Nigeria’s advertising sectoral groups have come together, backed by the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), to promote a collective recognition award for the N900 billion industry. The award is tagged ARCON Special Recognition Awards (ASRA)
This is in spite of different award programmes by the separate advertising agencies made up of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN; Experiential Marketing Agencies of Nigeria, EXMAN; Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria, MIPAN and Out of Home Advertising Association of Nigeria, OAAN.
The maiden edition of the award to be held on October 23, 2026 in Lagos is targeted at recognizing creative works in both private and public sectors and individuals who have contributed immensely to the development of the creative industry. It is to reward and stimulate compliance to regulatory rules.
Lekan Fadolapo, Director General of ARCON explained that the concept of the award is to move the industry forward. Since his assumption of office on September 1, 2020, Fadolapo has initiated several programmes aimed at growing the advertising industry which include usage of local models, shooting adverts in Nigeria and payment time frame for contract deals.
Yinka Adebayo, Chairman, Planning Committee for the award said at the unveiling of the concept in Lagos Monday that the whole essence of ARCON is not regulating to stranglulate, but to ensure the growth and development of the industry. He believes that there should be stick and carrot meaning punishment and reward in regulation.
There will be four categories of award. They are Advertising Compliance Award,Public Sector Recognition Award, Private Sector Recognition Awards, as well as Individual Recognition Awards.
Underscoring the importance of the industry award, Lanre Adisa, Chairman of AAAN said “we cannot over-emphasise the need for recognition in an industry like ours as one of the things that we always strive for is to create visibility for the industry.
He said such celebration of the industry creative works will let the world to see what is been done in Nigeria and this will move agenda of visibility forward. He said recognition is very crucial in an economy and environment as demanding and challenging as it is in Nigeria.
Welcoming the initiative, Tolulope Medebem, President of EXMAN, said recognition is important in every industry because it does more than celebrate achievements. “It reinforces standards, rewards, commitments, and at the end of it all, it reminds us all of the values and behaviors we want to see more across our profession.
‘For an industry such as ours, which continues to evolve in response to technology, changing consumer behavior, new platforms, and increased demands for accountability, it is especially important that we continue to acknowledge those whose work strengthens the credibility, professionalism, and progress of the advertising ecosystem”, she said.
Brenda Nwagwu, President of MIPAN and Babs Fagade of OAAN also endorsed the initiative.
“We at OAAN, identify with this awards ceremony because we know that it’s going to promote professionalism, promote standards, ethics. By rewarding those that have done very well, it would become a catalyst for more outstanding productions, deliverables, executions within the industry. We want to believe that this year’s edition will be the start of further editions to come in years ahead”, Fagade said.
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