Multiple regulation poses challenge to OOH – Ganiyu
By Felicia Nwosu
Adeniyi Ganiyu, Chief Executive Officer of EyeKontact Limited, one of Nigeria’s leading innovative outdoor advertising companies, has said that one of the biggest challenges confronting the growth of out-of-home practice in Nigeria is multiple regulations.
Mr. Ganiyu noted that state governments having separate agencies and different regulatory bodies with diverse laws on outdoor advertising has actually made things very difficult for practitioners. He, therefore, called on various state governments to intervene by making laws favourable to the growth of the out-of-home sub-sector.
Speaking to MARKETING EDGE in an exclusive interview, the OOH expert said: “Every sector in advertising has its own challenges. OOH challenges are there; they are known to practitioners, and the biggest of it is regulation. Each state has its own regulatory body with different regulations. Some of them are not even structured. You have multiple agencies claiming the same authority over an approval. There is inconsistent or non-uniformed regulation across the board as regards OOH. It is not helping the business and also not helping us to plan.
“Based on the nature of our business, when advertisers are bringing an account, everything has to go along together, 360. Once the radio is on, television is on, newspaper is on, OOH has to follow suit because everything has to complement one another. But in terms of regulation, we find it very difficult to get approval. Even if you get approval, if you want to move to a site, another person will come and say, no, you have to get my approval as well and it continues like that.”
The EyeKontact boss mentioned that the back and forth usually affect out-of-home practitioners and make them lose lots of businesses because the clients’ campaigns would have been running on other channels.
“They have to take back the budget to the other platforms. I know that the sectoral body, Outdoor Association of Nigeria (OAAN), is putting a lot of efforts to mitigate this so that within the shortest period of time, we can get our approval and get things done easily. Regulation is a major headache,” he said.
Mr. Ganiyu commended and appreciated the various transformations being witnessed in Nigeria’s OOH sub-sector, stating that OOH is evolving tremendously with new innovation. According to him, clients are beginning to see a new era of practice beyond business as usual in the ecosystem.
Speaking further, he revealed that his company, Eyekontact is one of the innovative solution providers that are challenging the status quo in that space but are restricted to display their innovative prowess due to some of the environmental challenges.
“For EyeKontact, our core competence is in the area of innovation. When you think of an innovation, you think EyeKontact. The challenge sometimes is: you have to struggle to see where to domesticate innovation here. There are no major parks that you can explore these ideas upon. Like the one we did for Martell recently, we struggled to get the space. It is actually reducing our vigour in pushing those innovative skills forward because they have to be demonstrated somewhere for people to see. But it is what it is; we have to make do with what is on ground right now,” he said.
The agency boss also decried the adverse effect of the Ukraine-Russian war which he said is having a ripple effect across the global economy with impact on companies cutting down advertising budgets to respond to the global economic downturn.
Mr. Ganiyu called on agencies to recognise the power of collaboration to boost their efforts and industry growth.
“When it comes to running a business, I belong to the business group who believes that synergy, collaboration and partnership are what drives 21st century business. Some people have not come to the reality that you can’t do it alone. We have to synergize,” he said.
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