NAC 2025: Networking dominates as participants explore collaborations to navigate tough times

The fifth National Advertising Conference, NAC held mid-November, 2025 delivered a standout turnout, marked by perfect organization, vibrant product exhibitions, compelling sessions, and powerful networking. It also attracted international participation, including players from South Africa.

The organizing committee, led by Tunji Adeyinka, an industry best, has been improving on the conference year-on-year. This year, the committee equally assembled top-quality industry players who shared their experiences, their knowledge. Various sessions of the three-day conference kept the audience engaged.

The theme: “Marketing Communications: Transforming Businesses and Creating Growth in Challenging Times”, which encompasses other relevant topics may have informed the large turn out as many operators in the marketing eco-system are struggling under heavy economic headwinds. They are in search of solutions, connections and networks to mitigate the negative effects of the unfavourable environment on their businesses.

Udeme Ufot, Group Managing Director of SO&U who made presentation on “Building an effective and sustainable destination brand”, simply described the conference as outstanding in all departments.

“We have shown improvements over the past years. And this year has been the best in class. I’m looking forward to the sixth year”, he said.

The conference began with fire a chat on: ‘A Different Generation, A Different Industry’ where industry operators highlighted the need for inter-generational collaboration as key to bridging industry talent gap.

The panelists across generations at the fire-chat agreed that instead of frictions, the older and younger generations should work collaboratively, share knowledge and experience necessary to build the industry.

Mohammed Idris, Minister f Information and National Orientation while declaring the conference open the following day, commended the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) under the dynamic leadership of Olalekan Fadolapo and other industry stakeholders for instituting the important conference as an annual event and sustaining it as a premier gathering of leaders in marketing, advertising, and communication in the country.

The minister noted that the conference has grown into a major platform for thought leadership, exhibitions, and networking across the diverse and vibrant ecosystem of marketing communication.

He assured that the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation will continue to partner with ARCON and all industry stakeholders to ensure that the advertising and communication ecosystem thrives in a regulated but enabling environment

In his speech, Lanre Adisa, Chairman of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN emphasized the need for collaboration between the government and marketing eco-system, stating that the ambitious plans to realise the targeted $1 trillion economy for Nigeria in the next decade will be better achieved with marketing strategies.

“Nigeria is speaking about the $1 trillion economy and other plans. Those things cannot happen without proper marketing. And nobody knows Nigeria better than the people around this space”, he said.

Similarly, in one of the breakout sessions, Udeme Ufot, blamed Nigeria’s weak tourism earnings, amidst numerous attractions, on poor destination branding. The nation’s tourism revenue remains low compared with its African peers.

For example, Johannesburg in South Africa attracted 4.12 million visitors in 2024, with tourists spending over $303 million in December alone. Similarly, Marrakesh in Morocco welcomed 2.8 million visitors who generated $11.3 billion in 2024.

In contrast, Nigeria recorded only $1.8 billion in tourism revenue in 2023 and slightly above $2 billion in 2024.

Ufot, said creating an attractive destination brand offers tremendous rewards. “It becomes a destination for investments, conferences, exhibitions, and leisure travel. Above and beyond that, it confers a form of soft power as the country gains more respect and influence.”.

Olusegun Zaccheaus, Partner and W/Africa lead, Strategy, PwC laid a background of the economy to set the tone for discussions. He analysed economic trends, economic indices, outlook of what 2026 budget is going to be like, challenges and areas of opportunities for marketing communication industry.

There were robust discussions on driving business growth in challenging times; agency business in tough times; developing the next generation of marketing communication professionals; and Transformation: Technology advantage.

Some of the breakout sessions focused on topics such as: Short term impact or long term brand building, where should advertisers place their stake?; Customer retention and Lifetime value: turning existing customers into sustainable revenue in tough times; OOH as an enabler of business growth in tough times; The marketing communication professional in public sector; The role of marketing communication in SME growth and survival in Nigeria; Measurement and return on investment on marketing communication with learn budget; and usage of AI and ethics.

Some of the solutions to the challenges revolve around internal and external collaborations. When the environment is challenged, there is need to have collaborations – internal collaborations and external collaborations. Operators need to be able to put their people together and let them see that they are all driving towards the same objective. All the departments must work together. And on external collaboration this means that operators must get partners who bring value to the table.

Speaking earlier, Lekan Fadolapo, Director General of Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON described the conference as knowledge and idea sharing platform to build the industry.

He said in these challenging times when every sector of the economy is exploring transformational strategies to keep up sustainability and maintain consistent growth, this conference is our industry convergence to learn, unlearn and relearn better ways of getting out the very best result.

Some of the participants described the conference as rewarding. Kayode Ebatamehi, Group, Managing Director of Bluebird Communications said there were networking opportunities in addition to gains from rich topics that were discussed at the conference.

The industry operators are looking forward to 2006 and the opportunities therein. And how government will partner marketing communication in branding Nigeria towards attracting investment, driving economy growth towards the realization of $1 trillion economy and how politicians will engage the industry for political campaigns for 2027 elections. The 2026 edition of NAC will look more interesting.

Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date