Glo ‘backed out of Phone Swap sponsorship because of Saka’
Kunle Afolayan, the director and producer of award-winning movie Figurine, has revealed that he was stripped of his Globacom (Glo) ambassadorship due to his refusal to remove Hafiz Oyetoro (popularly known as Saka) from his movie, Phone Swap.
The multi-award winning director made this known at the School of Media and Communications (SMC) during a forum organised to discuss ways of improving film-making in Nigeria.
Afolayan, who became famous in the industry at the tender age of 13, explained that Saka was the genesis of his fallout with giant telecommunications company, Glo.
Before the movie was shot, Saka ran an advert for rival telecommunications company, Etisalat, on contract basis and not as an ambassador.
After Glo sponsored the shooting of the movie, Mike Adenuga, its chairman, viewed the movie’s preview and demanded the removal of Saka, who had worked with rival Etisalat.
Afolayan insisted that he could not let any other person play Saka’s role, and this led to the termination of Glo’s sponsorship of the movie.
He said he forfeited the N4.5m that Glo ought to have paid while also losing his ambassadorial deal in six months later.
The 40-year-old graduate of New York film academy also disclosed that award-winning movie, Figurine, was the most difficult film of his career, with a budget of N50m.
While highlighting the importance of storytelling in movie-making, the astute filmmaker said the Nigerian movie industry had no more than 10 good movie writers.
He admonished filmmakers to invest in the art of storytelling, production value and the art of marketing, if the want to make good movies and good business.
Afolayan who is the son of famous theatre and film director and producer, Adeyemi Afolayan (Ade Love), said DVD sales should be the filmmaker’s last resort in order to avoid piracy.
“If you make a movie with N20m in Nigeria, you comfortably make N15m back from screening at the cinemas.
“Guide and protect your content as much as possible, good distribution channels using the right channels like cinemas, video on demand to protect the movie from being pirated”
“DVD marketing should be a moviemaker’s last option of selling his movies because of piracy,” he said.
The ex-banker who surprised folks by dumping a lucrative bank job for filmmaking in 2005, said he spent N200m on his latest movie “October 1”, adding that for Nollywood movies to hit the international market, you must time the release of blockbusters, so you don’t get crushed.
Kunle Afolayan is the director and producer of award-winning movies, Figurine (2009), Phone Swap (2012) and October first (2014), who has been described by New York Times as the “Martin Scorsese” of Lagos.
Hmm. I had to call up a friend in Glo now because I remembered being told how Kunle Afolayan was made an ambassador way back then. If I recollect well, the management had asked for a review of the existing ambassadors, their performance and if necessary, inclusion of new ones. My friend told me at that time that staff of the communications department had done the review and had done a voting to pick new names, which threw up Kunle and Odunlade Adekola. He said the management didnt question the choices and quickly approved them. Unfortunately, Kunle thought he was bigger than the brand and was too proud in his relationship with the brand. He was rarely available when he was needed and felt like someone doing Glo a big favour. So when it was time to review again, he was shown the way out, a reality he never lived to accept. This young man needs to know that he needs corporate support and that there are thousands of fantastic talents in the country that brands can always turn to. he needs to grow up and throw away this garb of arrogance. The top doesnt belong to the proud.
I think your comment is not objective at all, going by the account of Kunle Afolayan in this news report. Perhaps you should tell your friend to read Afolayan’s account so that he can inform us the readers objectively
And may we know if your Glo friend is in their Communications Dept? If he’s in engineering or any other that is not related to dealing with the actors, then he too may have been ill informed in the first place, and here lies the danger of hearsay. So please verify your facts before maligning the person of Afolayan
This very sad indeed. But then, this is a lesson in brand loyalty and ethics.
Brands do not support a project if their competitor or their icon is remotely involved in it. I think Kunle should know this.
You can never find a brand sponsoring a project undertaken by the brand ambassador of their competitors. It is simple brand ethics.
Though I think Kunle insisted on using Saka purely on creative basis. But branding and creativity are two different things entirely.
An I do not believe that only Saka could have pulled that particular role. I have seen Phone Swap and I think there are a couple of other comedians who could have pulled off the role as well as save the day.
That said, its a lesson I think this highly talented Filmmaker and Movieprenuer has got to learn.