THE
grievances, many practitioners, agencies and clients, in the outdoor sector of
the advertising industry had bottled up in the past couple of years were laid
bared at the 2012 Advertising Forum held in Lagos, last week.
The forum organised by Advertising
Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) for hours looked at the germane issues
in the outdoor business. And it was not just coincident as the theme of the day
focused on regulation and control in the outdoor.
From the various speakers to the
comments by the participants, it was clear that the practitioners were not
happy about the state of things in that sector of the advertising industry.
They did not just air their opinions, the tone with which their opinions were
delivered, was one that signal an aggrieved group.
As they took turn to talk, they
maintained that the present trend of regulation and control cannot continue,
otherwise, they will soon be out of business and in no long distance, the
economy will also suffer. This, to them, is why something should be done
urgently because the trend is not something encouraging whether for operators
or advertisers.
Although, only one state regulator was on
ground, he defended his state’s action and promised that as a practitioner, he
knew what his colleagues went through in the Lagos experience, so he would not
want to inflict more pains on them.
Setting the tone for the day’s
discussion, the Chairman of APCON, Mr. Lolu Akinwunmi, in justifying the reason
for the choice of the topic and the focus on outdoor in his welcome address,
aptly voiced the position of many of the stakeholders when he said, “Outdoor is
a major component of the advertising practice which in recent years has
suffered some decline especially as a result of various regimes of regulation
at various levels resulting in high costs of operations for the practitioners,
making the hoardings too expensive for clients who have gradually been
investing their budgets in other media.”
The President of Outdoor
Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN), Mr. Charles Chijide, in his paper,
also re-echoed some of the positions of the Chairman of APCON.
In conveying the position
of his association about the state of things, he said, “Let me confess that I
am touched and impressed by the choice of this year’s theme, as nothing would
have been more appropriate at this time when outdoor advertising is enmeshed in
the quagmire of statutory regulations and controls. It is indeed like swimming
in sharks-infested, highly troubled water. There is no contesting the fact that
issue of regulations and control is obviously a universal phenomenon as no
social organisation or business environment survives in an atmosphere of
indiscipline, disorder and anomie.”
Expressing the downturn in
business as a result of state regulation, control and monitoring of the outdoor
business driven mostly to increase Internally Generated Revenue by most states,
Chijide disclosed that over 70 per cent of operators’ hoardings are now vacant
while many agencies had reduced their staff strength by over 50 percent.
Besides the local, state and
federal governments levies, he said the challenge of street urchins or
miscreants had become a great threat and dangerous development to the outdoor
advertising practice, “because most times not less than twenty thousand naira
are paid to the area boys when his members need to put up something on their
hoardings,” he lamented.
Also speaking on the theme, the
Director General of Oyo State Signage Advertising Agency, Mr. Yinka Adepoju,
who observed that to a good number of people, the moment regulation and control
is mentioned, people become jittery because of the so many factors associated
with the subject matter.
“To some, regulation and control is
scary because of the weight it carries while to others it is a punitive
measure. Of course, you and I know that it is not.”
Adepoju, who went down memory lane to
give an insight into efforts by some government officials to clean up the city,
which negatively rubbed off on the outdoor business, said that the deplorable
conditions of outdoor boards and signage in many of the states including Oyo,
has forced the government on some of these states to align with the local
government councils to combat the challenge of clusters and restore sanity to
the state landscape.
“Without being unnecessarily biased, the
pattern of outdoor in existence before the emergence of some of these
regulatory agencies was nothing to write home about.”
Using his state as an example, he
gave a pictorial account of what he met on ground when he came in and also gave
a pictorial insight of where they hope to be.
“When I assumed office two months
ago, the outdoor environment was in a sorry state. But, because we needed to
quickly turn around the deplorable outdoor space, we immediately embarked on
cleaning up exercise though not without resistance to make our environment
aesthetically appealing.
“State governments are now very
conscious of their environment thus they not only see as top priority the
setting up of agencies to control the practice of outdoor advertising in their
state, which to them, is key especially in line with environmental laws, they
also see it as another cash cow importantly as a tool of increasing their
internally generated revenue to support other developmental projects in the
state.
“Another major concern for many
responsible governments would be to ensure a safe, descent and billboard friendly
environment for its citizenry and visitors into the state. Such environment no
doubt will be conducive for business and other economic activities that would
make the state to develop fast,” OYSAA boss said.
The lead speaker, Mr. Tony Idigbe
SAN, gave a brief about the regulation and control of outdoor business in
United State of America, pointing out areas where the Nigeria could learn and
borrow ideas from.
Idigbe listed multiple
regulations and taxes, uncertainty in regulation, absence of compensation for
arbitrary intervention as challenges confronted the sectors.
According to him, some of these actions
had promoted impunity while some of the agencies had gone beyond regulation to
providing the service. He requested for the passage of a law that nothing
should be removed without payment of compensation. This, to him, will stop the
arbitrariness.
For the President of the Advertisers
Association of Nigeria, (ADVAN), Mr. Kola Oyeyemi, all stakeholders must tread
softly so that the whole process will not collapse and nothing will be
available.
“We have said different kinds of
things from the issue of the rate, that are quite expensive and driven a lot of
advertisers out of the outdoor media. We talk about the multiple regulation and
taxation, which has also affected the practitioners and how advertisers use the
space. We also talked about the conflicts between certain sector in the outdoor
industry, sites between military formation and how that affects advertisers.
“We also talked about the
ultimate impact of this on the economy, if businesses are crippled because of
this high cost, it means people are going to lay off at some point and that has
a huge impact on the economy.
“It is important that the relationship
among all the various arms of governments and regulators is harmonise to the
extent that we are able to form a proper way forward for the industry so that
we do not just get the cost exorbitantly because it will be eventually passed
to the consumers, and we all are both consumers and service providers,” said
the General Manager of Consumer Marketing of MTN.
The Chairman of the forum, Senator Enyinnanya Abaribe, who is also the Senate Committee Chairman on Information, disclosed
the Senate’s willingness to work with the stakeholders to move forward and make
the necessary positive change in the advertising industry.
