AAAN President predicts enhanced growth in agencies’ business by 2020
President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Ikechi Odigbo, has projected that despite the down turn in business fortune experienced by agency practitioners during the course of the outgoing year 2019, the industry is bound to witness a rebound for improved growth performance by agencies in the New Year, 2020.
The association’s boss has hinged his optimism on a number of positive considerations, including that, even as the business drought lasted, advertisers would need to advertise in order to continue to maintain their share of spend, their share of wallet and share of mind.
Odigbo who spoke exclusively with MARKETING EDGE on the occasion of the just ended Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF Awards), noted that advertising agencies had long become more nimble, more flexible and more innovative in terms of their service offering delivery over time.
“It’s been a tough year, but I believe that the industry is on a rebound because even when we were going through tough times, advertisers needed to advertise in other to continue to maintain their share of spend, and share of wallet and heart. So, that has helped.”
According to the AAAN boss who also is Vice Chairman/Chief Executive, DDB Lagos, most advertising agencies were now providing activations support as well as digital support services while not depending just on ATL (Above –The-Line), they are also extending their offerings to cover the BTL (Bellow-The-Line), alongside their creative services.
“Of course advertising agencies have become more nimble, more flexible, and more innovative in terms of the portfolio of offerings they deliver. So, most advertising agencies are providing activations support, they are providing digital support, not just depending on ATL, they are also extending their offerings to the BTL and creative services,” he added.
On future plans of the association towards repositioning the LAIF awards, the AAAN boss disclosed moves by the association to further expand upon the scope of the awards to now include creative exhibitions by advertising agencies and corporate clients with a view to enabling them showcase their creativity and innovations in brand building.
He added that henceforth the awards would witness improvements in the quality of resource persons and facilitators for the annual seminar to make it as international as possible and be able to attract first choices, not just a seminar of delegates from within the advertising sector but rather from the marketing industry in general.
“If you attend a Cannes or Lories festival, a very big and major aspect is the exhibition by both creative agencies and also corporate clients who are able to show their creativity and innovation in brand building and that’s a very important learning experience for those who are participating in the awards.
“Yes, there will always be room for improvement, possibly in terms of timing, we would like to start early and close early so that guest are not kept waiting till very long hours in the day. We want to improve on the logistics, and most importantly on the sponsorship support. I believe most of the corporate sponsors are beginning to have sponsorship fatigue because year in year out we continue to go to corporate orgnisations to ask for sponsorship support. We want to be able to redouble our sponsorship bundle in a way that it will attract more revenue and more resources,” he concluded.
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