NOW THAT THE ELECTION IS OVER...

The AAAN congress and election took place in Abuja from the 1st of August to the 3rd. It was very exciting and well attended. It was also well covered by the media. To me, the highpoints of the AGM were the lecture delivered by Cyril Maphosa and our presidential debate. CM's paper was very exhaustive and well delivered. He had clearly prepared for the event. It set us all thinking. Contributions were also from Hon Abike Dabiri, Tony Elumelu, Chris Doghudje, Sir Steve Omojafor, Udeme Ufot etc. It was a very useful session. Our debate was also very interesting and very well conducted. Rufai Ladipo and I presented our views and plans for the asociation if elected. Our coleagues also had an opportubity to ask questions. One thing came out clearly from the debate, the two of us are very enthusiastic and passionate about the affairs of the AAAN. On Friday, members voted overwhelmingly for me 45 to Rufai's 10. I am quick to add that Rufai remains a good friend and respected colleague and he ran a robust campaign. I also believe that between the two of us we have set new and higher standards for the asociation and selecting our presidents in future will be taken even more seriously. I am glad that Rufai has pledged his support, and I am also quick to admit that he has some great ideas that the current Exco will use. Moving on, the plan is to terminate this blog site. Another one will be created for my tenure as the AAAN President. I will still encourage you and others to continue to contribute to the website with a view to ensuring we have a more virile AAAN and profession. To those who contributed during the life time of this blod site, I say thank you and God bless you.

PG GROUP JOINS CONVENTION FOR BUSINESS INTEGRITY

On Friday July 19, the Prima Garnet Ogilvy Group was formally admitted as asignatory of the Convention on Business Integrity. It is a very prestigious development and totally underscores our commitment to the ideal of integrity in business. The other signatories are: List of other Present Signatories Organisations/Individuals Express Discount Limited, Diamond Bank., Prominent Securities Limited, Cadbury Nigeria Plc., Denham Management Ltd., Lagos Business School., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, SAP AG, , MFCT Risk Watch Insurance Brokers Ltd , GT Bank, MTN Dr. Christopher Kolade, Mr.Akintola Williams, Professor Gabriel Olusanya, Professor Pat Utomi Dunlop Nigeria Plc. , Omolayole& Co. Background to CBi Nigeria has repeatedly been labeled one of the most corrupt countries in the world. A perceived all-compassing culture of corruption could give the impression that there is practically no room for anyone to operate outside its borders. A strong consensus has grown that if Nigeria is to develop, the battle against corruption must be fought on different battlefields. To this end, CBi was established to empower business transactions in and within Nigeria against corruption and corrupt practices. The vision is to move the society towards a visible zero tolerance for corruption. It is hoped that in time it will reposition the idea that Nigerian businesses are fraudulent and instead foster international relationships that can lead to meaningful exchange. CBi is a declaration for the maintenance of ethical conduct, competence, transparency and accountability by private sector operators. There was need to translate this declaration into principles and regulations that could be used as a code. A group of signatories came together for regular meetings to translate the principles of the declaration into minimum standards which resulted in the Code of Business Integrity. The code was adopted by the current signatories to the Convention on Business Integrity in 1998. The code identified the need for an elected Core group to lead the initiative and for a secretariat to be set up to administer the initiative. At the end of 1998, a Core-group was elected, including signatories, business consultants and a representative from Integrity. In 1999, the secretariat was set up. In 2001, SAP the world’s leading provider of e-business software solutions, announced that it is giving its support to the convention and will thus fund the set up of a secretariat in Nigeria. In July 2002, SAP formerly appended its signature to the Convention on Business Integrity. In March 2004, funding was received from DFID to carry out specific projects, which includes resource and human capacity building for the organisation, signing ceremonies for public and private institutions and report developments on business ethics issues. CBi’s vision is to create a society of Zero tolerance for corruption. We feel very proud of this development and look forward to the time whenn more members will sign up.

