‘Why govt must shun another rebranding campaign’

The President of Association of Advertising Agency of Nigeria (AAAN), Mr. Kelechi Nwosu has said that what Nigeria needs is a re-orientation campaign and not another rebranding effort. He, therefore, urged that government should not sink energy and fund to finance another rebranding effort. He also noted that government’s communication and campaigns often failed to make the needed impact because the executors think of effort first and not effectiveness and efficiency.

Speaking in Lagos last week, Nwosu said to achieve better result government should engage professionals and communication experts in the industry that are available in advertising agencies. He, however, called on the Federal Government to expedite action on re-constituting Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) Council, saying, “We hear that they are in the process but that process is getting too slow, which is affecting everything else that we do. You can imagine the medical profession not having any regulatory council in place, though there is a regulator but no council to empower it.

“Governments, even before now, have not used communication experts the way they should use them. It is really nothing new but in this particular situation, we have opened some doors. One of the good things that had happened is that the Registrar of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Alhaji Bello Kankarofi, is convinced that government should work with communication experts in our industry.

“One of the first things he did was to invite me to speak at the government information officers’ workshop. And the topic I discussed with them was, ‘Why and how they can work with advertising agencies in our fold’ to make sure that government communication is effective. It requires persistent communication to them and sometimes it is because of ignorance and some other reasons apart from effectiveness.

“The thing with government is that we need to keep educating them. It is work in progress; I cannot say we have opened all the doors but we have opened some via APCON. One of the flaws I see in government communication is that they think effort first and not effectiveness or efficiency. It has been done; you push it out there. So government communication requires much more support from communication experts for it to change.”

The AAAN president also highlighted some progrommes of the body, and stated that the association’s advertising academy would take off in the first quarter of the year. Kelechi further talked about its public advocacy project aimed at building campaigns around unity and anti-corruption.

On how the downturn in the economy would likely affect marketing communication industry, Nwosu was optimistic, saying stakeholders needed not cry over it because it was a general problem. He, however, said that advertising revenue would drop and that transport fares might go up.

“It is, therefore, in our best interest to put up constructive suggestions to government on how to build the economy.

“On our part, we need to start thinking like creative people. What I told the people in my office was that we can no longer do things the same way as clients’ brief may no longer come the way they used to, but we got to be a lot more proactive. We got to open doors and initiatives that we can sell to government and the people; that is the way out. So, we got to diversify the economy and creative solutions to create wealth and productivity”.