THE NATION FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012
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ITH the increasing number of advertising agencies in Nigeria, the industry appears to be losing its grip on professionalism. This is due to the fact that agencies these days have made billings as their major driving force as against inspiration, innovation and creative ideas. This was the submission of an expert, Tunji Abioye, when asked to comment on the state of the industry. Abioye who is Managing Director, Fuel Communications Limited, said advertising in Nigeria has grown over the years and has become more competitive by the day. According to Abioye, the industry at a time has over 200 agencies registered with the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) and more yet unregistered as well as yet unborn. “In the light of the giant stride the industry has been recording, there was a flip along the line in the industry. The industry was experiencing diminishing returns as agencies focused attentions elsewhere other than ideas.” “In the 70’s and 80’s, agencies were known as the library of knowledge for brands. Clients relied on the agencies to lead the game. The advertising and communication industry began so well in the country and this gave hope to the brands. Because the industry looked else where for inspiration, professionalism is rarely in place now. The alternate inspiration we are talking about is that ideas began to give way to money. The focused shifted to what clients can spend as the billings issue takes the front burner,’’ he enthused. Having located the missing link, Abioye was inspired to set up his agency- Fuel Communications. We were inspired by a quote in one of the editions of Harvard
Advertising: The enemy A within Business Review, which states: “With increasing competition from the world’s emerging economies, supply often will exceed demand and to sustain profitable growth in any market, it is only brands that do things differently that will be able to grow and sustain it,” claims Abioye. In the light of this, Fuel Communication otherwise known as the ‘womb for uncommon ideas’ was born into the industry as an unconventional agency. For us here in Fuel, the brain needs to sweat for great and uncommon ideas to be born he posited. Our emergence in the industry is to champion very unpopular ideas, to create shocking but effective brand solutions to be noticed in the crowded market. It is only campaigns that look extraordinary that appeal to people and they are the ones that are often remembered. “This is our own ideology in the business of advertising.” There are too many followers in the market, but we want to create and build brands that will lead in the market in line with the blue ocean theory. In recognition of its mode of operation, ethical principles and professionalism, Fuel Communications was recently inducted into the AAAN fold. The managing director sees membership of the association as a value driver as it encourages and challenges for better professionalism, ethical practice and good conduct in business. All these in the long run ensure quality service delivery to the client.
‘Our emergence in the industry is to champion very unpopular ideas, to create shocking but effective brand solutions to be noticed in the crowded market. It is only campaigns that look extraordinary that appeal to people and they are the ones that are often remembered’
An advertising firm is born
A
NEW advertising and marketing communications agency, Extreme Ideas (XM3 Ideas), has opened in
Lagos. Its Chief Executive Officer/Chief Creativity Officer is Steve Babaeko. It was gathered that the firm has applied for the membership of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN). He has 17 years experience in the industry having started his career in 1995, at the defunct MC & A Saatchi & Saatchi. He cut his teeth under Victor Johnson and Busola Williams. At the Saatchi & Saatchi agency, he was on the team that worked on brands, such as DSTV Multichoice and others for five years. From MC & A, Babaeko joined Prima Garnet Ogilvy in 2001 as a copy writer and rose through the ranks to become copy manager. While at Prima Garnet, where he spent five years, he worked on brands, such as BAT, DSTV Multichoice, among others and was exposed to some of the best tools in the industry and benefited from local and international training and exposures.
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He was on secondment to 141-Worldwide as a pioneer Creative Director in 2005. While at I41-Worldwide, which spanned seven years, he was handled most of the agency’s portfolio of clients and brands. Some of his landmark assignments for the agency, include the launch and sustenance of the Etisalat brand in the Nigeria, BAT business, which came to the new agency from inception, DSTV, FirstBank, among others. Sources revealed that X3M Ideas has hit the ground running with a first major pitch victory. The new agency emerged one of the top two agencies, which shared the Inbisco – FMCG business. The business, according to our sources, was shared between Lanre Adisa’s Noah’s Ark and X3M Ideas. It was gathered that the Inbisco’s Kopico campaign is slated to kick off soon. X3M Ideas has a crop of young, talented team and boasts of a state-of-the-art studio for radio commercials and allied assignments to reduce turnaround time.
