- 2 days ago
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Paul Aladji for joining us.
00:11First thing first, what exactly does the federal government's control over social media advertising?
00:16What does he entail?
00:18Okay, so before now, the federal government was not really playing a significant role in the control of advertising on social media.
00:26Recall that ARCON, that's the advertising for all registered practitioners.
00:34Yes, that is the agency of government that is responsible for regulation of all advertising in Nigeria.
00:42Now, before now, those who are practicing on radio, on television, on poster or billboard, they usually vet their content.
00:52And it is to this extent of vetting that it becomes really very necessary for people to pay for vetting of advertising, which may include doing regular vetting, which was around 25,000, now 35,000.
01:08And they're doing accelerated vetting, which is about 150,000, now about 250,000.
01:13And there are different classes.
01:15Now, with the new law, which is relatively new, the federal government, through ARCON, has been able to now add those advertisements going on social media.
01:24Why do we need regulation for advertisement?
01:27Before I go to implication, the reason why I'm saying this is, I actually, I play in the field of advertising, and I'm also an economist.
01:34So, I'm able to explain the two sides and the implication of both.
01:40So, when you speak to advertising online, and the role here is to ensure that the advert that is going up online does not abuse any religion.
01:52You are not saying something wrong or defaming other religion.
01:57Number two, it's not showing nudity.
02:00So, these are the things that are regulated by ARCON, which I think is fair, which I think is good.
02:07Because, more than ever before, we've seen people display wrong content online, on air, and so on and so forth.
02:16I don't know if you remember one advert that said, my man, a boy, for one of the telecom companies.
02:21I don't want to mention it.
02:22Yes, yes.
02:22So, my man, a boy, that telecom organization might have done it with the best of intention.
02:28To actually capture the minds of the persons being advertised to.
02:34But, some persons felt offended.
02:37That, why not my man, a girl?
02:38Must he be a boy?
02:39Are you trying to say that a boy child is superior to a girl child?
02:44And, you notice that that advert was dropped.
02:46There are so many other adverts that directly condemn competition.
02:51That wants to actually take out competition.
02:54And, there are false claims also.
02:55People say, come and advertise online.
02:58They'll say, come and advertise some of these gaming, not even gaming, these pyramid schemes.
03:05Most of the time, they use online platform to advertise that if you, for instance, one that is also on traditional media.
03:13They say, if you buy a $200 charge card, you are going to win an aeroplane.
03:16How do you explain that?
03:19Then, for some of these other platforms that say, if you put in $5,000, within one week, you are going to get $15,000.
03:29What business are you going to do with it?
03:31So, the reason for advertisement, regulation on advertisement cannot be overemphasized.
03:37It is very important.
03:38The question now is, doing it online.
03:42Because, for those who are doing traditional media, radio, television, they are doing billboards, it's already part of them.
03:50Whatever you are advertising, the content of advertising, not the content of the program, advert components, then it has to be regulated.
03:59Now, the challenge with online regulation is that, where is this really coming from?
04:03So, if somebody is advertising to Nigerians, but is abroad, how do you meet them to pay you?
04:10How do you take down the website?
04:13So, certainly, how can we confront some of its own challenges?
04:18So, if we say that federal government does not want such website to advertise, there might be other reasons why Nigeria needs to see the website.
04:24You saw the issue of Twitter at the time.
04:27And you saw the implication on Nigeria and Nigeria as a whole.
04:31So, in managing this, it's important for Artcon to understand that, yes, it is so necessary to have some level of regulation.
04:41But, more than ever before, we also have this conversation with platform owners.
04:47And, in case where that may not be possible, because there are hundreds of millions of websites, or hundreds of thousands of websites, even millions of websites,
04:56that you cannot necessarily manage everything.
04:58But, when it comes to online adverts, it's important for us to know that we cannot absolutely, in absolute terms, advertise what is going on on all websites at the same time.
05:09It's going to be practically impossible.
05:11Unlike radio, the number of radio stations we have in Nigeria is finite.
05:16The number of television stations we have in Nigeria is finite.
05:20The number of billboards we have, even though large, but Artcon has offices in all local governments.
05:25But, how will Artcon manage all websites advertising that a Nigerian can see?
05:32It's going to be very difficult.
05:33So, even though the reasons are good, but implementation to the fullest becomes a challenge.
05:40Now, what I know, lawyer will say, is that it is only matter reported to courts, the court and see.
05:44It is only the person that we catch.
05:46So, who are the people that may be, that this may have to concern a lot?
05:54There will be Nigerians that have businesses that are known in the real life.
06:01So, let's say a real estate company called XWY.
06:05I want to believe there is no such real estate.
06:08XWY or ABC.
06:10Now, ABC is known.
06:12They know their office.
06:13You are not advertising online.
06:15Artcon will write you for violation.
