Nigeria advertising has gone through major epochs, Says George Thorpe, Tequila Boss

He is a cerebral marketing professional, teacher and trainer who has used his education, experience and skills to nurture many local and international brands. His tentacles spread across various advertising disciplines where he is either a chairman or director. The CEO of Tequila Marketing Communications Nigeria spoke with JOHN AJAYI where he dissected the evolutionary trends of advertising. Excerpts;

How will you assess the evolution of Nigerian advertising?

I like to make some clarifications by way of definitions. I take your advertising to mean more like image advertising as opposed to the whole gamut of marketing communications and if we are to look at advertising, we can look at it from the point of view of advertising market as opposed to the advertising industry, the market, being the consumers of the advertising services in Nigeria, industry being, those who provide advertising services in Nigeria. So we can look at the evolution of image advertising from the point of views of first of all the market, the users of advertising. I think those of us who could go back to old school and there are people who are even older than us, my boss was Mr. Mike Agbakoba going back to 1960 when we were Marketing Managers after graduating from University of Ibadan in 1962. Those were our bosses and they were the ones that have shown us the mint of what I will describe as an era. The era as I said had advertising as the lead discipline in all marketing communications. I couldn’t imagine anybody in those days talking about brand management and marketing planning, that writes a marketing plan for a brand and would have operated a marketing and promotion that would not give at least 80 per cent of its spends to advertising. Advertising agencies were seen as strategic partners for everything we did. Even the 20 per cent that we did for promotion was mostly what we called promotional activities or temporary price reduction to offer a discount. That was one era where consumers of advertising services relied heavily on the advertising agencies. As time went on, marketers companies, those who consume advertising services started having appreciation for other disciplines within marketing communication gamut and more and more of what we used to call the below the line started growing and proliferating and today you have activation, events and exponential and PR and sponsorship, etc.

At the last count there are about 25 disciplines presenting themselves as promotional activities, some having a longer strategic intent while others have short oriented impact. Overall in the recent times, I think the marketers, I mean the consumers of services have been appropriating far less than they used to appropriate to advertising as compared to what it used to be in our days. And as I always said, “below the line” has come to stay by way of evolution, I can see those two eras, the era when advertising dominated and everybody talked about it as strategic for delivering on brand, goals and differentiations to a balance between advertising and below the line in terms of long and short term impact. That is my point of view of the evolution of the market, that’s my point of view of consumer advertising services.

What is your view from the industry’s perspective?

My point of view of industry, which is even more complex because I would have said there was the era of Chief Momeke when there were a few agencies and they handled many brands. There were few agencies with good structure and well equipped, a few of non-Nigerian owned agencies as an era. Then the second era I will look at Chief Abiodun Sobanjo, Akin Odunsi and the likes who engaged, employed and had experience in those first generation but were courageous enough as entrepreneurs to go and set up a shop. So when you name some of the agencies I just mentioned which they founded and I think they did a lot for the development of advertising in Nigeria. And I was quite impressed that some of them were smart enough to set up sister agencies who in turn set up below the line agencies. Some of them have a network of companies that have above the line and below the line entities from PR to image advertising. We have some prominent people who have done extremely well, I think Mr. Sobanjo probably stands apart in terms of development from everyone of that era. There is a third era unlike the market, these are the young Turks. Turks are the ones who have got exposure from the second generation agencies who set up on their own, some didn’t even have any formal training from anywhere, they just joined the fray and they have been holding their ground because ultimately it’s about creativity. That’s what the client is buying and I don’t think they are buying any era. Irrespective of era they come from they are after who can give the best service. However, I don’t think any era should feel threatened, I don’t think that Chief Shobanjo should feel threatened. I don’t think that the third era, the young Turks should feel threatened because the fourth generations are coming who are younger, vibrant and more active. I think the ones coming have the energy, the connection to the new world that the previous don’t have. There will be epochs that come and go. Before I leave this, I want to make a point that in developed countries they’ve been able to build agencies, which have become institutions, which have transcended eras and the challenge for those of us who are either practitioners or owner managers in the industry is to continuously challenge ourselves to find out what we need to do to turn our ventures into institutions so that it doesn’t die with us, so that it doesn’t collapse around us. And I’m sure you know that a couple of agencies are under stress, especially when the founder or majority share owner takes a bow like all of us will take a bow someday. No matter how energetic you are by the time you are 50, 60, 70, you will take a bow. So the issue of succession is a factor in the evolution of not just the industry but also the institutions that emerge in the industry.

