How to lift marketing communication industry, by Oke

25/07/12

NEWLY elected president of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Mrs. Bunmi Oke, has identified “continuity, consolidation and revitalisation” as key values that can lift the marketing communication industry.

   According to her, “even if we do great work and we don’t cooperate together, disunity is bound to be. We need each other to progress; we need to include ourselves to understand our differences and challenges.”

  On consolidation, she cautioned that the Nigerian advertising market would soon experience a great boom, “so we should be prepared despite the ups and downs that the country may be facing at the moment. We should not be moved by what we see; let us build a brand that will help us have a win-win situation. With this bond we hope to move the association forward”.

  On revitalising advertising agencies, Oke further explained that as the agencies were growing, members should at each stage have a good succession plan to enhance the life span of such agencies.

  “The foundation of an agency will tell the future,” she noted. “If it is a one-man business, it will not outlive itself. We should all have a new mind-set; our foundation should be deeper. We have to collaborate; we should talk be less about self and more outwardly oriented.

  “Each of us should be confident and build a good succession plan inline with the revolution in technology. We all need professional competence to stay focused.”

  Oke, a Social Science graduate of the University of Lagos, began her advertising career at Grant Advertising where she worked as PR Executive/Account Management trainee between 1986 and 1989. Her unique organisational and presentation skills resulted in her being moved to client service department where she worked on multinational brands like Unilever’s Blue Band Margarine, Berec Batteries, UTC, Coca-Cola amongst others.

  She later moved to LTC Advertising (now LTC-JWT Lagos) in 1989, and spent 10 years (with a brief stint as head of Account Management in Advertising Techniques (Nig) Ltd in 1991). She moved to England in 1992 and worked at the West End Job Employment Centre, London. She eventually returned to Nigeria in 1993 to rejoin LTC Advertising in 1994. In 1995, Oke became the 1st female Client Service Director of LTC-JWT Advertising and in 1997 she became the Director/Head Client Services and Media Department. She left LTC-JWT in 2000 for a “career adventure” with her family to Abuja for four years, working in an NGO and eventually, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) as the pioneer Chief Public Affairs Officer before she moved to 141 Worldwide as the Chief Operating Officer/Business Director and became an Executive Director in 2008.

  Oke, a well travelled and highly professional advertising practitioner prior to the elections, had proved her worth in other capacities within the association as the chairman of the highly successful Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF), an award initiative organised by the association to celebrate creative excellence within the advertising industry.