APCON moves to sanitise advertising industry, unveils AISOP

As part of efforts to sanitise the integrated marketing communication space, the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has unveiled a code of conduct titled, Advertising Industry Standard of Practice (AISOP).

The code is basically a rulebook on the modus operandi on international best practices.

A committee of stakeholders chaired by Group Managing Director of COSSE, Funmi Onabolu, puts the document together.

Onabolu said for so many years, the industry had operated without a code of conduct, which navigates issues, it was in that spirit the committee was put together represented by every major stakeholder in Nigeria.

At the end of the day, the committee came up with a document, which aligns with the best practices in most parts of the world, which will make every stakeholder not to be subjected to unfair business practices.

According to him, “The fundamental principle is to ensure we do not encourage or continue to operate in an environment that is like a jungle or an environment that many of the stakeholders feel they are not experiencing any growth.”

Onabolu is confident that with the AISOP document, anyone, who is aggrieved, can report, starting from his or her sector, and if not satisfied within 30 days can move the case to APCON.

The Registrar/Chief Executive of APCON, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, explained that the new practice includes, “engagement policy, how we engage agencies, payment terms, and commission, remuneration, disengagement protocol, returns on advertising investment and measurement, peaceful resolution and other related protocol.”

Fadolapo is optimistic that with the implementation, Nigeria will be among the most progressive advertising and marketing communication industry across the world. “We hope that the faithful application of the advertising industry reform will not only grow the business of advertising marketing communication but will also create over 100,000 jobs directly and indirectly in the next few months. We are confident the guidelines stand to protect the Nigerian advertising industry and the general public.”

He enjoined stakeholders to get a copy of AISOP, which contains all the terms of engagement, as there will be no excuse for further misbehaving.

Fadolapo said, “We have restructured our legal team, we are also a parastatals of the Federal Government and so have access to the office of the Attorney General and I believe whatever we need, we will have access to and we will continue to build capacity,” adding, “currently we operate a licensed regime which requires that all Advert agencies are licensed by APCON, we will continually engage the industry to ensure that this is a success.”

He concluded that for effective monitoring APCON has opened 17 new liaison offices in different locations across the country.