By Emma Ujah
The President & Chairman of Governing Council of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, Chief Lugard Aimiuwu, has said that a Nigeria that meets the dreams of all her citizens could still be built if all Nigerians did the right thing in their private and public lives.

He spoke at the just-concluded International Summit on Value Creation of the institute in Abuja. According to Chief  Aimiuwu, “If each of us carved out our little piece of Nigeria, in our work, in our home, and at play, and shaped it to the ideals of our dreams, the combination of all our efforts will surely add up to the Nigeria of our dreams.

To those who argue that each contribution amounts to no more than a drop in the ocean, take note that the ocean is made of drops! Let each of us ensure that ours are quality, globally competitive drops. People have the power to make a difference.” He added that strategic repositioning was absolutely critical at this stage of Nigeria’s transformation curve, insisting, “there is no short-cut to greatness.

“Strategic repositioning is absolutely critical at this stage of Nigeria’s transformation curve. It is not the same thing as ‘Rebranding’ but could include it,” he said. The Council boss observed that leaders in the developed world have been strategizing on how to maintain their dominance of the global market, in spite of the international economic challenges and that as such, Nigerian leaders should not fold their arms.

His words: “Strategic leaders are investing time and resources, repositioning, determined to retain market leadership. These leaders are and have been meeting, strategizing and synchronizing tactics and actions to sustain market dominance (G-8, G-20 account for 90% of world trade). This is in sharp contrast to Africa’s “siddon-look” leaders, most of whom have been credited with that lame cliche – we are watching the situation.

Also in his own address, the Chairman, Advertising Practitionersf Council of Nigeria, APCON, Lolu Akinwunmi, who spoke on gNew Horizons in Advertisingh said that traditional media were under threat from the New Media and therefore called for greater creativity and sharpening of skills by the latter.

His words, gAs traditional media comes under greater pressure from a loss of audience, opportunities are shifting to a non-traditional, decentralized structure, giving small businesses and individuals greater leverage. Advertisers now have thousands of choices of where to advertise.

gThe days of pricey 30 second ads before millions of television viewers is fading. Newspapers which once commanded premium for full page ads are losing their subscribers. And Nigeria is not an exception. In the 80fs, our Sunday Times sold nearly 600, 000 copies weekly and was the highest selling in Africa.

Today the Sun as Nigeriafs highest selling paper manages to do 100, 000; most of the other popular titles do figures from 70, 000 down, with one in particular doing about 30, 000 mainly in Abuja and Lagos! The new giants of advertising are internet social media sites, auction sites, and internet blog sites. In this decentralised world, skill and content reign as kingh.

According to  Akinwunmi, New Media would ultimately become dominant over traditional media. gThe key ones will be social media and digital mediah, he said. The implication, he observed was that according to a study, the last three quarters saw a growth in mobile and internet advertising, while declining advertisement was record in the traditional media by as much as between, 11-21 per cent  and 19 -11.1 per cent, respectively..

gIn the last three quarters of 2010 mobile and internet advertising globally grew by 21% and 11 percent respectively. Older media advertising not surprisingly saw declines: |11.1percent (TV), |13.7percent (radio), |15.8percent (magazines) and |19.7 percent (newspapers)h, he said.