Advertising should allow for extensive creativity, innovation – Akinpelu
By Abimbola Mohammed
Sherif Lanre Akinpelu, Deputy Director, Strategy & Planning, SVP Communication Solutions, has said that advertising is a profession that commands trends and, should be especially appealing to those who are looking for a full-time job that allows for leisure, extensive creativity and innovation.
However, the young creative, who is determined to revolutionize Nigeria’s advertising space, in an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE, lamented how religion and conservatism are drawing back today’s practitioners from exploring the world of advertising in its raw form. According to him, the adverting profession used to be fondly innovative, but over the years, creativity is really getting straightjacketed in the ad industry.
“Advertising used to be fun; the people that worked in advertising in the past used to be the people that are trend setters. They used to be the ones that determined and influenced culture – what we wore, and the kind of music we listened to. But many contemporary advertisers are too religious to influence culture; some of them are too old and out of touch with trends,” he said.
Taking a walk down memory lane on how he joined the advertising profession because of a few cool people he admired in the industry, Akinpelu added: “I for instance joined advertising because I saw Franklin Ozekhome. I knew I never wanted to wear suit and I saw how Franklin looks dapper and I said, let me find out what this guy does for a living. But then I can hardly point to people I want to be like now in the industry (No disrespect). Many of us joined because it’s a cool profession; creatives have power, we are informed, we are the people that know where the fun is.”
The adman, therefore, urged professionals to be trailblazers, and not rigid minded people who cannot set trends.
“We are no longer reckoned with in entertainment, in fashion we are nowhere to be found; agencies don’t even have platforms that they are creating anymore – they have to rely on external platforms like Big brother Naija. Even Insight Publicis that created Gulder Ultimate Search – they just have to bring such platforms back again,” he said.
On what practitioners need to make advertising cool and appealing again, Akinpelu noted: “We need to operate advertising business as a fun business; we can’t be all too serious and I am not saying advertising is not a serious business but a mixture of fun and business. We have removed the fun. We are just chasing the money. I know the money is important, but what is work without fun? It is getting boring by the day and if we continue this way the future of advertising is bleak, because we’ll be struggling to get younger people to join the profession.”
He submitted that conservatism has no place in advertising, stressing that professional admen in Nigeria should be celebrated globally just like the founding fathers of advertising.
“Show me a globally celebrated Nigerian adman. What about books published by older advertising practitioners? Most of the advertising/marketing books we read were written by foreigners. We have cool advertising gurus in Nigeria, but what we lack is packaging,” he said.
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