Sola Akinsiku is current President of Out -Of – Home Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) , one of the key sectorial group in Nigeria’s Integrated Marketing Communications Industry . He takes a critical overview of emerging global trends in media and advertising, touching the regulatory challenges, technology evolutions impact and AI revolution. In all, he is of the view that to instil professionalism to the practice is sure way to go for growth of the industry. Clifford Amuzuo, News-Mart’s Chief Editor captured views of this advertising industry veteran during a recent media interactive chat. EXCERPTS :
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OAAN PRESIDENT, SOLA AKINSIKU
How would you describe the working relationships between OAAN, your Association ARCON the industry regulator
In a simple response, I should say its cordial, it’s on mutual respect, cordial to the extent that, today in the industry today ARCON has a role to play and so does OAAN as a professional Association, so its cordial.
Let’s come to technology, AI is the in thing now, people keep talking about A I, how AI is the future and now it’s even the prpresent. How would you describe the over reliance of brands on AI driven insights , don’t you think its going to affect human creativity.
No, I do not think so, remember that AI itself is a product of human creativity, it is and even as we discuss AI, u have advanced technology in that regard, so humans will cotinine to create things that will challenge human beings , and so I do not see AI as something that has come to disrupt or that can disrupt creativity,. Creativity itself, original creativity is something that takes cognizance of emotions , that takes cognizance of human sensibility, that which resides with human beings, so AI may help in execution , AI can not think for you, you will think for AI, it’s the garbage you put in that AI manipulates and works with and gives an output. Yes, it may be faster but AI can not replace intuitions, insights, emotions and all of that. I believe creativity still resides in man.
You keep on hammering on the power of data, data is very important but don’t think if creativity is data led and not insight driven don’t you think it’s going to have an effect on dada.
Well, data is life and in Marketing Communications data is eeverything.Again the reliance on dada is all about taking the appropriate decisions, you want to know how many people will read, where they live , their nuances , their reading patterns, their life styles, all of these are available and they are to help informed decisions. So we will continue to rely on dada. For instance, Let us come into an organization , by 20th of the month, the relevant departments begins to plan for salaries and emolument and things like that , they rely on dada, how many people do we have, what is and what is, and then you have the data readily made available to you. In marketing communications you want to say the right things to the right people, data gives the information to say the right thing to the right people, considering the type of response you anticipated , so we will continue to rely on dada and like I said, for AI, an advanced form of reliance on dada is also on the way, remember also even in the bible, we are told that whatever a man can think he cannot deny them of , and Napoleon Hill, in the title of his book “Think and grow rich”, he says whatever the mind of man can think of and belief, this he can achieve, so we will continue to conceive great ideas, we will continue to come up with great ideas and they will continue to serve us and when they are serving us we may feel challenged, oh are they not going to take over, and so I do not see over reliance on dada, the right kind of data and that is the essence of researches, to come up with data that supports informed decisions.
I want to refer to one of the things that u once said, u said OAAN is gearing to deepen its identity within the integrated marketing communications ecosystem, so why is it important in your Association for practitioners to be media owners rather than just advertisers.
That’s an interesting question, but the answer is also clearly on the table. There is a difference between advertising and media exexposure.Yes outdoor advertising may have assumed that name because it is primarily a platform for the display of advertisements, advertising messages, but look at it very critically, truly speaking out of home advertising , you look at out of home media ownership, not everybody in Out of home is an advertising person, but virtually every person is a media platform owner, and now let me explain, creating an advertisement is the exclusive preserve of the creative agencies, so giving or creating the platform for exposure is also the exclusive preserve of Out of Home media owners. Now you look at broadcasting, you look at your television, you look at your radio, you have radio advertising, but that has not removed the fact that radio is a separate media platform, if you look at television advertising, that also has not removed from the fact that television is a separate platform, Out of Home advertising and Out of Home media are two different engagements, the creative agencies create out of home advertising, advertising that people are exposed to when they are outside the comforts of their homes, it does not include the media platforms. Insight Communications may create out of home advertising messages for Nestle for instance but if you take an out of home media platform for that out of home message, to expose, the same way for radio, the same way for television, the same way for Newspapers, the same way for magazines , you don’t create advertising and so you can’t say Magazine advertising, that does not make media owners advertising practitionerd. Now having said that, owners of out of home media platforms can also be advertising practitioners, like an accountant can also be an advertising practitioner, we a number of Chartered Accountants that are now into advertising practice. Am a Fellow of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria,, now ARCON, I became a Fellow about fifteen years ago, so am an advertising practitioner, and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, I choose any of these professions where I want to operate, Out of Home media platform is not truly outdoor advertising, it helps outdoor advertising to give exposure to out of home advertising messages and that’s the difference. Now talking about creating an identity, you will agree with me that, that is a sector that is seriously challenged and that is why you see a couple of outputs out there that are nauseating to say the least, so the essence is to professionalize. I gave the example of advertising practice earlier on, before 1988 that decree 555or so came, everybody will claim to be an advertising person, and so some gentlemen, the likes of Ayo