Raheem Akingbolu
Barely eight years after commencing operation, IDEAS House, one of the leading experiential marketing agencies in the country, has re-launched its corporate social responsibility(CSR) initiative, tagged i-impact. The initiative, conceptualised by the company is desirous to giving back to society in addition to entrenching the culture of touching lives as a critical DNA among its work force.
Speaking during a press briefing organised to herald the project in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer of the agency, Mr. Kehinde Lekan-Salami, said it was agreed upon after a thorough debate and deliberation among stakeholders in the agency on what can be done to position the agency as a brand that is responsible and concerned about the society in which it lives and operates
To drive the initiative, the agency, according to Salami, has undertaken an unusual path by introducing Thank God Its Thursday .(TGIT). This is against the usual norm; ‘Thank God Its Friday’, which most people are familiar with. By TGIT, staff of the agency now work four days a week in the office whilst working from home on Fridays.
Having said that, two Fridays a month are set aside for training, CSR outreach and in-market channel research studies engaging the trade as well as consumers of brands it manages
He said: “Our business has grown in a number of ways. The first thing is that it has grown in terms of ambition; it has also grown in terms of relevance and investment appetite towards attaining its vision. One of the things we have noticed is that there has been consistent pattern in doing the job and experiential has become popular as a key component of the marketing mix. Narrowing it down to IDEAS House, we have been recognized within the industry where we operate as one of the most reputable and credible agencies. To this end, we feel there is need for us to identify with the larger society more than ever and let them feel our impact,”
Shedding light on what TGIT aims to achieve, an Account Director with the agency, Oyepeju Adeyinka-Adebayo, said with TGIT, Ideas House now works four days a week and shuts down on Fridays for staff to work from home. The idea helps reduce our day-to-day operational cost by 20 per cent and guess what, our salaries remain unchanged. How cool is that!!!
On i-Impact initiative, she mentioned that the agency has set aside two Fridays a month to cater for this.
“ We have training, between the 9am and 12noon, after which we go for lunch and thereafter in-market research study tagged ‘’observation day’’, the agencies methodology process. On another Friday, maybe the third Friday, what we now have is our CSR outreach day. It is a platform where we meet, appear in Ideas House branded shirts and visit some selected places around the areas where we operate for street makeover, teaching outreach to underprivileged, sponsorship and donation exercises” she said
Few weeks after the initiative was flagged off, the Account Director stated that its been well received by staff and that they have visited some places of key interest, including the famous Modupe Cole Handicapped Home in Yaba, with a plan to visit Oluyole Cheshire Home in Sango area Ibadan. Oluyole Cheshire is the first handicapped home in Africa birthed approximately in 1960
“At Modupe Cole in Yaba, we spent a day with the kids and shared some gifts. We motivated the pupils, played with them and generally brought some smiles to their faces. In the coming months, it could be a school, where we would embark on a project and build it to the advantage of students. It could be library, it could be provision of furniture or supply of laboratory equipment. Another month, it could be to assemble young graduates and motivate them in the area of marketing and the need for them to identify their strengths and potentials. It could also be to clean drainage in our area to enhance a healthy environment,” she said.
In a related development, she also disclosed that the agency, which currently works for Guinness, MTN, Coca-Cola, Cadbury amongst other multinationals recently added Wrigley Nigeria Limited, after a keenly contested pitch held recently.
