Advertising Agencies – The Nigerian story in the making

I have had the opportunity to have worked both on the client side and in agencies for over 13years now; some of which I was doing my own thing. Through these years, I have come to realize that productivity is key and in everything we do, the bottom-line is essential. This is why I have decided to list out the 5 death sentence of advertising agencies in Nigeria and hope that those guilty will not only read but change.

1. All about winning awards: This is a selfish act by some agencies. They are all about creating award winning ads than actually communicating the brand essence of their clients’ product and engaging its TA. Due to this, most brands have shifted to patronizing hotshops, experiential agencies and now digital agencies. Why? These upcoming agencies are concerned about getting more clients so, they will go out of their way to be relevant and also, do what the client wants though most times, the client do not know what they want and that brings me to…
2. Yes Sir, Yes Ma, just pay my bill: To keep clients, some agencies have turned errand boys. They eat up what the client says and serve same, forgetting that they are the expert in communication and should advice the client on the best way to go, letting them understand the need to engage the TA, encourage patronage and increase sales. This for me is why clients do not regard agencies. When you make your client understand that yes they know their brands and TA, yes they have an understanding of media comm but they do not know the ‘how to make it work’ with advertising. When you give them a detailed way to go, how to go about it and the effect it should generate as against their own opinion, using professional words and means, they will get the message that you know you onions and that they should let you work. This is where the next comes in.
3. I am a creative not a marketer: We fail to realise that our field is actually a marketing field the difference is that we market with advertising creative’s. Advertising creates awareness which is necessary in the marketing mix. Awareness is a huge part of ‘promotion’ one of the essentials in marketing. If people are not aware of a product and its use, how will they look for it and use it? Advertising does this; though not a direct sales mechanism, it sells indirectly as it helps push sales. So a good creative person should understand marketing and all its tricks to be able to create compelling ads that can lure one to act.
4. Locked up, no time for research: We hardly watch other ads as they run on the media. We even hardly watch ours and the slot they are in. We also do not follow up on competition and what they are doing both on traditional and new media; the leg works’ and the engaging platforms for both our brands and competition. We are just concerned about getting briefs, creating advertising and getting paid. I practically want to go mad whenever I am told ‘Sue there is no time to go out and findout what A,B,C is doing just go online and ask ifa (Google)’. Even our research team carry out their research online or assume they know the TA cause their mum, lover and bestie falls into the category. We all know that Nigeria is not really that strong online; we all don’t live there for now, so why rely on Google for research? I get a brief and I do not see competition, what they are doing and what foreign ones too are doing. Or, I am given just 1 competition when they are over 10. It is bad when client tell you what competition is doing instead of you telling the client, it is even worse that it takes over 24hours before you know that competition just broke a campaign. If this was a maths test, it’s understandable but an advertising job…not good, not good at all!
5. Our biz; your biz: Now this is the all time killer. After 4years working in an ad agency, I had the opportunity to work again on the client side. When I returned back to agency, I saw it. I noticed that most times, we do not create advertising that will help our clients’ brand which actually is now our brand, to sell. We do not go deep into the details of our brands, its channels of marketing and distribution; how is it selling, why is it not selling, what can we do with marketing comm. that will sell it, which mediums do we need to sell it, what did we do wrong the other time, what are we doing right, how can we increase SALES! This is because we see our supposed brands as our clients business when it comes to sales. If you read up about successful all time ad agencies, their history, you will notice a single trend; and that is the advertising pushed sales or services and this is cause they went far to find out how they can push sales/services. When you give your client a solution and he/she can see how it will affect business, they will readily give you the job and when they see your zeal to continually check up on your brand and how it is doing in the market, coming up with more solutions that are not necessarily greedy in nature but a win-win strategy, they will keep you for life.

                              pix credit: http://h2thewall.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

If you have more to add, please feel free and let’s debate on how we can return traditional advertising in Nigeria back to its fame. Keeping in mind that change is inevitable so traditional advertisers should also find innovative ways to remain relevant. Checkout case studies and let’s grow.