By Princewill Ekwujuru

Hollandia and Peak  milk are two diary brands operating in the Nigerian market, but appealing to different demography and tastes. Running a similar advertisement campaign pay-off has pitched both against each other.

Over the years the dairy market has witnessed an upsurge in the influx of brands and products jostling for prime place in the consumers’ heart. These new entrants have in the course of their struggle for consumers’ attention pitched their wit against each other. First to challenge the market leader    Peak Milk was Promasidor’s Cowbell Milk which introduced powdered milk in smaller sachets in 1993. This initiative segmented milk consumption in Nigeria. This marketing effort paid off significantly for a while as Cowbell, adopted “Our Milk” as a pay off line.

UNVEILING – From left: Executive Director, Big & Bold communications Limited, Ranti Agunloye, Dolapo Shoneye, Brand Manager, Perfetti Vaan Melle and Chief Brand Strategist, Big & Bold Communications Limited, Jide Adeyemi during the unveiling of the new work station and anniversary of Big and Bold in Lagos.

Peak Milk made the transition into smaller sachet pack sizes both in powdered form and evaporated. This response in due time enabled Peak  make  in-roads into the homes of the lower and middle class consumers.

Expectedly, other brands have challenged Peak Milk market leadership. One of such ambitious brands is the Hollandia milk, from the stable of Chi Nigeria. A glimpse at the Nigerian advertising and marketing landscape reveals an appalling contradiction and aberration in deed and practice.

This is no thanks to the unwholesome and unethical practice of an evolving trend in copy-cat creativity.

The Nigerian advertising business today is afflicted with intellectual ineptitude, a syndrome that has left the trade completely bereft of originality. However, this unethical practice has overtime continued unabated even with advertising laws in place, advertising practitioners are still getting significant leeway in the violation of   ethical standards.  Even though the industry is operating within a strict federal regulations which is supposedly   regulated, controlled and monitored by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON.

Brands still, have latched onto these loopholes to cause  disaffection in the industry. Since advertising has become prevalent in modern society, it will increasingly be criticized, even though it occupies public space and consistently invades the private sphere of people. But when an ad becomes repugnant to natural justice, offensive or infringes on existing ad rights or taunts another, or is copied, it begins to negate the ethical standards of the profession.

The Registrar of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, Alhaji Garba Bello-Kakanrofi, had    at an Advertisers Association of Nigeria, ADVAN organised Marketing conference, complained of rising petitions on copy-cat adverts by brands. However, the current marketing warfare in the Nigerian dairy sector has brought out more pathetic marketing aberrations called copy-cat creativity in contemporary advertising, hence, corroborating what APCON described as a worrisome trend.

Chi Limited maker of Hollandia Evap has taken FrieslandWamco, Peak Milk owners, to the cleaners for producing a   similar ad which it used in its ‘Wazo’ pack television commercial,  TVC. FrieslandWamco’s Peak milk sachet ad, tagged, ‘Wazobia,’ selling at N50, for less grammage, which    airs on the social media, is rattling Chi Limited, owners of Hollandia Evap 65 gram pack of same price. The argument is that the Peak Milk ad didn’t pass through APCON’s vetting    standard, that FrieslandWamco played smart to run the ad on the social media where APCON has no regulatory or controlling rights.

Speaking to Financial Vanguard, a top official at Chi Limited, said HollandiaEvap ad was copied by Peak Milk creative experts. Afraid of the growing threat of Hollandia milk, the official said the Hollandia Evap ad was approved by APCON and National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC while the Peak Milk ad was run online and via social media and not on traditional media. The official in a statement    said Friesland WamcoPeak Milk is afraid of the growing threat of Hollandia brands against Peak milk in the dairy market.

Quoting A C Nielsen Retail Audit data report    on Nigeria’s dairy market, the official who claimed anonymity said: “Nationally, Hollandia Evaporated Milk has been consistently gaining market share while Peak is consistently losing. If we take a look at the last 12 quarters, Hollandia Evaporated Milk has increased by 7.4 MS points while Peak Regular has dropped by 7.9 MS Points.

Hollandia Evaporated Milk is ahead of Peak in terms of market share in the Southwest, according to   A .C Nielsen Retail Audit data, Q1 2016. In Lagos, Hollandia Evaporated milk market share doubled with 33.9%, while Peak regular recorded 14.3%; according to Nielsen.

The newly elected President of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria AAAN, Mr. Kayode   Oluwasona, in a chat with an on-line media outlet condemned the development and assured of his association’s readiness to combat copy-cat in the advertising business in Nigeria. He said: “There may be instances of passing-off or copy-cat, the issue has not gotten to a frightening stage, but there is an obvious need to nip it in the bud.

A marketing analyst, Mr. Azuka Igwe of Brand Implementation Academy   said, “It is a show of sheer intellectual laziness and creative emptiness on the part of brand handlers to foolishly pass off on competitors copy.