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OAAN celebrates 30th annual general meeting, commissions own house

The Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria officially opened its own house on Thursday, August 5, 2015, amidst fanfare and reunion of the pioneer members of the association. The commissioning was part of the activities, including election of new officials put together for the 30th annual general meeting of the association.

Located on Kofo Kasumu Avenue, Lakeview Phase 1 Estate, off Ago Palace Way, Amuwo Odofin, the twin-duplex edifice will now serve as the administrative office for OAAN.

Chief Executive Officer of Media View Limited, Mr. Babatunde Idowu Adedoyin emerged the new president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN). Adedoyin polled 47 votes to beat Mr. Ladi Sole of Uniksites Nigeria Limited who polled 11 votes.

Chief Akinbobola Badu spoke to ENCOMIUM Weekly’s DAPO ADESEKO about the outgoing president, the challenges of outdoor advertising and more…

What can you say about today’s event and effort of the outgoing president?

1-DSC_0473The event is rewarding and I am happy that OAAN is commissioning the house that is all its own. Concerning the outgoing president, he was wonderful in making the relationship of OAAN and the government to be more cordial even though he was not able to get government to reduce their rate considerably, but he made sure we had a reasonable co-existence with the government and also completed the OAAN building which we’re commissioning. He was also able to create unity among members and government. So he did very well.

I want the new president to take it from there, to ensure that if rates were not done reasonably, it would affect patronage. Outdoor media should be the cheapest medium, but now it is not.

Do you have the same rate all across the nation?

No! Lagos state has 70 percent of all business advertising. Other states copy Lagos. If LASAA does the right thing by reducing their rate, I am sure others will also fall in line and do the same.

Are you not bothered about social media competition?

The social media must come. I won’t say we are not bothered, but social media should not have been in a position to threaten us if we are charging as low as before. We discovered that many clients that were unable to meet our rate have moved to social media.  So, what we are saying is that government should reduce the rate of outdoor advertisement. Outdoor advertisement should be synchronized with social media.

Let’s talk about generational shift in outdoor advertising, are you having the same school of thought?

Yes, it is normal to have this kind of shift. If you look at the practice of outdoor advertising agents in the late 50s, what we had were just wooden billboards of smaller sizes. When we came in, these new ideas came in and we moved to steel billboard.  Today, what we have is totally different. Now, you see more of digital billboards.

Is this big shift having positive impact on advertising agents?

If I will speak for outdoor, I will say yes, I remember years back a client has to print a poster at least eight times in a year for the poster to remain fresh which was a serious challenge. Now, you don’t do that. You send on my phone a new subject you want me to display and from my phone to the billboard.

Another thing before conceptualizing an idea and the subject you want me to display it took several weeks, but now, just within few hours your message is displayed.

The new generational shift is promoting advertisement better than before. Very soon, LCD board will synchronize with social media.

How would you describe your own generation?

I am lucky. I have gone through a couple of generations. We were given room to exercise our ideas. My generation in the outdoor advertising agency established the steel billboard, while we removed all wooden boards. It was in my generation that we came up with rolling billboards and the LCDs, which is the one operating now.

What’s your project for outdoor advertising?

It’s going to continue to grow, continue to change its form as it has been doing and practitioners are those who are ready to recognize the generational shift and bring new and young people.

Encomium

Written by Encomium

A media, tech and events company.

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