Revisiting Nigeria’s marketing communications industry: Progress, challenges, and the road ahead

By Zion Rufus

The second half of 2024 appears promising for Nigeria’s marketing communications industry as the sector is expected to generate $2 billion by 2025 and contribute 1.08% to GDP by 2028. However, despite these optimistic projections—highlighted in a PwC report forecasting an increase in ad spend from N605.2 billion in 2023 to N893 billion by 2028—the industry faces significant internal challenges and discord that threaten its stability and future.

In 2022, we engaged with prominent leaders in our industry to identify and address some of these prevailing issues; key strategies included enhanced collaboration, tackling unqualified practitioners, stronger regulatory interventions, and clear distinctions between the practice and business of advertising.

Two years later, in 2024, we revisit these issues to assess progress, remaining challenges, and new problems requiring solutions.

Executives featured: Seni Adetu: former Managing Director and CEO of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Group CEO First Primus West Africa/Algorithm media; Udeme Ufot: Group CEO SO&U; Steve Babaeko: President, AAAN/CEO X3M Ideas; Jaiye Israel Opayemi: CEO Chain Reactions Africa; Lanre Adisa: CEO Noah’s Ark; Deola Art Alade: Group CEO Livespot360; Femi Adelusi: President MIPAN, CEO Brandeye Media; Tolu Medebem: CEO AsterIML, President EXMAN; Lekan Fadolapo: Director General, ARCON; Otis Ojeikhoa: CEO Brands Optimal; Jude Odia: Managing Director, Starcom Media Perspectives; Larry Izamoje: Chairman Brilla Media Group; Dolapo Otegbayi, Principal Consultant, DKO (Dolapo Kuye Otegbayi) Consulting

Issues highlighted in 2022, comments and suggestions made

Raising Barriers to entry, Reducing number of agencies, Influx of Unqualified Practitioners

A significant concern in 2022 was the influx of unqualified practitioners and the proliferation of ad agencies.

Seni Adetu, Chairman/Group CEO of Primus Group/Algorithm Media Limited, also addressed the issue at the 2023 National Advertising Conference. He is one ardent critic of over-fragmentation of the Nigerian media, advertising and marketing eco-system.

“Unfortunately, our industry is set up for failure, and it’s because we are too fragmented,” Adetu had stated, while pinpointing the absence of scale as a critical flaw.

Asserting that the current structure of the advertising industry is predisposed to chaos unless significant changes occur, the Chairman argued for a consolidation of the advertising industry, suggesting Nigeria should have no more than ten advertising agencies to avoid fragmentation and enhance competitiveness.

Steve Babaeko, President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) and CEO of X3M Ideas, had reported measures to curb this trend by enforcing stringent membership criteria. While these measures have been somewhat effective, the increasing number of agencies remains a challenge, with over 100 registered agencies, which according to industry leaders, have led to coordination issues and diluted brand messaging.

In public relations, similar concerns were raised by Jaiye Israel Opayemi, President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) and CEO of Chain Reactions Limited, who challenged the ease with which individuals could establish PR firms.

“We need to take care of the issue of the barrier to entry. The barrier to entry needs to be raised significantly. At the moment, practically anybody can leave a media organization and set up a public relations consulting firm, and this is still a major challenge. Are you qualified, because when you say you are a consultant, it simply means that you are an adviser who has the requisite expertise and training to be able to advise clients on its reputational issues or its image issues? We need to ensure that this is sorted out,” Opayemi had stated in our 2022 conversation.

Assessing progress
In response, regulatory bodies have initiated public awareness campaigns and planned crackdowns on unqualified practitioners. Where ARCON introduced a new vetting regime in 2022 to ensure only licensed organizations could apply to the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP) for vetting, the PR sector also kicked off 2024 with a public awareness campaign from January to March, followed by strict enforcement from April.

2. Absence of Collaboration

From Udeme Ufot, the Group CEO of SO&U, who stressed the need for our industry to transition from its current disconnected and informal model to a more structured and interconnected one with formal systems and protocols, to Otis Ojeikhoa, Managing Director and CEO of Brands Optimal, who shared that the industry needs a place for healthy collaboration “where we can establish such structures and mechanisms, co-share, and co-create, but not be in extreme negative competition,” executives in the marketing communications industry have been unrelenting in their calls for collaboration.

