How the Media can shape our Brands in our Entrepreneurial Journey. This is to take into consideration, the need to adopt media early in business to enable us have an edge over competition

1. THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA TOWARDS BUILDING A
CRITICAL MASS OF YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS.
A PRESENTATION.
I would like to commence by starting with a broad definition of an
Entrepreneur, which the Oxford Advanced learners dictionary describes
as ‘ A person who makes money by starting or running businesses,
especially when this involves taking financial risks.’
Today one can adequately conclude that the World’s economy
incontrovertibly runs on decisions made by entrepreneurs globally.
An Entrepreneur is truly a different breed of individual in the sense that
he or she posses an inspiring combination of audacity, can do spirit and
an adventurous attitude which less daring and safe playing mortals
tend to avoid.
The young people of Africa have always had to contend with daunting
challenges that would ordinarily undermine any aspirations towards
entrepreneurial inclinations, with all the squalor, poverty and
hopelessness institutionalized by the western media, only the brave at
heart dares the consequences and sets up businesses which may or
may not flourish in the end.
The Diversity of Africa is a fascinating factor; there is a vibrancy and
force of energy visible only to the trained eye, a rich untapped market
that is just beginning to understand its potentials.

2. Today we are looking at the ROLE OF THE MEDIA ,TOWARDS BUILDING
A CRITICAL MASS OF YOUING ENTREPRENEURS, but if truth be told it is
not everyone that is called to be an entrepreneur, for those who have
recognized the calling, it starts with a burning and pulsating desire to
self actualize, it could be a particular idea or a set of dreams and how
that individual sets about achieving their desired goals would depend
on their skills, resoluteness and tenacity.
Before looking at the influence of media on the topic, we need to look
at the basic start up skill and steps an individual has to take to set off as
an entrepreneur, we are often advised to first look for start up capital
either by getting investors to give you seed money which could be
either equity or shares in the business, to ensure that we are liquid
enough to kick start the enterprise, then you are advised to do a
business plan, which would act as a road map for your business and
then you could actually grow the business from either home or a small
office to reduce expenses until you have stabilized enough to rent
massive office spaces. The start up stage is always very tricky and
delicate and if you survive it and garner enough clients to fortify and
entrench you then you are in business for the long haul.
Now let us extrapolate on the topic, a study carried out in 37 countries
over a period of 4 years using a set of variables measured in the global
entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) through empirical investigation
explored the influence of mass media through national culture on
national entrepreneurial participation. It was found that stories about
successful entrepreneurs conveyed in mass media were not

3. significantly associated with the rate of nascent (opportunity searching)
or the rate of actual, (business activities commenced up to 3 months
old) start up activity, but there was a significant association between
the volume of entrepreneurship media stories and a nations volume of
people running a young business. ( That is in the GEM terminology a
business aged greater than 3 but less than 42 months old). More
particularly, such stories had strong positive association with
opportunity oriented operators of young businesses.
Many of us would allude to the fact that we find in others the greatness
we are searching for within ourselves, that is the reason why when
images of people like Richard Branson, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Bill
Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Aliko Dangote, Pat Utomi, Mike Adenuga,Ben
Bruce come into our views it lights up a significant portion of our brains
because these are people who we truly want to want to change
positions with or at best be amongst their click.
The Media is larger than life, it succeeds in delivering to our
consciousness the carefully constructed imagery that our subconscious
internalizes and at various levels yearns to imitate, in that earlier study
cited it is argued that the mass media is only capable in reinforcing their
audiences existing values and choice propensities, but is not capable of
shaping or changing those values or choices, this is known as “The
Reinforcement Model”. A main implication drawn from this study is the
need for further and more sophisticated investigation into the
relationship between media coverage of entrepreneurship, national

4. cultures and the rates and nature of peoples participation in the various
stages of the entrepreneurial process.
The word MEDIA has been defined in many ways to accommodate
different criteria or settings. For instance Media is defined as “a
contraction of the term, Media of Communication, referring to those
organized means of dissemination of fact, opinion and entertainment
such as newspapers, magazines, cinema films, radio, television and the
World Wide Web” or it is also defined as “ a generic term for systems of
production and dissemination of information and entertainment and of
exertion of various kinds of social control, unlike a channel which is
limited to a contiguous physical medium between the sender and a
receiver of communications, media include the institutions which
determine the nature, programming and form of distribution” Most
often the Media are lumped together as a single entity, while The
Media actually refer to many forms of communications including
Newspapers, Magazines and billboards, radio, television,
videocassettes, video games, computer games and the internet.
The essential of Media is that it can be used to store and deliver
information for the mass usage, so the most common use in this sense
is mass media. All media are associated with more or less elaborate
forms of audience participation.
The argument has persisted and I for one is in support that the media
has inadvertently aided in the breakdown of the moral structure of the
society which in turn has affected the productivity and enhancement of
societal values and norms.

