other traditional methods of combating these menace increasingly proved abortive, it became clear the creative industry needed a more systematic approach to charting its course for the future. Then mobile happened, and a series of fateful events that would change the market dynamics began to unfold.
Today, there are 146 million connected GSM lines across four network operators in Nigeria. About 96 million Nigerians have access to the internet via their mobile phones indicating a growing adoption of mobile broadband while positioning mobile as the primary interface between the physical and digital worlds. There is a gradual shift in creative content distribution and consumption. Curators will now have to optimise content to reach their target audience who are migrating en masse from traditional channels of engagement to the mobile phone. Over the last two decades, creative industries globally have faced the shift from traditional media to digital platforms, an indication that Nigeria will continue to see an upward trend as mobile increasingly become the dominant platform for engagement.
The implication of this is that innovation and creativity will drive new products development. This coupled with the current explosive growth in mobile real estate will help the market effectively tackle its own problems. Challenges that hitherto traditional approaches could not surmount will now be tackled from the product innovation perspective. We already see this happening with the music industry for instance as local music streaming mobile platforms like Spinlet, Music +,Cloud 9, etc. have begun to redefine music distribution, adding the transparency and effectiveness required for artistes to directly earn a premium on their intellectual property. Likewise, Iroko TV and their likes are helping Nollywood solve the problem of distribution while also providing seamless and legitimate channels for the growing digital natives to access movie content in Nigeria and beyond.
Additionally, the growing mobile internet penetration has empowered alongside social media the emergence of the online content creation class. This is a group of mostly millennials who leverage the crowdsourcing nature of social media to create and share content blogging, comedy skits, videos, memes, pictures, to name a few belong in this group. Publishing platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are helping these creators magnify their content to previously unheard levels, thanks to their intrinsic sharing nature. For every one of these content creators, there are hundreds of content consumers engaging their content, enabling them to grow and monetise their influence either via paid promotions or ad networks. Their activities are already proving to be a major economic driving force in Nigeria as mobile and digital technologies have ensured to lower the barriers to entry, opening up the space for creative youths to strive. Mobile is bridging the gap between content deployment, and monetizing as curators can now earn directly via content subscription models leveraging Telco billing gateways while also providing seamless experience for the users.
Whatever has been achieved so far is a pointer to greater opportunities to come as mobile is scaling rapidly. Telcos in the region are investing huge in high speed networks and will look to make up for dwindling voice revenues, monetizing data effectively. As smart phones are increasingly becoming affordable, mobile data traffic will further see explosive growth. On-demand videos will drive increased mobile data consumption; creative content will be at the center of engagement. These combination of factors reflect an ecosystem whose components must co-create for the market to reach full maturity. Local content will play as important a role as communication technologies in improving digital inclusion. Consumers will expect content that speak to them directly.
In light of these changes, creative work will now have to be reflective of the paradigm shift that is impacting the consumer landscape in Nigeria. Content must be empowered for today’s mobile buyers. That’s the way to go!
Gabriel Dada
Gabriel Dada is Digital Business Lead at Imaginarium Creative, a digital media and mobile value creation company. He has held lead roles in business and product development for Twinpine, Africa’s leading mobile Ad network, and Vserv, a Global Smart Data user acquisition network, helping content providers monetize across Telco networks in Africa.
