Rationale behind the association’s logo refresh
I’m sure you are aware that we recently introduced a new brand identity for AAAN. This was done at the last LAIF Award, and we used the reveal to close the event. If you asked the creative who put this together, what they would tell you is that this represents the DNA of the association. If you look closely, you’ll see the DNA strands that form the initials of the association. And that DNA represents the DNA of professionalism, the DNA of creativity and of course excellence.
Looking at the portraits of the past leadership of the association, it has been like a relay race; a change of baton from one set of leadership to another, a generational change of baton. And all through what you find is the emphasis of trying to promote excellence in the industry. And so you could rightly say that our refreshing and introducing a new logo at this time is an opportunity for us to renew those values that we stand for, and also begin to give a fresh face to the association, with the aim of repositioning the association as a top leader, and a sectoral group leader.We want to begin to reposition the association to be true champion of creativity, within the broader space of business. So the new logo speaks to that DNA, and we want our members and the public to have a new sense that there is a new momentum going on within the association towards being a more dynamic player within the marketing industry.
The relationship between the chosen colours and the association’s DNA Well, colour blue represents dependability, stability. It represents reliability, creativity. That’s what colour blue represents. We want to believe that it is an association that has been able to face challenges and come out on top. Today we are still thriving. We are still flourishing as a family of about 84 members. We are 84 members strong, and we want to believe that that speaks to dependability, continuity. The orange colour speaks to creativity, speaks to vibrance. We are a vibrant group of professionals, giving the nature of our vocation. We are creative, we are giving to being vibrant and brilliant, regarding our products in the market-place which is winning ideas for the clients we work for. So the association represents a
blend of dependability and creative brilliance. So that is what our members are all about, dependability and creative brilliance.
The agency behind the creative work When the exco was overseeing this project, the whole idea was to put together a team from the various agencies to work on it, so that everybody can share in the privilege of coming up with a new-look for the association. So, we can just say that yes, this is something that was produced by our members, inspired by the exco and executed by members.
Our logo refresh, not as a result of any challeng It is informed by the need for us to reposition the association.
Repositioning the association means improving our relevance, improvement our engagement with our supervising ministry, improving our relationship with other sectoral groups, improving the engagement we have with APCON, and equally important is improving the level of engagement and ownership that the younger segment of our membership have. We don’t want it to look as if it is an association of the top ten agencies. We also want the upcoming advertising professionals to look to the association and say, ‘I’m proud to be associated with the AAAN’. That is not to say it has not been so in the past. This is just a step to reinforce our relevance, reinforce our association and improve the way we engage, with all our stakeholders. So I would not say it is specifically because there is a supposed detachment or lack of reference from the state to our profession. I think it takes more than a logo refresh to get government to notice you and engage you. It is about just creating a new soul and spirit for the association. What we intend to achieve with the association’s forthcoming Annual General Meeting and Congress.
We will be holding this year’s AGM of the association between July 11 and 13, in Asaba, Delta State, and the theme of the Congress will be ‘The War Within: Solutions for Survival’. We all agree it is a very apt theme for the time. I believe most of the time when you are looking at the business landscape, the tendency to be more focused on the issues and the challenges being faced will tend to make one put the blame on either clients, the economy or the naira. But I believe why this is apt is that it forces us to confront the issues within our business , within our operations, and look inward and begin to think of how we can strengthen our operations, as advertising professionals.How do we make ourselves more relevant? How do we reposition? How do
we reboot our businesses to become more resilient, to become more dynamic, in a very highly competitive business landscape? So I believe it would be an interesting platform for agencies and the entire industry to come together and hobnob and begin to share ideas, share perspectives and also share learnings of how they’ve been able to thrive within the current business climate. So that to me is what I believe is very distinguishing about this because it is forcing us to look inwards, so that we can be strong to grow outwards.
Our Advertising Academy as a platform for grooming creative talents
The Advertising Academy is a pillar project of the association because of what it represents for us. This is an association that is over four decades old, and it’s been able to hold itself together. But at some point we realized that the pipeline that brings young talents
to this industry becomes more crucial, if this association is going to last another four decades. Right now we can not guarantee that the quality of the talents that will continue to come into advertising will be met at the level at which it will be beneficial to our industry. So the onus is on us as an organization to take the lead and champion a very well-articulated curriculum that will make up to the standards of what we require. Before now, we left it to certain institutes to continue to train and develop those talents for us. But that’s no longer working. So what we want to do is take our own destiny in our hands, so that that very veritable pipeline that will break talents, the type that will be trained to the level that we require can be installed. Interestingly, we’ve learnt some few lessons from some of our previous attempts at doing this, and we’ve, sort of, chanelled all of these positive and not too positive that we learnt in the process to make sure that this time once we start, you’ll celebrate with us in future. We are also taking a closer look at the curriculum. We want to be able to produce graduates who will be up to the moment, who will be advertising professionals for today’s challenges, who will also be true partners to our clients, becauseit’s one thing to have the curriculum, and another thing to fill the needs’ gap. There is needs’ gap within our industry, and even in the larger marketing industry, and we want the products of the Advertising Academy to be major assets for agencies and the clients.
One of our major mandates, as an association, is to drive professional development, and the Academy is supposed to be a key vehicle for capacity building, within the industry, capacity building for entry-level professionals, middle-level managers and other executives within the advertising and also marketing industry. We are positioning it to be relevant to the entire marketing industry. Over time, as you are all aware, we’ve been able to build a very solid framework for the Academy. We’ve been able to introduce a strong curriculum, which was developed over several regimes, several administrations. And what we have begun to do is to finalise the actual business plan for the proper launch of the Advertising Academy, this year. We aim to launch the Advertising Academy, this year, and one of the approaches we have adopted is to make it a lot more an enterpreneurial model, where it is not just seen as an arm of the association, but seen as a professional institute, though with the support of AAAN, but driven by entrepreneurial business value. So what we have done so far is to come up with an Investor’s Kit, and we are also in that stage now, where we are about to recruit leadership that we manage the Academy. We are also about embarking on a fund drive, and will need the support of the entire advertising industry, the support of our partners within the nation’s marketing sector to properly fund the start-up of
Academy. So we are very confident about the Academy, since we have a rich pool of resources to pull from. We have a rich curriculum, and what we are dealing with now is the business end to ensure it serves as a pillar for capacity building within the marketing industry.
Management of the Academy not restricted to practitioners alone
As an association, we are not particular about where the personnel come from, as long as such person is suitable. Once he has the drive and he’s someone that will add value to building the Academy from Ground Zero. But I will say the candidates we are talking to are established senior practitioners within the advertising industry.
and then