Noah’s Ark boss canvasses for independent board to manage LAIF Awards
The Managing Director/CEO at Noah’s Ark Communications Limited, Lanre Adisa, has called for the composition of an independent board for effective management and proper coordination of future editions of the Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) Awards.
Adisa whose agency came out on top during the recently concluded 2019 edition of the award, winning highest number of 21 medals, said the feat was consistent with the agency’s vision to be in the league of the most successful brand builders in Africa, and represent Nigeria in the scheme of things as far as advertising was concerned.
Speaking in an exclusive chat with MARKETING DGE in Lagos, the agency’s boss commended the award organisers (AAAN) for their consistency in successfully staging the awards in the last fourteen years, but added that the association needed to set up an independent management board for better and effective coordination.
According to him, there is an anomaly in the current process whereby the secretariat was completely in charge of the award, adding that setting up of an independent management body will give room for better and effective coordination as well as accord greater credibility on the award process.
In addition, he stressed on the need to review the process of selection of the award’s jury for future editions of the award to make it more acceptable and to leverage on standards of international awards.
And in order to ensure better improvement in quality of future editions of the award, he said the association must consider setting up a feedback mechanism such that would allow participating agencies in the awards to point out areas of improvement based on the experiences and participation.
“One of the things I have always canvassed for and will never shy away from talking about is that it’s long overdue that the awards are anchored by the Secretariat. I think for me, and I don’t shy away from saying this to whomever that cares that it’s over ripe for some third party, a neutral party to do the coordinating and everything in the process that would be agreeable to all.
“There is supposed to be an independent management board and that board should be able to find people to coordinate. I don’t think that people in the secretariat, with no intention of belittling them, are out of their depth to manage a creative award,” Adisa said.
He continued: “And feedback is very important. As we speak there must be feedback right now from all the agencies that participated to get their views on the entire thing so we can know what to do better and what to retain going forward. That I think is very important.
“Even those other awards you see, they keep looking for ways to improve on their standards. Every year, the moment a Cannes Lions is done with, the organisers will send out questionnaires to people who participated asking for their feedback and things they can do better. So, every year, something new comes up based on the feedback from the people who have participated in the award. In that regard there is a whole lot that we can also do.”
“I think it’s more than due for review, the process, I don’t know what happens in the jury room, but am sure it would be good to know if the system as it were has been working well enough to judge the work that is been entered because it takes sweat to come up with anything. And you want to be sure that whoever is judging it, the process is done to the best possible standard to ensure that everybody gets a fair judgment as it were,” Adisa added.
The agency boss also called for the abolition of the awards category for “Ads That Never Run”, pointing out that it was out of place to reward creative works that are for phantom client over and above creative works that impacted on building brands.
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