IMC 2016: Year of huge expectations, little delivery

The successful completion of  Year 2016, on Saturday, no doubt leaves individuals and corporate organisations  with the opportunity for stock-taking.

For instance, after the initial faltering steps of  Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, in 2015, not a few had expected that Year 2016, would be a vast improvement on the previous one; since it provided the ‘Change Agents’ the opportunity of having their first  full year in office. Not a few had, therefore, looked forward to policies that would enhance the lives of the people and positively touch the different facets of the nation’s economy.

Interestingly, the nation’s integrated marketing communications industry was not exempted from such high hopes too. Stakeholders, in the industry, were equally expectant. Should  the economy  run well in the year, the  N97.9 billion recorded in 2015 as the total advertising spend in the year, should be surpassed at the end of 2016, they had projected.

Besides, many were also of the strong opinion that some perennial, but nagging issues, which had continued to hold the industry back, in the past few years, would be sorted out, and the industry would be able to ‘maximise its potential.’

But with the exit of 2016 and those expectations are far from being attained,  not a few therefore believe those high expectations and hopes were rather misplaced.

“It’s one of those years one would want to forget in a hurry,”  stated Akeem Obaje,  a top outdoor advertising practitioner, when asked of his assessment of the outgone year, by Brands & Marketing.

According to him, it was a year the doldrums, which had been the lot of the nation’s economy in the past few months and harsh regulatory framework from the state, conspired to deny outdoor advertising practitioners huge revenue.

And, interestingly, the above conclusion may not be farther from the truth.  In October, MTN was fined N1.04 trillion (about $5.2 billion) for failure to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers’ SIM cards from its network. Though the amount was later reduced by the industry regulator, the NCC, after some maneuverings, but an obvious fall-out from the development was the drastic downward review of the telco’s advertising budget for the year.

One glaring evidence of such ‘cost-saving measures’ is the telco’s advertising presence at the popular Maryland terrain, in Lagos, which has  suddenly given way to that of a competition in recent times.

While many believe that  sanctions for infringements are necessary, they are however of the opinion that such sanctions should not be such that would  lead to demise of  businesses at the end of the day, as being currently witnessing by some advertising agencies servicing the various MTN accounts in the country.

To further aggravate the misfortune of the nation’s out –of- home sector in the year, another huge spender in the telecom sector, Glo, has also decided to  cancel a huge bulk of its outdoor advertising projects pan -Nigeria, with Lagos, which used to be the hub of its outdoor advertising activities in the past, presently hosting  not more than five billboards of the telecom service provider.

Harsh regulatory measures have also been identified as one of the several factors stunting the growth of the sector too.

“Business has been very bad this year because the enabling environment is not just there. The policies are just not friendly at all. How does one explain a situation where we are still  being made to pay for vacant boards  by the state outdoor regulatory agencies, in Lagos,  in spite of our pleas? This has not helped the business at all,” explained an official of  Outdoor Advertisers Association of Nigeria (OAAN), who would not want his name in print for fear of being victimized.

According to him, the foreign exchange challenge also took its own toll on the sector this year. Many clients in outdoor advertisement no longer see the need for them to advertise; since they produce at minimal capacity.

“Most of our clients are presently producing at very low capacity because they can not access forex, so they don’t see any need for advertisement for now. When you do not produce much, what is there to advertise?” he asked rhetorically.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment, for stakeholders in the nation’s IMC, in the year was the inability of the Federal Government, through its Ministry of Information to appoint a new Chairman for the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), the apex regulatory body in the industry.

APCON plays a major role in the regulation of advertising practice in Nigeria, and not a few believe that being without a board, in the past few years, has been one of the greatest undoing of the industry, over the period.

For instance, the apex regulatory agency has continued to lose money, which could have accrued as charges on online adverts, if a board had been in place to enact a law, in this regard.

Since the  sack of the legally-constituted board of the Council, led by a respected practitioner in the industry, Mr Udeme Ufot, by the incumbent Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, last year, the Council has been running without a board till date.

The inability of the new orientation campaign, Change Begins With me, to resonate with Nigerians, in spite of the hype that heralded its launch  and the controversies surrounding the ownership of the idea remains another major highlight in the outgone year.

Since its launch by the Ministry of Information few months ago, the campaign has not made the required impact among Nigerians, a development attributed to the strategy adopted by the Ministry regarding the campaign.

The immediate past Chairman of the Advertising Agencies Association of Nigeria (AAAN), Mr Kelechi Nwosu, attributed the inability of the campaign  in making the desired impact to the failure to of the Federal Ministry of Information to involve the state and local government information arms in the dissemination of the campaign.

“For us, Year 2016 remains a year of huge expectations, but little delivery.  A year that evokes deep trauma among practitioners, one can not just wait to see it go,” stated Mr Femi Oshin, a practitioner.