AAAN new president promises more engagement with public sector
The CEO of TBWA/Concepts Nigeria, Kelechi Nwosu, who was last weekend elected president of the 41-year-old Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), has promised to consolidate on the achievements of the body, push the association’s reforms and deepen its relationship with government.
Kelechi, whose vision for the association revolves around respect, value and professionalism, believes that as the market becomes more dynamic, the association needs to be on a good stead to do more business with government.
With the determination to build the creative industry and attract government trust, Kelechi says if anybody wants to build reputation, get value, he or she has to show some skills and prove that he has some capability. “This will open doors. We need more business coming to us, and one of the strong things my administration has promised to do and I hope to accomplish is to embark on a strong campaign for the government on probono,” he says.
On Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria reforms, Kelechi, who was the vice president, says his administration will “lobby people to let them know about the reforms and they should abide by them. We have to talk to our people to believe in the reforms as we can’t wait for APCON to push it for us.”
Also interested in empowering his over 80 members, Kelechi, who had served the association in various capacities, promises to make professionalism his focal point, as he says he will energise the committees, particularly the training and development committee. “We need our training to be more often and more qualitative and get revenue from there. We are looking towards starting the training academy in the next 12 months. We need to plan for the academy and not just jump into it, given the experience we have had in the past,” Kelechi says.
LAIF will be given more,j and whether it will have a commercial part. “I also will look at improving the capability, leadership and professionalism of the secretariat so that we have better training for the secretariat as engine room of the association” the new AAAN president says, promising to give the LAIF more live.
Kelechi contested against Lanre Adisa, the CEO of Noah’s Ark.
Over the years, election into the office of the president of the association has followed an unwritten order of allowing vice president to become president, but some people within the association believe in altering the order this time.
Kayode Oluwasona emerged as the vice president while Shola Adegbeioye was elected treasurer, and Ikechi Odigbo is the publicity secretary.
Speaking with BusinessDay on her administration, the immediate past president, Bunmi Oke, who commended her good relationship with marketing and brand journalists, describes her tenure as historic.
“It was a period when so many changes were going on in the industry, which include APCON reforms, 40th anniversary of AAAN, stepping up LAIF awards, and the emergence of female president after a long time.
“The icing on the cake is that we got Federal Government recognition, as the association was invited to be a member of the National Conference. That tells me that in this business we need to work as a team with all stakeholders in the marketing communication,’’ according to Oke.
On her expectations of the new administration, she says “our clients now know that we are professionals and they expect certain standards from us as professionals. My expectation for the new executive is to continue that professionalism. That is the beauty of world- class standards.”
Daniel Obi