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Recession has dealt deadly blow on advertising budget – Babaeko

By BusinessNews Staff on October 7, 2013

The Chief Creativity Officer of X3M Ideas and foremost creative director in advertising business, Steve Babaeko, recently in his office in Opebi area of Ikeja, Lagos, held a media interactive session to highlight key activities in the industry to mark X3M Ideas’ one year anniversary. Babaeko, a graduate of Theatre Arts from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, spoke about the challenges facing the integrated marketing communication industry in the country, the affiliation crisis currently rocking the advertising world and creativity quotient within the industry. Senior Correspondent, GODDIE OFOSE, was there.

How has the journey been so far in the last one year?

I must say we give God the glory that we are one year. Sometimes you start a business and you never know which direction it’s going to go, some businesses since we started have folded up, unfortunately, but we are still here so for that reason we give God all the glory. The thing is that when you go into this kind of business, the challenges would be daunting, particularly the environment that we operate in. I mean if you know how much we spend on diesel for instance is mind blowing and to get the kind of manpower that will help you build the kind of business of your dream is also a challenge but we have been fortunate that we have been able to, in spite of some of those challenges. We are still here of course, there has been challenges but we also had the opportunity to get to work with good clients and some of the clients we got have really made this venture worthwhile for us.

As a new agency, how has the new media and digital age impacted on your business in the last one year?

Well, it has impacted very much because most of the people who might have been in the business for a long time and who have been much more comfortable with traditional media would find out that the echo system of advertising has changed and sometimes you are so buried in the past that you are not aware of the current situation. If you are in that situation then it would be bad for you. I will give you an example of what we have done for ourselves. We are not doing anything for clients that we are not doing for ourselves. If you go to Facebook, we have a fan page on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and we have a YouTube Channel beyond our website. Through our website, we aggregate all these social media that have given us the global footprint that we seem to enjoy today. So, it is same thing we have given a time span nobody is saying that traditional media is going to go anywhere and traditional media would always be there but you have to be able to find a fine balance between mixing traditional media with the new digital media and that is where you got this magical results for clients and that is what we have done in the past one year.

Apart from the much talked about global recession, what do you think is responsible for the lull in advertising business in the country?

No, let’s start with the recession. If you look at the multinationals and if you take your mind back to about 10 years ago, the multinationals were the big spenders, those were the people that were breaking the big campaigns. The recession was/is global and of course affected them at the local level as well even though it didn’t quite shake Nigeria as much as it hits Europe and America. This is because we are not a credit based economy. So, what you have seen is that the landscape has changed a bit, times are when people will complain and it is true that the business has changed because budget has reduced, clients have become wiser; the budget has reduced yet they want more impact.

Therefore, clients are now asking agencies to do a rethink and it’s not about being able to spend big budget now but with the little budget you have what can you do for us?

I think agencies are a little bit finding it difficult to cope with this new trend. It is like you coach Chelsea, you have $500 million to buy players, everybody can be a good coach in that situation because you are just going to buy the best strikers but when you now coach Wigan Athletic where the budget is $50 million then let us see your expertise in managing the club. I am giving you an example that will be easy for all of us to understand.

X3M earned enormous credit for its works, what is your creative mindset?

Again, I will give credit to 141 because that’s my alma-mata and I was the pioneer creative director for seven years and I love that agency with all my heart and Noah’s Ark. In honesty, if there is any head of agency that has called today to say “happy anniversary” it’s Mr. Lanre Adisa of Noah’s Ark. I can count the last 3-4 pitches where we have been the last two agencies standing and it has been this healthy rivalry between us. So if there is any head of agency in this country that I respect today that I have always respected, Lanre Adisa is definitely on top of that list. I think advertising is going back to its roots because at some point in the history/evolution of this industry, this misconception came up that only the Client Service people that could run advertising business. They formed this stereotype that creative people are not good business managers and everybody bought the lies so the suit took control of running the business but if you look back in the history of advertising, David Ogilvy was a copy writer. The Ogilvy global advertising network is still thriving yet after the man transited to the land of the ancestors.

Do you have any intention to have any global affiliation?

We have been approached by close to three international agencies wanting some kind of affiliation. I have nothing against affiliation. However, you look back at the history, the agencies that went into affiliation relationships 10-15 years ago, it was like the main thing for them. It was easy money because the people you have affiliated will bring the business and dump it on your laps and it was good while it lasted. The bubble obviously is busted. Not its accusations and counter accusations by the parties to the affiliations –the local agencies are being accused of stabbing the global agency in the back while the global networks are being accused of wanting to swallow the local agency, buy it out and chase it out of the business. Now everybody is running away from affiliations. I keep saying, personally I have nothing against it; the same thing I have told the three people who approached us is: “Show me, put it on the table what are you going to do to make a difference to this company that we are not already doing, that it’s going to add value to my business, my stakeholders, my board members, my management team and staff show us and if you can’t show us anything different then leave us alone.”

What is your opinion about Nigerian agencies?

All can see that the relationship between the international agencies that want to come in here and the local agencies is not really sincere at the moment. Some key players who have the affiliations are dumping them and some other people who are not just as good are taking them up. So, at that level, to be honest with you, this is my own opinion,I don’t even care for any of those big networks who look for affiliations in Nigeria because they didn’t care about Nigeria, I stand to be corrected. I don’t think they care much about us, they are still looking more towards the Asia because there is that ignorance about Africa, they don’t think that any good can come out of Nazareth because they still think we are not there. I mean for a population of 160 million nobody can ignore this country; we have our challenges as a country but this country is still a giant on this continent and they ignore us out of ignorance because a company like X3M will continue to do what we set out to do. By God’s grace we will continue to grow in strength and bounds and then by the time they finally open their eyes they would see that the landscape has quickly changed and a new crop of advertising entrepreneur has emerged.

[Daily Independent]

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