DESPITE economic decline, harsh policies and stiff competition among major players in most sectors last year, 2013 is expected to see some shake ups especially in the telecommunications, power, advertising, public relations and other integrated marketing communication industry.

Analysts believe that 2013 will flourish for marketing practitioners as various events and activities would be providing great battlegrounds for brands to scuffle and win the hearts of consumers.

In the telecommunication sector, predictions are high that the move by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to commence the implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in the next one or two months is a policy that would provoke marketing activities massively in 2013. The MNP is expected to test the loyalty of telephone subscribers to telecom service brands in the country in 2013.

Also, after over four years of sustained downward profiles both in revenue and subscriber base in a GSM dominated Nigeria’s telecommunications sector, hope of recovery seems to be on the horizon for the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) sub-sector with the planned merger of Starcomms, Multilinks and MTS. This initiative is expected to produce an outfit—CAPCOM—with an injection of $200 million from the core investors. The move is also expected to shake up the industry.

On the CDMA merger, a marketing practitioner, Martins Ogumah, feels its impact in the market would be very minimal. According to Ogumah, “I have been hearing about this merger for months now, but if it happens, I strongly doubt its financial ability to grow and expand. Their technology is disadvantaged and you see them depending so much on experiential marketing. So, conventional marketing communication activities such as advertising and Public Relations might not feel their presence that much.”

The service also will further drive network stability as well as aid the growth of the sector as the providers will come up with all kinds of incentives that will lure subscribers to them and make them stay or join the network.

In the oil, gas and power sectors where the Federal Government is set to privatise, the move will greatly improve the sector as competition and increasing need for better public and customer relations will not just bring about stability in the sectors but also boost the marketing communications sector especially advertising and PR.

Considering the huge love and enthusiasm of Nigerians for sport, the sector is expected to continue to strengthen.  Marketing communication agencies are expected to jostle aggressively for sizeable chunks of the marketing budgets in sport beginning from the biggest football competition in the continent, which will kick off in January. The Orange Cup of Nations is expected to create a remarkable upsurge in sports marketing and brand promotional activities in Nigeria and across the continent.

However, despite the milestone garnered by Public Relations in the last six years in the country, the industry still falls short of acceptable standards with the infiltration of largely untrained and unregistered individuals masquerading as PR practitioners. In order to check this ugly trend of bypassing legitimate PR firms in awarding jobs to foreign agencies, the President of Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN), Chido Nwakanma, has pledged the commitment of the association to partner with NIPR to raise the standards and foster professionalism in the public relations profession in Nigeria.

Nwakanma alleged that some foreign agencies set up Public Relations practice in Nigeria without complying with the NIPR Act 16 of 1990. He said that proper regulation would enhance practice standards, as public and private sector organisations are the focus of the advocacy campaign aimed at persuading them to work with recognised and certified agencies. He believes that when they do this, the agencies will become economically viable to offer world-class services.

The advertising sector is also expected to become more competitive as clients are demanding higher standards and increased professionalism from brand partners. To that extent, the advertising industry is going to be more competitive and challenging in 2013.

Also, the determination of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), in its new reform, to ensure that all employees engaged in the practice of advertising and advertising services must be registered and certified by the body which takes effect from January 1, 2013 will no doubt help invigorate the industry too.

In a statement by the regulatory body, it declared that all agencies would have to apply for and obtain practice license from APCON to legalise the operations of the advertising organisation describing businesses done without its acquisition as illegal from January thus year. According to APCON, “the license shall be renewable every three years.”

Many other integrated marketing communications sectors are also expected to get to battle themselves on ‘who-wins-what’ account, as many of the telecoms, power and manufacturing companies will be seeking to have the best agencies in town to handle their account to beat their competitors to win more customers’ loyalty.

In the last few years, the sphere of Public Relations (PR) has elicited a deluge of scholarly criticisms and postulations as the profession gains wider acceptance and attention in Nigeria owing to its ever-robust intellectual valve and increasing relevance of perception management in the Nigerian economy.

Although it seems quite unlikely that the submission of possible mergers and acquisitions of PR agencies will see the light of day in the near future, increased alliances among agencies in Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) in 2013 seems inevitable in a bid to provide a more formidable front against foreign agencies. This could be hinged on the idea of ‘baking the bigger pie’ in pursuit of fostering financial gains for practitioners in the industry as propounded by Managing Director of CMC Connect, Mr. Yomi Badejo-Okusanya.

According to Okusanya, “the era of PR agencies engaging in a dog fight over peanuts should be over. What stops four or five agencies leveraging their respective areas of strength or even PRCAN as a group moving up for bigger things where substantial parts can get to everyone. That is one area we can grow and regulate this industry in the immediate future. My point exactly is that the economy is becoming acute and intense. Hence, there is a strong need for stakeholders and agencies to come together to build strong capacities in terms of knowledge, know-how, professionalism and productivity to be an indivisible entity. We need to aggregate our strengths in order to remain relevant as the current challenge requires of us.”