A former Chairman of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Mr. Lolu Akinwunmi has said that the practice of advertising has changed and has led to a fusion of the different functions of marketing communication.
APCON is now known as the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON),
During his appearance on C-Suite Café, a podcast hosted by brand strategist, Mr. Ikem Okuhu, Akinwunmi said that the practice is overdue for a new name because of the changes that have taken place in the practice. He thought that the name should rather be something like an all-encompassing one, like marketing communication, to accommodate the fusion of advertising, public relations, digital, and experiential functions.
‘To continue to call the practice advertising is actually a misnomer; it is actually marketing communication. We left advertising practice maybe 10 to 15 years ago. So, these are the relevant and current threats to marketing communication, Akinwunmi, who is the Chairman of Prima Garnet Africa Group, said.
He further said: ‘PR and advertising functions have converged. Clients who are savvy no longer brief agencies differently. You no longer get different advertising briefs and PR briefs. The convergence is real. There is a loop; advertising uses PR, and PR uses advertising. This presents a more robust way of reaching the target audience. These days, briefs clients send to agencies are more holistic and not divided into advertising, PR, and experiential. So, the agencies are left with two choices: either you have a large set-up that has advertising, PR, digital, and experiential, or you work with consultants with specialisations in the sub-fields where you are not capable of handling’.
On whether this convergence would not adversely affect the quality of service, Akinwunmi disagreed, saying everything starts from the overarching strategy.
‘A single strategy can drive everything you want to do. The strategy is he heartbeat, it is the engine of everything you want to do. The different disciplines are just tapping into it. When an agency gets such a brief, the thing to do is to ensure that everything is on a strap, get the communication to connect to the strategy. It doesn’t matter whether it is an advertising campaign, whether is PR, whether it is experiential or digital, everything is drawing from a single strategy, as long as you do this right, then the rest of it will work well’, he submitted
Reflecting on the changes that have taken place in the industry, Akinwunmi recalled the absence of technology at the time he started his practice.
He said: ‘When I joined the industry, there was virtually no technology as we know it today. Within the agency, we didn’t even use computers; everything was manual, but a few years later, computers became commonplace in the practice.
‘However, we are now discussing digital disruptions. Agencies have to learn to work with it, adopt it, and adapt to it; otherwise, there is no future for them in the profession. The media, the production, all of them have gone digital. In fact, if you look at the digital ecosystem in terms of budgeting, digital has taken about two-thirds of advertising budget, and I am talking of the global industry, and Nigeria is so big, we cannot afford to be insulated from what is going on globally.
‘The second factor is consumer skepticism. Gradually this has come on, which s why PR has an advantage. Globally, and in Nigeria as well, consumers have begun to not trust advertising, because they see it that it is paid for. So, they don’t know whether it is true, perhaps because it is sponsored. PR can run without any element of serious sponsorship.
‘The third issue is privacy concerns. There is so much data out there. Most institutions that collect our data through so many documentations we fill out go on to sell it to third parties. Suddenly, you begin to receive emails and information from sources you do not have any connection with, and this is because they have sold your information to third parties’.
Akinwunmi also reflected on the advertising reforms, which he led as APCON Chairman, and said the fifth Code of Advertising, which he delivered to the profession was driven by the need to protect Nigerians and impose ore holistic regulation of the industry.
He stated that the APCON, under his Chairmanship, saw ahead and moved quickly to create a reform that would guide the industry into the future.
‘We saw the incursions of businesses hitherto known as management consultants and accounting firms handling briefs that are purely advertising, and we knew it was important to have them under the advertising regulatory umbrella. We brought in everybody, including modelling agencies, we brought in production houses; we even created spaces for consultants to cater to the interests and needs of people who want to practice, but who wouldn’t want to set up full structures; we gave them associate memberships.
‘One of the things we also wanted to do was to create a platform that would accommodate the PR people and the marketing people; we succeeded with the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria. But we have to bring in the PR people under a platform that would accommodate everybody, either under an enlarged ARCON, or you create a different platform. There is room within APCON that should accommodate everyone if they were to decide to follow that path’, he submitted.
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