THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JUNR 17, 2012
inexperienced. Poor appreciation of the marketing mix affects their understanding of the role agencies play in their marketing activities. A strategic partner that should be treated with professional respect is treated as a vendor of marginal value. We also have poor quality of brief. ( Low skill and inadequate experience impact on the quality of briefs agencies get, thus making the process of cracking the brief a most painful and sometimes futile exercise. It is sometimes akin to playing “blind man’s buff.” This is reflected in levels of agency remuneration, and delayed settlement of bills. Sometimes, client companies adopt unfair trade practices that are most inimical to the survival of their agencies. For example, many clients refuse to prepay for service while demanding up to 45 days credit that invariably becomes 180 days. Sometimes, clients just disappear leaving the agency struggling to explain to media houses and other suppliers. Prospects If you are good, when the environment is challenging and you can overcome, you do well. Like former President Olusegun Obasanjo said at the Economic Summit, people talk about the risk of doing business in Nigeria but nobody wants to talk about the returns. Nigeria is one of the best of countries to do business in. Those who come here to make money don’t want those who are outside to know, so that they can keep making money. The industry itself has not even blossomed. Marketing communication will thrive well in a highly commercialised and sustained economy. As our economy grows, become, more sophisticated, highly commercialised, more industries come on, they want to engage with consumers, they want to sell, and marketing communication will become more relevant, highly required and more agencies will
“
You can’t sleep with everybody that comes your way. Sometimes I say to women on my team, you think you have problem because men will chase you, but women also chase men. But you have got to manage it.
“
•Continued from Page 24 Business School Alumni Association. When I went for LBS, the fee was N250, 000, now it is almost N3million. But to pay that N250,000 then was a difficult task. I had to split and pay in about three or four installments. One thing was clear then, I went to LBS to sharpen my managerial skills and to also network. The key about succeeding in business is that you must be clear on what you want to do, how you want to do it and who will help you. Challenges of Marketing Communication in Nigeria Small market. There are only few clients that can deliver the kind of budgets that you will need to do the work. The challenge of resources…people are not there. Most of our employees come in as trainees, as you trained some of them you lose to other competitors or to the client side. So you struggle and the challenge of infrastructure is also there. There is no electricity supply. You have to run the agency on power generating set which is expensive. You staff are also scattered because they live in far-flung places under difficult conditions. In the creative business how do they think? They come to work stressed and they go back home stressed. The environment is a challenging one for them. For us again, we have the issue of support industry. We don’t really have professional models as they do in other parts of the world. We don’t have data to work with. Almost everything you need you have to create by yourself - most of the time all the things you needed, and it makes it tougher. Most clients today have huge problems with regard to quality marketing staff. The staff are poorly trained, low skilled, and
The Sunday Interview
25
emerge. Ufot as a family man I am married with two children. My kids are grown–up and they are schooling abroad. They only come home on holidays and when they do, we go out together for dinner. My wife is a lawyer, SAN, and we go out often - most times to see friends, dinner and functions; we also sit down to discuss things of common interest. Fame and money attracts opposite sex. How are you coping? It is God’s grace. But I think the most important thing is that you have someone in your life whom you love and appreciate and she loves, appreciates and respects you in return. You don’t want to upset her. You have to choose. Money and fame attract, what do you want? You can’t sleep with everybody that comes your way. Sometimes I say to women on my team, you think you have problem because men will chase you, but women also chase men. But you have got to manage it. You must be focused and very important, it is your brand equity. It pays you as a professional that when your name comes up, the right image also does. Sometimes I tell people, ‘I can’t chase you, where will I take you to?’ I am too well known. People who know me are more than those I know. Memorable childhood I grew up in Lagos. We used to hang-out and go as far as Badagry for picnic. I loved to party as a young man. Do you still party? I still party. My wife loves partying, so she is the one dragging me out and because of the nature of my business”. Partying has been great fun.