One Virus, Many Effects On The IMC Industry

0

By Tunji Faleye

These are not best of times as the whole world is gripped with fear and uncertainty in the face of Covid-19 onslaught.  Looking back into history, nothing best compared to this period, as the First and Second World Wars (WW1 and WWII) which claimed many lives did not frighten human race like the present state of confusion Coronavirus has brought on the entire human race, where the world has found itself locked down and nothing seems important like the fight against the virus.

Almost every part of the world is affected since the outbreak of Coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, killing hundreds and thousands in days, and quickly spread to other parts of the world with its devastating impacts on Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East.

With many businesses feeling the effects of the virus the world over, many offices have been closed, while others have changed pattern of engagements. In Nigeria, even before the widespread of the virus, many businesses put the safety of their staffers first by closing their offices only to remotely work from home.

Postponements and Cancellations

In the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) industry alone, many events have been cancelled due to Coronavirus pandemic. For instance, at the global level, the organizers of Cannes Lions Festival recently cancelled the annual Festival of Creativity and will no longer hold until June 21-25 in 2021.

The organisers made this known citing the current COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. According to them, “As the impact from COVID-19 continues to be felt across the world on consumers and our customers across the marketing, creative and media industries, it has become clear to us our customers’ priorities have shifted to the need to protect people, to serve consumers with essential items and to focus on preserving companies, society and economies.

“Our difficult decision follows in-depth consultations with our partners and customers and reflects the unprecedented societal, health and economic challenges currently facing the world, as well as our desire to remove any uncertainty about the running of the awards and event for our partners and customers.

Philip Thomas, Chairman, Cannes Lions had commented: “Cannes Lions at its core has always been about creativity and the Lions. We realise that the creative community has other challenges to face, and simply isn’t in a position to put forward the work that will set the benchmark. The marketing and creative industries, in common with so many others, are currently in turmoil, and it’s clear that we can play our small part by removing all speculation about the Festival this year. We have tried to make our decisions as early as possible to give the industry total clarity on the situation, and that is why we are announcing this move.”

Simon Cook, Managing Director, Cannes Lions, added: “We all look ahead to a more positive time – right now, Cannes Lions will continue to bring the global creative community together and provide inspiration where we can find it. Our recent call for inspirational creative stories from around the world has already garnered hundreds of accounts of our community uniting and showing progress in this crisis. We believe firmly that the Lions continue to offer valuable recognition to that community and we look forward to celebrating and honouring the work in 2021, when the world will hopefully feel more stable, and our community can give their work the focus it deserves.”

World Out-of-Home Organisation

The World Out-of-Home Organization formerly referred to as FEPE also cancelled its planned Toronto Congress from June 3-5 2020 because of the spread of the COVID-19 virus and consequent travel restrictions.

Organization’s President, Tom Goddard says; “COVID-19 is now officially designated a pandemic by the World Health Organization and is impacting Out of Home companies worldwide. Therefore we had no option but to cancel our June gathering and postpone to 2021. We felt it best to make the decision at this time to remove uncertainty for attendees and our partners.

“This is the first Congress we have cancelled in 61 years but it’s clearly right to put the health and wellbeing of our members and others first. In the meantime, the Organization will continue to promote the global industry as energetically as ever.

“Our very best wishes go to everyone in the global Out-of-Home community as we all deal with this difficult time.”

APRA Postpones 32nd Annual Conference In Tanzania

In the same vein, the 32nd Annual Conference of African Public Relations Association (APRA) scheduled to hold on Tuesday May 12, 2020 in Dare es Salaam, Tanzania was also postponed.

According to the organizers, the shift from May date was necessitated by the travel ban in and out of Tanzania by the government following many other travel bans adopted by many countries due to widespread panic about Coronavirus infections across the globe.

In a telephone conversation with Brand Communicator, President of African Public Relations Association, Mr Yomi Badejo-Okusanya had said, “We are still monitoring the situation concerning Coronavirus, and since Tanzanian government has adopted travel ban in and out of the country like other countries across the globe there is no way our May date will not be affected. There is the likelihood of postponing the conference but, no date has been fixed. We will also carry along our members and partners about the situation.” True to his words, APRA has postponed its 32nd Annual Conference.

National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria

Expectedly, The National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) also announced the indefinite postponement of this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Marketing Conference earlier scheduled to hold between 16th and 17th of April, 2020 in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

The postponement, according to the Institute, is as a result of worsening situations on the outbreak of the dreaded Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic currently spreading across the globe.

