Digital marketers kick against social media regulation, demand representation on APCON, AAAN Awards
Digital marketing practitioners, under the umbrella of Association of Digital Marketing Professionals of Nigeria, (ADMPN) have expressed serious resentment over recent actions of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) aimed at regulating advertising activities on social media platforms
The marketers who expressed their grievances recently during a media chat with MARKETING EDGE said they were completely opposed to APCON’s recent pronouncements to impose special levies as well as outright ban on advertisements via the social media.
Making known the groups position on the issue recently was a digital marketing expert, and member of the organisation, Tunde Badmus who described the move by the regulatory body as being out of place and capable of stifling business activities of digital firms on the social media.
Similarly, the group expressed further reservations on what is perceived as “poor representation” of its members’ activities on industry awards organised by Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN).
The group maintained that with a wide spectrum of activities all over the social media, its member agencies deserved greater representations in various categories of the awards.
According to Badmus, who is Founder and Head of Innovation at Spark Something, a digital advertising platform, the group was finalising plans to make formal demands for representation and recognition by APCON, adding that being represented on the council would create opportunities for wider consultations for a more effective regulation in the industry.
“A body like APCON is a respected body because of all that they do. There has been a lot of checks and balances because of its activities in terms of even consumer rights and all that and which makes sense. But there is this recent development where we don’t have a digital arm in APCON. I believe we are not represented in that body; if we are, then the recent ban on online ads, if it was properly thought out, wouldn’t have come into place at all,” he said.
He explained further that APCON’s decision to impose financial demands on the digital firms was completely out of place after all, considering that the digital firms were already making payments to internet platform managers such as Google, Facebook, and instagram, hence it amounted to putting excess pressure on clients to make more payments.
He noted that while it was in the interest of the group to remain as part of the existing industry awards, the AAAN should re-examine its stance by giving more recognition to digital advertising agencies in the various award categories.
“Yes we don’t want to go about setting up our own awards, we want to be part of the present industry awards; but we realise that just a small part of the categories actually come to us from the awards that are given out at the AAAN awards. We do a lot more than that and so if that can be possible, why not?” He asked.
On the issue of 120 days credit policy proposal by the multinational companies, the agency boss said the credit policy was inimical to the growth aspirations of the digital firms who were predominantly Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, adding that the group would make formal demands to concerned stakeholders for a possible reversal of the credit policy.
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