30 Leading Africa's Branding & PR Elites

Publisher’s Note

It is always with great pride and pleasure that I welcome our returning readers and everyone that is reading us for the first time.

Today, Business Elites Africa presents to you 30 Leading Africa’s Branding & PR Elites. We have conscientiously curated the content of this edition; and are thrilled to present the most desirable branding and PR elites from the continent of Africa. Nothing compares to the feeling of creation, bringing forth or formation - branding.

“Your brand is your public identity, what you’re trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear,” says Lisa Gansky.

Despite all the upheavals against the continent’s economic prospects, the mystery and dominant undercurrents of the African genius have never ceased to amaze the world.

The entire continent is known and celebrated for her resilience and dogged ascendance through the harshest of life realities. These selected and vetted brands and minds never stopped creating and making brands come

to life. Architecting brands from sheer illusions is the business of the day.

In this current edition of Business Elites Africa, we present to you Africa’s - coastto-coast leading branding and PR Elites.

Our commitment to the service of Africa’s SMEs is unwavering. Your courage and support have been our fortitude. The road ahead may be tough but our vision and commitment to the promise of a better Africa are stronger.

On behalf of the team at Business Elites Africa, I would like to thank everyone featured in this issue, for allowing us to tell their stories and for participating in the goals of this publication.

Many thanks to you, our ardent readers and followers! Our continued existence and relevance are owed to you. Your partnership and support on this journey is greatly appreciated.

Please send us your thoughts on how we can continue to improve and what you’d like to see in our future publications.

Happy reading!

ETHELBERT NWANEGBO

Publisher/ Editor-in-Chief ethelbert.n@glimpse33.com

Disclaimer: The information on this magazine is for information purposes only. Business Elites Africa Magazine assumes no liability or responsibility for any inaccurate, delayed or incomplete information, nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All information can be withdrawn or changed without notice. Whilst every care has been taken in producing the information on this magazine, this does not guarantee the accuracy of the information. Business Elites Africa is not responsible for any opinion, expressed by its authors. Materials contained on this magazine are subject to copyright and other proprietary rights. No material on this magazine can be reproduced, adapted, distributed or stored in a retrievable system or transmission without a prior written consent from Business Elites Africa Magazine. © 2022 Business Elites Africa Magazine. All rights reserved.

‘Even in Africa, Nigerians are Different’; Igwe Okeke on How to Sell to Nigerians 10

The Best PR Strategies Come from Crunching Big Data - Jacques Du Bruyn, CEO - Flume Marketing 14

“Passion is 80% of the Success Game” – Temple Obike 15

I’m an Accidental Entrepreneur – Lanre Adisa 18

‘An Entrepreneur Must be Ready to Fall Down and Always Get up Again’ - Nicole Capper 24

Nigeria is a Better Place to Live’ – UK-Returnee Entrepreneur, Yetunde Ogunnubi 26

Steve Babaeko: The Man Known for X3M Creativity 34

Meet Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, one of the Most Experienced PR Expert in Existence 36

Ayeni Adekunle; A well rounded marketing communications professional 38

A look at Bukola Sawyerr Izeogu, the Nigerian Multi-facet PR Expert Extraordinaire 44

Lamia Kamel the Egyptian Woman Zealous About Changing Her Country’s Narrative 45

Milkaela Mwangura: A Shinning Light in Kenya’s Marketing Communications Industry 48

How Bewaji Adeniji Started as a PR Rookie to Becoming a Master 50

NIGERIA : 5, Ogusiji Street, off Allen Avenue,Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria Tel: +234909 943 0429 +234916 473 4106

USA: 6620 Southpoint Drive S. Suite 511, Jacksonville, FL 32216 Tel: +904-240-7044

SOUTH AFRICA: 73 Booysens Road Conner Withycombe Street Johannesburg 2091, South Africa.

Bola Atta: The Creative Genius Driving UBA’s Marketing 52

Chude Jideonwo: How a hustling young man attained success before 30 years 54

Adebola Williams: How a Failed Entry Into Acting Turned into a Successful PR Career 56

Nigeria’s National Award in the Dust: Is Chimamanda Adichie Unpatriotic? 74

GLO : A Strong African Brand Built; The Back Of Mega Influencers 78

Philip Odiakose arguably pioneered the Public Relations measurement and evaluation sub-sector in Nigeria. He’s the founder of P+ Measurement Services, a data-driven media intelligence and evaluation firm.

Philip saw the potential in media monitoring long before his bosses thought it was anything other than a job for rookies. As an employee, Philip would get to work two hours before the standard resumption time, and before his colleagues resumed, he would have compiled and sent reports to clients. His employer had no idea he was the reason clients were happy until he left.

It was inevitable that Philip’s diligence and consistency would take him far. But he himself didn’t know that. He had no plan to become an entrepreneur; he only cared about doing anything committed into his hands excellently. But the universe aligned in his favour on a fateful day, and he landed a multinational client at a job interview.

He shares his inspirational story with Business Elites Africa in this interview.

