MTN has confirmed it has decided not to renew the endorsement of 90% of it’s current ambassadors amid bad business environment in Nigeria.
The most popular celebrities dropped include Don Jazzy, Tiwa Savage, Dr SID, Kcee & Soundsultan. MTN confirmed it will continue to do business with project fame alumni such as Iyanya, Chidinma and Praiz. MTN also retained freshly employed MTN Pulse ambassadors, Tekno, Skales & Falz although there is a high chance their deal won’t be renewed.
Osuofia, Saka, Nedu and Adamu Zango also retained their partnership with MTN.
Read their press statement below....
In line with its commitment to supporting Nigerian musicians by providing alternative platforms through which they can receive lucrative value for their intellectual property, MTN has announced brand ambassadors for 2016-2017. According to MTN’s General Manager Consumer Marketing, Richard Iweanoge, this is designed to enable the company continue to support the development of the entertainment industry by financially empowering Nigerian artistes and musicians through the promotion and monetisation of content on its various digital platforms – MTN Music+, Caller Ring Back Tunes (CRBT) and Value Added Services (VAS).
Music ambassadors for 2016-2017are: Praiz (Praise Adejo); Iyanya (IyanyaMbuk); Chidinma (Chidinma Ekile); Falz(Folarin Falana);Tekno Miles (Augustine Kelechi) and Skale s(Raoul Njeng-Njeng) Four other ambassadors are – Saka,(Hafiz Oyetoro); Nedu ;Osuofia(NkemOwoh) and Adamu Zango. Speaking on this, MTN Executive, Amina Oyagbola said, “MTN remains proud to be associated with the growth and development of the careers of all our ambassadors, past and present. We specially thank all our former ambassadors for their immense contributions to building our brand and making us the network of choice in Nigeria.
We will definitely continue to maintain the strong and mutually beneficial relationship with them through the monetisation of their content on all our digital platforms – MTN Music+, CRBT and VAS.” Iweanoge again said, “With the significant investment made so far in Nigeria’s music industry, MTN remains and will continue to beone of the biggest supporters of the music industry. We have a track record of consistently providing the stage for some of Nigeria’s biggest artistes to shine and express themselves”.
He stated that through its Caller Ring Back Tunes (CRBT), MTN is the largest music distributor in Africa. “Through the platform, we ensured that Nigerian musicians would no longer suffer the scourge of piracy. They are able to make good money as a result of their hard work. Also, as Nigeria’s most innovative telecoms company, we have been able to deploy music as a platform to give other value added services to our teeming subscribers,which have also proved to be a significant source of revenue for the artistes such as theMTN Music+ app and a host of other platforms.”
For MTN, we see the growth of the music industry as a continuum and not a destination. That is why we will continue to engage and support our local artistes so that they can find full expression for their talent. We will also continue to explore other areas of collaboration with ALL artistes through these platforms and many more, as we work to fulfil our vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world” Iweanoge, however, posited that for the purpose of keeping alive the original concept of music brand ambassadorship, MTN decided to retain the services of past winners and participants of its Project Fame music reality TV show, which include Iyanya, Chidinma and Praiz. “MTN is particularly proud of these musicians because we not only gave them the platform to express their talent through Project FAME, we have consistently supported them over the years by making them our ambassadors. We are proud to have been able to contribute to some of Nigeria’s biggest music acts.”
Beyond the Project Fame alumni, Iweanoge also said that in order to nurture other artistes so that they too could attain greater heights, MTN wouldstill retain the services of some of its newly-signed brand ambassadors like Falz, Skales and Tekno who are the faces of its youth segment proposition – MTN Pulse. He added that there will be a renewed focus on building MTN’s digital platforms.
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