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Tag: EXMAN

  • EXMAN’s 11th AGM bridges town-gown gap at Unibadan

    EXMAN’s 11th AGM bridges town-gown gap at Unibadan

    • Medebem’s 2-year tenure ratified

    As part of its ongoing efforts in bridging the gap between town and gown, igniting the passion and possibilities for students in embracing experiential marketing, the Experiential Marketers Association (EXMAN) stormed the University of Ibadan, Oyo State to engage students in the Faculty of Arts,  particularly in Communications on the business of experiential marketing.

    EXMAN President, Tolulope Medebem set the tone for the session, articulating the association’s vision to nurture talent within the experiential marketing sector. Medebem emphasized the critical role of such engagements in shaping the industry’s future workforce and the importance of bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application.

    As part of the AGM, EXMAN President, Medebem and Vice President Angela Makinwa whose tenure has been ratified for a two-year term – becoming the first ever, delivered an extensive report on their year-long stewardship as leaders of the body, at the Golden Tulip Hotel in the ancient city of Ibadan, Oyo State.

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    Medebem opened the proceedings with a reflection on the past year’s challenges, both for the country and the industry. She outlined the exco’s service plan, anchored on the acronym THRIVE. “Our EXCO mission was set up on the acronym of THRIVE — with each letter standing for a goal that as a team, we have worked towards hopefully with some tangible results,” she explained.

    THRIVE represents Training and Thought Leadership, Harmony, Relationship, Inclusiveness, Value, and Engagement.

    Vice President Makinwa in her presentation took a look into the association’s training initiatives while highlighting the partnership with the Lagos Business School (LBS).

    The association also inducted eight experiential marketing agencies into its fold. The new member agencies inducted are Box House Marketing, Oakland and Johnson Ltd, Customer Passion Points Ltd, Elev8 Marketing services , 53 Double Extra, IdeaZQuition (ZQ for short) Consulting and Requesa Enterprise Ltd.

  • EXMAN launches certified brand ambassadors’ Programme

    EXMAN launches certified brand ambassadors’ Programme

    The Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) has launched a programme tagged the Certified Brand Ambassadors’ Programme.

    At a launch attended by over 40 EXMAN Agency personnel in Ikeja, the President of EXMAN, Dr. Rotimi Olaniyan traced the importance of Project Personnel called Brand Ambassadors in the Experiential Marketing/Client Management Ecosystem.

    According to him, Brand Ambassadors are key personnel representing agencies on the field to deliver on client briefs as the agencies seek to bring meaningful brand experiences alive. He noted the importance of tooling the Brand Ambassadors appropriately as they undertake their duties.

    Chairman of the EXMAN Committee on Training and Capacity Building, Mr. Tunji Adeyinka explained that the Brand Ambassadors’ Programme has three different pillars. The first pillar is the Register of Brand Ambassadors which will assign a unique number to each Ambassador anywhere in Nigeria. The register will also carry the profile of every Brand Ambassador so that EXMAN member agencies can view the profile of the BA before considering them for employment. The second pillar is the Training pillar which provides three different modules of materials on Brand Management, Experiential Marketing, Project Management and other topics. The third pillar is an insurance cover for all registered Brand Ambassadors provided by Mutual Benefit Assurance.

    The Customer Marketing Director, Guinness, Mr. Obinna Anyalebechi who spoke at the launch commended EXMAN for birthing the programme. He said that apart from setting standards for Brand Ambassadors, the programme would also help clients who will be sure of the quality of the ambassadors they are using for their activation. He confirmed that Brand Ambassadors are an extension of the brands they work for and are therefore very important in Marketing activation. The programme also helps agencies to blacklist Brand Ambassadors who may have committed infractions in the line of duty.

    The training was closed by Mr. Kenny Debayo-Sanusi, a member of the EXMAN Committee on Training and Capacity Building.

  • EXMAN to hold third AGM

    The Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) is set to hold its Third Annual General Meeting in Abuja.

    According to the association, the theme for this year’s meeting is “Building Nigeria through meaningful experiences; the role of the experiential marketing industry in building brand Nigeria.”

    EXMAN President, Dr Rotimi Olaniyan, explained that this year’s AGM was moved to Abuja to enable the association establish a presence within government circles as well as showcase the significant contributions that the industry sector was able to make in the area of community and citizens engagement on behalf of policy makers and implementers in the public sector.

