President of the Digital Marketing Professionals of Nigeria, (ADMARP), Oti Ukubeyinje has estimated that digital advertising agencies in the country accounted for about N8.3 billion of total advertising spend in Nigeria put at over N150 billion presently.

The amount representing barely about 10 percent of the total advertising expenditure in the country is considered to be abysmally low, especially when compared with South Africa’s record where digital agencies billings is in the worth of $3billion annually.

Ukubeyinje who made this disclosure in an interview recently, said digital advertising industry in Nigeria was growing at a very slow pace compared to happenings in other markets.

He attributed the slow pace of growth to various impacting factors, including among other things, technology advancement, population demography as well as investments coming from businesses that need to communicate.

According to Ukubeyinje who also is Head, Operations and Sales, Opera Mini, Nigeria, the digital phenomenon has gone a long way to prove that communications and its impact on business can be measured; hence it is important that traditional communication channels evolve and build measurement technologies that are more efficient and accurate.

“The advertising and marketing communications landscape in Nigeria is evolving at a very fast pace, and with a lot of casualties along the way. Brands have an objective to communicate to consumers in the most creative and cost-effective ways” he stated, adding that in recent times, this has been influenced by technology and economic conditions that put pressure on their marketing spend”.

On the possibility of digital advertising sector outgrowing the traditional marketing communications in terms of spending, the agency boss foreclosed the possibility sighting the UK experience where digital already accounts for over 66 percent of all advert spend.

“You can’t grow faster than the technology available to the audience. There are more eyeballs and ears than mobile phones out there, yet brands want to reach as many people as possible so they would surely need beyond digital platforms to do so.

“There is a big debate out there about what constitutes digital – once a channel becomes powered by the internet. Does it suddenly become a digital channel or is it still traditional with digital ability? Take IOT enabled digital OOH for example or online radio that you can listen to on your car radio, and Digital TV, Netflix, Showmax, etc, that you can watch on your home TV,” he explained.

He added that while focusing on the digital side, the ADMARP organisation was working concertedly with stakeholders in the marketing communications industry with a view to further driving the agenda of effective measurement in marketing communications.

He disclosed further plans of the organisation which is to hold a digital conference and awards sometime early in the New Year that would be focused on the benefits of effective communications measurement as well as to celebrate brands and agencies that have demonstrated this.

“We aim to educate and equip all stakeholders with the skills and tools to effectively measure marketing communications, which would give businesses the confidence to keep investing in this area,” he added.