Advertising moves in sympathy with the economy – Dr. Fadolapo
By Felicia Nwosu
Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, Registrar, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), has said that advertising moves in sympathy with the economy during an economic downturn, as it bears the brunt and adverse effect of economic hardship rising from the effect of such period.
The Registrar stated this while assessing the advertising industry in the age of Covid-19 during an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE. He affirmed the industry was adversely affected in all ramifications by the pandemic.
“Covid-19 or not, if a company is doing well, it tends to pump money into advertising, and immediately the company has problem, the first thing to cut off in search of cost reduction is advertising instead of investing more. Indeed, the pandemic outbreak had an obvious effect on the industry negatively.”
The apex regulator boss noted that the impact of Covid-19 on advertising is very huge, resulting to pressures from clients who are worried on their return on investment.
Hear him: “Most of these major spenders are still battling with Covid-19, the SMEs are also down, the industry has been negatively affected because some have started questioning advertising spend, while being mindful of their return on investment. Advertising is more of an investment presently, as they put their cost of capital and ask what percentage of returns will be accrued from there. We are pushing and hoping, we will also make submission to government to see where and how we can have some palliative of support for the advertising industry.”
Giving his response on whether the pandemic also redefined advertising and its regulations, Dr. Fadolapo maintained that it has affected both the industry and its regulations greatly.
“I can tell you for free that even beyond advertising, businesses will no longer be the same again. Some new introduction that I have learnt from Covid-19 is the fact that I don’t need all the staff and space. We can work off stations; these are going to affect the operating cost, which is more on organisation. With this, you can redistribute your cost and improvise with lean staff – so Covid-19 really affected the way we used to work.”
Responding on how APCON is leveraging the unbundling of Mass Communication, the advertising guru confirmed that the need to unbundle and have advertising as a profession was a good step in the right direction, while acknowledging the input of the Council in preparation of the paper before presenting to National Universities Commission (NUC).
“The problem of any industry or the future of the industry depends on talents we are able to attract. If you employ graduates with Mass Communication degree, in most cases, they cannot hit the ground and start running immediately. It takes them time to settle down because advertising is more like an option for them in their final year. Now that we have advertising as a degree in the university, we are also partnering with them to develop the curriculum in such a way that expectations of the industry are met. It will look more like academia and the industry coming together. So, we provide more of a bridge and a platform for the advertising industry.”
The industry leader in his futuristic approach noted that ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. He expressed optimism over the future of Nigeria’s advertising industry.
“Going into the future, we are working on the Standard of Practice now. How do we increase our advertising spend – how do we encourage more money spending into advertising? All are ways of building for the future. We believe that we should be able to support the system and create a fair and equity driven business environment where both the advertisers, agencies and the media can also see a future in the advertising ecosystem.”
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