    The event will hold today and tomorrow.

    During the period, the EXMAN executives will visit the House Committee on Commerce, Trade and Investment and host an eminent speaker.

    The highpoint of the conference is the launch and kick off of EXMAN’s Certified Brand Ambassadors Program (ECBAP), an initiative designed to re-organise the operating structure of the activation industry by establishing a central register of Field activation personnel across the country.

  • EXMAN holds Trustees’ Night

    The Experential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN), will tomorrow hold a special dinner to fete and unveil its Board of Trustees and formally introduce the association and its newly inaugurated management team to stakeholders within the marketing communications industry at the upscale Federal Palace Hotel.

    According to Dr. Rotimi Olaniyan, President, EXMAN, “The Trustees’ Night will avail our new executive team to outline the association’s vision and strategic plan over the next two years in a bid to solicit collaboration and support from other sectoral groups within the marketing communications industry.” A strictly by invitation event, Dr Olaniyan disclosed that other heads of related sectoral groups will be in attendance.

    Last July, the EXMAN elected a new executive to steer the course of the two-year old association. The election, which held on the second day of the association’s 2nd Annual General Meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State, produced Dr. Olaniyan as the new President while Wole Olagundoye, Kayode Idowu, Abiodun Oshinibosi and Kehinde Salami as Vice President, Financial Secretary, Publicity Secretary and General Secretary respectively.

    Olaniyan, who is also the MD/CEO of Advantage, a uniquely African consortium of independently owned marketing and communications services companies, agencies and consultancies, was elected unopposed. In his post-election speech, the newly elected president stressed that the agenda of the new exco is pretty clear-cut; to grow profitability and market size, saying that his projected 25 per cent growth rate is realistic given the six critical goal areas he has set up to drive the process.

    “First is basically protecting the industry from non-professionals, and secondly, is about thought leadership, which is putting in place initiatives that would ensure that we maintain cutting edge as a practice,” he said. Dr Olaniyan disclosed that the Trustees’ Night is one of such unique initiatives by the EXMAN leadership to achieve its objectives.

  • EXMAN’s executive targets 25 per cent growth

    EXMAN’s executive targets 25 per cent growth

    Disturbed by the challenges facing its members, Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) has resolved to tackle them.

    Its President, Dr Rotimi Olaniyan spoke after the group’s second Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abeokuta.

    He said the problems include dwindling revenue, reduced margin, and slow growth.

    Olaniyan said the agenda of the new Executive Council include the   growth and profitability to increase the sector’s market size.

    He said its targeted 25 per cent growth rate could be realised given the six critical goal areas set up to drive the process.

    He said this would be achieved in the next one year and to achieve these, the body would only worry itself about six critical goal areas.

    “First is revving the industry and basically protecting the industry from non-professionals, and secondly, it is about thought leadership. This is putting in place initiatives that would ensure that we maintain cutting edge as a practice and professional service industry,” he said.

    Other areas, Olaniyan believed, could spur the intended growth rate include improving the internal training capacity and focus on client engagement.

    “We will focus on client engagement as a critical issue. It is time for us to set up a proper forum to  to engage with clients and bring them up to speed with the challenges that we all faced,” he added.

    According to him, “Everybody in the experiential marketing industry is complaining; we have reduced margin; we have payment compensation terms that we don’t feel is adequate to cover our operational cost, not to talk about the little profit at the end of the day, which we can use to reinvest. So, there is a need for us to do some work in that area,” he said

    He, however, promised that in the next 30 days, the new leadership would unveil a document that would show the output that would be used to measure their performance in office.

    EXMAN’s immediate past president, Olagesin said his two years as foundational president had been fantastic. According to him, “it is never easy to take up the responsibility of leading a new association and starting from scratch. It has been very interesting, challenging as well as enjoyable, because laying the foundation and structure that would guide us going forward was never going to be an easy task.”

    The other new executives are Vice President, Wole Olagundoye; General Secretary, Kehinde Salami; Financial Secretary, Kayode Idowu and Publicity Secretary, Abiodun Oshinibosi.

  • EXMAN goes tough on clients

    EXMAN goes tough on clients

    The President of Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN), Kayode Olagesin, is not happy that multinational clients are yet to adopt the EXMAN code of practice to enhance marketing activation.

