The late Dr May Nzeribe, founder and CEO, Sunrise Advertising and former chairman, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), who died on November 19 was one of the godfathers of advertising in Nigeria. He was involved in galvanising advertising practice at home and abroad. Nzeribe was past president of International Advertising Association (IAA) Nigerian chapter and President, Association of Advertising Agencies in Nigeria (AAAN), he was also an author. His book: Political Advertising in Nigeria, remains a reference point in the industry. A professional advocate of comparative advertising, Nzeribe’s copy on two different dry cell battery brands unleashed in the 80s stood out as a paragon of excellence in the industry. WALE ALABI recalls his encounter with the late advertising Czar some years ago in this interview.
Proliferation of agencies Proliferation in business is not peculiar to the advertising agencies or business alone. And this is not new, we’re operating in a society where everybody wants to be his or her own boss. So, I wouldn’t want to see this development as proliferation because proliferation means many operators or people chasing small business. That’s a misconception. I believe there’s still room for more but decent practitioners to set up agencies, operate and get involved in the economy.
And talking about the economy, especially the productive sectors, how much have they invested into marketing communications? Too small. If they had injected a lot of funds in marketing their products, the advertising agencies would have done a lot more in the areas of helping them to package and promote their products and this in turn would have helped to grow the economy the more.
However, in the same breath, I feel a lot of advertising practitioners, without acquiring enough experience and adequate professional competence, are in a hurry to become managing directors.
Miracle advertising on TV
There’s no ban on miracle advertising on TV or any other broadcast media. If you go through the APCON directive and the Broadcasting Commission code, you’ll find out that nobody has banned miracle advertising on TV or anywhere. For instance, what the APCON directive says is this: if you have to do any promotion at all because of the inherent danger involved in leading people on a slope, because of our attachment to hope in life which is the major product of evangelism, what we said is that the testimonial of the miracle to be advertised must be well documented so that it can be verified. Testimony should contain full contact addresses and names of the beneficiaries of these miracles. Even in testimonial which is an integral part of advertising, you don’t just advise it without proof, that is, the names and addresses given must be authentic. The same thing also applies in religious testimony.
So if a miracle has taken place and you’re putting it on TV, you must also go ahead and put the full names and address so that it can be verified that before the miracle took place, the person or persons was or were actually afflicted by the ailments that has or have been cured through a miraculous encounter. So nobody has banned miracle on TV. All we’re asking for is confirmation so that the claims made can be substantiated.
And again let’s look at it from the personal spiritual level, when Jesus was around, He did perform many miracles. But did Jesus go to any television station to broadcast or announce his feat? No. Do you believe that there’s a human being that can perform miracle? If any miracle takes place, it was done on behalf of God. So, why claim that you’re the one doing it? Even if God gives you the power or gift to perform miracle, must you commercialise it on the television? Is that the only way to win souls? Is that the only way to spread the word of God?
You don’t get to see miracle adverts on TV anymore because of the stringent conditions stipulated by the law that they must comply with before they can advertise. Otherwise if the conditions were not stringent they would have continued to advertise.
Window of opportunity
We’ve said it time and time again. But then let me repeat it. The law setting up APCON to regulate advertising practice in the country really spells out certain conditions that must be complied with by practitioners. However, in the APCON law, unlike some other professions like law, accountancy and medicine, there are some limitations in its implementation. So we recognise this limitation.
We discovered that in order to sanitise the advertising industry we need to take some radical steps. But in taking these steps, we have to recognise the uniqueness of advertising practice itself. The profession gives room to a lot of creative people from diverse backgrounds. Over the years, they have been running advertising agencies, although they have no formal training in advertising. So what do we do with this category of people? We examined two options.
First, do we get the police to arrest them and prosecute them as prescribed by law? The second alternative is to look at it and take an administrative angle. And taking an administrative look means that since we have been empowered to regulate the practice, and this set of people are deficient as the law stipulates, what we should do is bring them into the fold, because if they’re not within the fold we can’t enforce discipline and standard.
So, that was what informed the council’s decision on the window of opportunity programme. For example, you have a B.Sc in Sociology or B.Sc in Political Science and you’ve been working in an established advertising agency for say five or six years, what should then stop me from inducting you into the fold? Looking at it from a proverbial angle, I have a cloth and you’re outside in the cold shivering, what stops me from covering you?
Over 1,000 people were registered under the window of opportunity programme. So the programme was quite successful. I don’t regard the window of opportunity as a favour, rather I believe it’s what we have to do in the course of our duty, looking at how we can effectively regulate the profession. It was a one-off thing. Any other persons from now on would have to go through our normal professional induction programme.
Toothless bulldog
It’s unfortunate. APCON has not lacked the will. It only seems that way because they’ve not been empowered to do what they’ll like to do. For example, you may want to travel to Britain in the next one hour. But before you realise this goal, you need three things: you need a valid visa, you need air ticket to take you there and you need the ability to be able to get there.
And if you don’t have all these, does this make you a fool living in a paradise? But if we become look at issues very objectively, the comment that APCON is a toothless bulldog would not have come up because the APCON law that you called an enabling decree merely looks like an enabling decree, but to a large extent, it’s a disenabling decree. Despite the fact that APCON was put in place, it still needs a lot of things to operate like a proper regulatory body. For example, APCON does not possess the same power granted to institutions like NAFDAC, SON, EFCC and others. It doesn’t. We are trying to address this. And I want to believe that as a government-approved regulatory body, APCON would soon be empowered.
The brand Nigeria project
The Honourable Minister of Information and Orientation made a public presentation where he unveiled the Project Nigeria recently. At that event, he intimated us with what they have in the pipeline. As a practitioner, I would like to reserve my own comment until when it comes to such a time to execute this project, there would be the need for us to give certain input. There would be the need for us to re-engineer our image first at the local level. But I think it is a worthwhile effort. However, the change in attitude or image would not happen overnight. It would take time.
Yes, APCON was aware of the project, we had discussion before it was unveiled. That’s the much I can say. But don’t let’s forget that APCON is just a regulatory body.
