ADVAN President, Okeme preaches synergy among marketing sectoral bodies

President of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), David Okeme has called on stakeholders within the marketing communications industry to look out for ways they can work better collaboratively.

Okeme, said this recently when top officials of Advertising Agencies Association of Nigeria (AAAN) paid a courtesy visit to the National Secretariat of ADVAN in Lagos, Nigeria.

Receiving the august visitors at their Salvation Street office in Lagos with other members of ADVAN exco, Okeme noted that the move by AAAN to collaborate at a bigger level with ADVAN was a good development for brands and the industry in general.

Explaining that relationship building sits at the edge of client and agency connection, Okeme promptly endorsed the desire of the two industry associations to look at ways that they can connect effectively.

The AAAN delegation was led by the President, Kayode Oluwasona.

The Vice- President, Ikechi Odigbo and Executive Director, Lekan Fadulapo were also part of the delegation from AAAN.

Speaking on the visit which he sees as  a decision by two key stakeholders in the industry to foster the spirit of corporation and collaboration, AAAN President, Kayode Olowasona philosophically pointed out that the two bodies are two sides of the same coin which means the two must consciously  work together to always remain a coin. He explained that the vision of his new exco is to foster stakeholders understand and that is why they see the meeting as very strategic.

His words, “with this visit and the fantastic discussions that we have started, we believe we are both committed to the same vision, which we believe is lofty and in the interest of the two bodies. In fact, we don’t want to have two parties anymore; the brand is what is central.

“The two parties are one, in favour of the brand. I expect that going forward, we will do many things in common. There will intermittently be areas we need to align and clarify issues but the spirit that is on now is for increased understanding, collective agreement and promotion of noble visions. Each of these is what we are starting today.”

Oluwasona went further to share with ADVAN exco some key areas, like the Advertising Academy, that will be the major focus of his new executive team.

Acknowledging that advertising plays a major role in the growth of the industry because it helps build trust of the consumers in brands, ADVAN President, David Okeme, declared that his team will align with and support all programmes from the AAAN.

“The setting up of advertising academy for instance will build capabilities within member companies as they continue to enrich consumers experience to help them make right choices in the country’s marketplace,” Okeme explained.

Okeme also shared with his visitors some successes and plans ADVAN has on the drawing board. He spoke about his plan to give more value to stakeholders, especially now that Nigeria has a very challenging economy. He also spoke about his plans to set up an industry dialogue platform to intermittently dissect challenging issues in the industry and proffer solutions to them.

“We need to look at ways that we can work better collaboratively. We believe we can have EXMAN, ADVAN, AAAN and other bodies in the industry sit down to define ways to solve nagging issues. Indeed we would be looking forward to collectively trashing out key issues at the dialogue sessions”, Okeme explained.