CREATIVITI MAGAZINE: VOX POPULI VOX DEI

I RECEIVED A COPY OF THE WIDELY CIRCULATED AND RESPECTED INDUSTRY MAGAZINE, CREATIVITI. THEY HAD CONDUCTED A POLL AROUND AGENCIES COMPARING THE TWO CANDIDATES FOR THE AAAN PRESIDENCY. I WILL REPRODUCE THEIR POLL RESULTS VERBATIM BELOW. AAAN PRESIDENCY - Who's next? That the AAAN Presidency is around the corner is no new thing by now. Speculations are rising all over the advertising industry as to who will don the prestigious crown of leadership of the Association. But who are the contenders for this position of resonsibility for an industry that is rapidly gaining incredible prominence in the hallmarks of marketing communications and brand positioning? Creativiti took her inquisitive and curious self to find out about some of the men who are poised to take the leadership of the AAAN. We eventually were able to get to meet two of them despite their very busy schedule. The contenders in question are Rufai Ladipo (MD STB-McCann) and Lolu Akinwunmi (MD Prima Garnet Ogilvy). For Innovation and real Creativiti: Rufai Ladipo clinched 35% while Lolu Akinwunmi bagged 65% For Charisma and Personality: Rufai Ladipo got 45% while Lolu Akinwunmi had 55% For accountability and transparency: Rufai Ladipo had a total of 40% while Lolu Akinwunmi got 60% For AAAN Presidency: Rufai Ladipo had 40% while Lolu Akinwunmi had 60% Vox Populi Vox Dei

ELECTION UPDATE

The AAAN Secretariat has announced the postponement of the AGM earlier scheduled for the end of June; the new dates are August 1 - 3. Venue remains the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FOR BEING WITHIN AAAN?

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments.

Thanks my dear anonymous friend for your very useful contribution. What I have done is respond within the body of your message in green.

I am a little sceptical, though about the eficacy of some of your proposals. Here is my problem: how do we mandate pitch fees? If AAAN "mandates" pitch fees, and a small agency is just happy to be invited to the table to pitch, the temptation will be great to pitch, just for the chance and the opportunity. If there are enough of these agencies out there (and there are), this might place AAAN members at a disadvantage.

The idea of pitch fees is to safeguard our members from prospects who just love to invite agencies and tap our brains and refuse to compensate us. It isnt new, and it happens in some professions like law and architecture as well. And there are existing regulations on it. Compliance has been very difficult because members generally still respond to invitations to pitch without asking to be compensated. We cannot eat our cake and also have it. It is time to speak some home truths to ourselves. Do we believe in this pitch fee regime? If we do, then lets all be committed to it. Sanction is a little difficult now because no one reports when the rule is broken. However, we are soon running a campaign to all clients and prospects on what steps to take when inviting agencies to pitch; many of them dont know. We want to tell them for example that credentials pitch neednt attract a fee; creative and strategy pitches will. If the "small" agency prefers not to be paid a pitch fee as you suggest, then it is not in line with the global goal of the AAAN. The door is still open for discussions on the issue: should we completely scrap the issue of pitch fees and let agencies decide which pitches they want to participte in? We will rest the issue this year.

Secondly, what are the sanctions that will accrue if an AAAN member agrees to present a pitch, without remuneration?

The sanctions already exist, and the first step is that such erring agency will face the AAAN Disciplinary Committee. I served on this committee and chaired it in the past. The agency is given every opportunity to present a case and defend itself. What the sanction will be will be at the discretion of the committee working within the laid down regulation. In the past I think an agency was fined and another suspended from the association.

Since you asked for suggestions, here are my feelings. It is my belief that we may not be in a position to mandate or demand anything from clients unless we are also willing to make them a guarantee. There must be a certain level of promise, quality, and assurances that we must make to them to assure thaem that it is in their bets interest to deal only with AAAN member agencies. An AAAN "certified" agency should count for something tangible to them. The details of such assurances, guarantees, or standards, can be worked out later.

Good thinking. The campaign to back this is in progress and should start running as soon as the presentations from agencies are vetted and approved. I agree with you.

In addition, membership must also have its privileges. I have a few ideas that may seem small and immaterial, but they are ideas that may lead to other big ideas. First of all, the AAAN may consider entering into partnerships with airlines, hotels, whereby membership in the AAAN will automatically guarantee its employees a certain % discounts on airfares, accommodation,gym membership, tee time privileges and the like.

