BrandiQ Report
As plans for the milestone celebration of Nigeria at 60 progresses, the Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria, OAAN, has declared it would lend its corporate support to the federal government to ensure its success.
The association has directed its member agencies to make available to government agencies billboard hoardings at a much-discounted rate in solidarity to the government to make the anniversary a huge success.
In an exclusive chat with BrandiQ, President of OAAN, Mr. Emmanuel Ajufo said the decision was reached by the association at its 35th virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) that held recently adding that the decision was informed by the need to reach to the government in the form of a palliative offer to public institutions as well as corporate clients during a period of the COVID – 19 pandemics.
He added that a similar palliative gesture had been extended to client companies who are in business with OAAN agencies by offering a 25 percent discount on billboard rates, adding that the move was necessary to encourage the clients and help them survive the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Association’s boss, directives had been issued to member agencies on measures to adopt to address business challenges brought up by the pandemic including retaining their staff and working on a skeletal basis as well as reduce salaries to accommodate everyone. “That is one way of doing that. The other way is that members are also beginning to be more creative, looking for cheaper options that can still offer visibility at less cost. Of course, you would have heard that we gave the Client’s 25% discount to encourage them to come back, that discount is supposed to end at the end of September this year, so we gave it to them from May till September”
“Those are the things that we tried to do to encourage business to come back. I can tell you that businesses are coming back but very slowly, so we are not throwing away our staff but we are saying to all of us to manage till the end of the year, what is important to everybody is to stay afloat and be well”
On the rate of losses by his association members during this trying period he said: “I don’t have figures but I can tell you that we have suffered enough. I mean if companies are doing half salary and some doing alternate months and so on, that will go to tell you how far we have gone. But to tell you in terms of naira and kobo that this is how much we’ve lost, not yet, we are still collating data and very soon we should be able to come back to you on that”
Speaking further on the association’s plans after the AGM, he said major issues discussed included the issue of industry debts and vacant sites, pointing out that most of the debts been owed to regulatory agencies arose from vacant sites as it was morally wrong to demand money for something that has not yet been aired, especially considering the pandemic atmosphere.
“We have started a new year and one of the things that we have said we are going to do is that we are going to give the industry a new rate card, the one that we have is obsolete. It is important that we do that. We also said that in conjunction with the other stakeholders, we must make sure that we get the APCON council like I hinted, of course, we believe there must be more synergy on that, and then, of course, our SOP, that you have heard about so that it is launched this year, those are primarily the things that we want to achieve in due course” he concluded.
