The immediate past President and Chairman of Council, National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, Tony Agenmonmen, in this interview speaks about the growth of the institute’s brand equity in the last few years. Raheem Akingbolu brings the excerpts.
How will you describe your two-term in office as NIMN President?
It’s been quite eventful. It has been fun for me, but I can tell you, it’s not been easy. Leadership, as you all know, is not easy as some people imagine it. But I think in these four and a half years, we have been able to navigate the rough terrain of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN). From where we met it, I can proudly say that we’ve made a lot of progress, though it’s left for you and members to do the full evaluation. But I’m convinced that working with my colleagues in council, I’ve been able to make tremendous progress in all the directions that we’ve talked about.
Looking back, would you say you have positively impacted the institute?
My background is that you always start with your KPI (Key Performance Index). What did you say you would do? And what have you done? What did you achieve, and what did you not achieve? And why did you not achieve them? I’m sure during this interaction we shall look at what was promised and what was achieved. If what was promised was not achieved, then why?
Could you give us a picture of the situation in the institute when you assumed office?
Before 2016, NIMN had a history. It was chartered in 2003, but it was factionalised. In 2008, there was a major attempt to merge these factions together, and there was a merger. We thought, then, that we had overcome all the challenges. But as time went on, some factions, again, started springing up, and that continued to create challenges for the institute, till 2014, when we now had a completely different merger. And this, by the grace of God, we have sustained till now. But, because of the consequences of the unstable past, when we had factions here and there, the institute was not properly structured. And, because there had to be compromises, we ended up with an institute that had 31 employees. Even if you look at all those very big institutes in Nigeria today, I’m not sure there is any that has up to that figure. Though the circumstances surrounding how we got to that stage, I understand. Unfortunately, the salary bill, the institute was saddled with, was well in the region of N4 million, every month. Unfortunately, because of the infighting, nobody really took the marketing institute seriously, at that time. And to use the marketing parlance, the institute’s brand equity was almost at zero. So people were not coming to our programmes, corporate Nigeria was not sponsoring. We ended up with a situation where some of the employees were owed salary for up to six months, and a lot of the employees that had even retired were owed gratuities. So by the time we came in November 2016, the rough estimate we met was about N80 million. That’s no joke by any standard, and that was part of the things that we were confronted with. The issue was where do we go from there? When we found out that we were owing, members were no longer interested in the affairs of the institute, due to infighting, and of course when you had this situation, corporate Nigeria’s response was like, ‘well, go and settle yourself, and then you can come back’. So that was the situation we met at the institute, and we thought we needed a major turnaround for us to get out of that situation, and that was why we took that action that we took at that time.
How have you enhanced the membership base of the institute, as promised when campaigning for this office?
The beauty of the background that I have is that I work with facts, I work with KPIs. My campaign leaflets enunciated my key priorities. But I have what I called a scorecard, and I don’t think part of the scorecard was talking about numbers. I never talked about numbers because numbers were not our issue then. If you are talking about numbers, what we had as nominal members was up to 9,000, but if we had such a figure, with a N10,000 subscription, why were they not able to pay salaries? Why were they in Shangisha? Why did they owe N80 million? I don’t really care what numbers they had in the book or what they bandied about, because marketing is not just about numbers, it’s about the quality of what you are delivering. It is about brand equity. Anything you want to do about your brand is to talk about equity. If you want to build equity, the numbers will come. What I promised them was that I would restructure, I also promised to build the brand equity of the institute. The third one is that we would ensure we got proclamation of the institute done by the minister, and I promised specifically that at my first investiture, it would be done. The fourth one was that we would drive enforcement that is the enforcement that marketing professionals will be registered with the institute. Then I talked about a new and befitting secretariat that was specific. I also promise to train and motivate employees, establish Nigerian marketing academy, and then restore the journal of marketing. I also talked about the recognition of NIMN certificates. Those were my specific promises, and I asked people to hold me to these promises. And if you are to scrutinise, the only place I can say we had a red in all those promises was recognition for our certificates.
You once talked about inheriting a debt of about N80million and others. What is the situation now?
The situation now is that you are now in this beautiful building, I’m sure people like you, who have interacted with us more, will know what we are talking about. The situation now is that we’ve paid all the outstanding salaries and gratuities of all employees, whether they are still in the institute, disengaged, or retired. The situation is that much of the money that we also owe to corporate organisations, we have liquidated. The situation is that the biggest chunk of what we still owe out of that N80 million is the N21 million unremitted pension, but, as at March this year, we had paid a little over N5 million, conveniently. And by the time I’m handing over, we would have paid three quarters of that money, and be left with about N5 million of the unremitted pension, which I believe whoever takes over from me will be able to handle. To be honest, I think we are almost through with the debt. It’s unfortunate, my intention was to clear everything before I leave, but you know what it has been in the past one year. We couldn’t execute many of the programmes we had planned to execute. For instance, the AGM we are having now, we would have had some sponsorship that would give us the amount of money to even wipe off such debt. But you know many of these companies are struggling now. But the debt issue is almost history.
What is the compliance level like among practitioners, yet to register with the institute?
When you talk of compliance our strategy has always been voluntary compliance. Any person who is really practising marketing should understand that you stand to benefit from being a member of the institute. It may not be directly financial. But you learn, you interact, you network. Beyond that, this is a professional institute that is guaranteed by law. Apart from being guaranteed by law, it gives you the opportunity to network and interact with people that ordinarily, you would not have been able to interact with. For instance, look at the network of the people we are lining up for our Marketing Conference; how many people would, ordinarily, have the opportunity to talk to the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises? But he will be there that day to speak, and you will have that opportunity to interact with him when he speaks. Even after the programme, you can still interact with him. That is networking. We provide that networking. Our former First Vice President, Idorenyen Enang, is on radio everyday, talking about marketing and mentoring people (Enang is the institute’s new president now). How many people have the opportunity to interact with him? The DG of LCCI, and a lot of marketing directors would be there. If I were a young brand manager, I would love such an opportunity to be able to interact with the professionals in the industry. Going to a conference where you are provided networking opportunities, with the crème de la crème of the marketing professionals in Nigeria, I think it’s something that true marketing professionals should embrace. So to repeat, our first priority is voluntary compliance, and at the end of the day, if people don’t comply voluntarily, then we would be left with no option than to enforce the law. And after two years of persuasion, discussion with ADVAN, NECA and writing to the companies, we thought it had come to a time to show them that look this is not about whether you like it or not. It is the law of the federation of Nigeria. Eventually 2019, we started what I can call an enforcement drive. And in fairness, many of them responded. Interestingly, the moment the case got to court and was published in the newspapers, I couldn’t rest. Those listed were asking me for the way out. I think just before COVID, we had five that were formally charged to court. But beyond that, the Registrar is compiling the list of people that would be written to next. So, whoever comes in as the next president, will drive that.
