Advertising group canvasses mergers and acquisition, honors industry leaders
The Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) has shown great respect and admiration to some renowned captains of industry in the country. The honour came on the heels the AAAN’s 48th, and first since the new leadership came into office, Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Congress which held recently in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Steve Babaeko, President of the AAAN, who presided over the AGM/Congress with the theme: “Doom, Gloom, Doom! Where Do We Sit?” while giving the sectoral body’s one year scorecard, marshaled out strategies that, if applied, could take member agencies out of the prevailing economic doldrums.
In a speech titled “The Power Of Us”, Mr. Babaeko stated how his administration has defied all odds, made sacrifices, and dug into their pockets to support the Exco.
“In the past year, I am a living witness to the size of the mountain we all have moved just by working together as a team. We have also seen a good increase in the number of young and vibrant agencies that are now part of the AAAN family,” he said.
Stressing and reechoing partnership as a panacea to the Covid-19 pandemic-induced challenges, Mr. Babaeko enjoined advertising practitioners and agencies to collaborate more, insisting that the surefire means of exploiting the prosperity ahead of the current lull is merger and acquisition.
“We have seen more collaborative efforts among our members; take for example the SPV team of DDB, TBWA and YBR working together for more than 3 years on one of the big telco businesses in the country. I believe we need to have a special session where they hopefully can share some of the key learnings of such unprecedented partnership with us all. Indeed our industry is crying for more of that kind of mutually beneficial relationship.
“As we continue to brave the economic recovery journey of the following months and years to come, permit me to suggest what the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Sir Steve Omojafor, has repeated for years: Mergers and acquisition. The idea may have been muted way ahead of its time over a decade ago but there’s no better time than now to give it a good shot.”
Presenting a paper, Michel Elegbe, CEO of Interswitch, while advising practitioners to embrace technology more, mirrored the advertising sub-sector from an outsider’s point of view, adding that business is being snatched from agencies because of the ease with which consultants in other fields go into the industry.
In the same vein, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman, Managing Director of Sterling Bank, mentioned skill gap in technology and the tendency of their clients to poach talents in their employ as part of the reason why agencies are losing businesses.
On his part, Mr. Iyiola Aboyeji, Founder, Futures Africa, corroborated Mr. Babaeko’s emphasis on agency collaboration, noting that agencies that want to play in the financial technology sector should acquaint themselves with the sector.
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