Adisa unveils plans for AAAN, seeks collaboration

President, Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Lanre Adisa, has identified talent development as key to unlocking advertising potential, even as he stressed the need for collaboration within the marketing communication ecosystem.

Speaking during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, he expressed concern over the dearth of talents in the nation’s advertising industry.

Adisa, who is also the Chairman, Heads of Advertising Sectoral Groups (HASG), noted, “I am not saying we are not trying, but what we are doing is not enough with the reality that we are facing. The question is how can we attract talent as an industry? We have to find a new way at looking at this and we have to be deliberate about it. The industry must have an agenda of training talents at a larger scale. Go to India or Brazil, there are abundance of talents.”

Even in South Africa, he noted, “many young people leaving secondary school attend the advertising school. So, there is a constant supply of talents there and they measure it against international standards.”

Describing his new roles as a call to duty, he agreed when one spends over three decades in an industry, it should be of great interest to see that the industry thrives.
Saying the last AAAN executive repositioned the industry and renewed stakeholders’ confidence, he disclosed the mantra of his campaign is stronger together.

To him, “there is a need for collaboration. We are not enemies. We have to work together within the ecosystem. Recently members of the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) visited the AAAN, that is a welcome development and there are lots of things we can do together.”

Speaking further, he said he would also work on three strategies: Relevance, expansion, and values.

Concerning relevance, he noted, “people should respect what we do.”

We save people’s businesses and there is the need to get credit for what we do in the industry and the marketing communication ecosystem.”

Internationally, he insisted there is a need to challenge members to do more so that they can win laurels at the global stage.

In the area expansion, he observed there are lots of people practising advertising outside the AAAN fold, adding, “we need to give room for them to come on board. We can also see willingness on their part to join the association.”

As regards values, he noted there is the need to think of the values that members can give in order for people to reckon with the association.