4 Ways Business Owners can take advantage of the #EndSARS Protest to Promote their Business on a National Scale
End SARS is a decentralized social movement and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The movement calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigerian Police with a long record of abuses. The protests which take its name from the slogan started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #ENDSARS to demand the disbanding of the unit by the Nigerian government.
Having died down for some time, the #EndSARS movement erupted again in October 2020 following more revelations of the abuses of the popular police unit, and mass demonstrations occurred throughout the major cities of Nigeria, accompanied by serious outrage on various social media platforms. About 28 million tweets bearing the hashtag #EndSARS have been accumulated on Twitter alone. Solidarity protests and demonstrations by Nigerians in diaspora and sympathizers occurred in many major cities of the world. The protests are notable for being patronized by a demographic that is made of entirely young Nigerians. The movement has since expanded to include demands for good and accountable governance.
4 Ways Business Owners can take advantage of the #EndSARS Protest to Promote their Business on a National Scale
The government is under growing pressure to deliver reforms amid the mass civil unrest, but analysts are concerned that the planned fiscally conservative policies, which may have aided the economic recovery, will become increasingly difficult to implement.
The #EndSARS protests are catching many businesses off guard. Companies, large and small, are scrambling to communicate responsibly in real-time. At such a time when history is being made, businesses are supposed to seize the opportunity to do something that imprints their names in the memories of the populace. In a moment in our national history that is as emotionally engaging as this, your brand must identify with the hearts of the people. However, beyond the challenge of capturing your message in a way that is empathetic and effective, there is also the unique challenge of responding in a manner that doesn’t threaten the continued existence of your business, post-protest. Having said that, it is equally of great importance to say that choosing to lend your voice or your support for the #EndSARS protests (or rather keeping off it – whichever you have decided to go with) is like facing someone who’s fighting you with a two-edged sword. Whichever way, you (and your business) really can’t escape being hurt somewhere. As it stands, you are damned if you choose to support and identify with the protesters (because that makes you the enemy of the government), and damned if you don’t (because the protesters – and the Nigerian youths at large – are watching you). You simply want to pick the brand of the struggle you can manage. Quite frankly, a very easy option is to keep quiet and let the chips fall where they may. But as said earlier on; you are damned if you speak and you are damned if you don’t. So, pick the brand of damnation you are ready to deal with.
One of the most common statements (or call it a slogan) during the protests in various places was, “Na the company wey support us, na him we go patronize”. This is simply a way of Nigerian youths letting businesses know that if you do not lend your voice or your support to this just cause and struggle to end police brutality in Nigeria, you will be automatically seen as “a friend of injustice” and “an enemy of the people”, especially the youths. And consequently, the promise here is that “the youths will pay you back with your own coin, one way or the other but the immediate threat is that the youth have vowed to withdraw all forms of supports and patronage from any brand who refuse to support this just cause. So, what I really want to do here is to show you how a number of businesses approached this matter – and how your brand too can tactically and wisely handle such matters should another opportunity to act re-presents itself in the future. So, how did some companies handle it? A cue from their actions can give us some insight, and wisdom to emulate.
- Offer free services
This was a very common support approach during the protest. For instance, Aelex, a law firm in Victoria Island made some of their lawyers available to bail arrested protesters for free, and it earned them rapid popularity within a short space of time – popularity they could not have gained otherwise! Who knows that there was any law firm called Aelex prior to the protest? Perhaps the best exposure they ever gained ended within their immediate location and space of operations, but now that has changed as the company name began to trend seriously on various social media platforms – the name being mentioned home and abroad – because of that singular act.
- Give a pro-EndSARS discount on products and services
This is another common way some businesses lent their support. A good example of this was what the company called Bolt did by giving a 50% discount when riders used “SOROSOKE” — one of the rallying phrases for the protests – as an order/purchase code.
Read Also: 3 Reasons Why the #EndSars Peaceful Protests are much needed now
- Create a platform or a movement to mobilize support for the protest
There were companies who have such platforms that can be used to rally support, and few of them did well during the nationwide protests. A very good example of this was seen in what some companies did. Let’s look at them
- Quidax, a leading cryptocurrency exchange in Nigeria, stepped up to instruct people on how to donate Bitcoin.
- Flutterwave (and a coalition of other tech companies) created a fund for the protest and shared a public link that allowed other Nigerians to send donations. (The donation link has since been blocked, allegedly by the Nigerian’s Central Bank, and the associated accounts frozen.)
- Donate free goods/products
Distributing free items to #EndSARS protesters was one of the most profound ways businesses showed up during the protest, especially in Lagos. And to my mind, this seems to be the easiest of all. For instance;
- Rene supermarket handed out bottled water to protesters along the Alexander stretch of Ikoyi.
- Big donated free packs of bottled water to protesters.
- Chicken Republic shared free meals with protesters earlier on in the protests.
- GTBank also showed up amid the protest with branded bottled water and donated them to protesters
- Be loud on the social media
Lending the voice and the support of your brand will go a long way in a situation like this. Several companies easily and wisely went with this option by default. A company like PiggyVest went a step further and created the “tri-fist” poster that has now become the de facto logo of the protests.
As the youths continue to demand voice and support from the brands they patronize, they expect brands to take an active role in social conversations, your brand might want to take these suggestions a bit more seriously. Brand responses on social issues have shown to post both positive and negative effects on sales. When everything clears off the air, you want to make sure your brand isn’t one of those that end up with a bad reputation with the very same people you would try to sell to later.
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