There was indeed a time when we had this membership privileges with an airline and some hotels. I suspect over time, we all stopped asking about them. We will rescucitate it and even extend it to other relevant vendors for group benefits.

Secondly, you might want to consider another "assurances" pledge between members. This might help to draw in the "little fish" that are scared that the "big fish" will eat them up or stamp them out of existence. This is all I am able to come up with for now.Hope it helps.

The "assurances pledge" is already in our constitution and our bye laws. We are expected to respect each other's interests etc. But what do we have? Everyone breaks the rules. Ideally, we should ask questions from the incumbent when a client offers us its business, but how many of us do it? We are too excited about the business. And unlike what many agencies think, the so called big agencies also suffer it. Take us for example, one of our bank clients had agreed that we run their capitalisation campaign; somehow, things changed in a mysterious way and they gave it to a smaller agency, which was too glad to take it, and didnt even as much as say a word to us. The only time you hear this is when its the other way round. We can keep on mouthing these things; if we dont show serious commitment, it will continue to be a case of dogs eating dogs.

Sincerely,"Anonymous"

I thank you again for your contributions and wish you well.

Regards,

'Lolu

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FOR BEING WITHIN AAAN?

An anonymous practitioner contributed this piece below, in reponse to a previous one from Afolabi Sorunke, another practitioner. I will attempt to respond to the issue within Anonymous' comments.

Anonymous said... Lolu,I have read your manifesto, and your response to Folabi. I am still in the dark about what tangible benefits will accrue to a practitioner solely as a member of AAAN.It is a fact that some non-AAAN members are unethical and crooked, but that cannot be said of every body. So, for the practitioner who is committed to tilling and toiling the old-fashioned way till the big break comes, please enlighten me more, in real tangible terms, why being a member of AAAN will be beneficial to me.Or is it an idea whose time has passed? Or is it an idea whose purpose needs to be revamped and redefined?Once again, I remain anonymous, for now. Friday, 01 June, 2007.

Let me start by saying many of our membership benefits have been eroded over the years; we must be honest to admit this. Consider some of them: discriminatory media/production margins, industry clout, government liaison etc. We all know how we got to this sorry pass, and I wont go into the sad details. I hve mentioned some of the things I pln to do to restore many of them.

Having said this, I must draw your attention to one major benefit we havent lost. Many serious local and multinational clients still prefer to deal with AAAN members. The recent pitch announcement by UBA specifically wanted AAAN agencies. We therefore must harp on this, and your exco is already working on a series of campaigns to let the public know that it is mre professional to deal with an AAAN agency.

While it is a sad situation, it is not entirely helpless. Moving ahead, and if I receive your mandate, I intend to do the following which I believe will offer more membership benefits to our members:

Discriminatory media commissions will be reinstated.

We will enter into discussions with BON, NPAN etc to review the situation. I must warn that it will come with a commitment from us: we must be responsible in the area of payment, because inevitably, the media owners will tie it to payments. I mentioned this in my response to Folabi. See, the issue is that the media environment has become liberalised. Years back, very few players were outside of AAAN, and they were so small and weak. It was therefore easier for us to manage them, vis a vis the media owners. Now we have many non AAAN agencies, and other contractors and hot shops and they represent a formidable clout, especially when they have the financial muscle. We will give our commitment to the media owners to make our members do better, and in return will demand for the reinstatement of the discriminatory discounts.

Pitch Fees Will Be Mandatory

I intend to follow up on current efforts on this. We have initiated a process which will educate all current and prospective clients on how to go about selecting agencies and the need to pay pitch fees to our members. We also intend to obtain the support of ADVAN in this respect. We are aware that our members spend a lot on pitches and are sometimes not remunerated, or just partially so. Things will change. Again we will need every one's support. If we insist on members not pitching when a prospect insists on not paying a pitch fee, and our members regularly flout this, it cannot help our cause. Until such a time when we begin to speak and act in one accord, it will be hard for us.