You studied Industrial Physics at the University; how did that journey land you in the media measurement and evaluation business?

My first experience in the job market was around market research. I got a job with a market audit research firm, which gave me a little exposure to brands and a little bit of analytics because we were carrying out market research, and I was also taking part in data gathering and analysis. Although that did not spur my interest in pure media monitoring and evaluation, it played huge role years down the line because I had to make a lot of references to analytics and brand research.

What gave me the jump into pure measurement and evaluation was when I worked with several leading Public Relations (PR) agencies in Nigeria as a media analyst. After a while, I saw the potential in data and analysis, and I decided to specialise in that. At this time in

the PR industry, nobody wanted to build a career in media monitoring and evaluation. The practitioners didn’t see it as a core function in an agency. Even currently, there are very few of my type in the PR industry that does media monitoring and evaluation as their core business.

If you ask any freshman in a PR agency where he sees himself in two years, he will tell you he wants to be a client service director, business director, or account director. But it was different for me; I was passionate about media monitoring and evaluation. I also wanted to solve some unethical practices in that industry due to the unavailability of data and research in the PR industry. And I realised someone needed to make that available, and that inspired me to establish a media monitoring and evaluation company. Have there been media monitoring companies in Nigeria before then? Yes. But the huge focus of those companies was just data, but brands in Nigeria were looking for insights and analytics. They were looking for an organisation that would break those numbers down for clear value purposes.

So when we came into the industry, we saw that the four major media monitoring companies in Nigeria were focused on broadcast and out-of-home media. There was no one looking out for the PR industry, so we decided to focus on that. We didn’t come into the industry as a media monitoring company; we came in as a media intelligence and evaluation agency because we came in with the insight and analytics value.

thought we were trying to solve problems, but at the same time, we would inevitably step on people’s toes. What gave us the zeal and drive to continue was the problem we wanted to solve, which was to make data available for the PR industry to enable them to make informed decisions. That’s why I always tell people that whatever business you’re doing, if you’re not solving problems, you won’t last in that business. Once you’re solving a problem, the money is always going to come

We had that resistance, which led to many struggles in our first year in 2015. We started at the peak of the recession, and there were huge eyebrows from senior PR practitioners who thought we came to disrupt their lunch and create unnecessary issues in the industry. Honestly, it was a bit discouraging at the time because we

Thank you very much for that question. Initially, we did not see that as a problem, but a year later, we realised we needed them. That’s also because, in the big picture of our business, we want to have all the PR agencies in Nigeria outsource all their media monitoring, intelligence, and measurement activities to us so that they can focus on reputation, relationship-building, and brandbuilding. So we started engaging them and making them understand that we are not foes; we are friends and that our goal is to ensure they have a healthy brand. We’ll be seven years this year (2022), and I can tell you that we have been able to service more than 18 PR agencies in Nigeria and four to five global agencies. Beyond the agencies, we also have clients we are working with directly.

Let me tell you about my early days. While I was working as an employee in the PR industry, I was a very dedicated fellow, and my bosses would attest to that. I still get their commendations. I was very selfless. I would resume the office by 6:30 am while we were supposed to resume by 8:00 am. I would pick the papers from the vendor, and before my team members resumed, I would have sent the report to clients. The clients got their reports by 7 am. My bosses did not know that until I left, and clients

Did you eventually find common ground with these agencies, considering that, as a new business, you would need the brands they represent to generate revenue?

What were the struggles you had to go through in your entrepreneurship journey?

You talked about unethical practices in the PR industry that your company wanted to correct. Didn’t you have a problem with some of the agencies who might think you were trying to be the police of the industry?

began complaining that they were getting their reports late. So, my boss was like, what is happening? That was when my boss realised I used to come to work by 6;30am.

I didn’t plan to become an entrepreneur. It was never in my plan; I guess it found me. One day, I went for a job interview and told them how I wanted to do media monitoring for them as a staff but discovered they were looking for a consultant instead. I had to align immediately and pitch myself because it was a multinational company. That was how it all started. So, I have not had major struggles because I already selflessly did this for people even without getting paid. I worked at a place for seven months without pay, and I was still resumed work at 6:30 am because I saw the value of media monitoring before anyone did. So when I started my own business, I didn’t have to struggle so much. We already had a multinational client, but the struggle I had to deal with was developing my leadership capacity because I was only prepared for the backend work, not to become an entrepreneur or a leader.

meant they had seen what I had not seen in terms of value and potential. Maybe I would have taken the money if I needed it, but I would have regretted that decision years down the line. I think running a business requires patience. Entrepreneurs are too anxious; they want to get things very fast. Most times, when people have a great idea, they think all they need to start is funds, and they go to financial institutions to get loans without understanding the challenges that lie ahead in the business.

Patience. People need to understand that there is no crime in starting small. In the past seven years, we have not taken any loans, and we have never owed salaries for once, even amid the covid recession. And this is because I never had any urgent or crucial need for external financing.

