Over regulation, multiple levies killing outdoor advertising in Nigeria —OAAN Secretary

State of outdoor advertising in Nigeria

IT is no longer what it used to be. A lot of things have changed. It has grown from being a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. What we see now are  people running around for what they can get.  When your billboards are vacant, there are charges that  you continue to run on those billboards, and because these billboards are vacant, and you don’t want them to be permanently vacant, it is what you are offered that you will take. You are no more in control of what you charge.

When a billboard is vacant, the regulatory agency, especially LASAA still want you to be paid, and you want to be able to get something to pay them. You are no longer  in a position to say, ‘we can’t take this’. Unfortunately,  the regulator is telling you that it is not bothered, all it wants is the money, either the billboard is vacant or not. This puts you under pressure to to want to take anything that you see. Besides,  you also do not have control over what the client or the advertiser will spend. They might decide to do town-storming, market penetration. The cost of outdoor has gone so high, that some of them have started looking for alternatives, they’ve decided to move their budget to other mediums. Unfortunately,  there is nothing that we can do about it, other than to tell them that outdoor still remains the best option for their brands. People see it, and they don’t have to pay to see it. The billboards  are out there standing, you don’t have to pay anybody to see it, unlike a situation where you would have to buy a newspaper or have a television set to the ads on these channels.

The Regulatory issue

Regulation still remains an issue, in the sector. For instance, practitioners  are  faced with the problem of regulators,  charging us all kinds of fees, which must be paid, either we like it or not.  It is a big disincentive to the business. It is actually killing the business.

OAAN’s attempt at addressing these challenges

The Outdoor Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (OAAN)  had tried to meet with the regulators to bring down their charges, but to no avail. Even where they have agreed, they have simply refused to implement such agreements. Interestingly the regulatory framework for outdoor advertising in the country, especially Lagos, is very good.  It states how much the regulatory agency can charge. It is from the law that we know that what they are charging now is far higher than what the law says they should charge.  This is because they are more concerned with the revenue that they want to rake in. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of a lot of businesses.  I believe government will make money through taxation, but not by over-taxation. What we are experiencing is something that should have been taxation becoming over-taxation.

No tax collects 50 percent of your income. Which agency of government insists on businesses paying N300,000 before they can practise, every year? For your information, besides this amount, you still pay for vacant billboards. Is that the way to encourage people to work? No. That is why you see that there are so much unemployment out there. For instance, we had to lay off some staff, in my company, sometimes ago, because the thing was taking its to on our business.  Our workforce used to be larger than this. There is a guy there, he’s a bill poster.

Before, he and some others,  were full time staffs. But now what we do is anytime we have a job, he goes to do it, and we pay him. Government is supposed to put policies in place that will enable small businesses to employ. When people are employed, they will be able to pay their taxes, fend for themselves and fend for relations. But when government come up with policies that will continue to put you  in perpetual debt, then there is a problem.

Issue of unpaid/ industry debt

We still have members being  owed for jobs done years ago. Even the ones the state government is owing us for campaigns, in 2015  haven’t been paid. We are just hoping that with Sanwoolu in government, a lot of things will change. We need to have people who will listen to us, and not people  with the mindset that we the outdoor advertisers don’t want government to make money. Government should not just  be thinking of making money off people.  They should put the private sector in a position that  can make them employ people.  It is the small and medium scale enterprises that remain the largest employers of labour.

Industry’s expectations as new government takes over in Lagos

Our expectations are that the  new government  will  listen to us. Our expectations are that the new government will know that the place of government is not to over tax people and put burden on them.  That the new government will know that it is not about making  so much money from this sector, because  if it is looking at it that  way, what will happen at the end of the day is that the sector would be killed.  If you go round town today, in Lagos,  you will see so many vacant billboards, it should be of concern to you. It tells you the state of the sector. Many members of the association can not even pay subscription fees. It’s that bad.

OAAN,  LASAA relationship

The association doesn’t  have  problem with anybody, especially the regulators.  But what we are only saying is that they should reason with us. They should listen to us. We are dying.  The money you are charging us is too much. Vacant billboards should attract no charges.

Nobody wants his billboards to be vacant. But they see us as troublesome.  But, if I’m not making the money and you are insisting I should pay, won’t I  shout? Where do I get the money from, especially when it is becoming clearer by the day that we are being pushed out of business?

Why the sector did not record a boom during the last electioneering campaign

What happened was that  laws were not respected. Many people, especially the state regulatory agency and the politicians took laws into their hands. We saw everywhere littered  with A –frame signages all over the place. why would you allow such, when there were billboards all around?  Why bend the rule, just because some powerful people were involved here?  Many of the political billboards, at the end of the day, didn’t pass through  our members, the real practitioners, and that was one of the reasons the industry didn’t quite feel the effect of the electioneering campaign.

Ways out of these challenges

APCON must sit up and do what it is set up to do. There are too many people practising advertising that are not registered. Most of the jobs LASAA and other agencies are doing concerning advertising regulations are actually functions of APCON. That is why we have many people out there that are not registered with APCON practising advertising,  and the regulatory agency has not done anything.

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Council or no council, the law is there. Besides, somebody is there, too, running the agency.  Nothing stops APCON  from writing agencies like LASAA, asking them to obey the law of the land. It is when you don’t want to do anything that you say there is no council. If the council picks up its pen and write all the sectoral groups and tell them it can no longer work with anybody that is not registered with it, you will see decorum.  You ask them to get a clearance from the agency before they practise. But it is when they start shying away from their responsibilities that they will say there is no council.

For instance, OAAN had, in the past, given them names, they didn’t do anything. At one point they said they would start with us.  They wanted to start with those who are already members of OAAN, a sectoral group.

First quarter assessment

It’s been terrible. When we say it’s not good, you ‘ll see it all over. Outdoor is not something that you can hide. If you drive round the town, count the number of billboards on the road, and cross check the ones that are actually active. You will see that a huge number of billboards are presently vacant in Lagos. That tells you the state of the sector, today. It also tells that you the last three months had been terrible for outdoor business.

Expectations for the second quarter

No hope.  The fundamentals are not just bright. Before, we used to have a one- year contract, but now it’s three months contract, because the cost of outdoor has gone up.  Clients  now plan your outdoor expenses. Instead of doing one year at a go, they  will do three months or even two months. This is because what clients  probably spent for one year before is what they now spend for three months, so they are more meticulous about their advertising budget now, especially the one that goes to outdoor.