By Felicia Nwosu

In preparation to celebrate 10 years of excellence in the experiential marketing subsector, Tunji Adeyinka, President of the Experiential Marketing Association of Nigeria (EXMAN), has highlighted various activities lined up to make the association’s  anniversary historic and memorable. He also spotlighted some of the milestone achievements EXMAN has recorded so far to ensure that the industry is impacted positively.

Mr. Adeyinka affirmed that the association achieves this by supporting and engaging in multi-stakeholder and multi-level dialogues, all aimed at strengthening partnership and capacity of all actors.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE on TV, the EXMAN boss revealed that plans are underway to mark the anniversary with fanfare and glamour.

“For the rest of the year, we have a few programmes lined up as we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year with a bouquet of programmes. Firstly, we are going to be launching our bank. We are also going to be celebrating with those who have worked in this industry over a period of time and those who have contributed immensely to the growth of the industry.”

The marketing icon further said, “EXMAN awards and brand experience summit will also be coming up between 12 and 23 July, a two-day event.  It comes up every two years in July to reward those works done by experiential agencies. It was more of a virtual event last two years but this year, it will be more physical. It will be held at the popular Balmoral, Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.  EXMAN will also be launching its asset exchange platform, and other advocacy programmes.”

Adeyinka, since becoming president of EXMAN on 14th July 2021, and re-elected last year, has demonstrated unparalleled leadership quality in service and commitment by growing and strengthening the association in all ramifications. This includes helping to cultivate a vibrant and transformative collaboration both within the association and among other sectoral groups as well as efforts towards experiential marketing digital transformation. The association, under his leadership, has been supporting the building capacity of its members to enable them to leverage quality data for cutting-edge services to clients for transformative and sustainable impact.

Taking stock of the association’s progress and achievements in the last two years while exploring next steps for accelerating meaningful growth, the EXMAN boss said, “What we have done between then and now is to work closely with Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) in terms of taking some of the newly regulatory changes down to our members and ensuring that our members comply as much as possible. Also, we have been able in terms of empowering members with lots of training and quality to the infusion of some of the programmes we have done for them. Last year we had the Chief Executive Officer of Boot-camp, which helped our CEOS to look at some key business issues that they need to address as they do business in Nigeria.”

The sectoral leader, whose track record speaks for itself, has been striving towards ensuring the active participation of all stakeholders. This, he noted, is by introducing a value addition process where members can collaborate by renting out their experiential equipment and resources to truly foster transformative, game-changing partnerships among members.

“We have also, most recently at the last AGM, launched Gateway to Experiential Marketing platform where anyone who is coming to experiential marketing would look at standardizing what you call brand representative. Standardizing across industry by way of training, which means if I am a bank promoter and I am working for agency A, B or C, there are certain trainings that you don’t need to give me anymore because I have already had a certification from the Gateway to Experiential Marketing platform. This certification means that I have ABC, so what I need is DE at this point;  we launched that in March last year. Also, we have been able to do a lot in terms of advocacy and working with different agencies,” Adeyinka revealed.