FAAN and “Branding” at Nigerian Airports

If you have had any reason to use most Nigerian Airports in recent times, especially the very busy ones like MM2, MMIA, NAIA, Abuja (I haven’t used PHIA, or KIA in a few years) you would have noticed the ‘deafening’ attempts at generating income that has almost turned our airports into advertising marts. The drive to make money is so great that every available space is plastered with some advertising message from either the banks or the telecom rivals especially of the GSM variant!
While the concept of public-private sector partnership is welcome, the execution of the idea is fast becoming offensive in our airports and is a testimonial to the lack of creative initiative on both the FAAN team and the brand management teams of the brands on display. How can the Chief Executives of both FAAN and its ‘branding customers’ walk thru such clutter in the name of branding and feel any sense of achievement or cost effectiveness? (Maybe as ‘big men’, they don’t use the ’popular’ check-in, arrival and departure lounges that ‘common’ Nigerians like me have to use)
Every inch of the airports have become fair game to hang all kinds of messages, wall-to-wall outdoor posters, lintel strips of brands struggling to outdo themselves to be the first to welcome the already mentally tired passenger to Lagos, Abuja or Nigeria depending on which airport you are. The cacophony of colors and messages has become a mental assault on the passenger’s psyche. The situation is a clear case of mental and emotional harassment of the Nigerian consumer and it is getting out of hand!
Major culprits are Intercontinental Bank, Glo Mobile, UBA and MTN and the worst airports are MM2 and Murtala Mohammed International Airport both in Lagos, especially MM2! It’s like walking through Oshodi Market pre Fashola! Everything is s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g at you. In fact, the adverts are so big they have crowded the valuable signs that should direct the passenger to the appropriate points for service. The visual impact creates more confusion as you are constantly distracted and confused as to what to fix your eyes on while transacting business in these airports.
(By the way, whoever approved the MM2 as a finished project should be thrown in jail! The finishing of the structure leaves a lot to be desired. I can almost bet my bottom naira that the airport will be ready to fall apart by the time the ‘Consessionee’ hands it over to FAAN in 30yrs! Can you see it still standing like the International Airport after the usual Nigerian culture of zero maintenance? I don’t. I can list at least 5 flaws that are tell- tale signs to my aesthetically untrained eyes…just look closely at the ceilings or the floors when next you are there…)
Back to FAAN’s quick money ‘branding’ strategy; just this week, I noticed that FAAN has started branding the exterior of MMIA too since there is no more space to ‘sell’ on the interior (except maybe the floors and ceilings because even the chairs in the departure lounges are ‘branded’ with various corporate colors depending on which brand is financing it.) The tower at the international airport now ‘belongs’ to Glo! Can you imagine; even THE TOWER?!
Maybe the Minister for Aviation should hire the Lagos State Advertising and Signage Agency (LASAA) to ‘visit’ Nigerian Airports and ‘sanitize’ them like they have done Lagos streets, so consumers can use the airports without getting a headache or fudgy brains from trying to process the assault on our mental and emotional psyche. While the brands have a right to advertise their wares, FAAN should also remember that consumers do have a right to their privacy in some supposedly ‘public’ arenas especially when we pay taxes to use those public places too.
FAAN should please take time to understand the psychological impact of its trade and take that into consideration in its aggressive attempt at making extra money at all costs. After all, passengers already pay airport taxes for the use of the same airports or are we being taxed so we can be ‘deafened’ with the visual ‘noise’ and clutter of these brands and their adverts? The ones we are bombarded with on the streets free of charge is not enough, we now have to pay FAAN to deliver us as a ‘captive audience’ to the mental ‘terrorists’ who want to take over our psyche by force or tulasi by ‘branding us red, green, blue or yellow!
Travelling in the Nigerian airspace is nerve racking enough with the various uncertainties about the quality, standard and capabilities of equipment and human resource but FAAN seems bent on further escalating our unsettled nerves with all kinds of messages screaming at us as soon as we enter the airport environment! Haba! The confines of a departure lounge (or immigration areas on arrival at the international airport) should be kept as serene and nerve calming as possible as the passenger has either just survived a harrowing mental experience of flying or is about to commence on one.
From the execution of this concept, it is also clear that the FAAN team seems to have no understanding of the principles of Branding or is it that the FAAN brand has no essence of its own that it can afford to sell away every opportunity to project its own brand values to other brands? With this untidy style of commercializing its space, FAAN may be whittling away at its brand equity thus consumers will have no recognition, appreciation or expectation of the FAAN brand. Or is that the corporate strategy? (Maybe as long as FAAN is ‘faceless’, it can get away with shoddy service delivery?)
Really, how much is the FAAN brand worth to its custodians? The long term implications of this strategy on the FAAN brand may be worth much more than the short term benefits of quick money. By the way, what does FAAN do with all the airport taxes paid on every single ticket purchased to fly out of its airports? Not to mention the rent charges to the airlines. Why is it difficult to maintain the facilities without “consessioning” it out to brand advertisers on this scale? Even the toilets are either overflowing or lack water. On Saturday, I saw a lady about to use the female toilet and a young man sitting at the entrance handed her a roll of toilet paper to take a few plies to use! An embarrassment and invasion of a consumer’s privacy! Why can’t the roll be placed in the cubicles? Is that too expensive or does FAAN need someone to ‘brand’ the toilets too?
The Minister of Aviation needs to pay closer attention to the ‘soft’ services of FAAN while he is grappling with hard core aviation issues because it is all part of service delivery. If the people on the job don’t have the prerequisite appreciation of their job functions, he should please approve the services of consultants to help manage brand image and customer care processes. After all, his ‘been to’ experience must have contributed to the President’s decision to appoint him or maybe he has joined the bandwagon in Abuja who seem to feel Nigerian consumers don’t deserve world class service. Let’s hope I’m wrong about that. Honorable Minister Sir, please help minimize the adverts in Nigerian airports! Or is this part of Aunty Dora’s ‘Rebranding’ Drama script?


Section of MM2 Departure lounge