For instance, in 2016, when I was still running P+ Measurement from my single-room apartment in Surulere, Lagos, a foreign company wanted to acquire a 70% stake in the business for N30 million. They also wanted the brand name changed to theirs, and I would still be the one running the company, and I’d receive a salary. But I rejected the offer because I didn’t need that kind of money then, even though I didn’t know what the next two years of the company would look like and we only had one client.

I could have taken the money, set up my office in Ikoyi and started living a flamboyant lifestyle, but entrepreneurship was a new path for me. I had not figured out many things. So I did not need the money. Also, I reasoned that if a foreign company that wanted to come into the African market offered me this kind of money, it

When I wanted to start and got the go-ahead from the multinational client, I didn’t have money. So, I went to ‘Ojuelegba - under bridge’ (a Lagos suburb), I looked for a popular vendor there, and I told him to be supplying me with all the daily newspapers day by 6 am and that I’d read through and buy only the ones that my client has stories in. I told him he’d come in the afternoon to pick up the rest of the papers after I might have selected the ones I wanted.

I told him it was a temporary arrangement, that it would get to a time that I’d be buying all the papers from him. We reached an agreement eventually.

He might bring 16 papers for me in a day, and I could buy only two because we had just one client. He would come to pack the remaining papers in the afternoon, which was how we dealt with him. So, the cost of buying 16 pieces every day had already drastically reduced. It’s about trying to cut your clothes according to your size.

I even had access to a loan, but I didn’t go for it because I didn’t need it. Our first client was Stanbic IBTC Holdings. We were supposed to manage the group and all its subsidiaries so that indirectly gave me access to loans. You must understand what you need the money for and how you will repay it. If you do not have a dire need for it, do not take it. I did not see any need for it. That is what is killing many entrepreneurs today. Some of them have shut down and gone back to paid employment

In the first year of my business, I didn’t have a two-year or fiveyear plan. My only plan in 2015 was to ensure that day was right. This is seven years down the line, and that approach has never failed me.

What lessons has entrepreneurship taught you?

If you want to start a business and you have a great idea if the next thing you need is not money, what do you need?

People need to understand that there is no crime in starting small. In the past seven years, we have not taken any loans, and we have never owed salaries for once

By Dimeji Akinloye

Even in Africa, Nigerians are Different: Igwe Okeke on How to Sell to Nigerians

deep-end in content production, in terms of what the content was about, and it gave me an opportunity to meet many celebrities.

I went into the banking sector, and I became the corporate affairs officer of one of the financial institutions in Nigeria. My experience and activities in the banking sector brought me back to what I had always wanted to do in school, advertising, and media/corporate communication. Basically, that was how my career transcended from classroom to content production and eventually to advertising.

I came into advertising media about 16 years ago, and to be honest, it has been a fast pace of growth for me. It has been an insightful journey for me. I started my career in advertising as a media planner, and I moved into strategy development and then into the administrative part of the business, which I am doing now with Carat.

Let’s take it back a little. Your first degree was in mass communication. What piqued your interest in that field?

Igwe Okeke’s path in media and marketing communication was set from childhood, and he intentionally toed the route that led to his career success against all odds.

He is the Managing Director of Carat Nigeria, the world’s first media agency and a subsidiary of Dentsu International, one of the world’s largest global marketing and advertising agency networks.

In this interview, Igwe tells us how he went against everyone in his life who wanted him to choose a different career path. He talks about the science of building a vibrant brand using a full proof integrated marketing strategy and more.

Your professional career started in the lecture hall; as a lecturer, how did you pivot to marketing communications?

I started my career at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, where I observed my compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps. I played a double role then, one was with the Office of Public Relations Officer, and I also doubled as an assisting lecturer in the department of Mass Communication.

After that, my career, as it were, started in content production. In 2007, I was an Assistant Content Manager for a company called DM Audiovisuals. We produced a very popular content called ‘Friend or Foe’, sponsored by Guinness in those days. I was

Interesting! This is the first time I am actually telling the story officially. I only discuss it casually with my friends.

I’m someone you would say discovered his talent very early in life. And I programmed myself in such a manner that I did not lose focus of that.

As a child, I was fond of painting, and nobody taught me to paint. I would play on the sand, drawing pictures, and people would come and watch me do it. I remember myself as a child using my mother’s empty tomato purée cans, empty milk cans and used hair thread as tools of art - I would tie the thread to the tomato purée can end-to-end, and I’d wire my father’s house and speak loudly using the empty can as my microphone. I grew up seeing myself do that, and nobody

taught me. I’d speak and sing, and people would gather around me as I ‘performed.’

Nursing mothers would come in the daytime and gather the children they are looking after and put me in the middle to sing for them. I would sing and talk, and I’d capture everybody’s attention. The crying children would stop crying.

So while in secondary school, I repeatedly asked myself self-examining questions, like, ‘what exactly am I? or who am I?’ ‘How was I as a child, and how did that transcend into whom I had become?’

I was asking those questions because I was good at sciences and art. I was not one of those guys that went to secondary school and would choose the subjects they wanted. I did all from physics, biology, chemistry, geography, agric science, history, literature, etc., and my results were excellent in all of them.

