Greater percentage of Nigerians are far behind when it comes to seeking knowledge and applying the right knowledge. These significant lot love noise making and mediocrity, and they gleefully celebrate this patchiness in ignorance and world of fantasy. The coming of social media blew this open. No thanks to unguarded social media yarns, many that are worthy of admiration, as helped by their physique and packaged appearance, have succeeded in doing themselves in – and they are no longer worth a side glance. However, the unhealthy aspect of this unbridled social media onslaught is that these people don’t consider any issue so sacred not to dabble into. They see all subjects a thing to play with, declaring opinions as proven and verifiable facts. An attempt to offer contrary opinions or checks attracts very aggressive cancel-culture. On this road, morals had been thrown to the winds and the country has become a place of anything goes. Every society is governed by rules and regulations otherwise, it becomes a banana republic. There is need for social sanity in Nigeria.
About three weeks ago, the Nigerian social media space was awash with the story of a lady who claimed to have bought a tomato puree that was sugary. She claimed to have bought the puree because she didn’t see her preferred brands (which she mentioned) and in the social media post was calling on her followers to share their views or experience about the ‘sugary tin tomatoes’. Examining the polarized reactions, many believed that what the lady did was a product review – an action that is within her right – while those on the other side were of the opinion that what the lady did was an attempt to ‘kill’ the business. My focus in this piece isn’t about who is right or wrong but to shed light on the legal aspects that guide buyer/seller relationships.
Now that we are in the age where most products promotion are carried out through social media and influencers deliberately engaged to test products and then do reviews and give opinions, these influencers and their followers especially, need to familiarize themselves with what the law says. To start with, is it okay to catch social media cruise with just any issue? To catch social cruise isn’t the problem but consequences of running afoul of law, the law of defamation, libel and slander, that is the challenge for those who consider it worthless to seek knowledge. According to Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ogbuka, the “right to free speech is a fundamental right guaranteed in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but this right is not without its limitations. One of these limitations is the restriction on communications that would constitute defamation”.
It is not a crime to carry out product reviews. Every worthy organization carries out this feedback mechanisms to find out how customers and consumers really feel about their products. In this wise, good money is spent by these companies or product manufacturers to do solicited reviews. Likewise they welcome unsolicited reviews that are freely offered in good integrity. This is called objective product or service reviews. In objective product review or feedback, while you may not have positive experience or your expectations are not met by the product or services, it must be seen that you are not making false statement that is capable of harming the reputation of the brand.
However, a negative, harmful review crosses the line into defamation when it contains lies or exaggerations. Also, who is doing the review: a competitor or a disgruntled interested person like a former employee? Or as in the case of the tomato puree, a customer with an obvious choice of a competing brand whose assertion can be said not to be scientific or tested? If a product reviewer pretends to be a customer and formulates an experience with a business, the probability of a defamation claim is very high. This is one area I think the social media freaks don’t understand. In the words of Aaron Minc of the MincLaw, in a perfect world, every review of business would be a glowing five-star celebration of product or services. However, that is far from the reality in today’s digital landscape, where any customer or client with an internet connection, genuine or not, can post an online review of business. Not all of these reviews are authentic or accurate and it can be difficult to know when exactly they cross into the territory of defamation.
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Defamation is false statement that harms someone’s reputation; and it can be libel or slander. Libel (or libelous act) is done through writing. They are often written statement that harms the reputation of another person or organisation. Such libelous contents can be expressed through signs, pictures, print, writing, or any communication means that inflicts injury to a person’s reputation or exposes a person or organization or their business or profession to public hatred, contempt or ridicule. Examples of libel include cartoons, text stories, and other written statements that are false and harm, or could harm, another individual’s reputation. Another type of defamation is slander, which is defined as an oral or spoken statement, such as a speech or lecture, that similarly damages the reputation of another. Slander on its part is oral in nature. It is most times spoken statements or speeches that damage someone’s reputation. The key take away here is damaging of reputation.
Demarketing on its own is a strategy or an effort to discourage buyers from buying a certain product or services. In the words of Phillips Kotler and Sidney Levy, “demarketing can be explained as the efforts made to reduce consumption” of a product. It is a deliberate attempt to decrease demands for a product that is hitherto enjoying good patronage. Product competitors often engage in this a lot as a way of swaying customers’ perception with an objective of gaining buyers for their own products. Also a company can deliberately demarket its products. Such was experienced when Tata Group did adverts to discourage consumers from buying Tata Nano when demands for the product far outweighed its supply.
Also worthy of note about products and services exchanging hands (buyers and consumers alike) is what is known as invitation to treat and puffing up in business which the law permits the sellers. That you see a product displayed in a shopping mall does not mean the product is available for sale. This is called ‘invitation to treat’ and the seller reserves the right to reject or accept if you want to buy such products. It is an attempt to invite customers or clients to come forward and make offer; but, in law, there is no intention to be bound by this act. Puffing on its own is often done in advertising or product promotion. Puffing is done by making exaggerated talks about a product or service; and is not intended to be taken literally by those who hear it. it is expected that you do your due diligence by finding out everything about the products or services before you make commitment because there is no remedy if what you hear turns out to be false. If anything goes wrong, you cannot say you heard about it on Radio Ziii or read about it in Newspaper Wii – and the medium should be responsible. Acquaint yourself with the law so that you don’t turn yourself to public nuisance.
Ola Emmanuel is a business planning consultant
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