In a statement signed by the President, the Institute had stated that its Executive Council had reviewed the updates on the pandemic and agreed that the situation was worsening, noting that in less than 24 hours, the pandemic had been further confirmed by additional cases of infected persons in Nigeria at present.

The statement added that in the unfolding circumstances, the Council had agreed that the safety and health of institute members were paramount, emphasising on the need to join in promoting public health, while also taking special cognizance of the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO), National Centre for Decease Control (NCDC) and Federal Ministry of Health, for social distancing.

Text of the statement reads: “On 12 March 2020, I briefed you that the Council was monitoring closely, developments with the Coronavirus pandemic and its possible impact on our AMC/AGM scheduled for 16 –17 April 2020.

“On 17 March 2020, the Council reviewed the updates on the pandemic. We agreed that the situation is worsening.

“In the circumstances, we agreed that the safety and health of our members should be paramount. We also agreed on the need to join in promoting public health. We also took special note of the recommendations by the WHO, NCDC and Federal Ministry of Health for social distancing.”

Continuing, the statement said: “Therefore, the Council is persuaded that wisdom at this time requires that we postpone the Annual Marketing Conference and Annual General Meeting. This postponement will affect all the processes related to the Conference and AGM.

Economic Implications

Sadly, as the world grapple with the ravaging effect of coronavirus pandemic, it is obvious that the economic fallout could increase global poverty by as much a half a billion.

A recent study by The United Nations (UN) into the financial and human cost of the pandemic has revealed that it will be the first time that poverty has increased globally in 30 years.

Part of the report explained that the United Nations University study was written by experts at King’s College London and Australian National University (ANU).

“The economic crisis is potentially going to be even more severe than the health crisis,” said Christopher Hoy from ANU.

The report, which estimates a 400-600 million increase in the number of people in poverty across the globe, says the potential impact of the virus poses a real challenge to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty by 2030.

“Our findings point towards the importance of a dramatic expansion of social safety nets in developing countries as soon as possible and – more broadly – much greater attention to the impact of Covid-19 in developing countries and what the international community can do to help,” said Professor Andy Sumner of King’s College London.

According to the report, by the time the pandemic is over half of the world’s population of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty. About 40% of the new poor could be concentrated in East Asia and the Pacific, with about one third in both Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Already, over 100 global organisations have called for waiver in debt payments this year for developing countries, which would free up $25bn (£20bn) in cash in order to support their economies.

Unfortunately, Fitch Ratings has downgraded Lagos’s Long-Term Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) to ‘B’ from ‘B+’. The outlooks are negative and this will definitely affect the economy and the IMC industry being the commercial capital of Nigeria.

Already, there has been dramatic drop in the price of crude oil from $56-$60 dollar per barrel before the outbreak of the pandemic to about $34 dollars per barrel. This has forced the Nigerian government to commence a review of its 2020 budget which was based on $57 per barrel oil bench mark.

Apart from that, there are also indications that the advertising subsector of the Nigerian economy may have lost billions of naira to the outbreak of Coronavirus as a result of billions of United States dollars their foreign affiliates have also lost so far.

With all these developments, it is evident that the earlier growth projected by Bismark Rewane, MD/CEO Financial Derivatives Company Limited for IMC Industry is no longerachievable. Recalled that Rewane, renowned economist and member of the Presidential Economy Advisory Council (EAC), had at the Economic Outlook event organised by Public Relations Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) earlier in the year predicteda large scale growth for the IMC industry in Nigeria in the 2020 fiscal year on account of available economic indices.

According to him, the introduction of interventionist’s policies and subsidies by Federal Government will enable more businesses to spring up which would consequently necessitate increased spending on advertising and marketing communications generally.

Rewane who identified three key areas such as agriculture, manufacturing and telecommunications sector as major drivers of the Nigerian economy in 2020 stated that notwithstanding the likelihood of a slow GDP growth rate at 2.2%, the impact of government intervention policies, businesses are likely to increase spending on PR, advertising and branding this year.

Conclusion

However, analysts say, with many economies around the world beginning to experience recession, there is no way the Nigeria’s economy will not be affected with devastating consequences on the IMC industry and all other sectors of the economy.

They believe that the nation’s economy is so fragile that the moment there is economic turmoil at the international level; the ripple effects will definitely affect the Nigerian economy. However, it is their belief that the recovery of the IMC industry from the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic depends on how quick the nation’s economy recovers.

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.