Owoborode, Sir Steve Omojafor Dr Biodun Sobanjo, the leaders of this industry , the late I S Moemeke, they came together and said , common, we have a profession. Let us professionalize it, so it is not something that anybody can just wake up and say I am into this. It doesn’t happen in Accounting,regardless of how many years you have spent with an Accounti g firm or Audit firm, you can’t wake up and say you’ve spent 20 years and so you are also an Accountant, no, you can’t do that, you can’t do that also in Law,and that’s what happened that APCO N came into being, and I tell u when APCON came it brought dignity into the practice of Advertising, oh, everybody that was in the environment wanted to belong. I am privileged to have joined APCON in 1994 or thereabouts, and I joined them as Head of research and public Relations and then later moved as the Head of Vetting and Inspectorate, at a point I was the Secretary of ASP, it was an honour, you felt you are in a profession, so that is the kind of thing we are creating for out of home media professionals, let there be standards, let there be professionalism, let there be sanity, let there be excellence. Let there be returns on investment, on the visible communications investment of advertisers. So we want to come together and say these are the people that are into the profession. Today what you have is gross challatinsm in outdoor advertising, anyone can just wake up and put up any contraption and say am doing outdoor, it has to be professionalized, we have to bring decency into it, we have to bring excellence into it, and we have to distinguish between the individuals practicing it , it’s not an all comers thing, whoever wants to or anyone of us in this room who chooses to become a Lawyer will have to go through the process. I have examples of individuals that have reached the peak of their professions and and at one point they say am lacking in Law, let me go back to school and study Law, it brings dignity. Regardless of how many years you have spent in Gani Fawehinmi Chambers and after Gani Fawehinmi you move to Femi Falana and then you are staying 15 years and then you are saying let me go and buy my own wig, I am a lawyer, no, it’s not allowed and that’s the kind of thing we are trying to do, so that people who practice out home media are professional, it goes much more than owning billboards out there , so much goes into out of home advertising. Do you know that some of the structures you see out there are enough to build 15 story buildings, to put up a Super 48 sheet billboard is in excess of 1.5 million, and some of the mega structures you see, the foundation alone is in excess of 10million , so it is not a sector that people who are not serious minded go about the business, some rush into it because they think that oh, after Oil and gas its outdoor, and so they rush into outdoor and 2,3 months, the billions are not rolling in the way they expected they abandon it. A professional does not abandon the ship, you will continue to improve yourself, you will continue to cope with the challenges, that’s the kind of thing we are trying to create. When you alk about creating an identity it’s not that we do not have an identity but we are only trying to bring professionalism into it, and then the problem government will be lessened and then the problem on the environment will reduce and then everyone will be proud of out of home media practice . Like I said, there is a distinction between Out of Home advertising and Out of Home Media practice.
What’s your message for Out of Home media advertising practitioners navigating regulatory and technological shifts.
On regulatory issues, it is important to be on the side of the Law at all times. Weather a Law is good or bad it is the Law until it is vacated. And I have told the people, when you want to drive to anywhere in the world you must have to have the driver’s license of that locality, regardless of how much you hate driving, or you hate that country or regardless of how much you disagree with the political leadership of that country. In Nigeria here , if u must drive here you must have a driver’s license, and so to practice advertising in whatever form, you must abide with, you must agree with, you must run with the regulations, and its not only in Out of Home, you can’t expose any advertisement that has been classified without having it approved, no you can’t do that, you may not like it but you have to do it. ARCON has to certify that this is good for human consumption . So I want to request or advise that whoever must practice both in Out of Home, even media buying, those who create advertisements, there are things you can’t say in your advertisement, I am privileged to know that because I was Secretary to ASP, I was head of Vetting in APCON at a time and so I know there are things you must not leak, and so you must abide with the rules and regulations. Now as of technology, I want to say even at this meeting that Out of Home is the one has the highest input of technology and I also want to include engineering, you will have to borrow and you will have to abide with technical requirements to put up some of the billboards that we have today in casting the foundation, so from the foundation to fabrication to even installation, all of them have technology directives in moving, giving instructions and so you can not fail to abide with technological instructions and so I would advise my colleagues to continue to invest in technology, in researches, modern technology has helped Out of Home quite significantly and what television can not do, Outdoor can do now, so technology is affecting Out of Home and Out of Home practitioners, whoever wants to excel there must cope with the pace of advertisers, you know technological advancements and discoveries are also for the advertisers, and so if you must offer service that the advertisers would want to pay for you would therefore have to invest in technology.
What’s your assessment of Nigeria’s Marketing Communications ecosystem, are there things which you think should change for us to be more competitive and future ready.
I will say the Marketing industry is growing, we are coping with the demands of advertisers, coping with the demands of even consumers, but again the challenges of infrastructure, the challenges of data, the challenges of internet are there, for us to be competitive we must invest in all of these, we must invest in Marketing communications technology, we must invest even in AI regardless of weather we see it as a challenge, it’s never a challenge, it helps execution, my take is that the Marketing communications industry in Nigeria is growing but still need to improve collaborations among the various sectors to make. For individual sectoral growth, to make informed contribution into the pool of Marketing Communications, remember advertising derives from marketing and not the other way round.
