In this interaction with Brand Visibility Team, President Out-of-Home Advertising Association of Nigeria, (OAAN), Rotn Sola Akinsiku spoke on the Charter Bill for OOH Media Assets Ownership and the benefits to the advertising sector. Excerpts:
What is the Bill all about and the benefits to OOH in Nigeria?
It seeks to determine who can practice OOH. Who can be an Out –of- home assets owner. It is also putting in place the conditions that such individuals should meet, including the form of education, type of experience, type of operations. It is intended to bring sanity to OOH assets media ownership in Nigeria.
It is not everyone that can wake up and say I’m an accountant, even if you studied accountancy in school, you still have to go through some level of professional certification before you become a chartered accountant or even work profitably in the accounting field. The same thing goes for the law profession. No matter how many years you spent in Law Chambers, you still have to attend the Nigerian Law School and be called to Bar before you can parade yourself as a lawyer,
The Bill seeks to bring sanity into the industry, it seeks to bring professionalism to the industry. It seeks to bring excellence to the industry. What it is not is what I want to emphasise here. It is not to contend with the existing law in the advertising industry, especially with the regulatory function and capacity of ARCON. It is not contending with ARCON.
ARCON has the responsibility to regulate the messages displayed on billboards; but ARCON does not control the ownership of billboards. But on the location of billboards, such powers reside with the Local Government as contained in the Nigerian constitution. It is the Local Government that controls out-of-home advertising; that is allowed to derive revenue from Out- of- Home Advertising.
But in some states today, you have signage agencies. In such states, there are laws that created the signage agencies and such laws have warehoused the powers of the Local Government in the signage agencies. We have the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA). In Ondo state, we have the Ondo State Signage and Advertisement Agency. We have a similar one in Oyo State, we have a similar one in Ogun State and even in Abuja, named the Department of outdoor Advertising and Signage. Across the nation, most especially the South-West, South East and South South, some parts of the Northern region; we have in Kogi State.
What they have done is to warehouse the power of the Local Government in their state, regarding the control of out- of- home advertising in the signage agency. Yes, we are not contending with that, if anybody thinks that is not legal enough, then they could challenge it. What we are interested in is how we bring sanity to the practice. On occasions where government in the past saw that Outdoor advertising billboards had become a nuisance, creating visual blights, removing from the aesthetics of the environment, they had moved to intervene and in the process had ended up destroying our members’ billboards.
In Lagos State, the Former Governor Raji Rasaki did it. At a point when Lagos State also created LASAA the pioneer MD then moved out and destroyed all billboards. It happened in Abuja, in the days of His Excellency, the Former Governor, El-Rufai when he was the FCT Minister, He moved against billboards because they were becoming a nuisance for the environment, so he brought down all billboards. Even recently, it happened in Enugu in some areas, where the government decided that the boards were becoming a nuisance in some areas. But if they had been regularly approved with relevant agencies of government, you won’t have such an experience and that is what the bill is trying to bring about. Let us bring professionalism into this practice.
Two years ago, it happened in Kaduna and the excuse each time is that you have billboards that are just springing up and messing up the environment. And we have a group of professionals in OAAN that are also legally recognized by the law that created ARCON for the control of the practice of OOH. So, the association is saying let us have that other leg more adequately protected.
The Out- of- Home Advertising business stands on two legs, there is the leg of the location where you have the billboard and there is the leg of the message on the billboard. The message is being controlled by ARCON, but the location is loose. Anyone can wake up and in front of your house, you could put up a billboard and yes, LASAA could come and pull it down.
We also have people that have billboards that are not registered with LASAA. There is so much charlatanism in that area and that is what the Bill is seeking to protect. The bill is saying that before anybody is allowed to own billboards, they must meet these terms and conditions. That is what the bill is seeking to do and not creating another council. Now let me explain, once you have the approval of ARCON for the display, you’re free. The only thing you need to do is secure the billboard that meets the requirements of the audience that you want to advertise to. They need the approval of the body before they could practice.
It is like the Nigerian Building Society; they have to certify that your building is okay. Today, we have a lot of houses that have been marked for demolition because they did not meet the standards set by Government. So, we want to prevent that in the Out-of-Home sector.
What benefits will the Bill have on the Advertising industry in Nigeria?
