The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) has said it is monitoring the digital space, effectively, to ensure advertising materials posted there conform with the rules and regulations guiding the practice.
The Director General of the agency, Dr. Lekan Fadolapo, disclosed this, in Lagos, on Tuesday, at a media briefing on this year’s National Advertising Conference (NAC), scheduled for Abuja, between November 11 and 13, this year.
Fadolapo, who was represented at the event by the Director, Regulation, Dr. Lemme Akande, stated that while the agency does not regulate the digital space, its primary focus remains ensuring digital advertisements get the nod of the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP), before exposure.
According to him, the digital space comprises entertainment, information and advertising, adding that the concern of the agency remains the advertising contents, which it regulates.
He argued that contrary to claims in some quarters that the agency had not wielded the big stick, regarding erring online advertisers , the ARCON boss stated that, over the years, the agency had succeeded in the bringing some of such violators to book.
“We have a monitoring team and when there are acts that violate the code, what we do is to sanction. At the end of the day, they are taken to the AOT (Advertising Offences Tribunal) and we’ve taken some of these content creators there. Sometimes some of them may want to settle out of court. So it’s not as if ARCON has not been regulating the space. It’s just that we’ve not been making the noise you wanted,” he stated.
Speaking on the conference, Fadolapo stated that one of the priorities of the organisers is to ensure they raise the attendance figure from 500 recorded last year, to over 700 this year.
He added that the Conference’s theme: “Repositioning The Marketing Communication Industry for the Next Frontier”, stemmed from the urgent need for repositioning in all sectors of the practices.
The Chairman of the Event Planning Committee, Mr. Tunji Adeyinka, stated that the annual conference had evolved into a platform for having important industry conversations, updating industry norms, debating critical issues and meeting and networking.
He said one of the strategies adopted by the committee at ensuring that the annual event does not become another ‘ talkshop’, is to also make it an advocacy platform, where industry agenda are pushed.
Adeyinka explained that the conference theme is aimed at tackling some of the challenges standing in the way of making critical progress in the industry.