ADVERTISERS ASSOCIATION TO GET REGULATORY POWERS

November, 2016 | Source: graphic.com.gh

A bill that seeks to give the Advertisers Association of Ghana (AAG) the mandate to regulate the advertising industry has finally been laid before Parliament after years of delay.

The Advertising Council Bill was laid earlier in the year and is awaiting passage, hopefully early next year.

The President of the association, Mr Joel Nettey, said at the 10th AAG Gong Gong Awards in Accra that the bill, when passed into law, would regulate and monitor anyone who practises advertising in the country.

This should help bring sanity in the advertising industry and bring law and order in the industry, Mr Nettey said.

“Look at the outdoor space, look at the clutter there. There is no order in terms of sizes of bill boards and distances from one billboard to the other. These are still issues.

“The kind of advertising we do and the time we show what kind of adverts is still an issue too,” he stated.

This, he said called for the need to regulate the business.

After the bill becomes law, the AAG president said: “We will distinguish between what is okay and what is not and punish the recalcitrants.

Digital advertising

The President also urged advertisers to start focusing on digital advertising, given the opportunities and challenges it brought.

To this end, he said the AAG would continue to ensure that practitioners and advertisers were up to speed with regard to innovation and the upcoming regulatory frame work.

The Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Dr Kwame Akuffo Anoff-Ntow, who spoke on the theme ‘impact of digital advertising on the global market”, said advertising had become more scientific now, as clients wanted to know how many eyeballs were watching their products.

“They want empirical evidence from media managers to support their claims that X or Y amount of viewers and listeners are exposed to their products”, he stated.

He said advertisers, therefore, expected far more than mere exposure as they wanted assurances that their products were exposed to the right audience.

Communication technology

The Director-General pointed out that advertising had moved from the real time person-to-person hawking through a mass mediated process to a more personalised and customised format, which is mediated through communication technology.

With this, Mr Anoff-Ntow said once the user had a computer and internet, he or she could receive prompts and adverts tailored to meet his or her demands.

“This is the world of digital advertising. Digital advertising, also called Internet advertising or marketing, occurs when businesses leverage Internet technologies to deliver promotional advertisements to consumers”, he said.

Award winners

Ogilvy and Mather were the biggest winners on the night, walking away with the Overall Best Out of Home Media and Radio awards.

Insel communications also won the overall best in the television category with Innova DDB Ghana winning the overall best in the print category.

The Gong Gong awards is the flagship industry event for the advertising industry in the country.

It rewards innovation and creativity in the industry since its inception years ago.