So I wanted to write my West African Examination Council (WAEC) papers, we were required to choose a certain number of subjects. Everyone wanted me to go into medical sciences, and my family also said I’m good at sciences, but I still had that sober reflection of what I was as a child and I told myself that as long as I am unable to change the innate abilities, then that is probably what I am and that is what I must pursue against the other interests they wanted me to express. So, unknown to my late vice principal then, who really wanted me to be in the medical sciences, I changed the subjects I wrote in my WAEC because something in communication was driving me.

So, when I was looking for a course to study at the University, it was also about ensuring that I aligned with my gifted area. When I gained admission into the University of Nigeria Nsukka, I first studied English and Literary Studies and but one year down the line, I applied to change my program to Mass Communication because I felt I was

dealing with language and that wasn’t going to help me to express myself in the field of advertising, which is what I had always wanted. I asked myself, ‘what is that single thing that would help me express all that I am from my childhood, and how do I make it my profession because it feels like that is what I am built to do?’

When I wanted to change my program, I was told that I’d lose a year, and I accepted it. I started all over again from year 1 in Mass Communication. The essence was to build

that benefit to come easily. In doing that, they jump from one place to the other without actually staying to understand the nitty-gritty of the job. It is knowing the nitty-gritty of the job that will take you places.

When you know the job like the tip of your fingers, to the point you don’t need to look at any books when you are called upon at any point in time, then that’s what makes you a professional.

Unfortunately, the advertiser also does not have the patience to scrutinise professionals coming from the consultancy side of the job before they hire, and so what you see is people spending one or two years in advertising and jumping to the client’s side which, to me, is an aberration. One of the things that helped me early in my career was to really understand the nitty-gritty of the job as relative to the Nigerian environment. That’s why I tell people when we have conversations about the global practice that I know what can work in the Nigerian market.

myself into what I am doing today. That’s what I have always been passionate about. I didn’t want to lose touch with my childhood because I felt that is what I am meant to be.

Coming back to your advertising career, your rise was quite fast. What would you say were the factors that contributed to your success?

Let me answer your question this way. I think today’s generation of advertising media guys are so much in a hurry, and I think it’s also a generational issue. We live in a generation where people are interested in their career’s financial benefits and want

Why are you a consultant if you do not understand the needs of your clients and your brands and understand them relative to the environment? How you advertise a global brand cannot be how you will advertise such brands in Nigeria {I am sorry to say}. In some markets, for instance, digital media solutions would be perfect, but in some markets like ours, it may not be perfect for certain audiences. So you can’t come and prescribe that you want it to be 100% digital solutions. The campaign might be a failure. I will not advise you to make it a 100% digital solution if I know it won’t work. So that’s one of the things that helped me early in my career. I focused on understanding the nitty-gritty of the job.

What about the Nigerian market that makes it so different from other places across the world?

So many things. First of all, you are dealing with the most populous black market in the world, in terms of the human population. Apart from that, the audiences are different. If I am not mistaken, Nigeria has over 500 languages and over 700 local government communities. Then we have nothing less

We live in a generation where people are only interested in their career’s financial benefits and want that benefit to come easily.

than 500 radio stations and not less than 200 TV stations. Note that there are about 36 states in Nigeria plus the federal capital territory, and each of these states has its own radio and TV stations.

Now, where am I driving to? As it is, there is over 50% or thereabout smartphone penetration in Nigeria; I didn’t say mobile phone penetration because mobile phone density in Nigeria is high to the extent that it’s looking like the number of mobile devices in Nigeria is almost equal or even above its population, if I am not mistaken. In a nutshell, what it means is that media fragmentation in Nigeria is way over the line, which means to target a specific Nigerian audience successfully, you will then need to analyse the market by the level of segmentation, and it really tilts to the audience. You need to understand their exposure rate to the different media channels available in the market.

The implication is that the ratings you will enjoy by advertising and campaigning to specific audiences will be too tiny because audiences are exposed to different media channels simultaneously. So you can have audiences that are exposed to multiple devices and channels at the same time. Apart from that, you will then need to consider the different languages of that particular target segment and their psychographic attributes. So it’s much more difficult to advertise in Nigeria than in any other country.

Let’s compare Nigeria to South Africa. Let’s use TV as an example. How many TV stations do they have in South Africa? They have SABC and DSTV, so fragmentation cannot be compared with Nigeria. We have over 50 radio stations in Lagos alone (I’m not sure of the exact number). If that is true, tell me how it will be easy for you as a media consultant to easily communicate with everybody simultaneously.

Some would argue that the advent of digital media changed the

dynamics in favour of advertisers. Do you agree?

This is why I said it depends on the audience segment that you are targeting. If you are targeting more of the Gen Z audience, then more of your investment would have to be more around digital social channels and search channels which will lead you to things like Search Engine Optimisaton (SEO). How do you optimise? You optimise by keywords and so on.

