AISOP should not be a one-size-fits-all decision— Fatai Odesile
By Zion Rufus
Coming against the backdrop of the long standing issue of the recently promulgated Advertising Industry Standard of Practice which has increasingly generated controversy in the Nigerian marketing communications space, Managing Director/CEO, Float Distilleries Limited, Aare Fatai Odesile has stated that the reform should not be a one-size-fits-all decision even as he appealed to APCON to readdress the issue from a media, advertising agencies, and marketers point of view.
Odesile made this submission during the just concluded agenda-setting IMC Quarterly virtual conversation initiated by the prestigious MARKETING EDGE Publication to address pressing issues in the industry.
“AISOP should not be a one size fits all kind of decision,” Odesile stated. “We need to look at it much more critically by focusing on the totality of marketing communications rather than singling out things that will benefit only advertising agencies. The reform should also address some of the headaches of advertisers; if we want this reform to be all encompassing, it should be a totality of what the industry needs at this point.”
The Advertising Industry Standard of Practice (AISOP) which took effect from 6th of October, 2021 was introduced by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) as the new guideline for all advertising practices in Nigeria. Although the standard of practice was birthed after the thorough joint brainstorming of an all-inclusive committee made up of all sectoral groups in the industry in collaboration with APCON to produce a suitable framework that defines a minimum standard, in order to have equal and fairly represented opinions that will form the guidelines of the entire advertising ecosystem, some bodies faulted the regulations.
Odesile continued: “Even though two months have passed since AISOP was initiated, there are still very hot issues. Yes, reform is very difficult. People are always resistant to change. Particularly, We need to bring into focus the issues that stemmed from the fact that there are ten sectoral groups, but 9 out of these ten are practically suppliers of advertising services. So if we say advertising reform, at least 9 out of ten are already ok with it, we might end up missing a critical point.”
In his concluding remarks, Odesile appealed to the APCON Registrar, Dr. Lekan Fadolapo to address the issue from a tripod stand where there is the media, advertising agencies, and then the marketers.
“I would like to appeal to the registrar to address this issue from the tripod stand where we have the media, advertising agencies, and then the marketers and from that point drive the partnership. It should be a collective cooperation, that is what we need, and I believe it will be the bedrock for progress. Let’s work together as an industry, we need collective industry cooperation to move forward if we don’t want to create chaos,” he concluded.
Themed “Advertising Industry reform, To Be or not To Be?” the conversation held the presence of industry stakeholders and sectoral heads including Registrar of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, Sectoral heads of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN, Steve Babaeko, Media Independent Practitioners Council of Nigeria, MIPAN, Femi Adelusi, Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria, EXMAN; Group Director, Marketing & Corporate Communications, UBA, Bola Atta; Kehinde Salami, Past President of the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN); Maureen Akachi-Ngwu, Business Director of MediaSeal WPI; and Omo Kingsley Abunene, Managing Director of Beam Media Ltd amongst others.
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