Marketing institute seeks government partnership

The National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria has said professional marketers were ready to partner with the government at all levels to drive growth by designing and properly communicating programmes and reforms.

Speaking in Abuja at the 2023 NIMN annual conference themed “The Role of Marketing and Ethics in Nation Building,” the institute’s President, Idorenyen Enang, urged the President and governors to employ professional marketers, who are strategic brand communicators and specialists, as spokespersons.

He said, “As marketers, we just hope this will be a great opportunity to let the world know we can do it. I will echo the keynote speaker’s words that a time will come when Mr President and governors will not engage journalists as spokespersons. They need professional brand communicators and specialists because people are brands. We need people that would not just sell in the country, sell in the brand but understand the ethics of it.

 “We need professionals to sit down and craft a strategy to work in the entire system and then implement it using the vehicle of the media to drive it.”

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Also speaking, the Director-General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, said there was an urgent need to strengthen Nigeria’s marketing economy.

According to him, an enforceable standard of practice needs to be established to provide acceptable industry-wide rules of engagement, adding that this will cut across the interests of several sectors in the industry.Delivering a paper on “The Roles of Marketing Communication and Ethics In Nation Building”, a former Chairman of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, and the Group Chief Executive Officer of Prima Garnet Africa, Lolu Akinwunmi, said that by focusing on sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, solid minerals, services, and investing in infrastructure, education and technology, Nigeria can unlock its economic potential, create employment opportunities and improve the standard of living for its citizens.