Princewill Ekwujuru
Advertising stakeholders have agreed that no member of the tripod of the  Client, Agency and Media can succeed without the other and as such should meet within a frequency to review industry challenges and map out strategies for solving them, as it calls for expansion of Heads of Advertising Sectoral Group (HASG).

The stakeholders reached the agreement  at the just ended 37th AGM of AAAN in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, where Mr. Udeme Ufot, Group Managing Director of SO&U Saatchi and Saatchi delivered a paper titled, “Collaborating to Enhance Business Growth for the Client, Agency and the Media; Agency Perspective,” saying that no member of the tripod;  i.e.

Client, Agency and Media can succeed without the other and as such the trio should meet within agreed frequencies to review industry challenges and marshal out strategies for resolving them.

According to him, “No member of the tripod can succeed without the other. None of the three is as strong as all the three coming together in a united assault on any challenges. That is why I strongly welcomed the institution of the HASG meeting; a platform that I believe should be revived and put to effective use in harmonizing the interests of the various sectoral groups.”

His words, “the Association of  Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) should as a matter of urgency revitalize and expand the HASG into a forum of select industry practitioners, that should comprise of  Corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Marketing Directors, Publishers, Proprietors of media organizations and Agencies CEOs.”

Further, he advised that HASG should be able to meet within an agreed frequency to review industry challenges and marshal out strategies for resolving same. “Once mutual understanding is built at the highest levels of leadership, it will be easier to get the followers to align,” he added.

Highlighting some of the challenges that the sectors could overcome with HASG  fully in operation, Ufot proposed a scenario where all sectors will be committed to setting up training instititution with programmes that will be duly endorsed by leading institutions which could provide quality training at lower costs per head for the industry.

“We must understand that low standards in one sector can compromise all the training investments in the other and as such, we must therefore be aligned with regards to the kind of standards we expect of the industry.”

He  maintained that, a functional HASG will serve as a veritable instrument for the sectors to use in shaping governmental policies affecting the sectors.

He equally challenged his professional colleagues in the advertising sector not to take a back seat in discussions of national economic issues but to pool together on a common platform, as other sectors do, with the common objective of influencing government policies that will be beneficial to the advertising industry as a whole.

Ufot in his submission further maintained that, “we can use our communication skills, deploy the media which we own and effectively transform thinking in government in ways that can ensure that our economy is more efficiently managed to our overall benefit.”