With huge challenges confronting the growth of outdoor advertising business in Africa, the Lagos State outdoor advertising sector is pushing for growth through strategic partnership with countries in Africa to foster growth, write Adedeji Ademigbuji and Adeyinka Aderibigbe.
The outdoor advertising business in Africa may overcome some of its challenges if the solutions proferred at the African Outdoor Advertising Conference and Exhibition are adhered to.
The conference gave media buyers, creative agencies, outdoor advertising practitioners, the government, as well as foreign investors in Out-Of-the-Home (OOH) advertising business, the opportunity to reveal some of the challenges that confront the business and hamper growth of the industry.
During the gathering in Lagos, which is home to about 60 per cent of Nigeria’s advertising business, the Managing Director, Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA), George Noah, said though the industry has a healthy potential for growth, the challenges hampering the industry, such as lack of empirical data, amongst others, have continued to make advertisers price the business low unlike other platforms of advertisement, such as TV.
Noah, who said he is often worried about the untoward effect of this on the advert businesses, noted that in packaging the event, the agency aimed at deepening the sector’s capacity to respond to the global trends, meet the demands from clients in order to leverage on the network of information, tools and systems that such a forum could put at operators’ disposal.
Although Noah admitted some of the prolonged challenges, the sector has witnessed huge transformation in the last decade as a result of the regulatory intervention from LAASA which he believe has enshrined sanity in the outdoor advertisements sector in Lagos in particular. He said one of the wars the agency had to fight was with those who deface the face of Lagos with posters.
With no data on eyeball traffic hitting the advertisements, he said LAASA is checking indiscriminate pasting of so that advertisers will no longer cut down advert spend for outdoor business. As a result of that, he noted that the agency has carved out zones where posters could be pasted all year round.
With determination to reposition for global competitiveness, Noah said the Lagos outdoor advertisement sector has recorded significant success in terms of revenue. According to him, despite the challenges, the sector accounts for over N50 billion turnovers while Lagos State with a population of 22 million accounts for 60 per cent of Nigeria’s total advertising market though he said this insignificant when what accrues to other sectoral growth within the sector is considered as cost of doing business is almost shrinking the OOH business.
Noah said outdoor media buying agencies generate about N8.6 billion, fabricators, rake in N1.5 billion; installers, N382 billion; large format printers, N8.27 billion. Also, outdoor specialist agencies generate N21.9 billion, outdoor protection services, N370 million; adverts N1.25 billion, while other areas account for N8 billion. He pointed at the huge employment opportunities of the sector, which employs over 100,000 people in Lagos alone.
With about 100,000 signs and 800 outdoor structures in Lagos, Noah also said the industry’s growth potential have been hindered by some of these challenges which also includes loss of market share to television, radio and social media marketing.
Also, the Chairman, Outdoor Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (OAAN) Mr. Charles Chijide challenged the government to open the space for all stakeholders to operate. He said the changes in road architecture, lifestyles, business practices, policy directions and inadequacy of power are chief among the debilitating challenges facing operators.
Chijide,who is also the President of the African body of Out-of-Home operators said the cost of fuelling two giant generators that often powers any display site is colossal, a situation which is not helped by the lack of access to capital or loans from the banking sector.
He listed other challenges facing stakeholders to include multiple taxation, the menace of area boys and street urchins’, lack of data and lack of certificates of occupancy (Cs of O) on most of the sites being used for businesses.
Speaking on the challenges and prospects of out of the home Advertisement in Africa, Chijide said though these challenges seems local to Nigeria, they exist in relative measures and are common to all members of the association in the continent.
He said the platform which started in Nigeria in 1956, has evolved over the decades to digital, and his corporate members has moved from two when it began to 158. He said all stakeholders especially the government must give the necessary support to the sector realising that out of the home practitioners are changing life, changing the economy and changing the face of business in the country.
He noted that one of the ways government could support the sector is to ensure the stability of power supply, and the issuance of temporary certificates of occupancy for members sites to enable them use this to procure facility from the bank.
The Director of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Akeem Adeniji, who represented the Commissioner Mrs Olusola Oworu, tasked outdoor practitioners to key into the Lagos State Development Plan (LSDP) which has four parts: Economic development; infrastructural development, social and security development and sustainable environment.
He challenged all operators having issues with the state government to make use of the right channel in making the government aware of the gray areas they wanted addressed. He recalled that the Babatunde Fashola administration last year began the Lagos Corporate Assembly, an assembly of all business operators in the state, where issues hindering their profitability in business could be addressed.
However, Governor Mr Babatunde Fashola challenged the operators to think out of the box in repositioning the sector and make out of the home advertisement sector a vibrant platform.
Fashola, who was represented by the Commissioner for the Environment Mr. Olatunji Bello, said issues such as the lack of empirical data to support media buying into the platform and even power could be mutually resolved if operators decided to look inward and reapply themselves to resolving the peculiar challenges to their businesses.
“When there is no data to support advertisement buying,” he said, “the buyer is at sea and loss of market share to other viable options becomes the alternative.
Also, the Managing Director, Insight Communications Mr. Jimi Awosika, likened a poor outdoor advertisement to an actor with a minor role (waka pass) in the thespian world said in a world of “democratised noise,” only an advert with a telling presence, creatively conceived and delivered would be remembered in the crowd.
He canvassed more synergy between the advertisers, the advertising agency and the outdoor practitioners in such a way that the messages meant to be communicated had desired impact in the market.
A resource person, Mr. Jerry Coasters of Out of Home Africa, while speaking on the challenges of OOH, re-affirmed that despite the challenges impeding the businesses, Nigeria remains an investment destination for investors.
The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Leteef Ibirogba, challenged operators to rededicate themselves to professionalism, adding that the government’s desire to regulate the industry is borne out of the desire to ensure that marketing communication messages are better packaged and uniquely presented. “Government will always play the regulatory role because it is the way to go in sustaining business anywhere. If this business must continue and be profitable, it must be professionally packaged. If we all come together, we will get better for it,” Ibirogba said.
The Director-General, Oyo State Signage and Advertisement Agency (OYSSAA), Mr. Yinka Adebodun, praised the Lagos State for blazing the trail in outdoor signage and advertisement industry.
Over 200 exhibitors from Europe, Asia, America and Africa converged at the Eko Hotel expo hall to display their products as the Africa Signage and Outdoor Conference and Exhibition.