In a nutshell, when you develop a global concept without the local adaptation or re-adaptation of that local concept, you may miss the Nigerian audience. That’s some of the challenges we are facing today because many advertisers come back to you with global methodologies without allowing you, the consultant, to come back to them with

with Nigerians automatically. Within Africa, Nigerians are very different, so how you develop our communication and market to us certainly has to be different.

What are the challenges you have to surmount in your career?

I’ll tell you it’s data and technology. For instance, there is something we call econometric modelling. It is where you’re looking at the availability of data that will help insight in marketing from the audience side, then the media insight, and then the client’s sales insight or data. So in that sense, you’re saying how do you measure the effectiveness of your marketing communication activities, and how are these various marketing communication activities impacting the business growth from a sales standpoint? That’s the challenge because many of these are well-developed in the American market, Europe, and other developed regions.

To have a very good econometric modelling platform, you have to have trended this kind of data for over three years to show consistency. But in most African markets, this kind of information is lacking. Most advertising and media agencies do not have the robust data to understand the consumer deeply enough to be able to help with this type of analysis and projection. That’s the privilege I enjoy at Carat and Dentsu. Carat gave me the opportunity to understand the consumer a lot deeper; that gives me an advantage over the competition. This is not about ‘I swear to God’ in a bit to convince a client that you can deliver. We have the data in-house. We have a global platform called the CCS (Consumer Connections System), and I’m also the head of CCS here in Nigeria. It’s the most robust consumer insight data that tends to understand the consumer and the brand, not just from a surface point of view but from a deep point of view of motivations.

For example, what’s my motivation if I’m to buy an alcoholic beverage? What will make me buy or not buy? What’s my lifestyle? This is the kind of data that measures over 60 touchpoints. It gives me the joy to interact with this kind of data that helps me make cogent recommendations to my clients to help their businesses grow.

Interview || By Simeon Onoja

The Best PR Strategies Come from Crunching Big Data - Jacques Du Bruyn

South Africa-based marketing expert Jacques Du Bruyn has leveraged years of experience in digital marketing to launch a full-service agency. His brainchild, Flume Marketing, is driving positive outcomes for leading brands on the continent.

Business Elites Africa caught up with Bruyn to gain insights that’ll propel you, either a PR professional or an entrepreneur.

What inspired the launch of Flume Marketing

In 2013 there were very few fully integrated digital agencies around. We started Flume with the ambition of creating a truly digitally born agency that could provide clients with a full spectrum of digital services and do that all in-house.

What’s most unique about your company?

At this stage of our journey (10 years), it’s the fact that we’re a 100-man full-service digital marketing agency that’s independent. Independence gives us the ability to create processes without asking for permission so that we can service our clients who have unique ways of working. This also makes us very responsive.

What strategies did you first use

At first, it was all about exercising our network and running PR through the media. We also jumped at every speaking opportunity we could.

Have you ever felt like quitting, and how did you persevere?

I have never felt like quitting because I’ve loved every aspect of it. Yes, there are difficult

times, and there are ups and downs. But I have a fantastic business partner and have built a solid leadership team. These people never make me feel like quitting.

How do you develop branding or PR strategies for organisations?

As per any good strategy, one must look at the research. Analyse the organisation’s own data, look at quantitative data, online listening data and finally, search data. This should give you a very good indication of where the organisation is at, what the market is saying and how you should respond.

I would have been bolder, more confident, and more deliberate about how I sold Flume in the beginning. I think I played small in the beginning and cared too much about what people thought of Flume and me personally.

Why is PR so important in the life of a business or organisation?

Especially in the B2B space, it is a tool for creating a trusted narrative around your organisation. Trust is hard to come by, perception is everything. PR builds both of those.

What advice would you give to someone trying to build a career in PR?

Think big, start small, and act now.

How do you deal with stress?

I take deliberate breaks and have learnt to say ‘no’ more often.

for marketing your business?

Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently when you first started out?

By Dimeji Akinloye

Passion is 80% of the Success Game – Temple Obike

Temple Obike’s journey is full of detours, and interestingly, the different turns, albeit unconnected, turned out to be a guiding light to the advertising career path he had always wanted. He is the founder of Brand Envoy Africa, an integrated marketing communications company based in Lagos, Nigeria.

In this interview with Business Elites Africa, Temple talks about his struggles, growth, and how to build a successful business in Africa or elsewhere, among other issues.

How did you become a Brand Strategist?

Please share your story with us.

I want to believe my passion for branding and Public Relations started in my adolescent years because I had always had a keen interest in people. I had always wanted to know what motivated people to behave the way they do. This was also because I come from a family of six siblings, where I’m the last child. So, I started from a place of keen observation with my siblings, which naturally spread out. It got me to a point where I started getting interested in what makes an individual or a group behave the way they do, which is what we call psychology.

Along the way, I noticed that certain things make people react in certain ways. People react to words, and things they see. It dawned on me that a good story was one of the major things required to get people to react. So, I will say this was where my passion began. I set out knowing I was going

to get into advertising. I knew I just had to get into the communication line.

Did that inform your course of study in school?