What will you say is unique about these phases?

I don’t think there is anything unique about them, if you use the word unique in the sense of global advertising industry. Those two eras I described about the market I think applies to the rest of the world. Even those of us who have international exposure will confirm that even in those days, marketing was in favour of advertising because it was the major tool for branding. But over the years, my first shock was when I went to Tequila UK, and saw a PR agency, it changed my experience with agencies, they were so big, so successful and doing things that were not familiar to me that was coming from the old school where we thought advertising was the word and I saw a different outfit of marketing communications and promotional approach that was fascinating. So many of the disciplines including those of the marketing communication and promotion gamut have been developed over the years and when you listen to PR talk, you will realise there is sponsorship, activation, direct marketing and so on and so forth embedded in it, each one having its own place. So, for me going into marketing in the second era is to better understand the brand, the market at which they are taking the brand to and the challenges of achieving what they want to achieve at that market. And to be more open-minded as to the fact that you don’t just think of advertising alone. You have to have an appreciation of what the various disciplines bring to the table and ask yourself, which one of these are most relevant in what I’m trying to do and how am I going to integrate the synergy. I think what is happening in Nigeria is a reflection of what is happening around the world from the point of view of the market. The point I’m trying to make is that there will be era in our country in the industry where founders have long gone but the institution will remain, not only in Nigeria but also in sub-Sahara. Nigeria should be able to work with people to build agencies that will become institutions that we can all be proud of. That’s the sense in which I feel that we have a challenge. We need agency that will grow and outlast us into the future.

Do you subscribe to the view that Nigeria advertising is in a generational shift?

The young Turks have arrived, some of the young Turks, I know them as creative directors of some other agencies from the earlier eras, account directors and so on and so forth and they have been able to hold their own. They are winning in pitches, they are building their business and that is to the betterment of the industry as a whole. So when you talk about generational shift, its already taking place but let the young Turks not forget that very soon they will be old. But to suggest that an agency is young or has young people, therefore I should move my brand from the old agency or agency of the old era to the new era, I think it’s a bit too simplistic. If that is the thinking from the advertiser’s point of view, I will counsel that we should bring some new thinking because we should always keep the brand in everything that we do. And the question to ask is this, am I going to change my agency just because I heard of a new agency of a younger person that has employed younger people, who used to be the creative director of an agency and now that he has left I must follow him, I think there is more brand management and market planning you open a discussion on brand management, from product development to market research, all of those elements that are essential to brand management, they just fall apart. That is the way I see it, proliferation of disciplines and tendencies of marketing companies to break up marketing into bits and pieces. There are not too many people who understand brand management holistically and can manage the brand holistically. Having said that from the point of view of brand management, the conclusion therefore, in my view, is that brand management experience has been rather limited to the extent that it has helped the advertising industry in Nigeria to grow. Let me now say something that I find very interesting, the quantity and quality of advertising during the recent election tells me that the industry has a capacity that was not easily identified until we saw what was coming out. I understand that most of it did not come from agencies, there were a lot of hot shops but whether they were hot shops or agencies or even production houses, if you look at the number of advertising materials by the candidates, especially the presidential election in particular APC versus PDP in press, radio, television, billboards, I am amazed, in fact I regret that nobody has taken it to the best of my knowledge to make a compendium of what happened during the election. Somebody needs to put together a report that will be for posterity. I don’t think that even in South Africa the intensity and the variety with which advertising was done during the last election have been matched anywhere else in Africa. I’m aware that a media monitoring agency is already putting together a report on adverts spend. If it was based on cross media rates but using the media station’s advert rates by the time you grossed up total number of advertising spend, I know it was going to be huge. Now, to what extent hasthe political advertising heart driven by brand management agency, zero. I don’t think that brand manager in Guinness or Unilever were in any way involved in that. So it seems to me that the advertising industry has grown and can crave further independent of brand management. I think we can look at what happened to us a couple of months ago and be very proud of ourselves. What I saw during our election could only be compared to what happened in America. That is the only place where there is political advertising during campaign. Ours was good and it is something we can be very proud of. Now that Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and card reader have come to stay that politicians now know that you cannot rig your way, that you have to sweat from podium to podium from campaign to campaign, from radio to television that that segment of advertising market has come to stay. I have told my colleagues in advertising that we have to pay more attention to how that sector segments. Political electioneering segment can no longer be neglected. It is not just presidential, there is governorship, there is senatorial, all of them require marketing communications. Which of the generations have impacted more on brand business? That is a double headed question. I think I’ve been privileged to see the two sides, I’ve seen the marketers side, that is from the point of view of the market, those who consume the marketing services and I’ve also been on the agency side. Intellectually, marketing side are found to be more exciting, I really enjoy myself as a brand manager, as marketing manager, as director marketing and vice president I have a fantastic run. By the time I got to General Management I actually missed marketing. I enjoy marketing intellectually and professionally. But if you ask me in terms of which has been more rewarding in terms of returns of my effort, I will say I’ve been cashing out since my involvement at the industry side. I have been able to partner some of my colleagues based on my experience in finding businesses that provided services. I’m now on the industry side. And the small change that they give to me, I have been nodding. It satisfies me. It has its ups and downs, there are times you don’t have a good year that business does go well, one or two have actually collapsed but the life of an entrepreneur, the life of somebody who has involved in ownership and management of the agency not so much from the practitioner point of view, that part has been much rewarding. So intellectually, marketers side, reward wise agency on industry side. The era that have impacted more on brand growth, from the point of view of marketing, I think the second era, the era of Mr. Shobanjo and Chief Odunsi and Sir Steve Omojafor. I think they’ve done a lot for marketing and advertising in Nigeria. They brought breath to the practice, they poured the experience that they had on the more established first generation into the agencies that they founded. I think they have a lot of professional commitment. They have invested themselves in the industry. I think they’ve done, in my own humble judgment most in helping us transit from what you see in the first generation to what you see today. So if what you see today looks good, I think you go to that generation, they are there. They have done extremely well.

