FG to fine Nigerian brands for foreign ads
Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, is clamping down on brands that advertise during international football matches but not Nigerian ones.
The minister has announced that Nigerian brands that run TV commercials during foreign football matches must advertise to an equal extent during Nigeria Premier League games or pay a N100,000 (US$262) fine each time the ad appears on television.
This development was revealed recently during an interview on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria programme, according to South African blog TV With Thinus.
In the NTA show, Mohammed said: “Let’s assume you have brought in La Liga, and during the matches Guinness is advertised. We will compel you, we will compel Guinness to also advertise when we are playing a local league. That is the only way we can grow this industry, but as can be expected, we have had very few supporters.
“If you do an advert in South Africa, you put it on CNN International and we look at that advert and we see that the advert was not made in Nigeria but actually made in South Africa, or you see that five times a day on CNN, you pay half-a-million [naira] to us. The half-a-million will go to the content development fund.”
The minister added that this was in line with Nigeria’s previously amended Broadcasting Code, which states that ads for products meant for Nigerian audience must be made in Nigeria.
“What is common today is to see products made in Nigeria but the advert for those products are actually probably done in South Africa or in the US. So we amended the Code to say that if a product you want to advertise in Nigeria is made in Nigeria, grown in Nigeria or processed in Nigeria, then you must make sure that the advert is also produced in Nigeria,” said Mohammed.
“[Beer brand] Gulder is made and processed in Nigeria. If you go to South Africa to produce an advert which you are going to air to Nigerians because Nigerians consume Gulder, what we have amended the code to say that for every time that advert is aired in Nigeria, either on radio or television, you pay a fine of N100,000.
“We went further to say that if a company should invest US$1m in bringing the English Premier League [EPL] to Nigeria, that company must also be ready to spend 30% of that US$1m in producing a local content along the same line. In other words, if Maltina or Guinness decides to bring in EPL we have no problem with that. But they must also invest in covering our local league to the tune of 30% of what he has paid.”
tagged in: CNN International, Good Morning Nigeria, Lai Mohammed, TV With Thinus