Considering where I come from, parents want their children to be something else. Of course, my parents would have been happy if I turned out to be a medical doctor

because I did take a keen interest in biology, which happens to be one of the things you notice when you are interested in humans. As much interest as I had in biology, I don’t think that was what I wanted to do, but my parents felt otherwise.

So everything moved in the direction they wanted. I studied Cell Biology and Genetics at the University for my B.sc and while there joined an International youth Non-profit where I was a project manager carrying out projects at orphanages and speaking to individuals in slums around Lagos. Post-bachelors, things got to a point where I knew I needed to do something different for my master’s program, so I did an MSc first in IT Business and Psychology afterwards. Something was still void so I took a professional course in Branding and PR. This was when my full-blown love for advertising started. Even in Uni, while studying Cell Biology and Genetics, I had a flare for art, Public health, and loved everything that had to do with marketing and communication. I’d throw myself to every opportunity that was out there. In fact, I set up my first advertising agency in Uni, which metamorphosed into what I currently run although I had to re-brand subsequently. I set it up while still in school.

What job did you take on after you left school?

It was actually quite interesting when I left school. I had secured an advertising job while in school where I worked for 4 years, but my next job after that was with a financial advisory firm for the next 3 years. I became a research analyst. From there, I moved up gradually and got another job with a content acquisition and creation company who I stayed with for another 3 years. I started as

a content manager for them here in Nigeria, but gradually I got West Africa under me and handled the Middle East for them as well. I was the content development manager for East Africa and West Africa where I and my colleagues had signed up the top musicians and KOL’s at the time. Afterwards, I started an IT company with a couple of friends. We were supplying content to the telco’s such as MTN and 9mobile. It was an interesting journey, but after a while, I realised that I needed to return to my first love, advertising and branding. So, I gradually pulled back, realigned myself and went back to advertising and branding.

How has the journey been?

To be candid, it has been quite an interesting journey. It was a path of self-discovery because many other things have come into play. There are days you wake up feeling confused and not questioning what you are doing but other days aren’t like that.

Sometime in 2012, I had to go back and see if I could try my hands at psychotherapy, which was interesting because it was not popular then. I got a part-time job with a second Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). One of the things I was doing was writing copies for them. They couldn’t pay me, but I was still writing copies for them. I came to love what they were doing along the line because they were visibly impacting lives. It got me thinking and encouraged me to acquire more knowledge in the field. Within four years that I was with them, I had gone back to school for a master’s program in Psychology to add to what I already had and before I knew it, it took me down another path: Psychotherapy. I started counselling people, but in the evenings, the NGO would still pass on copies that needed to be written. So, it was like me having the best of both worlds at the time and made me see my PR journey differently. Beyond what you write, somebody at the other end gets to feel the impact of how good the job you do is or how bad it is. So, it has just been a potpourri of experiences for me.

You mentioned there was a time when you were confused and had to question what you were doing with your life. How do you get past it when you are in that kind of zone?

I think this is a very important question. We all get to a crossroad in life. The first thing you do is to stop everything and cut out irrelevant activities because at that point, all you should be doing is inwardly reflecting. Everything you are going through is internal, so you must trust your internal convictions more. All the externalised activities at that point may pose distractions, anything happening outside of you will support the fact that you should be doing this or doing that.

The greatest conviction you need is peace of mind because whatever decision you make eventually, as long as you feel at peace about it, that is your biggest pointer.

The second thing you must do is to take account of the skillsets that come naturally to you, which is what we call gifts. What is it that you are gifted in? Once you can find what your gifts are, you can ask yourself, ‘is everything I am doing now around areas of gifting?’ If yes, ‘can I move this gift to a talent?’ This is because people can see what you are doing when it becomes a talent(something you become the “go-to” guy for). From then onwards, you can move it to a point where it becomes a skill, where it starts attracting money. But before you move from talent to the skill stage, you must have put in some work. That is why you need to go back and re-educate yourself. Just expand your horizon in the field so that you can start attracting money to it.

Failure is inevitable in every man’s life; how do you handle failure?

Talking about failure, I have failed at plenty of things, trust me. If you have never failed, you have never learnt. Failure is an intrinsic part of our everyday lives. When you fail, it knocks the wind off your sail. Imagine a man or woman that has never failed, it almost makes you believe that you are invincible, but once that invincibility matrix is out, you are faced with the reality. So what it does is that it gives you raw objectivity in whatever it is you want to do, and it humbles you. That is the beauty that comes out of failure.

These days, almost every young person wants to own his own business. He wants to be called a CEO. What’s the reality of running a business in a country like Nigeria?

Well, I don’t mean to dissuade anybody from starting a business because it is the ultimate dream, but there is something I want all of us to know, and I think it’s a good opportunity to mention this. There is what I call the ‘toxic hustle culture.’ Everybody wants to make that one million dollars and leave their job. In fact, right now, people who have 9 to 5 are almost being shamed for being employees because popular media has ill-glamorised owning your own business. This has produced a trend where ‘due-process’ is being undermined or made to appear foolish. On the contrary, It is a fundamental factor in building anything meaningful.