It is often said that advertisers pose major hurdles to agencies’ attainment of creative excellence through personal biases and sentiments. What is your view on this?

I don’t think that you can ever remove some degrees of personal biases from the clients, agencies engagement process. There will always be some subjectivity, indeed those who talk about the various stages of the engagement processes must be aware that when a marketer says he wants to change his agency and he goes shopping for potential candidate to a chemistry meeting. What is chemistry meeting, it’s like say you want to marry somebody or you want to have a girl friend or a wife. Will you go and draw a list or question and check the one that she would pass. No you don’t do that, I think there is a certain level of sentimentality and connection called the chemistry that you are looking for at that stage. Even at that early stage of engagement, there is sentiment. You might go there with some checklists but in your judgment if you don’t like the person, you will not settle for him or her. So there is no how nice their office is or the creativity, you just don’t like to work with them, even if the sentiment does not result in a decision. I think where the difference lies between professional and the sentimentality and biases that we have here in Nigeria is that in our own case, many factors come in, there is ethnic factor, there is religious factor, there is language factor, there are lots of primordial sentiments that we bring into business in this part of the world. I think it is sad because every time we are called upon to make serious decisions and we bring this sentiment to play, it’s just a matter of time we suffer for it. Let me digress, during the 2011 elections, I entered into some arguments with a lot of my colleagues, for them it was Christians/Muslims, Jonathan Christian/ Buhari Muslim. There was no debate about the fact that we have a job to do, and objectively which one of them can do this job. Nobody was ready to have a rational discussion. That is the level of emotion and sentimentality that we bring to the job. We have a serious job to do, we have a lot of competitions then you begin to bring ethnicity. I will argue that a lot of the advertisers are guilty of this and that you might argue is it because they really don’t have or know the objective of the materials that will be used either for engagement or management of the format. It could be because if you don’t know you look for a subjective, surrogate measure that you will use. Or does it mean that they are not really committed to the success of their business because if you are, you will not want to sacrifice your business on the altar of man-know-man. Why should the destiny of Nigeria be based on whether the man is a Christian or Muslim? When you are going to take a flight do you care whether the pilot is a Muslim or Christian? You entrust your life into his hands in the next one hour, why don’t you knock on his windows to ask if he’s a Christian or Muslim, but you don’t. Because you assume that he is very equipped, he’s qualified. People say because I’m a minority person I have never been subjected to all this kind of biases. May be it’s easier to talk like this perhaps if I was born in Ikere Ekiti and I grow up with all the biases, maybe I would have spoken differently. If you have had opportunity of travelling or working elsewhere and you see how shops are being made, nobody is going to talk about where you come from. I think advertisers must get themselves cured of that. General management must scrutinise their people to make sure there is no sentiment. They should constitute a panel and have an objective process either for engagement or for appraisal. They should have systems for segregating the agencies that are doing well, rewarding them and all that. They should remove all these emotional and sentimental things about them. That was the point of view of the advertiser; I think there are some residual responsibilities that agencies have on this matter of sentiments. When the time comes for the pitch or to the appraisal, why must you go and lobby to look for favour, a lot of that happens. It is just unprofessional. I have been involved in a couple of pitches and when you hear what happens after the pitch, you just shake your head in disbelief. It is just a Nigerian thing because I don’t know anywhere in the world where people muscle up so must hysteria about winning at all cost. I think you see Idols, Nigeria Idols. It is an international brand and when a contestant comes, there are four judges and when you sing well they applaud and when you don’t they ask you to leave but see what is happening in Nigeria, a girl sang, the song is hopeless and instead of her to go, she began to plead to sing another song and starts begging and she cross the line begging the judges. You see a lot of this desperation even at pitches. Why can’t we have a more dignified scenario? We think is normal, we think it’s common sense, it is negative and it’s one of the the things that is killing branding industry in Nigeria. So if you ask me what brings this to advertising industry when agency wants to win at all cost? It is because there is no professionalism. And to be a professional one of the things you must have is the ability and competency. For instance, if you are a lawyer or doctor there is one value you can add that other people don’t have. The second thing that marks out a professional is the underlined ethos and values that allows him to demonstrate that competency and ability in an indelible way. That is to say if we are to realise our long value aspiration with people of intellect then there must be certain standard of behaviours, that is norms, that is values that we must espouse. And anyone of us that breaches those values will be sanctioned. Talk about code of ethics, I think this is one area our industry can benefit. It is not just controlling the adverts that we have put or that we have not put but controlling the people who put the advert. Certain types of behaviours should be instituted and constituted.

