NIMN is in rebirth – New president

Tony Agenmomen, former Senior Strategy Manager at Nigerian Breweries was last week elected President of National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, (NIMN) to pilot the affairs of the Chartered Marketing Institute, for the next two years. In this interview with some journalists before the election, Agenmomen, a versatile marketer, renowned and brand architect said he would bring his 32 marketing to bear on his position. He is known to be involved in turning around the fortunes of great brands in the competitive Nigerian business environment as he said that “a vision without action is merely a dream”. He has also has intention to reposition the institute by strengthening its brand equity so that it can add value to all relevant stakeholders. Excerpts

My experience and passion will lift the NIMN – Tony Agenmonmen,

Could you share with us years of working experience in Nigerian Breweries?

Working with Nigerian Breweries for me is 32 years of active marketing that I enjoyed. If I have to live my career life again, I will most certainly do marketing. There were great challenges along the way but I think I also had fun. It is exciting when you are involved in building some of the biggest brands in Nigeria, with all the challenges that come with it; it also comes with a lot of fun. I have learnt a lot and I think that I have also contributed quite a lot to the growth of these brands.

After retiring from NBL, you are again, preparing to lead the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), what informed that?

Yes, when I retired from the Nigerian Breweries, I think I made it pretty clear to my friends that I was not going to be sleeping. Now, coming into the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria to head it is not sudden. I have spent 32 years of my life in this profession, and you actually want to be proud of the profession that you belong to.  You know pretty well the history of the institute; it has not been what it supposed to be. Today, I don’t think that so many of the people who ought to identify with it are happy to be called members of the institute. So it has been my burning desire to be recognized, you have to be in the champions league; we are currently not playing in the champions league and I believe that with the few things that we have been able to do for our brands, when we were working in Nigerian Breweries and for the company, I believe that we can bring that experience to bear to bring the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) to play the champions league, and so that is just a simple desire.

What new things are you bringing on board?

It is like we really want to start afresh, just like you have rightly noted that the National Institute of Marketing today is, if I were to put it in a proper marketing narrative, the equity is very weak. I think that summarizes everything about it, but we will not fold our arms. This will require bringing marketing skills, knowledge and everything to build the brand. The brand is there, we have the people, we have the resources, it is just for us to actually do the kind of things that we have done for our brands. I am sure that in no distant time, you will be very proud of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria.

When you look at those who have managed the institute, they seem to have that attitude of the public sector, how are you going  to manage?

I think that addressing the equity challenge of the institute today will require asking some salient questions like: when you look at the stakeholders, is there anything that the institute is giving to them today? Is there anything that they can look forward to the institute for?  The answer to such questions is No.

Let’s start with students. I am talking of students who are in the Polytechnics and Universities who are reading Marketing; obviously, that should be the foundation of building the membership of the institute; today, we don’t offer them anything, there is nothing to be proud of, we don’t give assistance in terms of training, in terms of funding, we are not organizing great programmes where they can come in and listen to and experience marketing processes. Look at the marketing professionals who are working, what is being given to them? The answer, again is Nothing. I mean, let’s put it this way, even if you are not doing any other thing, I mean we are doing AGM in Ibadan next month for example, that should be a carnival where all the professionals should meet, even the networking opportunity alone is something but if people don’t even believe in the institute, they are not going to come. Now, the back bone of the institute used to be corporate organizations. Again, what are we giving to them? I believe we should be at the fore front of delivering quality marketing people and for those of us who have been long enough in marketing, if you go around and ask the marketing directors and managers today, I think one of the biggest problems that companies have is getting quality marketing people to work on their brands and the National Institute of Marketing should be at the fore front of driving professionalism, driving that experience and we intend to do that.

Now, coming back specifically to your question about working with civil servants, again I think it is about change management. So, people should work and people should also have fun and once you have fun and mix it with your hard work, I think that is great.

You talked about  training but today, most organizations go to agencies to source for skilled professionals, how will the institute be able to bridge this gap?

That is why I said that the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria is not attractive to the corporate organizations because we are not adding value to them, the professionals are not there, training is not there . I look back to the days of the late Michael Agbakoba and the rest of them. I mean the national institute was actually organizing a lot of the programmes that I grew up with as a marketing professional, I mean, you don’t need to send people always to South Africa, to Europe to learn marketing; I think that the national institute is suited to provide that platform, to organize programmes or courses that people can benefit from. Apart from the general courses or programmes, we can also run specifically planned programmes for companies that can bring out their marketing professionals;

Who is Tony Agenmonmen,?

I was born in a little village in Uromi in Edo State. I have been doing marketing all my life and I have thoroughly enjoyed it, I mean, what I enjoyed most in marketing is the fact that no day is like the previous day. You wake up and go to work thinking that this is your plan and you think you have it all set out but the nature of marketing is such that you are dealing with humans beings, you are dealing with variables in the market place that you have very little control of but yet you have to work with all those variables to be able to deliver.