Nigerian contemporary Afrobeat musician, Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun popularly known as Wizkid landed himself the biggest endorsement ever with United Bank of Africa (UBA) in 2019 reportedly valued at $3 million approximately N1,084,500,000.00 (Nigerian Naira). Recently, OduNews.com have gathered some untold stories behind the billion naira deal.
On August 6, 2019, UBA Group announced Wizkid as its newest brand ambassador. The GMD of the company, Kennedy Uzoka in his statement said; ‘we have reached a saturation which is compounded by what we see in the technology space and the only area we need to address this problem is the medium and small scale sector and that is why UBA is leading this crusade, dedicating our resources to drive this area and change the narrative.
Wizkid, on the other hand, reveals his intentions of touching lives: ‘it has always been my dream to make sure that I try as much as possible to have a talent from every African region and this is why we are partnering with UBA to create global stars. What we are doing right now; UBA and Starboy is one of the biggest footsteps that can ever happen in the creative space.
Wizkid's endorsement deals
2012: $350,000 1 year Pepsi deal
2013: N45 million MTN 1 year deal, Guinness
2014: Hennessy
2015: N128 million 1 year Glo deal
*renewed Pepsi deal 4 times
2018: Ciroc
2019: N1 billion UBA deal
PARTNERSHIPS
Moschino
Daily Paper
Nike
D&G. pic.twitter.com/v2v1xKFd7d
— Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) December 28, 2019
Wizkid’s deal with UBA is now recorded as the biggest ever in Africa for a musical artist and it’d also be the first-ever billion naira endorsement deal an artist from Africa would receive.
The news brewing in the last couple of days that caught the attention of OduNews.com is that of 5,000 UBA staff laid off – popular opinion has it that the Wizkid deal is the reason these people are back in the labour market for job hunting.
UBA signed Wizkid to mad endorsement deal and laid off 5k staff members?
Colour me surprised
— Alh. Maazi Munachi (@mhagayr) January 4, 2020