In the advertising industry today, you have sectors that are relevant and they include the Advertisers, they have the product or brand to advertise. The creative agencies – members of the AAAN; we have the Media buying professionals, the MIPAN and then you have OAAN. Now let’s look at it this way, if Advertiser A has something to advertise and briefs an AAAN member agency, Insight Communications for instance; Peugeot Nigeria has briefed Insight Communications to create an advertisement. You have the OOH also as part of the entire campaign. Now the Advertiser has briefed the creative agency, who having had the message approved by ARCON now engages the media buyer for OOH platforms and they roll out and they bought from everybody and everywhere and then there is crisis. May be, along a particular location or in a particular state or in a particular city. You have billboards of all types and kinds and in the course of time that the campaign is running, government says it is not happy with the state of out-of-home practice and says bring them down. Out of 100 boards, you have 80 of them that the owners can’t be traced. They are fly by night operators; individuals that are not known to any law or anyone. Government says bring down; the Out- of- Home space in that state suffers a serious setback.
Now, the chain reaction will affect everyone. OAAN is affected because members’ billboards have been brought down and they owe an explanation to the media buyer. Media buyer now asks questions from the OOH or when the Advertiser sees that the campaign is in trouble, he asks creative agencies what happened? Creative agency goes to the media buyer- MIPAN and asks what the problem is? So, it affects everyone. Do you know who suffers the most? It is the brand.
The brand suffers, loses exposure. Don’t forget that campaigns are not done haphazardly; they are tied to a specific period of the year and for the environment of clearly defined marketing communication objectives. In another 2-3 weeks, you’ll begin to see the Christmas campaigns. Advertisement and advertising is to target the clearly defined audience with a message that will connect them to a brand for a particular objective and if the campaign to run from September to December is truncated in October, then the brand suffers. We are trying to prevent that; to educate the other sectors that this is for our collective good.
It is not because we want to leave ARCON. If you must drive on Nigerian roads, you must have a licence as issued by the Federal Road Safety Commission. Now, after obtaining the driver’s licence, people who drive commercial vehicles also have their own association; you have the National Union of Road Transport Workers, you have a whole lot of others, but primarily, they must have the driver’s license whether you’re the President of the NURTW or the General Secretary, you must have a driver’s licence. If you must practice in any sector of the advertising space in Nigeria, you must be licenced by ARCON.
ARCON is the apex body that controls, regulates the practice of advertising in Nigeria. With this Bill passed into law however, you can’t just wake up and say this place is okay, help me place a billboard. No. There would be for instance, the standard distance between one billboard to another that everyone across the country must respect. When you have that, you’ll have avoided the problem created by cluttering- irregular installation of billboards.
In 2023, Sen Abaribe, Enyinnaya (Abia South) began to put the bill together, we got to know and we said we were interested. We reached out to him; and as it is today, OAAN is identifying publicly with that bill. It is not that it is from nowhere, it is just to protect that aspect of our practice.
What is the take from your 39th AGM?
Yes, the AGM’s theme was: “Redefining Out- of- Home Media Practice: The Business and Value Creation” what we decided at the AGM is the need for us to re-evaluate ourselves in line with present demands to the extent that we are able to meet the visibility objectives of our clients, which is to project the brand. How we projected it ten years ago, was not the same way we projected it five years ago neither is it how we project it now.
There was a time that all the client required was evidence that you have posted the campaign materials but today they are demanding data, about such information on, who are the people who saw the campaign? What class or social strata do they belong to? What is the peak period? When do you think people driving along the road will see this in two seconds? The advertiser is asking more justifications and you must plan to meet such justifications. For instance, if we have ten billboards on the road which of them will attract more eyeballs? Which one will enjoy the level of visibility that is required, etc? The AGM was to prepare us for the future of the sector. The things that should be in place as we continue to strive to meet the demands of the advertiser who wishes for higher visibility of the brand and I can also tell you that it was at the AGM that members of OAAN came together, resolve to move and work together for the good of all.
We realised that whatever touches one anywhere, touches all everywhere and so we are coming together more vigorously to protect the practice, so that we can have a more formidable practice. I remembered that when I joined the practice some years back, there were people we met on the stage and today those people are looking at us and saying Sola, you and your colleagues, I hear you are doing this, why don’t you do it this way, in another ten years we will also be looking at the younger generation.
The takeaway from the AGM is the desire to reposition the association to continually and consistently meet the demands of the industry and we are convinced that we are taking the industry to higher heights and we know the Bill will help us accomplish our desire without distracting or removing from the powers of other sectors.
How will the Bill eradicate the challenges in the second leg of OAAN operation that is in terms of location, environment?
When a practice or a venture is an all comers practice, it doesn’t have requirements for entry and exit, you have charlatanism manifesting. Today we have the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, (ARCON) to regulate and control the practice of advertising in all its aspect and ramifications, to determine who is an advertising practitioner, to determine Nigeria’s own definition of advertising, even setting the minimum education standards that is required.
