Its diversity and timeless values makes the Nigerian culture an
embodiment of inspirational elements for the Nigerian brand consulting
industry.
From the traditional values attached to childbirth
and marriage rites, to the intricacies and details of motherhood,
fatherhood, coronation, and funeral, the local templates form
a veritable media for expressive communication. This mode of communication
over the years has articulated in strongest terms the dept of
African creativity and its unrivaled potentials for behavioral
and perceptual change for the benefits of the communicators.
There are about three thousand ethnic groups,
cultures, and languages in Africa, the beauty of her natural resources,
modern urban centers, great mineral wealth, and more, establish
that Africa has much to offer the world. Its music, dance styles,
and the art of Africa are all full of vibrant and time tested
wisdom.
Nigeria is a cluster of ethnic diversity, each
with its rich culture and language.
However, there is a growing concern that our collective value
system is breaking down. From the chain of events unfolding in
public places, it could be discerned that our morality, ethos,
and traditional values, founded on the nobles of truth, equity
and justice, are in great danger. How many of our ads reflect
these values? Is globalization about loosing our identity as a
people?
One cannot easily place this moral decadence
and speedy erosion of our core values on the widening globalization.
It has been on from the colonial days. How much space is left
for the Nigerian creative individual to create from the values
of the culture of which he belongs? While the western economies
ride on the benefits of globalization to advocate its value system,
we remain gullible, allowing a cultural/psychological drowning
in imperialism, albeit postcolonial.
Cultural and societal values are communication
tools that the west, in spite of the relative insufficiency, has
manipulated successfully, to communicate its value system to the
world. So today, every body wants to dress and walk like an American.
Even our TV commercials and other brand projection materials copy
concepts from the west.
We should use our diverse ethnicity and multi-colored
traditional beliefs, which are the required mix to impact our
society. Our affinity with our culture should transcend every
template. Our creative strategy, articulation and execution of
concepts should be created in a template that reflects the Nigerian
cultural background in order to have relevance to socio-cultural
experience.
The approach of the next millennium unavoidably
evokes concern, and calls for a critical assessment; of where
we are, and at what tasks we should direct our attention and efforts,
in our ongoing quest for a free, empowered and just society, as
well as for a better world.
In our assessments, we are of necessity, directed towards the
continuing struggle to free ourselves, both socially and culturally.
In fact, the two struggles are unbreakably linked. For to free
ourselves socially, we must build a consciousness, cohesion and
sense of ‘specialness’ in community only culture can
give. But to bring forth the best of our culture, we must struggle
to clear social space for its recovery, reception and development.
According to Dr. Maulana Karenga, chairman
of an African American black liberation movement, the task is
to forge and embrace a culture that both prepares the people for
the struggle and sustains them in the process of the struggle
for a world of human freedom and human flourishing.
This means then, and continues to mean selecting
and stressing elements of black culture that represented the best
of African and human values which protect and promote human life,
human freedom and maximum human development. It also means recreating
liberation –supportive values, views and practices which
were lost, damaged or transformed in the midst of oppression,
and creating new ways of seeing and approaching the world that
reinforce and raise up the people, support and sustain the struggle,
and point toward the new world we struggle to bring into being.
In karenga’s assertion, we must also
recognize and respect the fact that our culture comes with its
own special way of being human in the world and that this particular
African way of being human in the world provides a pathway to
the universal. This is because it represents African peoples way
of engaging the fundamental concerns of human kind. Furthermore,
our culture has evolved in the longest of histories and thus has
amassed a rich and varied array of ancient and modern knowledge,
understanding, and wisdom concerning the world. Ours is a history
of struggle, creativity, achievement, and constant concern for
the right, the just and the good. It is a history of ancient wonder
and achievement in the Nile valley, awesome tragedy and destruction
in the holocaust of Enslavement, and impressive triumph in our
constant struggle against overwhelming societal odds against us
in modern times. And ours is a history of an ongoing commitment
to lift up the good, even in the midst of the most horrific evil,
and to pursue the possible in spite of the catechism of the impossibilities
repeatedly offered to us.
In ADSTRAT we believe that the way we dress
has nothing to do with the value we give to our client, neither
does it add to the depth of ideas proffered to increase our client’s
equity in the market. Rather it is just a way of life, an expression
and affinity with a particular culture. Therefore we feel obliged
appreciate and fraternize with our culture and motherland for
giving birth to us as a brand and allow us to berth, providing
all that we need to survive and grow.
As brand consultants we believe that creativity
must come from within to the outside. To project other brands,
one should be able to project his brand first. The Nigerian brand
identity is suffering, and in dire need of projection. We believe
we have risen up to the task. We have woken up from a long slumber
to break out of the box of cultural imperialism. That to us is
being proudly and truly Nigerian.
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