LESSONS FROM BIG BROTHER NAIJA FOR POLITICIANS & BUSINESSMEN

I am one of the few who are glad this BigBrother Madness is coming to an end but "based on Logistics" I must commend PayPorte, DSTV, Indomie, Legend Stout and all others who attempted to embark on this enterprise. For the resilience and the influence they exerted on a country who only recently "prided" itself as being in recession, the frenzy over voting Efe, Tboss, Bisola, Mavis or Debbie Rise and the amount of cash being dolled out for texting alone shows that actually the concept of recession is most likely a thing of the mind.

However there are a few lessons we can learn from Big Brother Naija I feel especially Politicians and Businessmen (Only those who are divinely endowed with Sense) can copiously take away. Here are about 6 of them I thought to share for want of space.

1. Take time to promote your product, cause or service long before it launches in the Media:
Most businessmen think otherwise, they feel the product will basically sell itself when it hits the market, that all of a sudden the shinny luster of whatever your offering will hypnotize people immediately and you will make an immediate fortune. It might have worked in the past, it doesn't right now, there are lots of things competing for the attention of people, yours needs to jump higher to be seen. Dont wait for the eve of the launch to advertise, start early to prepare the ground. Politicians need to start becoming visible long before they reveal their intentions for political aspiration. Payporte and DSTV ensured they were in the faces of everyone with the promo long before it launched.

2.Young People are your Market: Because of the way the Big Brother fever caught on swiftly among the young people, the older generation had no choice but to tag along. Any business that doesn't see the Young People as their primary target and focus on their needs will loose out. Young people are the drivers of the economy even though they dont know it yet. Politicians need to move their attention from using young people only at election time to commit crimes, but rather to use them like Obama did to spread their agenda as far as possible. Since the population of Nigeria is mostly young people, you need to be within the interest of this group because whatever they are interested in, Nigeria inadvertently is interested in.

3. Catching the spotlight is capital intensive: This is why many Nigerian businesses will never be great and thats because they refuse to believe Money and other resources must be spent to build a convincing impression in the minds of prospective customers. God knows how much Payporte and its partners had to spend to keep the lights on 24/7 for 90 Days and keep the show on the air uninterrupted. Politicians understand all too well that the game is all about perception.

4. Your Brand Component matters; Uniquness in Diversity: All the Housemates in their unique ways brought in different flavors that kept the show exciting and extremely difficult to resist. We saw the Bad, The Badder and the Baddooskis among them and somehow we found some part of us in each of them. Payporte and DSTV understood this clearly in the selection of the housemates.It will not be out of place if we say the attraction to the show has gone beyond the peripherals to the preferences of the Characters in the show. Business people must learn the art of being creative in their product or service mixtures rather than run with a single story narrative. Politicians must understand that the component of their teams and affiliations will determine the success or failure of their political careers. Mixing is good, but the right mix is better.

5. Engage your audience, leave them to make what you do, their own: Asides organizing the reality show and keeping the content going, Payporte & DSTV had very little else to do. The audience has apparently hijacked the whole show in terms of conversations of the housemates in the public domain and more especially in the buildup to the Grand Finale. Payporte and DSTV didnt need to go form groups to support the housemates, the people took ownership of the programme and carried the cause themselves. If people cannot carry your products and services as theirs even in your absence, then OYO is your name. Once again, real Politicians understand this, sadly many business people dont - especially outside Lagos.

6.Brands! Brands! Brands! At the start of the show, not many people wanted to be associated with it, talkless of established brand personalities and Businesses, but as the end draws near, I can guess off the top of my head that there are businesses who were approached initially to tag along and partner and they rejected the offer; I am very sure they are regretting now. Surely if they are, they must be. Businesses and Politicians should be keen to leverage on existing brands to capture the markets these brands have labored to get. At the start of the reality show, we saw a lot of immoral behavior from the housemates that made us raise our noses in disgust, however as the show progressed, the organizers deemed it fit to introduce well known Nigerian Celebrities to add some sparkle and garner some new support and increased viewership like Mr Ibu, Davido, Don Jazzy etc. Politicians in Nigeria in 2015 understood this and it won them the much needed support in the elections. Business people irrespective of the size of your business should leverage on existing brand personalities to drive their popularity rating to get the kind of customers they want.