Abstract
The image of Nigeria and Nigerians has been highly corroded amongst her international
publics. This has a lot of implications on the country’s social, economic, technological and
political relationship with other nations and people. This study was therefore motivated by
the desire to discover the best marketing communications approach for rebranding
programmes in Nigeria.
The study had the objectives to: (i) Ascertain the extent of
application of integrated marketing communications’ models in the rebranding Nigeria
programme, (ii) examine the extent of effectiveness of the communications’ models in the
‘Rebranding-Nigeria’ media advertising campaigns to curb corruption amongst Nigerians,
(iii) find out the extent the use of two-way symmetrical communications’ model/strategies
can go in significantly projecting Nigeria’s image positively and internationally, (iv)
determine if the marketing communications’ models significantly improved Nigerian
citizens’ positive change of values and attitude towards making the country a better
marketable brand, internationally, (v) ascertain the extent the use of social media networks
served as effective complement to marketing communications’ tools for the success of the
rebranding-Nigeria programme. Explorative research design was adopted. The population of
the study was made up of all staff of the Federal Government Ministries and Agencies that
manage image/rebranding programmes. They have total population estimate of 1,200,000
people. The data collection was by questionnaire. A sample size of 400 was determined by
the Taro Yamane formula.
The reliability and validity test was done with Cronbach Alpha,
with a value of 0.85 and an inter-item (standardised) coefficient of 0.89. The five
hypotheses formulated were tested with ANOVA (hypotheses 1, 2 and 4) and Chi-Square
(hypotheses 3 and 5). The results show that: The extent of application of integrated
marketing communications’ models in the Nigeria’s previous rebranding programme was
significant (Fcalculated = 13.712 < Fcritical 1,9df = 9.55, p = 0.001 < 0.05). Marketing
communications’ models were effective as media advertising campaign tool was significant
in curbing corruption amongst Nigerian citizens in the ‘rebranding-Nigeria’ exercise.
(Fcalculated = 23.110 > Fcritical 2,6df = 19.33, p = 0.001 < 0.05). The use of two-way symmetrical
communications’ model/strategies significantly projected Nigeria’s image positively,
