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| Olufemi Adeyemi, Financial Secretary, BJAN; Lukman Ishaw, Vice Chairman, BJAN; Emmanuel Ajufor, President, Outdoor Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (OAAN); Clara Chinwe Okoro, Chairman, BJAN and Amechi Obiakpu, Chief Information Officer (CIO), BJAN |
Ajufor made the call on Tuesday 5th July 2022 when some
executives of BJAN paid him a courtesy visit in his Ikeja office to intimate
him of some of the association’s plans.
Since its inauguration, the current leadership of Brand
Journalists Association of Nigeria, has embarked on a series of planned
activities aimed at improving the IMC space, as journalists who cover the
industry.
To be able to achieve this, the EXCO has as part of its plan
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 good
relationship with BJAN, though it may not have been as much as was expected.
“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,” he said.
“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. 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 sectorial groups. And
if we do not do that, we will not be doing things right as an association,”
Ajufor also said.
Speaking earlier, 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.
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.
In her words: “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”.
Continuing she said: “We want to look at about three
critical areas that we want to present to OAAN to consider for us:
“Funding, which 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 our 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, 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, 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 members 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.
“For me any good idea irrespective of where it is coming
from, we should be able to talk about it some more. Because as we sit in the
exco, people will come with ideas and navigate through…what I can tell you head
on is that you have our support henceforth we will also be working through the
association,” Ajufor further noted.
Other members of the delegate who made the BJAN team were;
Lukman Ishaw, Vice Chairman, Olufemi Adeyemi, Financial Secretary and Amechi
Obiakpu, Chief Information Officer (CIO).