ICYMI: Tech Meet Entertainment Summit 2018 - a recap

It is no longer news that the first ever Tech Meets Entertainment Summit was organised by Ingressive on October 25, 2018. The one-day event which held at Zone Tech Park, Gbagada, Lagos was sponsored by BookedByUs, an entertainment management platform and GitHub, a leading software development platform.

The event set out to bring together entrepreneurs, financial investors, developers, designers and entertainers together to learn about tech and startups in Africa, share best practices on branding, and collaboratively discover innovative solutions for the Tech and Entertainment industries.

Prior to the summit, Ingressive organised various activities during the week.

Some of these activities included a Hackathon in partnership with NaijaHacks and an exclusive Media Cocktail at the US Consul General's Residence in Ikoyi, Lagos.

The invited guests for the Summit include Leader of the Supreme Mavin Dynasty–Don Jazzy, TV Presenter–Chuey Chu, BBN Star & 2018 AMVCA winner–Bisola Aiyeola, Head of Entertainment | The Temple Management Company–Mark Redguard, CEO | HotelsNG–Mark Essien, Country Manager, Nigeria for VIMN Africa (parent company of MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and Comedy Central)–Bada Akintunde Johnson, Co-founder | SheLeadsAfrica–Afua Osei, Fashion Designer–Ugo Mozie.  

Walid Mathlouthi an Innovation technologist at Google (one of those who worked actively on bringing Google Station to Nigeria) opened the floor by explaining a  few things that hinder the growth of technology in Nigeria.

He mentioned that only 1 out of every 4 Nigerians are ‘connected’ due to three major issues: affordability, bad coverage and/or bad internet.

Currently, Google is working on improving affordability, access and connectivity.

Regarding affordability, Google is working on providing affordable smartphones–Freetel ICE 2. Also, they have been optimising their products for emerging markets like that of Nigeria. The launch of Android One, and YouTube Go are a testament to that. For instance, YouTube Go improves consumers video consumption experience by providing resolutions and displays that are optimised for low-bandwidth situations and low-performance phones.  

Google is also improving access and connectivity in Nigeria by providing free public Wifi–Google Station.

Up next, was Dayo from BookedbyUs. He gave a report on the talent engagement outlook for 2018. During his speech, he highlighted things stakeholders look out for in entertainers. These include: audience, characteristics, image, alignment and credibility. An entertainer’s audience and credibility tops this list. He pointed out that celebrities are open to endorsing known and unknown brands. ‘Popularity among key target segments is the determining factor for brands to engage with an influencer.

An interesting panel session followed. This was  the highlight of the Summit for us as savvy speakers did justice to the topic of talent pricing and management.

The session was focused on answering the question: “Who or what determines pricing for talent engagement [and how can tech play a role]”. The panellists included: Chuey Chu, Bisola Aiyeola, Mark Redguard, Bada Akintunde Johnson and Michael Ebia -- Co-founder and CEO of ADE Digital.

Key takeaways include:

• Celebrities are brands. Only that they are people brands.

David Beckham is a football brand as much as Coke is a fizzy drink brand. Therefore, to build a personal brand just like how Coke has built theirs, consistency is key.

• Brands die due to over-exposure.

Attending every event, posting 100 times a day as a celebrity makes you “common”. A brand should have a price range for which below that, they will not be available.

Taking a job that under-values your worth (by paying peanuts) leaves you worse off than when you didn’t even take it.

To quantify, taking a NGN 70,000 job as an A-list celebrity, does more damage to your brand than NGN 70,000 can repair. Therefore, before taking any job as a celebrity ask these three questions: “How does this help my brand grow?”, “Is this good for the brand I am building?”, “5 years from now, would I be happy I took this decision?”

• In Nigeria today, there is no published rating of celebrities and their value.

Having such a rating sensitises the industry of what an entertainer is worth, informs on future negotiations and creates a fair and transparent basis for engaging with an influencer.

However, a lot of stakeholders can’t make this value publicly available because, it is meagre and demeaning (and could end up doing more damage to a celebrity’s value). Also, the culturally ingrained idea that once relatives know what you earn, they will begin to cast all their burdens on you, makes a lot of people hold back on their earnings and worth.

• When it comes to “influencing”, there is a difference between an ambassador, an influencer and a content creator and/or distributor.

While KraksTV and Instablog are content distributors they, cannot “influence” for a brand the way an EmmaOhMaGod can. However, they could be more powerful than influencers, due to their wide reach. So parties should identify the difference and know how to price along that line.

• Value is typically determined by the buyer (client) and not the provider (an influencer or celebrity.

That is why Olamide can get paid half a billion naira for a project with Glo and never with anyone else.

How can tech help?

Digital technologies have simply made “influence” measurable. Traditional out-of-home advertising strategies finding it hard to ascertain what led to a conversion, how many people engaged with an Ad and how many people it even reached.
However, with metrics like engagement rates, traffic sources, and impressions on a piece of content, it is easier to measure the success of a campaign and benchmark it against previous ones.

The summary of this session is that a Talent’s worth is determined first by demand from clients and then by their talent. In his parting words, Michael Ebia said “Brands like your sauce, but your fans are attracted to your stew”. In the case of Bisola, her sauce is her dexterity displayed in movie acting roles, but her stew is her short skit posted on IG. They both work hand-in-hand. There was a loud round of applause for Michael’s wit in combining the current social media hype around “stew” to make his point.

Afterwards, Afua Osei gave a brief talk on building a brand. She encouraged upcoming brands to create an audience that believes in the stories they are trying to tell. In essence, to grow your brand, you need to be a good storyteller.
She also stressed the importance of analysing and figuring out what works coupled with learning, testing and continuous improvements. “There has to be a process and you have to be consistent about it”, she says.

Thereafter, a spin-out session was held for those interested in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology. Concurrently, Maya–founder of Ingressive–took to the stage to chat with Ugo Mozie a creative executive from Los Angeles. He talked about his journey to fame, working with Chris Brown and growing up in the States. He also answered questions from the audience.

Another panel session was held with Mark Essien, Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, Adewale Abati (acekyd) and Gbenga Sesan as panelists. They talked about “Open source for social impact”.

Ingressive's 2018 TME Summit came to a successful close via an award giving ceremony to participants of the hackathon. This year’s Tech meets Entertainment Summit was the bomb, we hope that next year, this event will be bigger and better.