“Collaboration will be very important going into this year (2022) and even years to come,” Adisa told Marketing Edge in 2022, buttressing the need for collaboration and unity in Nigeria’s marketing communications industry as a panacea for growth and continued excellence.

Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, Managing Director of Starcom Media Perspectives; Jude Odia, Livespot360 Group CEO; Deola Art Alade, and Jaiye Israel Opayemi also re-echoed this sentiment.

In her submission, Art Alade re-emphasized the crucial role of collaboration, up-skilling, formal training, and increased investments in advancing growth and development both locally and internationally as she stressed the importance of redefining competition and fostering cooperation among industry players.

Odia, on his part, had challenged practitioners to collaborate with existing players in the marketing ecosystem to enhance their value offering and revenue generation channels.

“We must redefine competition really because sometimes where you really need help, it is those people you perceive as competition that come to help. It is about understanding how to innovate and know that the person you compete with today is not necessarily your enemy tomorrow,” he said in 2022.

Opayemi also agreed, noting that collaboration could elevate the Nigerian PR sector to international standards as he called for reforms in public relations laws akin to those implemented by APCON (now ARCON), with the aim to sanitize the industry and ensure a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

Assessing Progress

Although collaborating with existing players in the marketing ecosystem to enhance value offering and revenue generation channels has been identified as the ad agency model of the future, unfortunately, there’s not much progress to see here as the industry continues to grapple with internal strife.

Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, who at the time was Registrar of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), now Director General of the Advertisers Registered Council of Nigeria (ARCON), had revealed the need for unity among stakeholders, pointing out that every sector contributed to the existing disunity.

“My appeal advice to operators and stakeholders in the industry is, let us come together. You see, it is not a good thing for us. We have experienced banters, claim and counter claims, accusation and counter accusation, and if you ask me as a regulator, every sector in the industry is guilty. I am not taking part, and I am not promoting disagreement or unethical practice,” Fadolapo stated.

Today, Noah’s Ark CEO Lanre Adisa is running for AAAN Presidency with the slogan “#StrongerTogether” as he continues to champion support and collaboration among all stakeholders, and Emmanuel Agu, Group Marketing Director of JOTNA Nigeria sits as the Chairman of the Advertising Standards Panel, the long-standing dispute between ARCON and the Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) persists, with ADVAN withdrawing from the Heads of Advertising Sectoral Groups (HASG).

ADVAN, in their letter, disclosed that their decision to withdraw follows extensive deliberation on recent deviations from HASG’s objectives, such as promoting advertising investment and fostering sectoral trust. Despite “repeated engagement,” the Association noted that its contributions were inadequately acknowledged, highlighting a lack of transparency, accountability, and inclusion in recent HASG activities.

On the other hand, some industry leaders have also highlighted barriers to the reality of collaboration amongst ad agencies.

In an interview with MARKETING EDGE, Tolulope Medebem, President of the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) and Chief Executive Officer of Aster Integrated Marketing Limited, explained that truthfully, most agencies might not want to collaborate for different reasons.

She said: “I believe they imagine they are protecting their businesses, and this can be rightly understood. In the long run, though, I believe that agencies would need to get past all these preconceived notions and collaborate (hopefully) to work together and produce the best possible campaigns for their various clients. Truthfully, some clients might have agencies that they are more comfortable with, but long-term integration/collaboration might serve the client/brands better.”

According to Medebem, this is not to say that even having done everything right, there won’t be bickering and rivalry (as daily, new agencies come up, clients pitch, and new teams are on-boarded and added on to the creative/agency teams), “and truthfully, the client might be best served to just take a seat and watch it play out.”

On a similar premise, Otis Ojeikhoa, Managing Director and CEO of Brands Optimal, shared that the “word has been thrown around a lot,” but it is easier said than done.

“Truly, the word has been thrown around a lot, but really, how do you collaborate without revealing your competitive secret? It is easy to say, but the first thing is we all face an existential threat that is competition because we know if we don’t resist it or fight it, it will kill us.”

