Omojafor expresses optimism on reconstitution of APCON’s Governing Council
Veteran advertising industry practitioner and Group Chairman of STB McCann, Sir Steve Omojafor (OON) has raised fresh hopes that the much expected re-composition of the Governing Council of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) may become a reality soon.
Omojafor, while addressing a formal gathering of advertising industry practitioners, Agency heads and stakeholders who converged for year 2020 business outlook seminar of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), expressed vehement optimism that the APCON Council would bounce back to life just in matter of the next one month from now.
Making an overview to the seminar theme: “Nigerian Business Environment in the Year 2020: Implications for Advertising Agencies”, Omojafor who doubles as Chairman of AAAN Board of Trustee (BOT) lamented that APCON, the industry’s apex regulatory body had for long gone to asleep, a situation that birthed the myriad of challenges now bedeviling the industry.
While specifically commending the initiative of the AAAN leadership in organising the business forum to examine current state and challenges of the industry, he observed that what agency practitioners needed to do was to come together and collectively address the industry problems, stressing that no other external interest could do that for them.
The veteran practitioner who expressed particular concerns over what he termed the overbearing posture and attitude of client companies resulting in several untold hardship on agencies businesses, lamented that the situation was made worse by the comatose state of APCON, adding that industry stakeholders must stand up and reawaken the Council to take its rightful position in the industry scheme of things.
He noted that several years after the Federal Government initiated the proposal on Nigeria’s emergence as one of the top 20 economies of the world by the year 2020, there was nothing positive on ground to show for it, adding that while the government had wasted huge sums of money on the project, there was nothing serious to show for it.
The agency boss, who claimed he was among the personalities invited to work on the project, said he decided to stop attending meetings on the project in Abuja when it became clear that nothing serious was to come out of it.
He added that despite the fact that the national budget was passed in good time and the CBN churned out impressive economic reports, it was still uncertain what would be the outcome on the Nigerian economy in the long run.
He, however, admonished agency practitioners to come together and become more accountable and properly define the present state of the agency business and try to move beyond servicing to providing solutions.
“We as agencies must stand up to help ourselves. No client will help you. We must become accountable and know where we stand and where to go in the present circumstance. We are a small business group and we must face our business squarely.
“APCON is asleep and we must reawaken APCON to help us out of the grip of clients. APCON will bounce back in a matter of one month away from now. We must go beyond serving to providing solutions,” he concluded.
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