Founder and managing partner of Open Squares Africa, Feyi Olubodun, has underscored lack of synergy and strategic partnerships between old and new generation agencies and professionals as one of the major challenges in the Integrated Marketing Communication space in Nigeria.

Olubodun said this while speaking to the theme: “Prioritizing Social Responsibility: Integrating Sustainability within Business Strategy”, at the just concluded Fireside Chat, organised by Marketing Edge magazine.

The seasoned strategist, who has traversed the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) spectrum, stressed the need for the younger generation of professionals to be included in the strategic affairs of the industry to engender continuity and knowledge transfer, if industry growth must be stimulated.

According to him, if more agencies can come together as partners, it will help the growth of the IMC and put the industry on the path of sustainable growth. He pointed out that having agency partnership will increase professionalism and harmonize talents across different generations of professionals.

“For business sustainability, partnership agreements between older agencies and new ones should give equal rights to the new agencies as much as the older ones. When this doesn’t happen the older agencies die off and the new ones struggle to grow and may eventually sell to international conglomerates at big prices and move on,” he said.

On regulation, the seasoned marketing communication expert posited that agencies and advertisers should have mutual understanding.

“When you have more agencies than available briefs, you give more power to the clients.

“There should be harmonization in the industry because without harmonization and willingness to abide by the rules, there can’t be regulation in the industry. How this can be achieved is if associations can self-regulate; if they can put aside ego issues and think about the industry at large.

“One of the things they can look at is the issue of pitch fee; agencies can agree that when more than five agencies are called for the same pitch, they should turn it down. CEOs of the agencies should sign a binding document so that it becomes Chatter and an agreement, and not an instruction from above. And when someone defaults, they should be sanctioned,” he said.

The marketing expert suggested that a decent pitch should not have more than 5 agencies in participation, adding that before any brand should call for a pitch, it should look at agencies that can solve the problem.

“ARCON can also help in the area of making sure that an advertiser makes its public the number and names of agencies it is inviting for pitch. And once you have included the pitch fee and the pitch process has commenced, the client cannot add other agencies until after they have done the first review and the advertiser feels like they don’t have what they need, then other agencies can be called,” he said.

Olubodun advised that the IMC industry should include more of the younger generation in their structure and even allow them to hold prominent roles and positions within different associations and sectoral groups.