Nigeria’s advertising community tasked to refocus campaigns from sales to social good
The need for Nigeria’s advertising community to refocus their adverts from over-concentration on consumption and sales to society good and society enhancement has been underlined by speakers at Noah’s Ark lecture marking the firm’s 10 years in business.
Over time, companies and agencies have been entangled in telling stories about their products, most of the messages targeted towards consumption and sales for more market share and profit, but the speakers challenged them to create a paradigm shift towards doing social good and enhancing communities
The speakers who included Thomas Kolster, a consultant from Denmark; Lanre Adisa, CEO of Noah’s Ark; Ikechukwu Obianya of School of Media and Communication of Pan Atlantic University; Kelechi Nwosu of TBWA and Ahmad Mohles, Airtel’s Chief Commercial Officer, believe that when brands develop, educate and do good for people and the planet it would definitely rub off on the brands.
Leading the discussion on ‘goodvertising’, Thomas Kolster said when brands educate people on issues such as climate change and address social challenges, jobs, health issues, sustainability and make other impact in the society, they stand to benefit from such social impact as consumption and sales which is the primary focus now cannot continue to thrive in a chaotic and disordered society.
Business is beyond just profit. Business is not only about consumption anymore. There are more ways of looking at business, Thomas told the audience and challenged media and creative agencies to push the clients on ways of building the community as a new way of business.
Tasking agencies and advertising companies to think of legacy and avoid short termism in their operations, Thomas who is described as sustainability expert reminded them that when government is failing, brands should take up social challenge of educating and doing social good.
In his comment, Mokhles believes that pressure for profitability may be driving firms to overlook their social purpose. He said while companies are looking for profit they should understand the relevance of consumer behaviour. With this understanding, they should create impact and relevance.
Also commenting, Ikechukwu Obianya said the brand values should be in tandem with consumers. He also tasked organisations to redefine themselves to understand their purpose.
Lanre Adisa said goodvertising is a wakeup call. He said agencies and clients are doing well in telling stories of their brands but beyond that, they should identify their society goals.
He said the world today cannot live without brands and this confers some power and responsibility on the brand owners and agencies to use this power to enrich the lives of people beyond just worrying about the bottom line.
He agreed that the advertising industry definitely needs to rethink its business models. “We need to open our minds to unlearning some old things”, he said.
Daniel Obi