Admen decry clients’penchant for hiring foreign firms against norm
Nigerian advertising practioners and key stakeholders have decried recent penchant by multinationals and brands to hire or contract businesses to foreign agencies in apparent disregard for the Nigerian codes on advertising practice.
This development has resulted in loss of billions in advertising revenue by Nigerian agencies to foreign markets, and further undermines the industry’s future growth prospect in the face of the economic recession.
The segments that have been mostly affected are the digital agencies, media agencies as well as the creative agencies. But the multiplier effect of this anomaly resonates far as it undermines Federal Government’s plans to create a diversified economy in order to tamper the shocks from the fallen global oil price.
MARKETING EDGE authoritatively gathered that some multinational advertisers have recently contracted their multi-billion naira advertising businesses to agencies in South Africa and other foreign countries in clear disregard for APCON laws, leaving the Nigerian with little or nothing.
Even though APCON laws allow for foreign participation in the Nigerian advertising business, it however insist that it must be done either by affiliation with a Nigerian agency or through corporate licensing and a direct equity investment.
This backdoor practice have understandably become a major source of concern to operators who have watched helplessly as their businesses are hijacked by their foreign counterparts, thereby eroding their revenue and long term profitability. Some of the operators are now expressing concerns that the protracted delay in the enforcement of the APCON laws which was primarily meant to protect the local practitioners against foreign hawks, are now seen to be encouraging multinationals to break the law with glee.
In a recent industry event held in Lagos which was attended by major stakeholders, former President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) Kelechi Nwosu, apparently agitated by the development, wondered why APCON Registrar Alhaji Garba Bello Kankaronfi has not done much on the implementation of the APCON reforms.
However, the APCON Registrar in his response disclose that the delay in enforcing the council’s new reforms was due to the fact that APCON decision making organ i.e the council is yet to be constituted. He nonetheless counseled agencies to provide the body with information foreigners and their local collaborators.
Another top practitioners, Ben Johnson specifically criticized multinationals who go ahead to invite foreign agencies to pitch and award them businesses at the expense of the Nigerian operators. “It is amazing that these clients are members of ADVAN who know the law,” Mr. Johnson said.
Our investigation reveals that the multinationals who engage in this practice always cite directives from their parent companies in Europe and America, in line with their policy on the globalization of marketing campaigns, which is designed as a way of conserving funds and reaping more handsomely from the Nigerian market without paying taxes.
But Johnson insists such excuses are unacceptable adding that companies that operate in Nigeria must be made to submit to local laws.
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