I can give you a very prime example. If you tell me you own an advertising agency and you have not been able to write a copy, you have not been able to go out and handle marketing operations; you have not been able to close a sale, you have not been able to put your finances in order, at least sit down and know your basics finances - like inflow and outflow, if you have not been able to walk through all these departments and understand it at the onset, at least at the basic level, before you now hire people who are better than you to handle them, then you are a disaster waiting to happen.

Those lessons you failed will come back to haunt you at some point. So, the process is critical. The toxic hustle culture is killing a generation because everybody wants to drop-out like the zuckerbergs of this world and make it big (nobody ever remembers he had an option from his father to either run a Mc-donald franchise or go to Harvard). Firstly not everyone gets into Harvard without some level of work being put in and not all parents hand over Big-Mac Franchises as options to their kids. Most do not want to go through the process. So, yes, it is good to start your business but while romanticising with the idea of becoming the next Dangote or Elumelu, be willing to put in the work because I see a lot of people who want to start businesses but have no incline to what it takes to be in that field. They don’t even know who the top performers in the sector are. So how on earth are you supposed to survive in the business if you don’t know how it functions? If you don’t know the nitty-gritty and the in and out of business. It is dead on arrival, pretty much.

Let me backtrack a little. When I was in University, my first major gig was a marketing campaign with Hewlett Packard (HP), which was a huge morale booster for me, and from that point onwards, I never looked back and dreamt big. There was a combination of failures and successes, but I kept pushing.

When it was time to start my company, I knew I had to get the branding right from the get-go starting with the name. I wanted a Pan-African brand, so I named it Brand Envoy Africa. You don’t brand yourself locally if you know you want to be international, that’s why it started with the name, but beyond the name, there was something else that was important, launching out.

This is where the experience you have garnered all along comes into play. That’s why I advise people to resist the urge to throw themselves out there hurriedly; it’s important you test the market with your thought process first. So I started writing brand articles and marketing articles. I started researching, reading, and putting out my thoughts, and my thought would attract people, and people would seek out the writer. That was how I pushed myself out; after a while, partnerships, introductions, radio interviews, and speaking opportunities came. You see, it’s a chain of events. You must negotiate the path, and you must navigate it intentionally, which is a mistake a lot of people make. They first want to become popular and put themselves out there as the CEO or founder of XYZ company, but the foundation is faulty. Put your thought process out and let your thought process attract the people who are for you and then you grow with the right crowd. That was how I started.

How does one run a successful business in Nigeria?

If you want to run a successful business in Nigeria and any other place in the world, the first thing I think you must have is resilience. I don’t think life by itself gives you it’s best things easily. I believe, by default, nobody is supposed to make anything out of this life unless a version of you becomes valuable

enough to attract and hold those things, and it’s a personal opinion. So resilience is the first thing you must onboard; your tenacity must be there because you will fail.

The second thing I think you must have is the willingness to adapt because there are days your flexibility would be required. There are days you set out on a path, and somewhere down the line, you have to change course and adapt. There are days you come into the meeting room, and a simple statement renders all the presentations you practised null and void. Right there, you need to create another presentation without creating another presentation.

The last thing on my list is that you must genuinely be interested in people. You must have a heart for people because your workforce is actually the lifeblood of what you do.

Let’s assume you knew everything and had to do it yourself. How long would you last? You should have great people skills. You should be able to manage people, you should be a good manager, and while you are at it, you should be human. I think that is what it takes.

higher up you go, the more responsibilities you see, like having a family, children looking up to you, there are external dependents and all of that.

So it is actually a race. It’s tasking on your time, so when you have time at the onset, do every single thing that comes to you. Write every single idea, and write down every single concept. There was a concept I needed to go back and clean up and use for a campaign, a concept I wrote down 10 years ago, and it was still fresh to me. All I needed to do was just revamp it and make it relevant to the times.

There is so much ado about passion; some will say you don’t need to have passion for a business as long as it’s a lucrative venture. What is your opinion?

If you knew what you know now, what would you do differently?

That is a million-dollar question. If I knew what I know now, like 10 to 15 years ago, I would have tried everything that came to my head, even when I felt finances were an impediment. I would have still attempted because, in actual fact, the more you come along in life, the more you notice that the problem is not really financing; the problem is you.

I could have written down all the concepts that came to my head. I could have had a jotter I moved around with every single day because the higher up you go, the lesser time you have and the lesser time you have, the lesser opportunity you have to do that same thing you love doing, which is why the higher up you go, you hire more people to help relieve you of time so that you can go back to doing the thing you used to love but it never really happens that way because the

In my opinion, passion is 80% of the success game because that’s what keeps you going through tough times. One of the things you must teach yourself is self-motivation which is a branch of emotional intelligence. It gives you an opportunity to clap for yourself when no one else is there to cheer you on. There are days you will be in the dark, and you might be there with friends, siblings or a spouse by your side, who knows you are hurting, but words might fail you to communicate exactly what the hurt is. It’s a place deep and vulnerable that you struggle to express it. So one thing that keeps you going is your passion because that is the only thing that can advise you in the dark place nobody else can reach.

