By Tunji Faleye
Nigeria’s frontline brands, marketing and sustainability magazine on Thursday paid a courtesy visit to the Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo on how to partner with the industry regulator on it resolve to improve advertising practice in the country.
Speaking at the APCON office in Lagos, Joshua Ajayi, publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine said, “the essence of the visit is to work out areas where Brand Communicator can partner with APCON on many of its initiatives to reposition the advertising industry.”
Other areas of mutual interest covered in their discussion include public branding sector and promotion of Integrated Marketing Communications industry in the country.
Dr. Fadolapo, while expressing his thanks to the publisher and other members of Brand Communicator team, noted, ‘’the importance of partnership in establishing a positive and distinct reputation for the Integrated marketing communications industry in the country cannot be over-emphasized in APCON’s determination to create a positive set of values for the industry in the country.”
He added that APCON is planning to create Standard Operating System that will galvanize advertising practice and the IMC landscape as a whole.
’The standard operating system has becomes very necessary in order to encourage global best practices in the advertising practice,’ he said.
The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) was established by the Advertising Practitioners Registration Act No. 55 of 1988, as amended by Act No. 93 of 1992 and Act No. 116 of 1993 (now Advertising Practitioners Registration Act Cap A7 of 2004).
The adoption of a broad national mass communication policy by the National Council of Ministers in January 1988 was a milestone in the establishment of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON). The various discussions that followed the adoption of the national mass communication policy articulated the relevance and the leadership role of advertising to the nation’s social, political and economic development as well as the need for official recognition and regulation of the practice.
The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) was subsequently established by the Act number 55 of 1988 as a logical outcome of these discussions. The Act accorded deserved state legislative recognition of advertising as a profession in Nigeria and vested APCON with powers to regulate and control the practice of advertising in Nigeria, in all its aspects and ramifications.
APCON maintains a strong focus on its vision of promoting responsible and ethical advertising practice, acts as the conscience of society in matters of commercial communications and as a watchdog for consumers. It also manages the needs and interests of stakeholders in Nigeria’s advertising industry.
APCON cooperates with the sectorial associations in regulating the conduct of their member organizations to ensure a socially responsible practice. By insisting on pre-exposure clearance of all advertisements, APCON strives to check all forms of abuses such as misleading statements, spurious testimonials, visual and verbal exaggerations, misleading offers, suggestions or pictures offensive to public decency, etc.
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