Nigeria Ad industry is in Crisis says Former APCON Registrar
Former Registrar of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Alhaji Garba Kankarofi, has described the Nigerian advertising industry as being in a state of crisis.
He said this recently at the launch of Alphabet Media Academy at Protea Hotel GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.
According to Kankarofi, government needs to act fast in addressing the challenges bedeviling the sector. He identified the speedy constitution of the council for APCON as one of the issues on the front burner.
He recalled that the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, inaugurated some of the boards of parastatals and agencies under his ministry and wondered why that of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) was conspicuously left out.
In his words, “We are waiting for government in its wisdom to do the right thing and hopefully bring back the Council because a lot of things are happening in the industry which is unethical and without a Council; it will be difficult to address these. If you remember we had issues in 2013 and 2015 respectively”
“I hope the government would use its wisdom to ensure that there is a proper Council so that the industry can move forward. Nigerians are suffering, agencies are suffering, and media houses are being owed money.”
Kankarofi lamented that the recent trend in the industry now shows that most registered practitioners who are media buyers run away with monies allocated to them to buy media spaces on behalf of their clients.
Asked to assess the advertising industry, he said,“Believe me, the industry is suffering, the clients are in trouble, media houses are being owed money and everything is not working out well”
“When clients are not happy and the market is not growing; of course, all agencies and media buying agencies will be affected because it will create a ripple effect.”
“Clients are not happy as the non passage of the federal budget affects them negatively. Even multinationals are being very careful to spend because they need to see the direction that government is going.
“It is when the federal budget is passed that Clients will be happy, media will get its money, agency will make its money and everybody will be happy. But right now, there is a total crisis, there is chaos in the polity and I pray to God almighty that anybody who is responsible in government will look at it and do something very fast. I think that is very important.”
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