ARCON ASRA Awards: When Regulation Decides to Show its Human Side

By Olayemi Jonson

An out-of-home advertising outfit was approached by officials of one northern states. They needed spaces in the arrival and departure lounges of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. They wanted those spaces for just two weeks to publicise an economic summit being organised by the state government for which it had invited participants from outside the country.

Discussions between the out-of-home advertising company and the state government officials were going on smoothly and fees had been agreed upon. That was when the company told the state government officials that they had to pay a fee to the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON.

“We have to pay ARCON?” One of the government officials retorted. He was obviously flabbergasted.

“Yes sir,” the staff of the out-of-home advertising company that had been interfacing with them responded.

“Apart from that, we have to pay approval fee for the material before we can expose them,” the staff added.

It was a business opportunity for the out-of-home advertising agency but it was one they were just whiskers away from losing as the leader of the state government team was so upset that he told them frankly that they might just shelve the idea of putting the materials in those spaces. To him, it won’t be the first time he would be hearing of ARCON strictly insisting that certain fees be paid and material be vetted before they could be exposed.

Therefore, the image of ARCON many have out there is that government agency that is nothing but a pain in the neck of advertisers, agencies and even creative material producers. In a society where doing things via the back door is second nature, ARCON does not have many fans. And the Council knows this.

“We are not friends with many people in the industry,” a top director in the Council told this writer. “Do we really care? We surely do. Because we don’t want people to see us as de-facilitators of business but enablers.”

To him, people, quite naturally, like circumventing rules and compromising regulations. And ARCON too is not ready to compromise on rules and won’t back down on strict but lawful regulation. Catholic and spartan adherence to things being done the right way is something the Council seems to have sworn to. And that is why quite naturally, there will always be flash points and unavoidable areas of institutional bickering.

Even while many, despite protestations, believe that ARCON is doing the righting in terms of regulating the advertising and communications sector. And that was why then coming ARCON Special Recognition Awards, ASRA, is a welcome development even if highbrows are being raised in some quarters about propriety of such awards, considering the fact that ARCON is a regulator and if it would sound awkward that it is giving awards to same people it was supposed to regulate.

However, if one looks at it from the perception of an ARCON that is more interested in making life miserable for those it is supposed to regulate, then one can understand the need to give regulation a human face through the idea of recgonising those it is regulating in the first place and who have complied with regulations.

“We are known for sanctions,” the director earlier mentioned spoke further. “People see us as one body that only communicates with you when it has a bad news to share. That is not the ARCON that is known within our organisation.”

He added that he wants a situation that when a letter or mail comes from ARCON to any organisation, it is not to sanction nor flag their advert copy. It might actually be a letter nominating the receiving organisation for an award.

Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, the Director-General of ARCON, knows he is not the most popular figure among advertisers and advertising agencies. But give one credit to him: before these coming awards, he knew that ARCON had always dangled the stick. It high time the Council started dangling the carrot as well.

And hardly could you fault the Council if all it knew was whipping erring advertisers and their agencies to line.

Formerly Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON, it was meant to regulate advertising practice and also training. However, for so many years, it was a dog without the bark. People were circumventing rules and breaking regulations. It was like the name change from APCON to ARCON reset its functionality brain. Now, the fear of ARCON is the beginning of wisdom among advertisers and their agencies, especially those who want to cut corners.
But like every human organisation, there must always be that soft angle.

That angle that emphasises the undeniable shared humanity and the inalienable but fidel commitment to unity towards a common purpose between the industry and the regulator.
Speaking during the press briefing announcing the Awards, Fadolapo said the initial idea was to limit them to Compliance Awards.

“Awards are extremely important because we need to continuously recognise people who have done well in different areas. The initial plan was to introduce Compliance Awards, particularly around vetting, which is one of the most critical elements of our regulatory oversight. We believe that recognising organisations and practitioners who comply will encourage others within the system to do the same,” Fadolapo explained.
But in furtherance of the need to carry all stakeholders along and ensure a sense of belonging, he said they consulted and decided to change the concept.

“Looking at the advertising ecosystem, there is so much happening, and simply recognising compliance in the vetting process would not be enough. The committee suggested that we should also recognise other areas of relevance, including individuals and organisations that have contributed significantly to the growth and development of the ecosystem,” he said.

Now, there are four categories: the Advertising Compliance Awards, the Public Sector Recognition Awards, the Private Sector Recognition Awards as well as the Industrial Recognition Awards.

Perhaps, aware of the need to ensure integrity and credibility, the selection process is going to be quite thorough and near infallible.

For instance, for the Advertising Compliance Award category, the Winner Selection Nomination Framework stipulates that nominees are selected from each category based on the number of advertising materials submitted in 2024 and 2025. The first stage is the identification of nominees for each category. The Secretariat would generate a report of all eligible advertising materials submitted to ARCON during 2024 and2025. The three brands with the highest number of eligible submissions are shortlisted. The second stage involves the verification by independent auditors who would the submission records of the shortlisted nominees. The third stage is that Performance Scoring Auditors would calculate each nominee’s performance using a weighted coefficient that rewards submission volume and compliance, while penalising queries.

From the foregoing, it is obvious that the process is a rigorous one that would pay attention to details and ensure that those who really merit the awards get them.

The major positive of these awards is that perhaps for the first time, advertisers and their agencies on one hand and ARCON on the other will be able to sit down in a relaxed atmosphere of music, food and drinks and also of recognition. It won’t be an atmosphere of tension and brickbats where protection of interests will be more paramount than the sanity of the industry itself. It is an evening that will prove that regulation can indeed have a human face.

And may be ARCON will reach out to that government official from that northern state who wanted to place advert in the airport lobby the other day. Perhaps, he would be able to see that ARCON is not a no-nonsense headmaster wielding the big stick.

But also a caring guardian dangling a carrot.