First half of 2019 has been tough for IMC industry – Expert

Godwin Anyebe

Newly appointed Managing Director of Prima Garnet Africa, Yetunde Adeshina, has said that the first two quarters of 2019 was a tough period for the integrated marketing communications industry in Nigeria.

Speaking in Lagos recently, she said that the economic challenge as a consequence of the general election which took place in the first quarter of the year, coupled with the fact that the Federal Government has been slow to constitute a cabinet.

According to her, “It was a tough one considering that an election took place which stalled things in the first quarter of the year, the government is yet to appoint ministers, Foreign Direct Investments have dipped, and consumer confidence is still low. There are a few other indices, but we all hope that things will pick up in the last half of the year.”

Mrs. Adeshina who recently succeeded Lolu Akinwunmi, founder of Prima Garnet Africa also expressed concerns about the state of affairs at the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), which has been without a council for several years.

She noted that the absence of an active APCON council has made the regulatory agency redundant as it has been unable to effectively perform its role as a regulator.

“This is a very sad development indeed. Look at it from this point of view; APCON was set up for a reason: the purpose of setting up APCON is defeated if it’s not allowed to function.

The last APCON board put a new code of practice in place; it is yet to see the light of day after years of putting the code together to protect the business of advertising. I believe the industry is losing out a great deal”, she said.