Ekuno Ends Tenure As ADVAN President
Stories by Tunmise Adekunle
The Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) will soon elect a new president, as the incumbent, Mr. Emmanuel Ekuno ends his three years, as president next month. An annual general meeting planning committee headed by Mr. Ekunife Okoli is set to organise a befitting AGM where a new president will be elected by November ending.
Speaking with THISDAY recently, Mr. Ekuno who said his exit from the ADVAN council will afford him the opportunity to concentrate on the APCON job, where he is presently the chairman of the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP).
Mr. Ekuno who challenges senior members of ADVAN to make leadership of the association an issue called on the next set of executives be ready to take ADVAN beyond where it is. He advocated that for the Association to achieve this feat, the next president of ADVAN must be one of the 42 marketing director of the Association.
Enumerating his achievement as ADVAN boss, he said that during his tenure, the Association achieved strategic architecture, relocation of secretariat, increased membership base, and stemmed the tide of incessant media rates increases through consultative dialogue.
On strategic architecture, he said ADVAN during his tenure was able to put in place committees working with the Outdoor Advertising Association Nigeria and the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) headed by Henry Karumgbu and Paul Oteri respectively. These committees have been able to create an understanding between ADVAN on one side and OAAN/ BON on the other side.
Ekuno who said that leading the association was quite challenging stated that his tenure has increased membership spread of the association to the telecommunication, petroleum and other sectors that were never on ADVAN membership. The chair of the membership drive committee was Coca-Cola`s Abraham Nina.
Also part of his achievement is that by January 2006, only ADVAN members will enjoy media discounts, by then, certificates of accreditation will have been issued for its members. The Neimeth marketing boss said that ADVAN has achieved 80-85 % success in the electronic and the outdoor sector, while its feat in the print medium has not been quite encouraging., though he said that the relationship between ADVAN and Newspapers Proprietors Association on Nigeria (NPAN) is getting cordial
Also, ADVAN during Ekuno`s tenure appointed Mr. Niyi Babatunde as its patron. Mr. Babatunde, the first ADVAN president was the commercial manager for Unilever Nigeria Plc, until retirement three years ago.
The greatest challenges of ADVAN according to Mr. Ekuno " Is outpacing and incessant rates increase"
His regret is that he never achieved the dream of increasing membership of the association to 100, though was able to achieve 53 members, against the 23 he met when he became president.
Commenting on his position as ASP chair , he promised to, with the support of other members who "have 500 years"of adverting added together, make ASP viable and efficient at functioning as a real vetting arm of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON). He said ASP is revising the advertising code through a technical committee headed by Dr. Oluwatola.
Mr. Ekuno has been on the ASP committee since 1994, has acted as acting head of controlled product for five years and has been in the marketing communication industry for 20 years. He joined Neimeth Pharmaceutical in 1981 as sales representative where he rose to his present position as the vice president marketing in the company.
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