5. Not too long ago in this country, we had a society that produced highly
dependable, competitive, cerebral and balanced individuals, who had
been products of conducive learning environments, been exposed to a
highly respectable media dissemination framework, had ethics
entrenched in their work codes, believed in legitimate aspirations that
could be achieved with dint of hard work, back then the media glorified
the best and finest of Nigeria by featuring the likes of successful leaders
and entrepreneurs such as Michael Omolayole, Gamaliel Onosode,
Christopher Kolade, Herbert Orji, Nebolisa Arah, Hilda Adefarasin, Late
Edith Ike-Okongwu and some others,but today what do we get, The
Media has succeeded in glorifying impropriety as the order of the day,
you only have to flash the cash and if you are a common criminal you
would be rebranded to an iconic fellow who the average young person
should aspire to be like.
The likes of CITY PEOPLE Magazine started the craze about the big boys
and the big girls, often times these are people with questionable
characters, no legitimate means of livelihood and indulge in all manners
of unprintable actions, yet the media portrays them as the best our
society has to offer.
The trend also is very visible about how the exalted profession of
entertainers has taken over our airwaves, 1 in every 2 young Nigerians
want to be an entertainer, please correct me if am wrong as opposed to
being Doctor’s, Engineer’s, Scientist’s, Nurse’s, Lecturer’s, etc I have
often asked, is Nigeria only interested in producing a nation of
entertainers, the big brands operating in the country are adding to
these dilemma by sponsoring to no ends all manners of musical reality
shows, last I counted, you had, MTN’s PROJECT FAME, PEAK MILK’s THE
NEXT SUPERSTAR, ZAIN’S WEST AFRICA IDOL, ETISALAT’S NIGERIAN

6. IDOL,MALTINA DANCEHALL, Then you have the endless comedy shows
that have an all year round time table with all the comedians taking
turns with their recycled jokes, I have really no problem with the
entertainment industry but I wish there would be more balanced
exposure in the media for reality TV shows featuring Entrepreneurs,
Doctors, Lawyers, Artisans, Digital Innovators etc, when the media
projects these set of young people, the reality is a lot more others who
watch them would then aspire to be like them.
The Characteristics of the Media products are very much aligned to the
dimensions of the entrepreneurial process, i.e., autonomy,
innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness and competitive
aggressiveness. These dimensions represent the entrepreneurial
orientation; these can be described as the processes, practices and
decision making activities that leads firms to decide to enter a new
market or launch a new product. This is how powerful and effective
media is in determining directions for entrepreneurs and society at
large.
Have we really considered how media influences our decisions,
Television, Radio, the internet, Cinema, and Advertising is easily
accessible to many of the people on the planet, in fact we accept it and
even expect it to be present. This means that the people controlling
these things have access to billions of people. They can quickly and
easily get their messages out to the masses.
Rather than give lots and lots of example of how media influence our
decisions, we would look at the structure of some of the techniques
that are used when the media influences our decisions.

7. REPETITION
Repeated exposure over time to a similar message makes it easy to
accept them as true even when they are not necessarily true, and more
importantly, act as though they are true, even when they know the
messages are false. Just consider how often television ad’s are
repeated. The companies behind the ad’s are willing to pay for such
repetition to influence you because it works.
Think also of political messages, Religious tenets, BUSINESS DECISION
MAKING TRENDS, and ECONOMIC IDEA’S, and it becomes obvious how,
through simple repetition the media influences our decisions.
USE(AND MISUSE!) OF EXPERTS.
Whenever scientists, researchers or other experts are quoted, people
rarely check the validity of the claims made. It is assumed that if these
people are doing such work then it must be valid information. That was
why when asked by a journalist years back what her advice to
upcoming young entrepreneurs was, the late Anita Roddick Founder of
Body Shop retorted, “Don’t Go To Business School” to her most of what
is taught there I s theoretical and has no bearing on everyday business
Life.
This psychological method does work most times as they employ this
kind of tactics in two ways. The first is to quote, for example research
done by specialists, i.e. a Doctor on the latest medical development,. It
is difficult for people to disagree because they don’t have the

