Former APCON registrar decries absence of professional association for advertising practitioners

A FORMER Registrar of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Josef Bel-Moloku has decried the absence of professional association for advertising practitioners in Nigeria.

He said that since the six sectorial advertising associations only had a corporate membership, he harped on the need to establish an association for individual advertising professionals.

Bel-Moloku, who made the call during the presentation of his book in Lagos recently, recalled how he initiated the move to form an association during his tenure as head of APCON.

He argued that the industry had been largely lukewarm to the idea, with only a trickle of activity by practitioners in other locations, which include Abuja and Port Harcourt.

The former APCON boss at the launch of the book titled ‘A trilogy of advertising: The Profession, the Practice, the Philosophy”, also mentioned the non-existence of a generic name for professionals of advertising, as advertising appeared to be the sole profession that had no English appellation, unlike other fields which had lawyers, medical doctors, engineers, pharmacists, among others as nomenclature.

He therefore sought the need to embody the regulator and the consumer as additions to the pedestal of advertising, alongside the advertiser, the agency and the media, noting that advertising has advanced far beyond a tripod.

“The overriding importance of the consumer and the regulator in contemporary marketing communication has made it crucial for them to be part of the feet on which advertising stands. Therefore, a valid case is made for the quartet-pod of advertising in place of the tripod.”