The new Bill is not in contention with that. Before ARCON, there was APCON. Before APCON was created by law, there were all kinds of agencies of government controlling one form of advertising or the other. There was one by NAFDAC, another one by the CBN and all of that. Then the forefathers of APCON came together and said we can have a unified law, something that brings all of us to the same table and so APCON was created, and that has made it easy to control the content of any form of advertisement. Now, billboards are media assets, but it is not only billboards that constitute out- of-home advertising platforms. We have buses, cars, buildings and many more.
The laws that we have now do not specify who can own billboards, and other OOH platform or who can engage in the practice. Let us look at Radio, before you can own a Radio station you need a radio licence and before you can run an advert on a radio station, it must be approved by ARCON. The same thing goes for Television. The problem the OOH industry has had over the years is because there is no such control and where there is no control you have anarchy.
There is no responsible government that will allow the kind of insanity that billboards can create sometimes. What the law will now say is that before you can be granted approval to own a billboard site you must be chartered, once you are chartered, you subscribe to regulations that guide all aspects of the practice. Those that will be in the charter will include the Local Governments, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), and so on, to ensure the integrity of all aspects of the practice.
We recognised that fact that the content of Out-of-Home advertising is vested in the Local Governments, but the preservation of the environment is also the concern of the Regional and Urban planning Development agencies. The whole essence is for the preservation of the environment and by extension it is for the protection of the businesses of our members.
It is also to maintain order in the practice, so that once they meet the required standard of distances, the type, the shape and all of that, cases of government pulling down structures will be a thing of the past. That is what the law seeks to achieve. I think I need to make this clarification that the charter is to help ARCON, and to also help the advertising sector, media buyers and all of us.
How do you intend to project OAAN among the drivers of economic growth as Nigeria is expected to be among the world’s 20 economies by 2030?
Part of our efforts in that direction is to drive towards having a formidable practice that the law will help to achieve. We realise that growth requires investments in all aspects of the practice, including research and design, installation, maintenance and in new relevant technology. But which investor will put his money in an environment where charlatans have taken the centre stage. You see some of the billboards, platforms that we have out there, the electronic billboards, some cost huge sums to install and maintain. If you have so much charlatans in town, anybody, everybody, installing any kind of boards everywhere, the investor does not get the right kind of return on investment, and so they are discouraged. Number two, when a government can just wake up and say pull down all billboards, because of the problems that people are creating, they lose revenue, they lose returns on investment, and so it affects the projection of the investor, and you won’t put your money and other resources into an Industry, where it is difficult to project whether it will be profitable or not.
For us to meet the world standard, we have to do what other countries do, where the environment is sane, where the environment is preserved, where billboard platforms are not creating clusters, where billboard platforms are not brought down, anyhow, where there is commitment to excellence and professionalism.
What we are doing is to ensure that we have a sane environment, one that is devoid of all kinds of contractions. When the environment is sanitized, and a law that ensures orderliness, it will attract the number of investment that will propel growth in our industry, and the out-of-home media subsector especially OAAN will play a significant role in growing the national economy and to achieve the 2030 dream.

It was claimed that marketing communication contributed an impressive N605bn to the GDP in 2023, due to growth in the past six years. What do you think contributed to this feat?
Well, Post-COVID, every organisation, notably manufacturers and service providers were eager to reconnect with the market and so there was an upsurge in marketing communication activities including advertising. There is also the place of enhanced practice propelled by technology in all areas of the practice including creativity, planning, execution, monitoring and all. There was higher level of efficiency in the marketing communication industry. These and many more contributed to the performance as recorded.
But in the main, Post- COVID, most advertisers wanted to reunite with the public, with their audiences, and so began to increase their investment in marketing communication, and that endangered the performance in the sector’s contribution to the national GDP.
What is your association doing in using analytics tools to track spending patterns and consumer behaviours as recently suggested by a study among others?
We recognise the fact that appropriate information is always required among other things to be able to appropriately determine or uncover the spending pattern of users and buyers of our media services. This helps to plan especially with regards to the kind of OOH technology to invest in.
As an association, we have a formidable research and human capital development committee headed by our Vice-President, Omo Abunene. The committee is charged with the responsibility to lead our response to aspects of our practice that require informed decisions. Such includes the issue of adopting analytical tools to uncover both the spending patterns e.g our clients as well as the behaviour of the consumers of our services.
What is OOH doing to beat the rating of cable TV, digital media, creative & content production in effectiveness?
As an investor, if a sector of the economy is porous, unpredictable in terms of government intervention, you want to be careful in investing. However, I really do not agree with the suggestion that our performance is as poor as reported until we see the details of the said report.
Now, on what we are doing as a response to the rating of cable TV and the rest of them, I want to say that we are not in competition with them and so they are not driving our response. Rather, we are taking steps to ensure that our business is protected and to have a sane environment that will encourage and promote sustainable investment in OOH technology that will improve our performance in the area of service delivery to the brands.
BV.