    As a result, he disclosed that the group is making efforts to correct all anti-practice conduct by multinational clients and every other group  practising experiential marketing illegally.

    “We are not reviewing the code but ensuring that every member of the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN) internalises it and knows the implications of breaching the code. Our aim is to turn it into a living document,” he said.

    Prior to this time, he said EXMAN had sent the code to all members to enhance a robust discussion on the code of practice. “We chose the association’s first annual general meeting (AGM) to do so. We believe that by discussing some sections of the code at this AGM, members who ordinarily wouldn’t have time to read would have done so consciously or unconsciously. To achieve this, we asked every agency to send participants to the AGM to look at some of the key issues in code,” he noted.

    Olagesin said the association has taken further step to integrate itself with other groups under Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) in order to address issues such as product sampling children and brand ambassadorship. He said these aspects need to be governed by rules and companies are expected to abide by this when activating their brands.

    “The most important sections in the code, which we relate with on a regular basis, have been addressed with the President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Kelechi Nwosu, in attendance. Some of those issues are children sampling, event locations and brand ambassadors and so on. Most of us are not conscious of the fact that there are certain things that should govern children sampling and also how they should be engaged. Brand ambassador is another leg we need to seriously look into. Either as an ambassador or a consumer, there are certain rules that should govern that practice.

    “There is so much unprofessional practice in alcohol sampling that some of us are not aware of. Practitioners are doing sampling and all sorts of engagement in outlets they shouldn’t have. But it is our duty through the code to educate and enlighten them on how to go about it,” he affirmed.

    He also noticed widespread violation of certain code of practice in the area abuse of activation locations. “On locations in terms of where we do our activities, there are so many breaches at the moment. I don’t think it is right to do sports activation on a street side and after it the place is left littered. Most people don’t take issues of littering into consideration. People put up posters for an event and they are not mindful of the environment; for example, having alcohol activation close to a church, mosque and secondary or primary school,” he explained.

    Olagesin, however, hoped that at the end the clients will embrace the code as part of their marketing standards.

    “Clients would embrace it because some of the issues raised in the code are issues that they have also addressed in their own marketing standards. There is no reputable organisation that will not have its own marketing standards, the do’s and don’ts. We took inputs from some of those marketing standards that we see in our multinational clients and infused them into what we are doing.

    Speaking on what obtains in other markets, he said:  “We looked at the code in other markets as well.There are some things that apply to them that don’t apply to us. In some other countries, they don’t necessarily have to get bomb squads but here it has become something we take into consideration. Before, we did not worry about taking the temperature of people coming to events but today we look at it. Those are things we are taking into cognisance and say that our members need to be aware of these issues,” he said.

  • Group seeks professional certification for member-agencies

    Group seeks professional certification for member-agencies

    THE Marketers Association of Nigeria, EXMAN is set to standardise its professional qualifications to harness the demand of its members.

    Towards this end, the executives of the association visited the Lagos office of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON).

    President of EXMAN, Kayode Olagesin, said: “Unlike other sectors of the advertising industry, our sector is not properly organised. That was why we decided to organise ourselves into a professional body with the purpose of building standards within the sector and help the larger IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) industry to grow and also to strengthen ourselves by being each other’s brother’s keeper.”

    He continued: “After our inauguration last year, we have spent quite a bit of time building a strong foundation for ourselves because we are new and we need to do things methodically and register our presence in the minds of industry leaders. So, we felt that it was important that we paid a visit to the different stakeholders within the IMC industry and we believe there is no stronger stakeholder than the APCON in the advertising industry.”

    After presenting the EXMAN Code of Conduct to the APCON officials, which he said was developed as a means of self-regulation to ensure that experiential marketing is practised according to strict professional and ethical standards, the Director, Human Resources, Abimbola Ipaye, who represented APCON Registrar, Alhaji Bello Kankarof, said: “We are very happy that you recognise that APCON is the mother of every sector in the advertising industry. APCON is open to receive as many children as are willing to come to it. We assure you that we shall study your code of conduct and also look at how we can harmonise it for the suitability of the industry.”

    While urging EXMAN members to register with APCON, Ipaye lauded EXMAN, promising that the council would lend it all its support.