8. background knowledge and current information available to this
experts.
The second type is more subtle, many companies now use famous
people to advertise their products, organizations will publicize the fact
that a celebrity agrees with their standpoint, because they understand
how the general public holds celebrities in high regard, and more
importantly how this regard gets spread across contexts, so for instance
if a favorite athlete or pop star is endorsing some food product, then it
must be good simply because that person says so.
Another way of using this technique is to suggest that large groups of
people are in agreement about an idea. Advertisers and Marketers
understand that many people only know what action to take based on
the actions of those around them. So enough information is given so
these people do exactly what it is the advertisers want.
For example the information given out is that 8 out of 10 people prefer
x washing powder, its easy for people to fill in the information they
need so they can choose x, it then becomes more difficult to have to
think and ask questions such as which “10” people? Who chose them,
How were they chosen.
And this is one of the idea’s behind much of the media broadcasting
today, experts, advertisers, marketers and propagandists don’t want
you to think for yourself!
The Media influences our decisions because they would like you to
think that they are making your life easy and organizing things so that
lots of these decisions become unnecessary for you.

9. What they are doing is limiting your ability to engage in lateral thinking,
limiting your self awareness, eroding your instincts and intuitions which
is very critical in business and deciding what you should conform to in
terms of living your life.
COMMITMENT
Another useful tactic whereby the media influences our decisions is
that of commitment. When people commit to something, they tend to
continue in this vein because they want to appear consistent, not just
to others but also to themselves. If someone can get you to commit to
something, especially if its public and you consider that you committed
to it yourself, you tend to build reasons and justification as to why you
should stay committed.
You will also be more willing to agree to requests that are in line with
this commitment, because it’s easier to continue with a decision
already made than to make a new decision.
This would be used in various sales pitches, getting buy in forms for
groups, changing conditions in a deal, adding in unpleasant features
and the give-it-and-take-it-away scenarios.
The first indicator that this is occurring is often a “gut feeling” or
“knowing in your heart”. To be able to deal with it, it’s useful to have a
working knowledge of these signals for yourself.

10. SCARCITY
Somehow, for Human’s when something becomes scarce it is becomes
more valuable. The Media influence decisions frequently with this
particular tactic and use it in a systematic and diverse way.
Things such as- limited editions, Members only Clubs, Time sensitive
ad’s, Fear of loss of opportunity, Having to compete, Threat of loss of
Freedom, Banning something, all these makes an item more attractive
and generates a strong emotional aura around it. This invariably affects
your decision making.
Using our emotional charge as a warning to us. Chances are it’s one of
those times when the media influence our decisions. To deal with this
kind of thing, ask yourself whether you want to own something for the
sake of owning it or actually use it or to actually use. If it’s to own it and
it’s rare, you need to decide how much it is worth to you.
If you simply want the item because of its function, remember that the
function will not be affected by the scarcity or availability.
These are some of the ways in which the media influence our decisions.
Sometimes just this knowledge itself is not enough to make a
difference. Having an awareness of yourself and how your own system
functions is what gives you the satisfaction of knowing that you are
making your own decisions.
CONCLUSION
It is evident that the media plays a huge role in shaping and directing
our thought processes, in the past we had some reality TV Shows such
as Dragon’s Den, The Entrepreneur, The Debaters, The Intern which has

11. focused on helping build up awareness about the entrepreneurial
process and had succeeded in influencing young people in their quest
for entrepreneurial aspirations, the media has a powerful influence on
our psyche and can be a determining factor in our selective decision
making process, the desire therefore is to let media owners know the
import and implications of the content they churn out to the public,
instances where more positive role models and legitimately acquired
wealth is focused on, then in turn on the larger scale affect the society
positively.
In turning to the media for guidance some of the answers we should be
seeking are In setting up my business what income level do I want to
attain, what level of responsibility do I seek, how much authority do I
want to command, what prestige do I gain from my work, what kind of
standard of living do I want to provide for my family and myself, what
kind of house do I want to live in, what kind of financial support do I
want to give to my family members, what kinds of friends do I want to
have, what social groups do I want to join, what community leadership
positions do I want to hold, what worthwhile causes do I want to
champion.
In analyzing all this we have to make up our minds to the amount of
influence we permit the media to have on us and help shape our
decision making processes, in good regard also the present times offers
us so much information via the media to act as an enabling factor in
garnering information to assist us in building our businesses.
And remember in the end after all said and done it is not what we hear
and see that really does matter it is what we do with what we hear and
see that would determine our altitude in life.

12. THANK YOU