By Princewill Ekwujuru

Every two years, new executives emerge when Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) hold its Annual General Meeting, which berths at Ijebu –Ode in Ogun State, come 7th through 9th July 2011.

However, one of the major highlights of the AGM will be the election of new executives to steer the ship of the Association for the next 24 months. This is subsequent to the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent executive committee led by Mr. Funmi Onabolu.

Never in the history of AAAN, an election has gathered such elaborate momentum, going by the fact that all along, it had been a gentleman’s agreement, where elections are conducted and winners quietly sworn in.

The 2011 election will be different, because today, three persons, Mr. Longley Evru the incumbent Vice President and Chief Executive of Angels Communications, Mr. Rufai Ladipo, an Ex-Officio and the Chief Executive of STB-McCann Lagos and Mr. Erhabor Emokpae, Executive Vice Chairman, Lowe Lintas are contending for the post of the President.

From all indications, the odd seems to favour Emokpae, from sampled opinions, large number of the agency top men are rooting for him, this is premised on his wealth of experience in the industry.

However, other contenders have been silent over the whole issue, as some quarters in the association believe that Evru and Ladipo are not taking the election seriously, even though it is not a do or die affair, their argument thus is, effort is not being expended from the contending sides.

Emokpae on his part has rolled out a blue print on how to rule the association if he eventually wins.

According to him, “my raison d’etre is to look after and secure the collective interests of our members. Even as we are competitors, there are many issues, which are best, dealt with collectively so that the overall resultant improvements become a rising tide that lifts all agency boats.”

To achieve this, he said, “AAAN needs the right leadership, which must be visionary, erudite committed and respected.

Continuing, he said, “even as we focus on the big picture, we should recognize that much work still remains to be done with regard to the more mundane, less exciting but fundamental issues of housekeeping in the association itself.”

The following, however represents some of the main areas of perennial concern, which his vision, he said is to inspire a quantum leap in the association’s our approach to its concerns and to enlarge its scope and sphere of interaction and influence.

On funding, he said, his number one priority is to revamp and deepen AAAN funding model by explore market-facing sources of income for AAAN, incentivize member-agencies to pay subscription fees through better value delivery.