We aim to tackle the digital challenge through capacity building, says Odigbo
President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Ikechi Odigbo, has declared the association’s commitment towards tackling challenges of the present day digital challenge in the industry through putting in place proactive measures that would enhance capacity building across the industry.
Fielding MARKETING EDGE questions on the occasion of the 46th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the association held recently in Lagos, Odigbo said the executive committee of the association under his watch was working seriously with the intension of putting in place some deliberate measures targeted at enhancing upon the capacity building process for the benefit of member advertising agencies.
According to him, a good number of advertising agencies in the association’s fold were bugged down by negative impacts of the evolving digital transformation process; hence, the association holds it as a responsibility to embark on drastic measures that aim to address those challenges.
“Yes, making the members relevant as an association is principally in the area of capacity building. We can only work hard towards equipping the members and the staff of the association to be up to the moment in terms of the competencies required in a modern marketing.
“Now the responsibility of the association is to as much as possible provide that capacity building, and also strategic knowledge sharing platform that raises the level of consciousness of different levels of member agencies regarding how they need to engage in their contemporary practice,” he said.
He added: “We cannot pitch on behalf of our agencies; we cannot go and meet clients and say to them please let this member agency work for you. But we can prepare them and that is our primary focus.”
On why some older generation advertising agencies were going into extinction and several other operating under ailing conditions, the association boss observed that the development was as a reaction to the dynamics of emerging market economics, adding that what agency operators needed to do was to continually reinvent themselves to meet with current demands of the business environment.
“We must also appreciate that the dynamics of market economics means that there would always be some form of evolution. In every business sector you would have organisations that would need to reinvent themselves or to some extent become irrelevant. We also have new entries into advertising that would bring some level of valued creativity, innovation and dynamism. So, it’s not easy to control that evolution.
“All we can do is to create knowledge interventions that enable the agencies manage that phase of growth, so for an old agency, the question is how do I stay relevant; how do I reinvent my offerings; how do I make sure am able to attract quality talents, how do I keep my clients satisfied,” he stated.
“We cannot, however, take these critical decisions. Remember whatever needs to change requires critical decision-making and an identification of what the real operational issues are. These operational issues are unique to each company or to each agency, and that is something that should be directly addressed by management of these agencies.
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