Nigerias many discontinuities as an emerging nation can, perhaps, best be resolved if viewed from the prism of an offering on a companys stable put under the watchful eyes of a starry-eyed brand manager, whose sole performance indicator is the success of his brand.A brand is a companys single most valuable asset, accounting for well over half of its total value. Successful brands offer many benefits. They are wonderful assets when they capture the essence of a product, service or event succinctly, meaningfully, and with endurance over time. That is why brand managers, as guardiansliterallywork to protect those conceptual assets. Let us view Nigeria entirely within this context.Long before the Good People, Great Nation slogan became the linchpin of the re-branding campaign spear-headed by the former Minister of Communications & National Orientation, Professor Dora Akunyili, some tenuous attempts at the same subject-matter had been made by previous administrations.One easily recalls the Chikelu cum Nweke Heart-of-Africa campaign, and the hype it created at top-end media like CNN, as well as on office chest-pins and lapels, evand by vigorous media hype, failed the authenticity test, right from the beginning.Authenticitymaking sure the underlying reality can sustain the claimremains the critical issue in a branding campaign.In an overloaded digital world, the search for breezy slogans appears trendy. But stripped of all subtlety, the Good People, Great Nation, slogan best approximates the phrase, putting lipstick on a pigthat is making superficial cosmetic claims, rather than tackling real underlying challenges.What amount of sloganeering will convince a newly wedded foreign couple that Nigeria is the perfect choice for a honeymoon, without recourse to the dire security implications'George Orwell, the renowned British author of anti-fascist works, warned of the evils of lip-stick-clad bulldogs that co-opt words and distorts their meaning. In his book, 1984, the war department was called the ministry of peace; the watchdogs were called big brother, to make them sound protective rather than oppressive.Orwell was particularly outraged by euphemisms promoting mindless acceptance of atrocities. In a seminal literature piece, Politics and the English Language, he warned that since the label democracy is felt to be positive, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy and prefer not to have the term pinned down to any one meaning.Almost three years after, a re-branding campaign launched with so much gusto and a treasure-trove of resources has again fallen flat on its face. When you put previous attempts into the mix, what you get is a cocktail of discontinuitieseven dysfunctional attitudes towards a meaningful branding exercise. Time has come for the nations gatekeepers to become more professional.The first step will be to establish a brand position, which is a clear, unambiguous statement that communicates what brand-Nigeria stands for, what it offers and how it wishes to be perceived by the rest of the world. In choosing the one or two key benefits of this proposition, the communicators must be consistent, sustain a single message over time, and avoid ambiguity like a trap.The phrase, In God We Trust, is an easily identifiable cue on the American brand offering of liberty, freedom and justice. The pursuit of these ideals defines the American character. What is it in the Nigerian project that motivates the citizen to want to give his all'What is the welfare scorecard in 201151 clear years after Independence' Our forebears worked hard to liberate us from the clutches of colonialism, and founded Nigeria on good ideals. Who could fault Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, with a pan-Nigerian philosophy of unity-in-diversity that enabled him win elections in Western Nigeria in 1954'Also who could fault Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, with a mindset on industrialisation, which enabled groundnut pyramids and huge cotton-mills to spring up in Northern Nigeria or the vision and legendary philosophy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo that gave Western Nigeria free education and birthed free enterprise'The intention, one now conjectures, retrospectively, must have been the growth of the regions at a pace that will promote healthy competition, while utilising the enormous human and material resources that were also available in the regions.Sadly, this came to nought. The unitary system of government imposed by the military has been touted as being responsible for this sorry pass, but one can only imagine how far gone our development strides would have been, had Nigeria continued along those lines of political thought.In moving Nigeria forward, to borrow that hackneyed phrase again, we need to reach back to the inner recesses of our political evolution, establish the purpose for Nigeria, and create a distinct brand identity in the mould of the philosophy espoused by our founding fathers.Perhaps, the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation and its hard-driving Director-General, Mr Olusegun Runsewe, realises in more sober moments, that rebranding Nigeria is essentially about getting it right with the product and not with advertising messages. Good brands are built on values and strong heritage.We must re-enact basic civic education in schools, teach our young ones public hygiene as well as the cultural mores and chores our society. When a bill on same sex marriage curiously finds its way to the National Assembly and some citizens with orientation in the Diaspora defend it unashamedly, we must tell our children that this is very un-NigerianIn like manner, corruption, in distinctively fashionable term, is un-Nigerian. Suicide bombing, strafing and sundry acts of public violence are totally alien to the values that we seek to promote.A good brand is expected to generate positive experiences among its target group. The consumer does not want a fragmentation of that brand experience resulting from a deliberate distortion of his reality. In strict terms, a good brand possesses strong pedigree of consistent delivery of superior consumer satisfaction.Aside posturing and mere theatrics, its credibility in the market place is hard earned. These are elements that the Nigerian political process, in spite of the gibberish about delivering dividends of democracy, has failed to deliver to its primary and secondary consumers: Nigerians and the rest of the world.
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