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| Managing Director, CreativeXone, Doyin Adewumi |
The Managing Director
of one of the leading adverting companies in Nigeria, CreativeXone, Mr. Doyin
Adewumi in this exclusive interview with OLUWAGBENGA BANKOLE shed light on the
state of the advertising industry in Nigeria, the challenges, roles of
advertising in nation building and some other typical issues. Excerpts
What can you tell us
about CreativeXone, how you started, the challenges and your success
story?
Having spent 21years in the job before leaving Centered
Spread, I have seen the gaps that existed in the industry and I have the dream
of filling up those gaps. We want to raise a new generation of advertising
practitioners and practice advertising the way it should be practice. We have
gone all over the world; we have seen the way people from other part of the
world do advertising; we have learnt a lot and taken a lot from them. We want
to give this experience we acquired to the Nigerian society and we decided that
we needed to create something that will give people a sense of belonging
especially people that are working with us. People that are working with us are
our partners; they are not our staffs, we are all stakeholders in the business.
We need to give people a sense of belonging; we need to create a free
environment because we know that in free environment creativity thrive. We also
know that we need to give people the future. If you know that your future is
taking care of, then you will be loyal to the company that employed you. There
is nothing like owner operate business in CreativeXone, we are all members of
staff and colleagues that is why there is family atmosphere here.
We are set up to solve communication challenges. We know that
for every brand there is a challenge to tackle. We are step up to tackle challenges
in every area of marketing communications. That is why we have an advertising
and creative arm. We have a media independent which take care of our media
strategies and scheduling needs. We have an Experiential Marketing which takes
care of our activation and one on one marketing communication need. We also
have a social media company, called ‘Digital X’ which takes care of our
interactive digital and social media needs. We are poised to offer our clients
complete solution in the marketing communication sphere.
We are barely three years old but if you look at our
portfolio you will see that we have done quite number of things. We have so
many renowned names among our clientele right now. We have Keystone Bank,
Nigerite, Union Bank, LAWMA, LeadWay Pension and many others. We have done
quite a number of things for Lagos State Government and political parties. We
are part of the CHANGE campaign of All Progressive Congress (APC) we worked for
the Osinbajo people. We have been able to gather a lot of clientele in three
years.
What is your
assessment of the Advertising industry in Nigeria, do you think it is some to
write home about?
Indeed it is something to write home about. I think we have
grown. This day there is a lot of collaborations going between Advertising
agencies in Nigeria and the rest of the world. That is why we have a lot of the
companies going into affiliation and we have been able to garner a lot of skills
that were not there before. We have been able to work with them side by side
and we already know how thing is done.
This day technology has changed advertising. With the
technology we have been able to deliver the kind of services that were not
there before. Now we do mobile, digital and LED advertising. Nowadays you can
reach people in various ways that were not there before because what we had
before was the traditional newspapers, television and radio advertising.
Although Advertising has improved in Nigeria, but we can
still not be compared to what is obtained over there. In Africa we are trying,
but we are not at the top because if you see the kind of advertising that is
coming from South Africa and Kenya you will agree with me that we are still
trailing them. We are getting there. Our challenge is not the lack of personnel
with skills or abilities, because we have the people with the brains. Infact I
think we have people with more brains than other part of Africa.
What are the
challenges in the industry?
Our problems are enormous. Electricity, bad roads and many
others. The problems of this country are too many and they take away half of
time we need for thinking because creativity is all about deep thinking. If you
don’t have the time to do your deep thinking, half of your deep thinking is
gone. We are all living in the situation of the country. The more our economy
suffers, the more advertising suffer. That is basically what is affecting us it
is not that we don’t have the personnel. We just need to put our things in
order for us to get thing done properly.
Another thing that is affecting us is the dearth of
training. This industry has not been training his people enough. There is no
school that teaches advertising. The little knowledge you can gather about
advertising is when you are opportune to read Mass Communication. Those who are
teaching advertising in our schools are those who have never seen the four walls
of an advertising company. All what they teach students are theories garnered
from books. They have never witness advertising in its practical existence. We
need an advertising academy where can go and sharpen our brains and skills. Lack
of training is affecting the industry, I know AAAN is trying to organize a lot
of training but these are temporary measures, but we need advertising academy,
where people can get certificate in various areas of advertising practice and
move on in life. We need training in strategy and planning, brand management,
negotiations and many others.
What are the roles of
adverting in nation building?
Adverting echoes the society. Advertising takes from the
society and gives it back, in doing that it plays significant roles on the way
we sell ideas to people especially when it comes to social programme of
government and Corporate Social Responsibilities (CRS) of companies and groups.
We need to be more responsible than we are at the moment.
The reason we are
having all sort of advertising materials that are short on good attribute is
because the industry is not perfectly regulated. APCON are supposed to be
regulating this industry. Advertising agencies are supposed to come under the
umbrella of AAAN, but how many agencies are under the umbrella? We are just
about 70 agencies. We have a lot of unregistered agencies out there that are
parading themselves as advertising agencies, doing jobs that by any standard
should not have come out. How they get their job approve by APCON still
surprise me because all advertising jobs are supposed to pass through APCON for
approval. APCON need to carry out actions against unregistered agencies.
Agencies
that are registered by APCON don’t do raunchy jobs because they know if they do
it they will be sanctioned. APCON should find a way to sanction agencies
including the media houses. The media houses should ask for APCON certificate
before they take ads. That is the way we can be more responsible with the thing
we push out to people.
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