Funke Akindele, Toyin Abraham’s Box Office Success Result Of Strategic Marketing- Banwo

‎Dr. Ope Banwo has offered a business-focused explanation for the sustained box-office success of Funke Akindele and Toyin Abraham, arguing that their dominance is the result of strategic market alignment rather than luck or social media gimmicks.
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‎Responding to criticism from some veteran actors and filmmakers over cinema promotion styles, Banwo explained that film marketing is ultimately about driving human behaviour—ticket purchases—not preserving dignity or tradition.
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‎“Cinema marketing is not about what feels respectable to producers,” Banwo said. “It’s about what moves people to show up and pay.”
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‎He described Akindele’s success as a textbook example of systems thinking, noting that she combined acting talent with production control, distribution knowledge, audience intelligence, and aggressive marketing.
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‎The result, he said, includes five straight years of box-office leadership, multiple billion-naira cinema runs, and ownership of four of the top five highest-grossing Nollywood films of all time.
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‎Banwo placed Toyin Abraham just behind Akindele, describing her as Gen-Z-literate by strategy rather than age, with a strong grasp of market psychology and audience engagement.
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‎He noted that while some producers rely on third-party funding and pre-sales to streaming platforms, others must recoup investments directly from cinema audiences, making marketing hustle unavoidable.
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‎“The women being criticised are accountable to the market,” Banwo said. “They face the audience directly, and the audience keeps rewarding them.”
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‎Banwo concluded that until alternative strategies consistently outperform the current box-office leaders, criticism should give way to data-driven analysis.
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‎“In cinema, the scoreboard does not lie,” he said. “And right now, the market has spoken.”