When all is said and done, and you are in that deep dark confused space, you first need to ask yourself why you started the business in the first place. You have to constantly remind yourself of the reason you started. I have heard people say cash is the ultimate motivation, but I have seen people who have all the cash but zero passion and motivation, and at some point, they had to leave that line of business to look for something else. Have you seen a multi-millionaire leaving his business empire to go and start art? That’s the power of passion.

When you started Brand Envoy Africa, what was your first marketing strategy?

By Dimeji Akinloye

I’m an Accidental Entrepreneur – Lanre Adisa

Lanre Adisa is the founder of Noah’s Ark, a multiple award-winning marketing communication agency that redefined how advertising is perceived in Nigeria. He and his team are the brains behind the awesome Airtel ads that could pass as comic short films and a host of other visual creatives that captivates nearly every Nigerian household.

Despite building a vibrant and internationallyrecognised marketing firm ranked No. 21 Ad agency worldwide and No. 1 in sub-Saharan Africa, Adisa wouldn’t take credit for that. He says he’s ‘just a bloody copywriter.’

In this interview, he tells Business Elites Africa how he quit a good-paying job with no safety net to start Noah’s Ark, which he believed was a higher purpose. He also talks about how he landed his first client and the setbacks that followed.

at the University?

I did not know anything about advertising back in the University, but like you said, yes, I studied Linguistics and English at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State. But my genuine interest was in writing more than

anything else. Linguistics could be technical sometimes, so I didn’t find it interesting, and that was why I actually combined it with English because I was more interested in literature. Combining it with English gave me a chance to take credit for all I was doing. Having said that, because of my love for writing, I was involved in campus journalism and creative writing.

As a matter of fact, I was the editor of the creative writing club magazine before I left the University. I took over from the current MD of ThisDay newspapers, Eniola Bello. What I enjoyed the most was the creative writing class. I knew I wanted to write; I just did not know what form or shape it would

What sparked your interest in marketing communications considering you studied Linguistics and English

take. The two career options I had at the time were journalism and academia. But during my compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), one thing led to another other, and I ran into someone who was the MD of an advertising agency.

He discovered I had a flair for writing, and he encouraged me. He gave me a list of some agencies I could apply to, and I wrote to a couple of them. There was a particular one I never wrote to that opened that year in 1990. That was MC&A Saatchi & Saatchi. I got introduced to see the director, and we talked, and the next thing he asked me was when I would want to start work. I was like, ‘start work?’ I didn’t expect things to move that fast because I was observing my NYSC in Ibadan at the time. Then he said, ‘if you’re really interested in this, I’d advise you to take up this opportunity now.’ So I did my last month of service at MC&A Saatchi & Saatchi as a trainee copywriter. That was where I started, and I’ve not looked back since then because it gave me a chance to write, which was my ultimate aim. Although I struggled a bit in reconciling my love for literary writing with commercial writing, but things resolved themselves down the line.

How did your career progress from there to when you founded your company, Noah’s Ark?

First and foremost, Saatchi & Saatchi was the best way to start my career. I spent four years there. I am grateful that I started there because it was like every other Saatchi & Saatchi agency worldwide. It was the number agency globally at the time, and the mantra was ‘nothing is impossible.’ They did a lot of wonderful stuff, and those in the Lagos office felt like we were part of that big community. It’s good for a young person with raw talent to write to start from such a place. It gave me a worldview that has not departed since then.

So, after four years at MC&A Saatchi & Saatchi, it seemed like the steam was going down a little bit, and there were some managerial and management issues, so I decided to leave my job. But I did not know where to go because I couldn’t think of any other agency like Saatchi & Saatchi. So,

I resorted to freelancing for close to one year. I was offering my copywriting skills to interested agencies. That one year gave me freedom and time to reflect and think. I came into advertising with the infatuation to write, but the one year made me realise the importance of my role regarding the brands I’ve had the opportunity to work with. It is a responsibility, but people don’t seem to know that you could actually take a brand up or down.

So, for an existential reason, I had to return to the advertising agency setting because I was going to get married in 1995 and needed to put food on the table, and freelancing was not doing that for me. I just took the next available advertising job to get back into the industry. But I became a wiser person. The one-year break was a blessing for me. I will advise people that if they are at a crossroads in life, they should just take a break because it really worked for me. I came back a different person.

I took a job at Rosabel Advertising agency and spent six months there, the shortest I ever did anywhere. This was because when I was ready to return to the industry, I spoke to some gentlemen

I was consulting for who used to be at Saatchi & Saatchi. I asked them to employ me, but they said they couldn’t afford to hire me at the time because they were just starting their agency.

They were the ones that even recommended that Rosabel might be a good fit for me. That was how I joined Rosabel. Two months later, the gentlemen came back and said can we hire you now?

I said, but I gave you guys a chance, it would be very rude of me to