LTHOUGH corruption, lack of dedication to duties and patriotism by workers in public and private sector have been identified as key factors stalling Nigeria’s advancement to greatness, recent researches by experts have also revealed that the inability of many Nigerians to adapt to global trends in a positive manner is affecting the pace of development of Nigeria. To arrest this trend in Abuja, the Federal Civil Service Commission backed its determination to increase productivity through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with action. According to the commission, this became necessary to change the negative perception in some quarters that civil servants were inferior to their counterparts in the private sector. This was at the occasion of the signing of an MoU between BICS-NIIT and the Commission on the need to embrace ICT to make the public service more efficient. During the event, both parties agreed on the need for players in all sectors to quickly respond to the administration’s call to drive the economy through capacity building. Basic Information and Communication Systems Limited (BICS) is an expert in ICT learning in Nigeria, while NIIT is an international human resources and ICT education institute. With advancement in technology, which has turned the world into a global village, it was impressed on African nations and other developing nations in the world that adequate knowledge in information technology is required to jump-start development and achieve the millennium goals target. When she assumed office early this year, the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Deaconess Johanna Olatosin, pledged her commitment to encourage the training of civil servants to enhance professionalism, productivity and specialisation. Olatosin made the promise due to the poor commitment of civil servants to work ethics, compared to the aggressiveness of their counterparts in the private sector. Though the inefficiency in the public sector has often been linked with the lackadaisical attitude of civil servants, recent findings have shown that most people in the sector lack the knowledge needed for efficiency in today’s market. According to the Head of Public Communications, Nigerian Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM), Rasheed Bolarinwa, the institute always advises employers of labour to encourage frequent training of their personnel to make them be current and effective. He said: “The mission of the CIPM is to build a society with efficient human capacity and to this end; the institute has always been in the forefront of campaign for training, especially the technological based ones as dictated by the current situation in the world, which revolves round information technology.” Bolarinwa added that Nigeria can market its potentials through ICT because an average Nigerian is innately gifted. “You will agree with me that Nigeria is blessed with brilliant people who would perform optimally with adequate knowledge in ICT. This is so because with the aid of computer, manual work is reduced and output is increased,” he said. In tandem with Bolarinwa’s thinking, Chairman of BICS-NIIT, Prince Shaka Momoh, in his remarks during the signing of the Memorandum of Understand-
BICS-NIIT: Enhancing productivity through ICT By Jimi David
ing (MoU), commended the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission for giving his company the opportunity to participate in the process, which he said, reechoed the Jonathan administration’s yearning for capacity building in achieving Nigeria’s Vision 2020. According to African Business magazine, which in its current edition identified ICT as the key to Africa’s success now and in future. Before this revelation, Nathan Associates, an international development economics consultants, had estimated that ICT capital has seven times the impact on productivity than non-ICT capital in nations with lower levels of IT usage, and approximately three times more in other nations. Also, experts have continued to emphasize on the need for economics drivers in all developing nations to see ICT as a vehicle for economic transformation. It is a fact that ICT assets have provided benefits such as improved communications and information management and flows, as well as ready access to educational materials, which in turn provide a basis for more effective decision-making and problem-solving. These benefits that accrue largely from the extent of a country’s ICT stock are not, in and of themselves, transformational; the centre-piece of ICT-enabled transformation is purposeful application. This involves the exploitation of acquired ICT innovations (infrastructure) to facilitate and sustain indigenous ICT innovations that, at minimum, bear down on development priorities, but ideally, are also export-oriented. Given the fact that ICT has revolutionised the way citizens, businesses, governments and countries interact, exposing civil servants to its rudiment at this time may be the opportunity Nigeria is looking for to market its potentials to the world. In fact, the United Nation’s 2008 report tagged: The global information society: A statistical view, indicated that ICT has become pivotal agents of social and economic transformation in developing countries. Giving further assurance on his firm’s preparation, Momoh said: “We are conscious of the high expectations and would like to assure you of our capabilities to deliver. Be assured that the FCSC is not alone in this drive for capacity development. We have recently concluded a training contract for the World Bank tagged ACCESS Nigeria.” And on ACCESS Nigeria, he stated that it was part of a programme directed at developing new economy skills for Africa. The chairman of the company also indicated that the FCSC initiative to train the civil servants was a direct response to the Government’s call on capacity building. •Jimi David is Brandweek special correspondent
*Editor - Wale Alabi *Consulting Editors - Rarzack Olaegbe, Sola Fanawopo * Correspondent-Jimi David * Business Development - Kenny Hussain * Legal Adviser - Olasupo Osewa & Co Brandweek is powered by Brandz Republic Consulting and published every Friday in THE NATION newspaper. All correspondence to the editor - 0808.247.7806, 0805.618.0040, e-mail: korede2000@gmail.com © All rights reserved.