Nigeria Just Made History By Banning Non-Nigerian Models In Their Advertising
"Advertising should resonate with the people. How do you think it will resonate if we keep using foreign artists?”
The government of Nigeria has become the first country to ban the use of foreign models in its advertisements.
The use of white models and British accents is commonplace in Nigerian commercials due to the legacies of colonisation, but those days are officially numbered: last week, the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture announced the use of foreign models, talent and voiceovers in Nigerian advertising will be prohibited from October.
“All advertisements, advertising, and marketing communications materials targeted or exposed in the Nigerian advertising space are to use only Nigerian models and voice-over artists,” the council said in a statement. The order will take effect from October 1, with current campaigns using non-Nigerian talent permitted to run their course.”
The statement from Nigeria’s ministry was clear on the policy’s intention, which is about “developing local talent”. The ban, however, isn’t just about the ethnicities of the models used. All non-Nigerians will be prohibited from the country’s advertising, both in front of and behind the scenes.
Olalekan Fadolapo, the Director General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, defended the new policy in an interview with The Times. “Advertising should resonate with the people. How do you think it will resonate if we keep using foreign artists?”
Steve Babaeko, President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, also gave a statement to The Times, explaining that this shift has been a long time coming. “I think the law is just catching up with the national sentiment,” he said.
“Ten to twenty years ago if you checked the commercials, I would say they were almost fifty-fifty in terms of foreign faces and all the voiceovers were British accents.”
“People will tell you, ‘There are about 200 million of us. Are you telling me you could not find Indigenous models for this commercial?” he added.
Due to this cultural shift, Nigerian advertising had unofficially been prioritising local talent for some time — for example, last year’s “Black Shines Brightest” Guinness campaign.
The new policy marks Nigeria as the first country to explicitly enshrine the exclusive use of Indigenous talent into policy.