APCON gathers experts on possibilities of local creative production
By Ibidunni Banjoko
The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) gathered some experts in the industry to deliberate on the possible ways of developing local commercial production in the country.
The event, with “Producing Advertisement and Commercial in Nigeria: Issues and Challenges” as its theme, had Femi Odugbemi Founder/CEO Zuri24 Media as the keynote speaker, Olumide Olowole, CEO/MD Yellow Brick Road, Onyeka Okoli, marketing manager group portfolio, Jotna Nigeria plc and Yinka Oduniyi, ITPAN President, as panelists.
While presenting, Mr. Odugbemi said: “We have to be intentional in the national interest, if we have learnt anything from the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. We know that it is a huge security risk for any country not to be sufficient in the supply chain of its most critical industries.
“In fact, the creative industry of every nation must recognize that a new future awaits it based on how it does business budget on commercial production. The impact per higher insurance cost and travel time for cruise are going to be longer. Carrying some production equipment will continue to rise without a doubt and Covid-19 protocols will complicate more production processes everywhere in the world for quite a bit of time to come.”
He further said: “That may be our call to invest now in developing our own capacity. We must be deliberate; the development in any sector means productivity and growth of local content, training and retraining of human resource capacity and being careful with capital intensive projects in the economy.
“Nigeria economy will soon make outsourcing of products abroad prohibited budget wise. The negative trending naira against dollar will inevitably continue as long as we produce nothing locally. We must begin the necessary steps to redeem resources and empower human capital that will upscale the quality of outcome from our locally produced commercials – the best time to do it is now.”
He continued: “In many ways, we have embraced technology and the opportunities that it brings to connect our creativity and imagination on many levels across borders into the Diaspora, and that is happening in the music industry and Nollywood as well. So many TVCs have been licensed and commissioned by global platforms like Netflix, Amazon, African Magic etc. not to speak of thousands of Nigerian youth who are running YouTube channels and aggregating massive numbers of subscribers.
“Technology is doing a lot of good in terms of giving access to as many of our young people as possible to create and to tell their stories using their talent.”
Commenting on technical qualities, Mr. Odugbemi said young people have been impressive, especially in the areas of animation and design, while advising agencies to be at the forefront of appropriating the best talents in storytellers from all industries and making them globally competitive on merits.
Also speaking, Olumide Olowole mentioned some of the limitations of local production as equipment, skill and the quality of actors that are being used in the local production, among others.
Yinka Oduniyi, on his part, suggested that more opportunities should be given to local production for better output.
In the same vein, Onyeka Okoli tasked practitioners to encourage and have confidence in themselves, noting that things will change for good over time.
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