Dons canvass improved marketing of Nollywood movies, simplified Malaria drug leaflets

A lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Bayelsa State, Professor Barclays Ayakoroma and his counterpart in the Department of English, University of Africa, Dr. Destiny Idegbekwe have canvassed improvement in the marketing of Nollywood movies.

Speaking at separate colloquium lectures, they also advocated improvements of other creative contents and simplification of Nigerian Malaria drug leaflets.

While delivering the fifth University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Faculty of Arts and Education regular staff and students’ Colloquium Lecture titled, “From Film Marketing and Distribution to Social Media And Digital Film Making: Exploring Nollywood’s Potentials,” Ayakoroma highlighted the emergence of the Nollywood industry as a product of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the Ibrahim Babanginda Administration that killed the culture of mobile theatre.

He noted that although Nollywood was a child of circumstances, it has put food on the tables of many Nigerians.

However, the industry could do more to generate wealth, especially for the ‘not so big fishes’ in the industry if more novel marketing strategies and outlets are harnessed for optimum returns.

The lecture took the audience through the memory lane of the evolvement and development of the Nollywood industry by relishing its high moments through ground- breaking movies such as ‘Living in Bondage’ and other high impact movies, which launched the industry to the global scene.

“As popular as the Nollywood industry and the active participants are, it can only yield substantial results without the influence of movie pirating syndicates, if modern marketing strategies such as social media and other digital platforms are carefully deployed using the Internet unlike the traditional means of marketing such as the major distributors on 3 Pounds Road Aba and the others,” he said.

Prof. Ayakoroma noted that in the next economic re-basement of the Nigerian economy, the Nollywood industry has the capacity of increasing the nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and hekp reduce poverty and unemployment in Nigeria if the potentials and creativities are sold to the world using modern strategic marketing means.

Also speaking at the sixth Colloquium lecture, Idegbekwe urged Malaria Drug Manufactures in the country to be more conscious of the fact that most educated Nigerians do not understand the information in the Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) on the basis of data obtained from different studies that have been carried out on three different instances especially by him.

The study noted that self-medication was high even among educated Nigerians but the scourge should not be allowed to continue with the highly complex nature of PILs in Nigerian Malaria Drugs.

He stated that his study simplified a paragraph each of two Nigerian Malaria Drug PILs and gave the original and the simplified version to about 560 educated Nigerians to read and answer some questions, which bordered on their understanding of the original and the simplified versions.

At the end, the study noted that the simplification of PILs would increase the level of understanding among educated Nigerians, as the simplified version was favoured against the original text of the PILs.

On that basis, while about 97 per cent of the respondents confirmed that their understanding of the original PILs was very low, low and average, the reverse was the case for the simplified version, which had a combined percentage of 99 for high and average understanding.

Also, the study found out that the major challenge in such exercise would likely be the replacement of technical terms, which might change the technical meaning of the PILs.

The event featured interactive session with students and academic staff on the lectures. Some dignitaries at the event were Professor ‘Demola Jolayemi of the Faculty of Arts and Education, Professor Ojiugo, Head of Education Department and Professor Ademola, a visiting professor on sabbatical from the University of Benin.