06:17But, if it is, say, somebody that you don't even know the office, it's advertising and they are making their money.
06:22How do you run?
06:23How do you manage that?
06:25So, it's important that Artcon should look for, if this must be implemented, they need to look for guys that are in tech.
06:34And they can also use AI to help them aggregate what the information is saying.
06:39It is a lot of revenue for Nigeria.
06:41Let me start with that.
06:41What are the implications?
06:42Huge revenue for Nigeria.
06:44It may also lead to discouragement.
06:47It can now be loss of revenue to the people.
06:50Yes, because I was going to ask about the hiking.
06:52So, it may lead to loss of job.
06:57But, one thing that I can tell you, it will be more revenue to G, a national income company, national income accounting.
07:04Government will make more money.
07:06Those who are in the industry may lose revenue, especially when they are not convinced.
07:10So, Artcon have a reason for this education.
07:13And that is why I started with education.
07:15When you lose job, it may increase poverty and hunger in the land.
07:21And it may also have implication on the quality of adverts Nigeria can get.
07:26Because some that are even advertising as a Nigerian view are bringing the adverts into the place.
07:31And people cannot have access to it.
07:33Then there will certainly be loss of revenue.
07:34I mean, you spoke about education now.
07:37Because I don't know to what extent at which we are aware.
07:43Or businesses online are aware of the federal government moving to actually regulate advertising.
07:50So, the question now is, don't you think that awareness should go first before implementation?
07:57I think awareness is important.
08:01This law is not new.
08:02It's over a year.
08:03I think over two years old already.
08:06And awareness level is very, very low.
08:09Practitioners on radio, on television.
08:11Practitioners on OOH.
08:13They are fully aware.
08:15Many of them, through their sectorial group, which include OAN and so on, were informed as to what is coming on.
08:24But those who are online have low or little education.
08:28And that is why I want to propose that Alcon should take a minimum of six months, a maximum of one year period.
08:38So, speak to stakeholders within the industry.
08:41And go and provide quality education.
08:44As well as quality communication.
08:47Your program, you are an abridged program.
08:50You are both online and offline.
08:52And as a reputable media house that does, among other things, television and print media, you come to mind.
09:01Because for anybody to put adverts on the Guardian newspaper, partner with.
09:06Because already you are providing such information to the public already.
09:10And people, you have a lot of patronage.
09:12The TV session is also getting really popular.
09:15And that is why it's important for governments to consider this as an option.
09:20Okay.
09:20Let's look at the effect on market reach and engagement.
09:24Certainly, yes.
09:25Certainly, yes.
09:26Because Nigeria will be among the countries that want to start this.
09:29People will start looking at other markets.
09:31If they feel the cost of regulation is increasing.
09:34Regulation in itself may serve as bottleneck to business.
09:37As much as they are very important.
09:39It's very important for us to regulate.
09:41So, when the impact on the cost becomes too much, especially as it has to do with foreign models, which you might not really do without when it comes to online, then it might serve as discouragement for those who want to run some form of advertisement to reach Nigerians.
09:57And for most of these advertisements to reach Nigerians, they may have Nigerian office.
10:02They may have African office.
10:04So, if we don't work on this very well, of course, it might serve as major discouragement.
10:10All right.
10:10Let's look at the challenges, right?
10:13What challenges might influence small digital marketers' faith in meeting registration, compliance, data protection, and then standard under this new regulation?
10:24So, first of all, standard is key.
10:28And to that effect, I would say that practitioners should be sorted.
10:30You don't have to be a practitioner yourself to vet.
10:33You can partner with an existing practitioner to vest your content, which I think ARCON has made that provision.
10:40Registered Practitioner can vet for you.
10:43ARCON also needs to be transparent.
10:44They've been doing that to be fair on them, to make the price for vetting known.
10:49So, those who want to do this, I think it's important they look on ARCON's website to look at what are the things that they can do and who they can talk to.
10:59ARCON offices in different parts of Nigeria can also provide such advice.
11:04Now, it might be a discouragement to them when you are talking to a client that your bill has now increased, unlike what they used to do.
11:11But in the short run, I mean, if it's staging some form of reduction because of demand elasticity, some form of reduction and discouragement might be what we'll be seen in the coming period.
11:24Okay.
11:25Are these regulations likely to improve consumers' trust or could they discourage innovation and digital entrepreneurship in Nigeria's growing online advertising sector?
11:36What do you see about that?
11:37For those consuming adverts, it's going to protect them from consuming junks.
11:43For instance, people posting nudity as means of advertisement.
11:48ARCON is protecting that in traditional media.
11:51Two, those who stylishly abuse a gender to say that men are more important or women are more important.
11:58ARCON is protecting against that.
12:01A significant part is the issue of drugs.