Would you say the average Nigerian advertiser observes this ideal relationship?

The assumption in this question is that there must be a relationship. Both of us must get to a level before we say we want to stay together otherwise we call it acquaintance. If you have a relationship, it simply means there is something to it. I don’t think that all the providers of all the disciplines that we call marketing and advertising need to have a relationship with their clients. There are certain activities that are very practical, there are ad-hocs, they come and go, they don’t need to be campaigned. If the relative activities and the importance of the role of a particular discipline to the overall intent of the advertiser is small, then I cannot have relationship with that discipline. Relationship consumes time, let me give you an example, if I have 20 brands and three agencies managing them, the brand is a load by itself, do you think it’s wise for me to now have relationship with people handling activation and the rest. Relationship means there should be a contract; there should be an understanding and a long term commitment. That is my understanding of relationship. For instance, in the course of running my business, my toilet got spoilt and I get a plumber to fix it. Is that a relationship, no, I don’t even need to know the name of the plumber. One should not assume that all the disciplines across marketing communication gamut should have relationship. For me, the kind of relationship I see is retainership, a long term commitment and a binding agreement and guiding principle. Relationship means that when I’m going for my strategic meeting, I will take you with me. There is no secret between you and me because I have shared all my brand decisions with you. There are certain relationships that are like that of the plumber, whom the last time I saw him was when he finished fixing the toilet. It is now left for the marketer or advertiser to determine which discipline is strategic enough to have a relationship with. If event is the better job of the disciplines, you better have a relationship with it.

How can an ideal relationship be fostered?

Having spoken about relationship, now are we close to the ideal, I will say no. First of all, let me tell you what I mean by ideal relationship, it is based on courtship after checking out on chemistry. Engagement at the wedding ceremony is formalised for you to recognise the importance of that relationship, which is supposed to last forever. There is no secret between me and my wife and if there must be a relationship between an agency and advertiser, it should be with no secret so that when we are strategising I will take you along with me. There must have been a culture that both of us have lived with and an agreement that even when you are leaving me in a relationship you as an agency must not work with any of my competitors for 12 months. Everything must be signed and sealed. From that then we need to work on our standards that will give you the ability to invest in my business and it must be done in such a way that both parties are happy. Marriage looks simple but the process of disengaging is not that simple. It is not something you just wake up one morning and say you want to disengage, there are processes. But there are some companies who change their agencies every three years, no I cannot stand it. However, what we see today is cash and carry, there are situations where companies will not even call incumbent agency to come for pitches. So I’m old school and I will rather have a relationship, a retainership that is guarded by contract, long term commitment with understanding on how we can manage the improvement and how we will keep consolidating on the marriage because after this is biology that will eventually bring fruits.