EXMAN: Practitioners lament non-implementation of rate card
Experiential Marketing Practitioners in Nigeria are not happy about the delay in the implementation of the rate card policy which was announced last year by the Experiential Marketing Association of Nigeria (EXMAN).
The rate card was proposed by the EXMAN executive in order to bring sanity to the billing process in the industry and foster professionalism among practitioners.
It would be recalled that the association said it would introduce the policy from the first week of January this year. However, the first quarter of the year has passed and the implementation of the rate card is yet to commence.
Managing Director, GDM Direct, Mr. Gbenga Afolabi, said that the plan to introduce the rate card was a laudable venture taken by the association. However, the non-implementation of the rate card was affecting practitioners and has made the industry extremely fragmented.
According to him, it will be a very difficult task to implement the rate card and have a uniform rates amongst the agencies, stressing that it was about 40 agencies that came together to form EXMAN while there are over two hundred agencies that operates within the sector because of low barrier of entry.
He said: “EXMAN has taken a giant step in terms of the rate card, we are working towards it together with them, we are strongly a member of EXMAN, and we look forward to even have a harmonizer rate card. It is tough because on the clients side, there will be push back. Of course, we are even in a recessed economy and so when you agree on a rate card, you have a few people who are not honouring them, so it is a process, while I believe in it, I think it is a laudable objective but some of these things takes a while to happen because of the diversity of the people“.
The GDM boss noted that there are many quacks parading themselves as professionals.
“Quite a number of people in the BTL industry never worked in a structured environment, and they have no clue how organizations should run, many of them are accidental entrepreneurs, they just stumbled into it, some of them the whole industry that they have ever worked all through their life is the BTL, some of them were rig boys who rose and then floated an agency, so when you look at cumulatively that level of experience.
“They have not worked in very structured environment, so it comes with its own changes, people are not able to appreciate the benefit of a structured environment or structured organization or institutions and how it helps grow the industry as a whole, so because of all these different knowledge level, age gaps, perception, outlook paradigms, it takes a while to form this things together but I believe by and large that it is a work in progress, it is a journey and we will solve it soon.” Afolabi added.
Speaking in the same vein, Managing Director of Connect Marketing, Mr. Tunji Adeyinka, said that the non-implementation of the rate card was adversely affecting practitioners in the industry.
He further said that the non-implementation of the rate card couple with the low barrier of entry in the industry has given room to unprofessional practices in the BTL industry.
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