3. Audience Measurement

Brila FM Chairman, Dr. Larry Izamoje, and Femi Adelusi, President of the Media Independents Association of Nigeria (MIPAN), on their part highlighted the need for advanced audience measurement tools.

According to Izamoje, audience measurement in Nigeria must evolve with changes in the industry.

“Calls for specialized stations ratings is something we think will eventually happen because even the Nigerian government through the Ministry of Information and Culture is unhappy with the kind of audience measurement we have in Nigeria.”

Adelusi validated Izamoje’s point.

In his comment, the MIPAN President revealed that “Although the Media Planning Services (MPS) has provided the industry with tools to do audience measurement, the industry has not been widely covered and this has elicited criticism from key stakeholders.

“The rate and pace at which things happen more frequently, the time frame and all others, we need a tool that provides media information at regular intervals,” he said.

Assessing Progress
In June 2024, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, formally launched the Audience Measurement System for the broadcasting sector to generate accurate and reliable data of television viewers and radio listeners in the country.

Idris, who performed the launch in Abuja acknowledged the importance of the Audience Measurement System in ensuring that broadcasting endeavors are not only impactful but also did not reflect the true picture of what and how many people were watching or listening to a particular content.

Femi Adelusi also assured stakeholders of new tools developed by MIPAN to provide accurate and current data, enhancing return on investment for clients and advertisers while speaking at the 2024 media sales conference.

4. Distinguishing Between Practice and Business of Advertising
In 2022, ARCON DG Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, Doyin Adewunmi, Managing Director of Creative Xone Limited, and Dolapo Otegbayi, then Specialized Nutrition Director at FrieslandCampina WAMCO, highlighted the need to balance the practice and business of advertising.

Dolapo Otegbayi had said, “The practice and business of advertising are two sides of the same coin. The value of advertising is in the practice. The authentic practice of advertising delivers value for the client, brand, and the agency. Unfortunately, there are many people parading themselves more as businessmen and women, with little or no added value and benefit to brands.”

According to Otegbayi, this imbalance has continued to create gaps and challenges within the industry.with calls for renewed focus on both areas.

Fadolapo on his part had pointed out that If we don’t look at the business of advertising and concentrate only on the practice of advertising, there is going to be a major challenge.

“I looked at these issues basically from those two standpoints and I concluded that we need to do things that will strengthen the practice of the industry from those two areas. This challenge has created a lot of gaps and big issues for practitioners and operators within the industry.”

Doyin Adewunmi also opined that “A lot has happened to the practice of the business of advertising, which has impacted negatively on the professional aspect of it. It is a profession because we have values that we are supposed to deliver to every brand, we are supposed to build brands, we are supposed to peak brands.”

Unfortunately, little progress has been made in this area, with many practitioners still blurring the lines between professional and business interests.

5. The PR Industry Must Move Beyond Traditional Press Releases
In 2022, Yomi Olaniwun, CEO of Bold Brand Buzz, highlighted the need for agencies to innovate in strategy, content, and measurement. Stanley Olisa, a media consultant, echoed this sentiment, urging PR practitioners to focus on strengthening client relationships and demonstrating tangible value. “PR is all about connecting people with brands through storytelling, so we have to shift the narrative to reflect what people need and want,” Olaniwun had said.

Stanley Olisa also said in his letter to Nigerian PR practitioners: “Telling your client you’ll get them published in the dailies and on blogs doesn’t really cut it anymore. Selling press release syndication as your only value-add to a prospective client is no longer a sustainable approach. Your client is now interested in how your PR campaign will help them strengthen relationships with their key stakeholders and engender supportive behavior. There is a growing need for PR practitioners to embrace the reality that the demands and expectations in the business world are changing, and the business environment is also becoming more complex. These changes are adding new ramifications to the PR profession, as it is coming under intense scrutiny by CEOs, especially as they pose questions which impugn the value of PR practice.”

Sadly, not much has changed.

As we look ahead, it is clear that while some progress has been made, significant challenges remain. The industry must continue to address these issues to achieve sustainable growth and development.