Brand writers under the umbrella of the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria (BJAN) have been tasked by the Outdoor Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (OAAN) to bring back the era of robust brand journalism, vibrancy, and in-depth investigations currently lacking among brand reporters today.
This call was made by the OAAN President, Emmanuel Ajufo when executives of BJAN paid him a courtesy visit in his office at Ikeja to intimate him of some of the association’s plans on Tuesday 5th July 2022. Ajufo also stressed that the era of depending on press releases should be over.
Since its inauguration, the current leadership of the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria has embarked on a series of planned activities aimed at improving the IMC space, for journalists who cover the industry.
However, to be able to achieve this, the EXCO has as part of its plan a series of visits to stakeholders in the industry to carry them along as working partners for the progress of the industry.
Speaking during the visit, Emmanuel Ajufor who is also the Chief Executive of Opportunity To See, said OAAN has always enjoyed a good relationship with BJAN, though it may not have been as much as was expected.
He said “You people are on a familiar turf because the relationship that existed between OAAN and BJAN has been very cordial and we have always participated in your magazines by putting one advert in support of the event. So, these are about the easiest we can talk about,”
“But again, leadership helps a lot, now that Clara has taken over, she is an old face in the industry and I hope you all will be able to bring back the vibrancy that we used to know,” he noted.
“And again when we have issues we still talk to BJAN but we don’t do it officially. At the last event we had, we picked a team of people from your association to invite and I think it was not the right thing. The right thing is to come through the association and the association will delegate those who will cover the event. That way, we will be having a proper partnership. Just like we have with other sectoral groups. And if we do not do that, we will not be doing things right as an association,” Ajufor also said.
BJAN Chairman, Clara Chinwe Okoro who led the BJAN delegate said the essence of the visit was to meet OAAN as a major stakeholder in the Integrated Marketing Communications sector and she admitted that no two people have the same gift, even though Goddie Offose raised the bar she hoped to sustain the momentum if not take it a notch higher even as she added that the current leadership of BJAN is open to suggestions and guidance.
According to her, “Over the years, we have done so much with OAAN in terms of media relations, in terms of project management for delivery of PR contents and partnership and what we notice was that, BJAN was not communicating to the stakeholders the full essence of what we represent and we decided to embark on these visits to present to our stakeholders our association and what we stand for and what we can deliver as value to our stakeholders in the long run that would be formidable and sustainable for the growth of the industry”.
In furtherance to the discussion, she explained three critical areas they will be presenting to OAAN to consider them: “Funding, this is a very critical area especially as we are a not-for-profit organization. So, we have to look for other chains of value to tap into to raise income to cater for the events that we have and in that regard, there is a major project we are embarking on for BJAN. We are aiming to get an estate for our members. It is a long-term project for our administration which just has three years. And what we aim is, if we are able to get bulk money, we take it and pay to the property company who will secure the land for us and then enter into a mortgage arrangement that our members will begin to pay.
“Secondly, we are coming up with a newsletter, Brand Knights; the idea is to focus on industry personalities and C-suite Executives. What we want to do is tell their stories, over the years, they have faced a lot in terms of navigating the business world so we want them to tell their stories when we come to interview them, it’s a very short newsletter, about 12 pages but it will be majorly focused on one CEO or other Executives per newsletter. It will comprise interviews, and photograms and the remaining pages will contain other materials and adverts to use to fund it.
“Third, we solicit partnership in terms of granting us some visibility with your member’s billboards when we are having our events/projects. We have two major projects annually, Consumers Rights Day every March and our Annual Conference which comes up every November and goes with our Annual Award. So, we will need billboards to be able to communicate the events,” Clara said.
Ajufor, who appreciated the visit and assured BJAN of OAAN’s support, however, extended an invitation to the BJAN leadership to meet with its EXCO at a later date for some more discussion.