Why we changed name, constituted Advertising Tribunal —ARCON

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The Director-General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), Dr LekanFadolapo said the decision to change the name of the apex regulatory body in the advertising sector from Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) to ARCON, was informed by the need to address some lacuna created by the former Act setting up APCON.

Fadolapo, who gave the explanation at the Town Hall meeting held with practitioners, as part of this year’s National Advertising Conference, in Abuja, recently, stated that the process, of replacing the former Act with the new one, also gave birth to a new name, and provided the agency more teeth to dispense its statutory duties effectively.

While charging practitioners on the need to be good ambassadors of the practice, the ARCON boss explained that the decision to also set up the Advertising Offences Tribunal stemmed from the need to avert undue delay usually experienced at the regular courts and ensure cases relating to advertising offences are quickly dispensed with.

“If you take somebody to court, they can even be on preliminary objections for two years, on a matter as small as payment of advertising debt, bordering on the survival of an agency. If we have to challenge two or three agencies for poaching accounts illegally, you can imagine what that will be. So we need to bring in Advertising Offences Tribunal that must resolve the issue within 90 days,” he stated.

As part of the ongoing efforts aimed at repositioning the sector, ARCON, he added, would, as from January, 2023, embark on a national audit of advertisement agencies, by categories and specialisation in Nigeria.

To achieve this move, Fadolapo stated that ARCON will be writing to all the sectoral groups, about the plans, and let them know that it would be no longer be business as usual.

He assured stakeholders in the sector of the agency’s commitment to bridging the existing gap between the town and the gown, by looking at areas where the two can collaborate.

“Last year we started the advertising colloquium, expected to interrogate advertising as the body of knowledge, as a practice, and as a business. We want to ensure that we bridge the gap between the town and gown.

“We are moving into the academic world to see how we can bridge that gap between the town and the gown,” he stated.

He also assured practitioners that the reforms, embarked upon by the agency, in the last few years, were designed to sanitise the industry, and not victimise any individual, or group within the advertising ecosystem.

Fadolapo added that such reforms were needed to enable the industry be in tune with best global practice and standard.

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