12:03When you say that you are producing drugs or people should consume some kind of drug that has not been vetted by agency of government, which includes NAFDAQ, then protection comes.
12:15Another one is CBEX.
12:17CBEX will make use of online platform to advertise without having central bank license.
12:22It becomes a challenge because ARCON can flag that to Security and Exchange Commission, who is also a member of the decision-making in ARCON for vetting.
12:35So, it will form that synergy to protect Nigeria.
12:38My concern is will AFCON provide this quality education for people to know the importance and will the price also be fair for them to run in the short instance before people get used to it as is done in the traditional media.
12:55Lastly, Mr. Paul, recommendation for businesses.
12:59How can companies adapt to these digital strategies?
13:03Okay, recommendation for business would be it's a new rule for those in digital space.
13:11For those that have been running on traditional space, it's not completely new.
13:15I know people have been doing this for years.
13:17Now, as it's coming to digital space, I think people should sort for education.
13:21I think everybody should go on ARCON website.
13:23Don't allow digital marketers and all those to defraud you.
13:28The prices are fixed for most of the products.
13:31So, go online, check it for yourself.
13:34It is $35,000 in some instances.
13:35If you want to do accelerated vetting, normal vetting is about two weeks.
13:38Accelerated vetting, we have 48 hours.
13:40We have 16 hours.
13:42And they come at different prices.
13:44By next year, you will see different political people advertising or campaigning.
13:50For them to do such online, if how can we do the mandate given to it and say that they want people to pay,
13:57then politicians are involved and so on and so forth.
14:00But, you know, for now, in Nigeria, religious organizations, they are not technically advertising.
14:06What they are doing, they are sending out messages.
14:09Non-governmental organizations, they are technically not advertising.
14:12What they are giving out is messages.
14:14For instance, World Against Polio.
14:17I don't think that's an advert.
14:18You are providing education.
14:19So, those people are really not paying for now.
14:23Or, if you are talking about salvation is free, come to Christ today.
14:28You are really not advertising.
14:30You are providing education information.
14:32All the Muslims are also sharing such information.
14:35But, for businesses, which are the going, which are enterprises that are in those for profit,
14:42it's important for them to talk to their communication department.
14:46If the business is small and they don't have communication department, please go through ARCON website.
14:50Most of the fees for now are affordable.
14:53You need to check it so that you don't flout the rule.
14:56I can tell you that a real estate company has a very similar issue with me.
15:00I think a real estate company is Domisa and Abuja.
15:02I said ARCON wrote them that they should make payment.
15:05Well, they were able to appeal that they were not aware.
15:08ARCON said, well, ignorance of the law is a non-fist.
15:11At the end of the day, they were able to find a way around it.
15:13I also think ARCON should go to scale this information up, talk to a media organization.
15:19And I'm recommending yours as one of those that should be consulted
15:22and to partner with them in making this open for the entire Nigerians and, indeed, the globe.
15:30To know that for Nigeria, there is now some level of regulation of advert online
15:36because they have been doing this for time in memory offline,
15:38at least for over 10 years, for maybe 15 years.
15:41They've been doing that offline in Nigeria.
15:43So, extending it to online to protect the people.
15:46The arguments are good, but the danger is there.
15:50The danger of discouragement, the danger of low revenue and so on and so forth
15:53remains very obvious.
15:55But how we handle this depends on how they're able to provide the education,
16:00the need for it, and perhaps make the price still affordable.
16:04What is obtainable offline, if it's obtainable online,
16:08that those that want to advertise may see a reason to go there.
16:11But you see the cost of advert offline, for instance, on television.
16:16It might be as high as $800, $1 million for 60 seconds.
16:20For Billboard, it might be as high as $80, $70, $1 million, $5 million.
16:24So, to invest with $35,000 may not be too much far away.
16:28But online that you are paying $1 per minute,
16:30and you are only going for four minutes.
16:32I was saying that $1, put it by $1,600.
16:35Come and use $35,000 to invest it and say for six weeks.
16:38I think Alcon needs to retain the strategy.
16:41So that young people, one of the major employers of young people
16:44is this online advert.
16:46Alcon needs to know a way to bring them into the fall
16:48and to make sure that they can do this vetting virtually
16:52without seeing them because it's an online business.
16:54And I think that from that, we can bring more people into the bracket
16:57and we can encourage Nigerians that government don't hate them.
17:00It's actually to protect the larger population.
17:02Thank you so very much.
17:03Thank you so much, Mr. Paul Aladji, for your intelligence submission.
17:06I really hope that this becomes a success
17:09because there's a lot to be done.
17:11Thank you so much for your time.
17:13We appreciate you.
17:14Exactly.
17:15Yeah, to have a great day.
17:17Thank you so much for having me.
17:18Thank you so much for having me.
17:20You're welcome.
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