Rufai Ladipo, former STB McCann Managing Director and also former President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), paid his dues as one of the drivers of the Nigerian advertising industry before he recently launched his own marketing communications agency, Agile Communication.
He explores, among other issues, developments in advertising and public sector image management in this interview with Senior Correspondent, GODDIE OFOSE.
How would you assess the journey so far in advertising in Nigeria?
Rufai Ladipo
We are not there yet. We have come a long way as an industry and I think there is a growth pattern coming up. The reform the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has produced will also help in structuring the industry itself.
This is the biggest market in Africa, aside from South Africa, and you can see that there is an influx of new businesses. In May, we will be hosting the World Economic Forum in Nigeria and you can imagine the amount of energy that has gone into that. That opens doors for quite a number of activities as far as our industry is concerned.
In addition to that, the industry is being asked to be part of a national conference and it is also a very good development for us. I think the president of the association is there as a member of the national conference. Those are the kind of things we are seeing as progress in our industry.
Creativity wise, we are not there, to be quite honest with you, but we can get there as long as we are able to open our minds and open our doors to ideas flowing from other countries, because we can have a cross fertilisation of ideas coming from over there and make them very relevant.
Advertising, as I have always said, is a global business. All we need do is have a transfer of knowledge and skills from abroad, and local as well, to the extent that they can help our goals.
We will get there and I am sure that it is a matter of time; 10 years or so, it is going to be a different thing entirely. I think we have done our best in the past 40 years; it’s not bad at all.
It was reported recently that the bulk of marketing business in this country is not captured by professional advertising agencies, what do you think is responsible?
Public sector business is big, and as you all should know, it is probably the biggest in our economy. We try to sanitise our business so well now. For example, you cannot register your company to practise advertising without being a practitioner, because the Corporate Affairs Commission will ask you if you are a practitioner or marketer.
But to be able to look into those areas in terms of sanctioning and not sanctioning, it’s a different ball game entirely. Now the bulk of the business you are talking about is coming and it will take a long time before we are able to streamline that, because the economy is so big.
For example, the 2011 presidential campaign was done by a small agency in Abuja. There are surely a lot of public sector jobs coming and they don’t really get to Lagos because everybody will claim that they can also do it. But I believe that APCON has a lot of work to do in trying to make sure that we regularise the industry and bring everybody under the same umbrella.
Communicating government issues and managing the reputation of government is something people feel is not professionally done
That goes back to my last statement. Quite a lot of people practise marketing communication or advertising here without the prerequisite and necessary background and skills to pull out the stunts.
They will just tell you that as long as they can do some art work and give it to the government the latter will come after it. In addition to that, it is also the level of corruption we have in our system; people colluding with small agencies to do jobs they are not qualified to do.
We have a public relations committee that is responsible for listening to the government in terms of what exactly the government wants to do. For example, the last campaign for the Rebranding Nigeria Project under Dora Akunyili was done by a consortium of agencies, although LTC actually got the credit. But the momentum dropped a bit because I also believe that AAAN needs to play a leading role.
We have the expertise in the area of communication. If anything happens in the government we should be the ones given those jobs, but again I believe we still have a lot of work to do.
We need to make sure that we put in all the best and present ourselves very well, and I think this national conference might be a good opportunity for us.
Speaking about the national conference, what will you as an industry person advise those who are there from this constituency to do?
We should be given a rightful place as far as advertising practitioners are concerned; rightful place in the sense that if there is going to be any means of communication we should be consulted and asked who are practitioners to be part of any kind of brief coming from the government.
There is something quite similar to that in the United Kingdom where in the office of communication or information you can register to be part of it but you need to be a practitioner before you can work for the government. But right now every Dick, Tom and Harry just goes in, as long as you know somebody there.
We must be able to streamline the expertise required for communication and the kind of people that should be given the chance to participate at the government level. That is the only thing that we will achieve at the national conference.
At the end of the day information must be well managed, and when you don’t give it to the people that are professionals you are not going to get it right. Today when you look at the world level, you will realise that Nigeria is still very low in world competitiveness across all status and that is just because we do not allow professionals to take charge of certain areas where their expertise is required.
We cannot continue to do that; we need to allow professionals to do what they are trained to do and I believe very strongly as well that at the end of the day we need to find a way of applying our local knowledge with international understanding.
As a result of the problems confronting Nigeria at this moment, the bomb attacks and the killings, do you think this is the right time for the government to pay attention to a different way of managing information?
The brand idea project has taken different forms and different formats. You see, the centre is not holding and the centre is not holding because they have diverted interest.
In my view, the communication of this country should be the full responsibility of the Ministry of Information alongside every other parastatal under it. That should be the permanent body in charge of how we want to communicate to Nigerians and the outside world.
There is enough example outside this country where things are done the right way. I lived in America for many years and I don’t remember when information just kept flying without some kind of streamlining; it doesn’t work that way. But, again, it becomes a Nigerian factor for you, and it is difficult to manage stuff like that.
Now [President Goodluck] Jonathan is going to be running for the presidency [for a second term], which I believe he will announce shortly, and I can assure you that the people who are going to be doing the campaign have already been picked somewhere.
The PIB (Petroleum Industry Bill) is still languishing in the National Assembly, and I just want to believe that the national conference will be able to address all of those issues, and it is not going to be another Nigerian jamboree where people will sit down, talk, make money and go.
Tell us some of the differences you’ve made in Nigerian advertising as one of its icons?
I think I have really participated largely, because to run an agency is not a day’s job. I ran STB McCann successfully and profitably, before I even became president of AAAN.
I have always served as a committee member in AAAN and APCON. While I was in APCON I was chairman of the members committee. One of my major assignments at the time was to regularise the practice and to bring all members within the advertising sector to register and pay dues.
I gave them a proposal to that effect and the proposal is still there at the secretariat, and the idea for that is for us to know who and who are real practitioners. I think I have contributed my quota at the APCON level. I have contributed my quota at the AAAN level.
I have attended seminars, I have facilitated programmes for AAAN as well. The idea was for us to train young and dynamic practitioners, which I think I was able to achieve and I am still going to achieve, because this is my industry and I don’t know how to do anything else.
Are there key brands you have entrenched in the Nigerian market?
Coca Cola, Western Union, Nestle, MasterCard; the list is endless. I have given life to a long list of brands and I am sure if history were to be written, the stories of these brands cannot be complete without people seeing and recognising my footprints on their evolution in the Nigerian marketing environment.
You just started your own agency. What are the values you are bringing to the table that will make the difference?
Agile Communication is an integrated marketing communications firm. It is not about advertising alone; it covers the entire area of marketing communications and that is basically the only way I believe I can add value.
You don’t provide advertising solution without knowing what the problems are, you don’t provide advertising solution alone without figuring out how you are going to create a bond between the consumers and what you want to do.
There must be a centre point where you will be able to provide what I describe as a holistic approach to brand communication. So, I believe that we can make a whole lot of difference. We have an experiential unit here which will be able to bring brands to life.
