Nigeria ad spend 2018-2020, by medium

Contrary to trends in the U.S. or Europe, where the lion’s share of ad budgets is focused on internet and TV marketing, between 2018 and 2020 the majority of advertising dollars in Nigeria will be devoted to TV and video promotion. In developed markets internet advertising expenditures are expected to surpass TV, however, in Nigeria TV advertising is and will remain strong in the near future. The second most popular ad medium in the country is out-of-home, which is also projected to grow in the three years. Internet is ranked third based on advertising spending.

Advertising market in Nigeria

   Mobile phone services were the largest advertising category in Nigeria in 2017, which is not surprising as the country relies largely on mobile communications. Personal classifieds and corporate communications, banking and finance and cable TV closed the list of top five advertising categories in Nigeria. Consequently, MTN, Airtel and Globalcom (all telecommunications companies) ranked second, third and fifth respectively based on their advertising expenditures in the country. The largest advertiser in Nigeria in 2017 was Sundry Food Services, a parent of several restaurant brands.

Nigerian advertising compared to other African countries

   Nigeria is one of the largest advertising markets in Africa: in 2017 Nigerian ad revenue reached 425 million U.S. dollars. The only two countries that generated more in ad revenues that year were South Africa and Morocco – 2.7 billion U.S. dollars and 820 million respectively. However, markets such as Algeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Tunisia all ranked below Nigeria’s results.