Client Indebtedness

Many of our members are suffering from clients who owe us indefinitely. I am committed to using the clout of the association and legal means where provable and necessary to ensure this is reduced to the minimum. We will ensure that our members report such situations to the secretariat, and we will take them up, and see them to a logical conclusion.

These are some of the benefits we are looking towards introducing. I will urge you because I see you are interested in the welfare of the profession, to also foward to me ideas which we can all look at towards increasing the value of AAAN membership. What will you like to see for example? This is the whole issue of this dialogue, since no one practitioner can have all the answers; lets benefit from the insight of your experience.

Once again I appreciate your contributions. Its a long, long road ahead and it will take the sustained invlovement of people like you and Folabi an others to make it rewardable for us all. I look forward to hearing from you.

FOLABI, YOU ARE RIGHT

My Dear Folabi, many thanks for your very thoughtful contributions on issues the new leadership of the AAAN needs to address. First, let me assure you that you are on course, and almost without exception, its the same feedback I have been getting from agency to agency: What do we gain from our AAAN membership?

Truth is the gains have been liberalised especially by our media friends, who simply treat all their customers on cash and carry basis, ignoring the fact that AAAN members ought to earn more than non members. This issue is very fundamental, and we should not play politics with it.

Lets ask ourselves, "why is this happening"?

Over the years, the liberalisation and intense competition in the business environment make it compelling for the media houses to deal with everyone on cash and carry basis, knowing many of the non AAAN patrons have a choice. So what do we do? We need to forge a new relationship with the media owners and restore the old relationship you and I knew 10, 15 years ago. Part of this is very fundamental: we must meet our obligations to them.

Truth is we have lost their respect and cooperation, and the erstwhile relationship has lost its trust value. And if you go from media house to media house, the refrain is that our members have abused the trust and owe incessantly, refusing to pay. Is this true? In some cases yes; in others, its simply mischief. The loss of the trust also means a loss of the privileges we used to enjoy over our non AAAN colleagues, who almost invariably deal on cash and carry basis and are therefore found more attractive by the media houses.

In the new dispensation, we will work afresh with the various representatives of the media houses, and agree a new regime of business relationship which will assure that their financial interests are protected, by ensuring that both parties keep strictly to the new terms of credit and its management. We have told them over and over again that credit shouldnt be extended to agencies which consistently abuse it; the time has come for us to enforce it to protect everyone.

If for example we all choose to go the way of prepayment as many of them now do, then we must convey this to the clients, who must also fall in line with the new reality. You must agree that even our members also suffer from clients who owe us incessantly and make us look very bad with the media houses. It will be a long and tortuous journey, but before we get to the end of it, we will succeed in restoring the relationship and now be in a position to ask for privileges again, afterall, to who much is given, much is expected.

On the issue of esprit de corp, we will all have to work on it. Having served on the membership committee for many years, I share your position, but know that we are all guilty. Unfortunately, most times, many of our members dont speak out. For instance, our agency has lost at least three key businesses in the last 12 months to so called smaller agencies through means we wouldnt describe as too professional, and but for your contribution, I wouldnt have mentioned it. Its happeneing to everyone.

The current exco is working hard on protecting everyone, and as the chairman of the ethics committee I am in the thick of this. Folabi, we all simply must begin to respect ourselves again and not allow overiding business interests alone to motivate us. I am aware of what the issues are with my brother Sola at UB40, and would wish that we were all properly insulated from things like this. Because of our desperation to get new businesses, we have often played into the hands of clients, who take advantage of us. New guidelines on account acquisition will go a long way in ensuring the interests of individual members are protected, and our members acting properly, professionally and responsibly. This is a promise from me. Moving on, I will ensure that even when people lose businesses, they at least get a sense that things have been properly done.

We all have a major role to play in these. We all must begin to see the values in integrity, honesty and fairplay. I have propagated these for years and either we like it on not, if we dont comply, we will continue to have problems within members.

Folabi, I thank you for your very encouraging contributions, and thank you especially for your declared support, and the very nice things you have said about me. I will be dpending on your support and your active participation when we call on you for higher service. Please keep on sharing this new spirit and message with your friends and our colleagues. Together we can all do great things for the association again. God bless you.