Expert decries poor creativity amongst advert practitioners

By Godwin Anyebe, Lagos

The Chairman Troyka Holdings Limited, Mr. Biodun Shobanjo, has decried the abysmal performance and poor level of creativity amongst advertising practitioners in the country.

Shobanjo, who disclosed this recently in Lagos, said that what is currently trending amongst practitioners in the industry is the issue of copycats. According to him, the evolution of digital technology in the 21st century has further introduced a sense of laxity on the part of the professionals.

“In my generation, you will always see a creative director with a pen and a paper going through the rigour to think out a concept. But, what do we have now? We have advert practitioners that are in a hurry to come up with a concept.

“They don’t think deep enough in coming up with a concept and it has adversely affected the level of creativity in the industry. Creativity has been compromised; the element of copy and paste in addition to digitalization has further introduced a sense of laziness amongst practitioners.

“I think the ability to think through a concept creatively is what is presently lacking amongst practitioners in the industry. Advert professionals these days don’t think deeply,” he stated.

According to him, another major reason why creativity has dropped greatly in the industry was because the place of training and tutelage has been overlooked by the present generation of practitioners.

He affirmed that in his days, training and apprenticeship was very sacrosanct and practitioners then were disciplined enough to go through tutelage.

“How can the industry improve creativity when we presently have practitioners who are not ready to go through tutelage? Practitioners were very disciplined and ready to learn in my generation, but now, everybody thinks that once you hold a phone or computer they can just come up with creative concepts; that is wrong,” Shobanjo added.