Experts advocate more engagement on regulations in 2023
By Oghale Mafuru
To enhance deeper knowledge and support for the new advertising law, introduced by the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON, experts in the industry have urged the apex advertising regulatory body to focus on stakeholders’ engagement and enforcement of existing regulations and suspend further promulgation in 2023.
The advertising professionals who spoke separately to MARKETING EDGE called for increased consultation of key stakeholders in the industry to facilitate deep understanding of the law as it will foster inclusivity and encourage compliance.
Mr. Femi Adelusi, President of the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria, MIPAN and Chief Executive Officer of BrandEye/BrainBox Media, lauded the new advertising regime under leadership of Dr Olalekan Fadolapo and implored the regulatory agency to drive compliance and enforcement next year rather than introducing more regulations.
He said: “I think the first thing should be to implement the ones that have been announced already. The idea shouldn’t be over-regulation. The ones that have been announced, you need to drive enforcement and compliance. There should be lots of engagement to ensure that people understand it”.
Commenting on the need to ensure that laws are internalised for easy compliance, the MIPAN boss noted that the regulatory agency should focus on driving the effectiveness of the existing regulations through critical review and assessment.
“They should ensure that contracts that are signed before the regulations have a chance to be reviewed or updated. They shouldn’t rush to more regulations. I think it should do more of engagement in 2023 to see how the regulations already introduced are now taking effect and how compliance and enforcement is applied.
“My view is that 2023 should be less of new regulations but more of driving the implementations of the amendment or review the effectiveness of the ones already introduced” he stressed.
For Olawale Adegoke, Chief Executive Officer of Nimbus Media Limited, the recently introduced advertising laws is not in the interest of stakeholders as it seeks to burden them financially through over-regulation.
He said: “I believe these are more of revenue generation tactics rather than really about regulation and protection of the industry and players. I don’t think there was enough consultation with the people, the real players in the industry with regards to this. So for 2022, I saw that even though ARCON was really active, I think it was more on top-line revenue generation or generation of tax money and being able to get more from the people to vet ads and for people to basically place ads on platforms where ARCON doesn’t really have any real structure to be able to monitor”.
“I can see that there is a real revenue drive in terms of trying to find ways to tax the creatives and the advertising sector especially the digital sector” he added.
Speaking on his expectations for 2023, the Nimbus Media boss urged ARCON to intensify efforts in stakeholders’ engagement and capacity development.
“What I will serve as expectation for 2023 even though I am a little bit pessimistic about it happening, is having real consultation and that is going to cost them a lot of time, patience and they have to put resources into it also.
Recall that Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON has over the last eleven months promulgated series of regulations backed by the new Advertising law which was signed by President Muhammadu Buhari to further give credence to the Advertising Industry Standards of Practice, AISOP law which was introduced earlier.
Upon assumption of office, the Director General of the apex advertising regulatory body, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo had pledged commitment to herald a paradigm shift in the industry which will position it for growth.
In the last eleven months, the industry has witnessed immense changes that has never been seen since its inception, The biggest being the name change from the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON to the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON which was followed by the enactment of the ARCON law.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Comment
No comments found.